Ep. 46: The Wulff of Wall Street

they can't cash bro deserves and raids. And to that, I say, broke could have also been restocking the thing um of bombers. Good morning to generate anglers and welcome to Bend, the fishing podcast that relies solely on the Flexile family of products for everything from mending outboard fuel lines to turning any pair of pants in the waiters

to make in any live bit of soft plastic. I'm Joe sphermelli a mouth nulty uh, and I I have no idea where this is going, but I do feel like I feel like I need to I need to be the voice of reason here and and and put out a little p s A. We have not picked up flex Seal as a sponsor. Joe's not doing this out of obligation. This is not a hard sell. I don't know where the flex seal is coming from. That's true,

that's true, that that's accurate. However, I wouldn't mind picking him up as a sponsor um because I'm about some flex seal. Matter of fact. Matter of fact, the best fly fishing trick I know revolves around it. Do you wanna know what it is? Clear flex seal, in my opinion, is the best sealing for foam flies, flier flex s. Yes, so you didn't even know there was You're not on the inside of the flex seal famil products, right, But I learned this. But I learned this from my bud,

Carl Harris at c g H Custom Tackle. You actually own some of his bugs. He sent its someone I gave you um and you guys should also, you guys listening should check him out. But anyway, Carl figured out that clear flex seal like adds adorable shell, but true to its name, stays flexible when dry. And I haven't used anything else to seal a popper or a foam bug since. But right, bonus tip, bonus tip, you have to buy the jar of brush a will flex seal. Right,

not the spray and double bonus tip. Here's another bonus tip, poured into a mason jar to store it because it's more airtight like the can ends up not ceiling after a while. Right, so poured into him ball mason jar. Seal it up, got a huge jar that ship at my tying desk. Shit, it's great stuff, great stuff. I'm learning so much. The I mean, the base thing is I honestly, dude, I had no idea flex Seal was even around anymore. I thought that died. I thought it

died with Billy Mays. I don't know now oxy clean died with Billy Mays. Bion's wasn't FLEXI It's all the same to me. I will say that sounds like a great tip, and it's definitely legit if Carl gave it to you, because that dude makes he makes some sexy baitfish imitation streamers. He thinks outside the box, that dude with his patterns. Yeah, the Montana trout definitely approve of

those streamers. He A. I have tested that out, and I'm he also got He also gave me some some wicked looking frog patterns that I'm hoping to pin into some bass face later this summer. But even if you don't fly fish, which is fine, I happen to know who makes some wicked conventional frog lures. Wow, that's funny, so do I. That would be thirteen Fishing, who were

very proud to say sponsors this show. And while I'm not, I'm not gonna give up a ton of the goods so that I don't ruin the next season of B Side Fishing. Let's just say I put their trash pan to hollow body frogs, both the regular traditional body and the popping models to work in Virginia recently, and the snakeheads responded extremely favorably. The trash pandas are tough frogs. They can they could, I mean not no kidding, They could take some serious abuse. I was very impressed by those.

Snakeheads are more abusive than bass when it comes, much more so, a lot more toothy, a lot more toothy, more more bite pressure too, I think, and I will say that that few things bring me as much joys as frog fish. I haven't done it actually since last summer um, so I'm looking forward to that and I am hoping that's the theme you're going with for this episode because just please God, I hope it's not flexible. That's not the full show. It's not that either. Um

it's but it's actually it's about flexing in general. See what I did. It's topic, yeah, say it's creative. Uh, this topic has come up time to time. But this week I think we're gonna go all in on the various ways in which anglers flex, and we all flex even if we don't think we're flexing, which is sort of part of the fund Like we're gonna expose your subconscious flexing, like meta flexing exactly. Yeah, I dig it, I dig it. Well, I mean, you know the obvious one,

and I don't think that where you going. But there's the obvious flex. It's the dude who's crown about get the biggest fish look at me, and those guys are just assholes. So I'm guessing. I'm guessing you're gonna get more nuanced and we're not just going to talk about those guys all day because that would also suck. No, no, And you're spot on right, because flexing over what you caught is just too obvious and kind of lame. Like one example, one of my favorite flexes um is just

simply being right about a lower fly. And I know for sure you get this because you were a guide. Right You're out with somebody that's struggling a bit and just like insistent on fishing a certain way, and you're like, hey, man, just look, just switch to this for a little bit, just trust me, and you're right, Like, that's a good flex and because because I'm at the point in my fishing and I mean this where I enjoy seeing the people i'm with catch fish as much as I enjoy

catching fish. It's like a double wind because I'm happy about their success, but I also just got to flex a little bit. It's great, it's I mean similar to that. I feel like the ultimate form of what you're talking about is seeing a stranger, like a complete stranger you don't know, on the water, struggling well you've got it dialed, and then just going up to them unprompted and offering advice like it's it's the best because you get to be both magnanimous and kind of an egotistical ass at

the same time. Right, Like you you were both the nice guy, but you just flexed on him. And there's also the opposite side which used to happen sometimes while guiding right, And I know, I know that we had tied on exactly the right thing. I know what they were eating and how, and we're using the right thing. But the clients still weren't catching fish because they weren't listening and they weren't fishing it right right, And so sometimes I'd get them, uh, do you think we should

try something different? Question? Right, And and at that point, like I hated to do it, but I have to take the rod and then like hook three fish on three consecutive casts and just hand it back and say, no, I think we should stick with that. I think we're good. That's a good one. That's great, I said. Now another one I love. I also really love. And it sounds shitty,

but it's true. I love catching fish behind somebody. Yeah, and that might be the best flex of all and for me at least, like it's a scenario at least I don't end up in very often, and you wouldn't unless you're you're you're kind of the guy that goes

out looking to do this to prove a point. But every once in a while, right, you just unknowingly step into that scenario where someone is where you want to be and you're watching them just going they're not fishing that effectively at all, and you don't push them out, you don't make a scene. You just bide your time close by way for them to give up the ghost and just slide in and connect. And that's the thing of beauty. I'm sorry. And you still don't comment or

rub it in. You just keep to yourself. But you know they know, right And like I'm trying to think the last time that happened to me, this was years ago. It was one of Steelhead River in Ohio, and it was it was glorious, just glorious. You described this as a rare occurrence, but this happens all the time fishing driftboats on the popular a good point where you're fishing. Yeah, I could see that all the time. Like that was

that was the game. It still is the game. It's and jumping ahead of another boat, like rowing around another boat to get to the water before them. Is is is that's a that's no, cannot do that. But there's nothing wrong with hanging back and just mowing someone else's lawn, as my my good guy buddy used to call it. Uh it's like it's the public yet quiet flex yep.

And it's just it's satisfying, satisfying. Uh. And and despite the fact that I do like those more quiet, less, little more low key flexus, that's that's that's more my style. Sometimes you've got no choice. You just gotta be overt about it. People from New York City and the boroughs like out near where you are, they kind of already have that reputation. Like the Jersey Shore thing is all about overt flexing. I think that's I think that's what

the situation major game. That's right. And and on that topic, all that like that, that fact about that area makes the story we have for Smooth Moves this week Extra Suite. This is the part of the show where we get guides and captains and shop workers anyone else makes live in the fishing industry, and we bring them on and we let them bitch about dumb things their clients doing. Today we are joined by Staaten Island's native son, Captain Frank Crest Telly. Why all right? Joining us today on

Smooth Moves are buddy Captain Frank Cress Telly. What's going on? Frankie, Hey, Joe? How you doing good, good, it's good to see you. And uh man, there's so much to set up about you. So you're a you're a veteran captain in the New York City area, originally from Staten Island, right born and raised, and you've done You've had a huge hand in conservation work on the striper scene. You have TV show Finchaser's You're You're a man, you have you you you have

irons in many many fires. And there's the like, weren't you also a mechanic and they're they're kind of other business. I don't you've done everything, man, I mentioned anything like, oh, yeah, I did that for a couple of years. I did do a lot of different businesses order mechanic by trade, and I had gas stations, repair shops and that until we decided to have kids. And then we figured that, you know, we somebody had to raise the kids, you know, So I got out of that business and it was

changing dramatically. But yeah, we had used cars, rentals, little phones, phone since oh you figured you figured being a charter captain would give you more time with your family. I bet that didn't really work out. What happened is once the kids got into full time school. Then I actually went to a Tony Robbins seminar, and I had to figure out, like what was I gonna do? And and

and I decided, yeah, man, we love fishing. If I can make that a business, you know, And I signed up right there that Monday when I get out of the place, and I signed up my buddy Dino as well. He had no choice. I went to his house, styled the phone number for the captain, put the phone in his hand. You've ever heard You've made it work. I mean,

there's so many things. You also run the Manhattan Cup tournament, which I fished, um but on the actual like charter for higher how many years have you been a captain for hire Man? So this year would be like twenty two years, so that a few years not you know, only very special people because I've been focusing on the video and TV stuff. And challenge in the beginning was just that you want to take people fishing when it's good, but you also want to film when it's good, and

it's hard to film even when it's good. You know, the cameras comes on and the fish disappear. Uh so yeah, but uh, you know, it was a time where I did like a hundred and sixty trips a year for a bunch of years and was doing six a week and grinding it out. And seventy of my business comes from Manhattan, so I would drive from that now and to you know, twenty third Street, pick these people up,

and then start a trip from there. You know, when market closed, stuff mostly afternoons, and then fly fishermen would come in the morning, and it was it was great when the fishing was great, and then not so great when the fishing was you know, I always have so much respect for the salty guys because like unlike a river, the fish aren't always there every day, like if they could just not be there. But you've so you do the fly thing, you do inshore. You also have spent

a lot of time offshore. So I'm very curious with this smooth move. Where are we going? Are we going inshore Manhattan? We're going offshore to the canyons, you know, knowing where you pull so many clients from that area. You gotta have something good for us. I really hate to like try and correct people are like put them in their place, like about if they're wrong, But sometimes they get on board very strong opinions about how State Island Isn't that what you do if you're from Staten

Island Put correct people and put them in their place. Yeah, and it would be you know, you gotta remember, like you're getting these guys that just left Wall Street a half an hour ago. They're making multimillion dollar deals, right, They're like, came in the world, you know, Matthew mhonnock, beating on his chest and everything. And then they get on the boat and they can't cast, and I'm trying to help him and it's making it worse. And then they're like, oh, you know, my rod and this and that,

and like, dude, you just gotta shoot line. Just relaxed, chill out, you know whatever. And so you know, this one guy was really giving me a hard time and we were having a hard time fishing. We were marking fish everywhere, but we could not hook up. So finally he goes, you know, you keep talking about these marking these fish. You know that thing probably looks like that all the time. You know, for hours you've been saying So I said, oh you think that that's not working?

He goes, yeah, I go okay, oh, hold on a second, really, man, and everybody starts me and I stopped moving away before everybody really reeled their lines in right, and my mates looking at me and I I hate the throttle and we're flying offshore now we're right by Breezy Point and I just I drive three miles straight out into the shipping channel and I stopped the boat and everybody's looking at me like what the hell going on? So I told the guy come here, they bring it over the sound.

I said, you see no fish now, if you want, I'll take you back to at least where the fish are and maybe they'll start biting in there. And the guy was just like, oh boy, okay. So then it's funny. On the on the way back, I decided'm gonna check the rockaway reef because I really drove. These guys are already offshore and well, and I go, now, you see that's bait and fish on the machine. And the guy's like, yeah, okay, I got it, Like you know, like I was rubbing

his face. I wasn't rubbing his face. I'm trying to show this a little this would be and fish like a little more ingredients, you know. And so he's looking at his friend, like and he doesn't even touch a rod. And the guy, who know is the least, you know, barely fished. I go take that little diamond jake and put it over and just you know, ja get and he catches an albi And the guy was like so pissed off that you know that he didn't believe the

whole program. But usually guys go along with, you know, whatever you want to do, and I just want people have fun. So like if they want to sit there and drink beer and eat sandwiches and don't worry about fishing, and that's fine, but you know, you usually got to balance it up and the challenges The market closes the same time every day, doesn't care what time, what the tide is, what the wind is. You got to be back in four or five hours because then they're gonna

go to dinner after that. So you had a very small window to find fish every day. And it was interesting, man. So like a lot of your deal, like you were literally picking guys up in the South end of Manhattan, like in the financial district to fish when the market closed between that and their fancy dinner yep, and their clients would never forget right. I mean they could take you. How many hundred dollars steaks could these guys eat in

their life? And they forget where they went, But they never forget if a guy takes some fishing and then takes them out to dinner. So that's how we built. Like I know, I know you don't. You want to have a good time, your mellow. We've hung out and I know your program. But at the same time, I also know that sometimes as the captain, you gotta flex a little bit because otherwise people aren't going to trust you. And if they don't trust you, they're not gonna catch

fish because they're not gonna listen to you. So every once in a while you have to pull that power move and be like, oh really, let me show you. And then all of a sudden, like oh, they believe you, and they get a little more, she said, all of a sudden they start catching fish, so nobody will not nobody. I never like doing that. I can tell you don't like do it, but sometimes you have to do the flex if you want the day to work out. Did you get invited to all the dinners, all the power dinners? No?

I dropped them off. They go eat and then I gotta drive sixteen miles home, clean the boat, and then you know, by then it's eleven o'clock and then and then to a fly trip in the morning or something. You know. So if people don't think it's hard work, man, it's hard work. Listen, don't be surprised if you hear more from Captain frank On bent Down down the Road apiece, or maybe just maybe see him in season three of

dust Boat, which is in the works right now. Anyway, Frank Frankie is so fun and he was actually telling us that that in those days when he was guiding all the wall streets, it wasn't uncommon for these guys to show up at the boat still wearing black wing tips in a suit, which is funny because in their world, like that look alone is a flex you know what I mean. But as soon as you're trying to pull it off on a striper boat, you're doing the opposite

of flexing. Like you just looked dumb. But he said that was very common, you know. I really I like that story for a lot of reasons. But one of the things I think it brings up and and this is true in my experience, like Frank was saying, most guys, like the good guys people like consider good guys, they don't want to flex. Yeah, of course, like the flex is the it's the nuclear option. The should only be used when all else fails and the clients just won't

listen to you or won't won't believe you. But you do have to pull that card when you're forced to. Ultimately, you're the captain of the boat. And if your crew, if you're if your sports lose faith in you, that's a problem and you've gotta get that ship back one way or another. Sure, sure, but I mean unfortunately right too. Any charter guys um use that business model though, they just what they started out doing is the flex, instead of using it to fix a problem, Like that's how

they go. Yeah, they just stake everything on this over the top bravado about how they out fish everyone. And I know that works for some people. Fifth fishing me on shore. Believe that, believe that no one can in to me. I haven't been making videos lately, but I'm still out here catch up fish all the time. I catch them all the time. Believe that. I It's unclear, however, whether it worked for the gentleman, we recently discovered looking for a fishing buddy on Craigslist. I don't think it did.

My guess is did not. But please let us know if you would have been sold on the skills up for grabs in this week's sale band, Why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting. Man, You didn't have to be so hurtful with me so angry. So this week's sale ban item isn't exactly an item. In fact, it's not even for sale. Okay, this comes from it's not in a bin. Yeah, you won't find it in a bin. No, really really kind of losing the losing the thread here, but it makes sense. It

will make sense. You know it's gonna make sense, Okay. And this comes from Craigslist m Philadelphia. Uh. And it's it's from the barter section, which I have to admit, I don't think I've ever looked at until this came along, right, I'll be I didn't even know what existed until until this came up. And I've bought, you know, I bought and sold things on Craziest before. I've done that, but never gone to the barter zone. And it feels sketchy, Like that feels sketchy to me buying and selling stuff.

You know you've done the craigslist thing, like buying something stuff with strange. It's already a little awkward, right. It's it's fun when you're just scrolling through picks of stuff and you're like, oh, I want with that, But then you got to actually meet up with those people and it's weird. It can be not always. Sometimes it's fine, but sometimes it's weird. And I just imagine that the

Barter experiences is ten times worse. Oh yeah, And I haven't bought a lot of stuff off Craigslist, but the most recent purchase was a tug boat shaped sandbox from my son. Right, and I ended up in a not so good part of Philly. And while the person I was communicating with was like very clear and concise via email and text, I ended up dealing with like an old Polish lady that just pointed and never like she never spoke to me. Yea. Like the yard was just full,

like literally piled with beat up plastic playground equipment. Um, and that's yeah, and it was it was very strange. I got the boat though, you know, no that It sounds strange, but that was legitimately completely worth it because I've seen that tugboat sandbox things fantastic. If if my kid actually knew that existed, he would be racking his little brain right now trying to figure out what he could trade for it. Because you want it, I don't

want to get off. But it's called the Tuggy. It's discontinued, and it's actually a hot item. It's a very coveted item, that sandbox. There's even people who have like filled it with foam and made little boats with trolling motors. It's like a whole tuggy culture that I'm now a part of.

I get the Tuggy newsletter. Anyway, it's it's not up for barter, so anyway, but uh, yeah, I was recently, yeah, I was recently scrolling through the barter section of the Central Jersey Craigslist because I became curious because of this this post we got and it's trippy, man. I quickly realized this is where the Weird Deviant ship now goes down on Craig's list since they got rid of the blatant you know. Click here for Weird Deviant Ship page. You know Um, so just like a few quick examples,

and this is this is ten minutes of scrolling. This wasn't like hours of searching. Um there was a post offering one ladies handbags that read one hundred dollars. Takes all the bags in the picture, maybe barter one or two of them. Let me know what you're good at. I mean, dude, yeah, that's that is a question that I'm I can almost guarantee I would never answer that question if it was asked to me by some random dude on the internet. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, dude, it's icky.

It's icky. And then there was a guy trying to trade at painting of George Washington for a laundry list of items that included steal I s O shipping containers, mushroom production equipment, a drone with an HD camera, UH sliding compound, miter salt, or a fitbit smart watch. Like

it's wacked out, it's wacked out. Yeah, I don't know, man, this just talking about this is making me think I should I'm not sure if this is making me think I should spend more time checking out the barter section or if I have made the right choice in avoiding it. It could really go either way. But listener, Nick Dombrowski, he's obviously chosen that he should hang out there, that it's worth it because he sent us a post titled

four to five hour fishing trip for barter. And I think we got to say that the gentleman that posted this is no Jerry the canoe salesman when it comes to the words smith thing. But it's still pretty good to give the guy credit. At least he knows how to post a photo, and in this case, he chose a shot of a large mouth bass, a very i'd say, a relatively impressive large mouth bass reproduction mount. So let's begin, And just so everyone understands my yelling tone, the post

was written in all caps. It's got to be read this way because that's how I perceive it as well. Yes, I will trade a four to five hour fishing trip on my boat on the waters of Penn Warner. We will pitch lures like spinners and bits at the ducks or shoreline structures, slow fish, plastics or jigs, troll lures for bass, pike and pickerel, whatever you like. You bring your favorite tackle lures, a cooler of food and drink. If you feel you need it, and away we go.

That's all I hear it, I know, so before before we go on, I just gotta add I actually live right near pen Warner and it's a it's a bunch of private lakes that I actually think are owned by a waste management company. Um, but they're stocked and you have to have a membership to fish it. So I just want everyone to understand that the pot is actually

being sweetened here by this being private water. However, they're these huge lakes, there's also plenty of natural you know, fish reproduction, and there's also a shipload of members, so even though it's private, they get pounded. I've fished it a handful of times, and what I'm basically saying is just because it's private, it's not automatic, Like the fishing can still suck there. So it's not that the pot is not that much, right, So let's go on. I

am bartering my time boat and knowledge. I have been out and caught bass and pike already, so it only gets better as the spring progresses into summer. We would probably start six or seven am until whenever. I am not a professional fisherman or a guide of any sorts. I am just a fisherman of over fifty five years with many trophies to my name, looking to go fishing. So you just explained like it's private water, but it's

not necessarily that good. And he he tells us you can't use his rods and rules and you're on your own for lunch. If if you think hunger is going to be an issue for you, think human you handle that. But but there's also there's a contradiction here and that he says you'll start at six or seven am until quote whenever, but if you look at the title of the post, then you be done by noon at the

latest and all. So my take, the way that I interpret this is that the length of the day, of the duration you get to fish will be solely based around whether or not he likes you. Right, So I think this this is a good comparison Jerry, because like Jerry, this guy he's looking for a friend. He just he just can't say that he's acting like he needs a little something return when he really just wants a fishing buddy.

But here's the closing. We'll finish it up just looking to trade a day of fishing to see what people offer, I can only take one person. Is that's what my membership rules dictate. There will be no money exchanged. I charge nothing, just a barterer of something. Let me know if interested, and let me know what you have to trade. It's it's so vague, right, So what is the value of this trip? And I'm I'm I'm really asking, like

at least I don't know. At least the guy with the George Washington paintings toodfirm that it was worth four K four grand, which is why he felt he could ask for a drone in a band, Saul, But how do you even approach this? Like based it around what a guide's day rate? That doesn't seem Yeah, what's offensive? If I said, I'll give you a book of Burger Can coupons in a case of Natty light, are we good? I don't know a weed whacker that needs some TLC?

What's acceptable? I don't know. Even I wouldn't know how to approach it, don't. I mean, my my gut in a situation like this is because this is how I was raised. I think of food, right, I would offer a nice lunch, but the Duda's already made it clear that he thinks needing to eat or drink wall fishingcause a sign of weakness. So I don't think that's the angle that you want to take. Like I don't know,

I gotta I gotta shipload of hats. I'm sure you do too, maybe like I'll give I'll give you five hats. I don't know. I think I think the only solution we have is that you you live out there, dude, you gotta test this and see what it will take. Maybe you could go, dude, you here, you go big. You offer him like a new thirteen rotten reel set up and just blow his mind because you know he's gonna take that. And then but the caveat is that you get to record the whole day for the podcast.

I dare you, I dare you to do this? Oh dare wow? Like what like what like double dog, triple dog, double dog and this double dog territory because don't tempt me with a good time that could actually be a complete nightmare. Are you familiar with the film Tusk anyway? Vaguely? Vaguely, we'll see. Maybe I'll consider it because it could also be great anyway, Nick, thanks for this and to everyone else out there, don't overlook those barter pages. Clearly we

are missing out on some gems. Dare I say, maybe even the better creepier gems. And when you find something juicy, shoot that link to Bent at the meat eater dot com. Well, that guy has plenty of trophies to his name, and I'm always looking at another trophy to my name for supplying the most poignant fish related news story. So here it comes that weekly flex of Internet searching ability we

call fish news. Fish news that escalated quickly quick follow up on last week's sale bin segment, when we made fun of the explosive hook fish net, which is like a castable throw net with bait. In case you missed it, a couple of you sent links to YouTube videos which sent me down this rabbit hole that I probably should have explored before we did. The segments would have been if we have we done an upsie. If we had an upsie, we might have we might have I will,

I will keep it short, long story short. It turns out this product is is actually incredibly popular just in in Southeast Asia. Not here and over there. They called they're they're they're commonly called spring bomb nets. I actually watched one video where there's this tiny little pond and the banks of this pond are just lined like shoulders shoulder with people, and all of them, every single one, has a spring bomb net at the end of their

their spinning rod line all of them. So it turns out if you're a subsistence fisherman in Southeast Asia targeting telapia and sick lids in your local pond, these are highly effective and they make perfect sense. Right. Some of these videos actually featured Cambodian kids, who, if I'm being honest, they clearly live in poverty and they're they're using spring bomb nets to like help feed their families. And what I can't figure out is how they self film their

adventures or upload them to YouTube. But such is the world that we live in, right, Like YouTube channels are cheaper than shirts now, it seems. Anyway, the whole thing made me feel like kind of an ask dude, if I'm gonna be honest, because like I made fun of something that's like feeding hungry people and were fortunate enough to live like we're fortunate enough to not need spring

bomb net, right, we don't need that. Okay, here's what I want to say that I think like where we failed was that we we said it doesn't work right, we couldn't figure out how it would work, but clearly it does right. So okay, fine, we screwed that part up, but like we found it on a site that was marketing it to US anglers, so like we're still allowed to put I don't I don't feel that bad. I'm not losing sleep, but I know and I don't think.

I don't think these are going to catch on in the US anytime soon, but they certainly have a market. We just missed it. No. Plus, you send them kids a case of trout magnets, they'll forget all about their nets. Light them up, Light them up. Speaking of speaking of feeling like an ask, I actually have a sort of a correction this week. Um it's it's actually not really correction,

but more proof that I'm just somewhat slow. You did that story about the fishing tourney with Old Walter the small mouth, right, and it was like if you caught it, you got a hundred thousand dollars, but you had to catch it over a weekend, and then the prize dropped. And I said, this was shady, because like this Marina

has a hundred k sitting around to give. It's weird, And a bunch of people wrote in and where like, hey, dim wit, like you take out an insurance policy for something like that, Like when people, yeah, like when people are putting up a bunch of money as a cash prize where it's like a competition like that, Apparently the insurance payment is less than the prize value in the

insurance company is just hoping someone doesn't win. So they're like, no, of course they don't have a hundred grands sitting around. They have fifteen hundred dollars sitting around, which is why the prize dropped to fill after the weekend. But that once, once it was said, it made total sense in my head and reiterated why I could never own my own business because the finances are lost on me. I do not understand such grown up things. My head never went there.

But so thanks for that, everybody. Um final thing before we get in the news. Uh, you know those fish eating fish eating fish t shirts and hoodies we've just been cramming down your throats. We've decided to give one of each away. You know why, because we're cool like that. It's true that we are. We are cool like that, and we don't need to special occasion to give you ship, so for one week and one week only, kind of

similar to how we've done giveways in the past. Those degenerate, Angler and Bent podcast hashtags are worth more than stickers, that's right. So to qualify, we're looking for the pictures using those tags posted between today, which is June and next Friday, which is July two. In other words, you gotta do this between now and when the next episode airs.

And uh, I don't know, make us laugh, gasp, wins, cry, I don't know, but we'll pick one of our favorites, and Miles and I will post the winner on Saturday morning, July three on our Instagram accounts, and somebody is going to get a fresh fish eating fish tea and hoodie and you will look sharp. It's like a it's like a cornucopy of degeneracy, much like this show. All right, moving on to fish news. Quick reminder that this is

a competition. Joe and I do not know what the other is bringing to the table, and we are as always competing for the love, affection and validation of our patrons. Sat of all things auditory filled the engineer who will declare one of us a winner and relegate the other two a week of self doubt and question of life choices. Joe's got the lead this week. Yeah, and if I win, Phil gets a hoodie, and if you win, he gets the T shirt. So there's more incentive for me to

take the it's it's a light, it's a night. It's a nice weight the hoodie. Anyways, here's where I'm gonna start. This comes from our Canadian listeners. Several of them are alerted me to this story, and it's pretty interesting and sort of speaks to like fish perceptions by country and regions. So here in the US, of course, bass are the king dog, number one most coveted fish in the US, and I'm mainly talking large mouths there, but we love

a nice small mouth here as well. Well. Certain conservation groups in New Brunswick, Canada flip and hate small mouths right now, and they hate them so much that they're willing to poison the famed Mirror Machee River to get rid of them. Okay, yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah right, So small mouth just so are all on the same page. Are not native to New Brunswick. They were first found in Mirror Machie Lake in two thousand eight, and it's

believed that they were illegally stocked by bucket biologists. Somebody thought these would be great to catch here and put them in. So this story comes from CBC News and it says a growing population of smallmouth bass in Mirror Machie Lake, Lake Brook and a portion of the southwest Mirror Machi River has been threatening Atlantic salmon as well

as brook trout native to the waters. Salmon conservation groups sat smallmouth bass threatened salmon and trout by taking over their food and habitats, said Neville crab, a spokesman with the Atlantic Salmon Federation. They can also threaten other native species around them. So the federal government has officially greenlit the eradication of the small mouths by spraying the fish

killing pesticide, wrote known starting this August. And of course this got my attention because I know that the Atlantic salmon is to the Canadian Maritimes, what stripers in large

mouth out of the US. And I mean, look, the Mirror Machie isn't some little no name trickle right like, this is big hallowed water and naturally the first thing I thought was, how are you gonna how are you gonna route know in these areas and not have it affect the salmon because, and this is directly from the story, the product will kill the vast majority of fish in

the waters being treated. According to an authorization document from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the death and decomposition of fish will modify the food web, the fish habitat, ecological structure,

and the nutrient input of the waters. But as it turns out, right so some of the salmon conservation groups are pushing the hardest for this and actually wanted it to happen last summer, but it got roadblocked by the government, partially because a lot of people with waterfront homes on Mirror Machie Lake, We're just worried about dealing with piles of decomposing fish and their kids swimming in the lake and such. And residents are still complaining about all this.

Some have been told they'll have to avoid the lake for several days, but the spraying is happening. They'll start on augustift and um some waters may actually receive a second dose in September. Now, the salmon conservation groups are participating in the spraying of seventeen point two kilometers and, according to the story, to mitigate the number of Atlantic salmon affected by the road, no salmon will be captured

and held elsewhere prior to releasing the pesticide. Barriers will also be installed to prevent salmon from entering the area being sprayed. Those barriers will be removed once a water purifier has deactivated the pesticide, allowing salmon and trout to migrate back in. Crabs said the road nome will not be at concentrations lethal enough to destroy all fish in the water. Brown bullhead, catfish and golden shiner, for example,

are expected to survive. So the salmon folks are saying, yeah, this is harsh, but you know, look, people come to New Brunswick for Atlantics. They are the biggest economic driver. They are what people expect to catch in these rivers above all else a growing smallmouth population would drastically alter the ecosystem. So this is what has to be done. But this is where it sort of gets a little

bit sticky, right. The New Brunswick Aboriginal People's Counsel, on the other hand, is saying, hey, listen, we're already catching small amounts in areas outside the ones you guys are saying has them. They've already flushed the system. They're not confined. So this is all going to do more harm than good. They're saying, you know, you're you're forgetting about insects and birds stuff like that, Like is that even being considered um.

To further back up their claim, the story sites a two thousand nine Department of Fisheries and Oceans report that says, if these small amounts get into the Southwest mirror machine, eradication efforts will be pointless. And they're there. They were first spotted there in that section of the river in so it's a whole delity of a pickle here. But they are moving on with the spray. Oh ah, that's a that is a tangled web, all right. First, First is a procedural question. They have a way of moving

the salmon out. I would love to know what that is, but they did not, like, they did not go into that. I was thinking of the same thing, the piece that doesn't seem to fit for me, because if you have a way of moving the salmon out, why wouldn't you have a way of capturing the small mouth, Like I would think those would be one and the same exactly. And uh, if I had to guess, like they know that there's gonna be death there that they don't like,

I don't know how you could possibly get them. You're not going to get them all, you're not, you know, so I don't know. Man to me, I definitely see both sides of this, and I know how rabbit a smallmouth can be. Although it's ironic because I live in a place where like the smallmouth fishing has really tanked, you know what I mean, like these big aggressive fish to take over everything. So it's just funny to see

it sort of both ways. But it just comes back to that like mentality of we are salmon country, salm and salm and salm and salmon sam whatever you have

to do to protect salmon. Having spoke to some some people in this area in the past, I know that there's there's like significance and over small mouth and pike blinding those waters and and and having a negative impact on on the brook trout in the salmon and both both of which you are are fish that are that are experiencing declines anyway, and they don't need any more problems, right, So I get it. I understand the issue at hand.

I'm not sold on this mitigation effort. It kind of seems like too little, too late, and it might have cascading effects that the people aren't aren't thinking about, you know what I mean, Agreed, I mean two thousand eight, like that would have been the time to do something drastic when they first found them in this lake. Yeah, but that's sort of how biocracy works. And I also like to play devil's advocate. You want to do enough preliminary research to understand what you're doing and and try

and think about the consequences that come from that. So I hope that's what they were doing and they figured all those things out, and that's why it took this long. If that's the case, then maybe they know more than we do. But I'm I'm skeptical. I have some skepticism, but I don't I don't feel like I know enough to really like make a firm declaration. But it seems like this one, this one, the ship has sailed or

this small mouth has swum. I did I And I completely agree with that, And again, like there's there's no way to really know, but it just takes you back to rivers in general, like how many rivers have you fished where somebody's like, well, all the brown trout are in this stretch, But then other people are like no, no, no, no, no, they're way down here, like they're they're they're here too,

and there's some here and there's some there. So just in my in my opinion, especially when you're dealing with moving water, still water a little less, you can be like, well, all the small mouth are here. No, no, no, if they're there, most of them might be there. Yeah, if most of them might be there, but rest assured they're already. So I don't I don't see how this works. I really don't. The odds of this killing every small mouth and and wiping this problem out, I think is slim

to none. I think. I think you're sadly probably right. And and it ties a little bit into my first story, which also has to do with like a scaling and growing problem that that seems to be booming exponentially and uh and and managers really grasping it whatever they can find to try and keep things under control and and put the genie back in the bottle. As you're likely aware, coral reefs are kind of a big deal. They're they're

kind of they're kind of important. They're they're the primary protective barriers that shield coastlines from waves and storms and erosion. They're also the most abundant marine ecosystems on the planet. H Yeah, they only cover about two percent of the ocean floor, but they house at least a quarter of marine life, which is pretty freaking amazing if you think about it. And so my point is basically, if you like fish, and I'm guessing that you do, you should

probably care about coral reefs. That that should be a thing that matters to you. Uh and and and one thing I should clarify. Coral and reefs not the same thing. They're related, but they're not. Reefs can refer to any hard structure that forms an oceanic barrier, but most naturally occurring reefs are the result of coral. Coral are these tiny anemone like organisms, and they secrete calcium carbonate, which is a hard substance that they live in, and that's

what builds natural reefs. So basically, to to to sum this up, you need the coral animals to both grow and maintain natural reefs, right, because without the without the coral animals themselves, the reefs, they get broken and roded and then they're gone pretty fast. Yeah, basically like the dead shells leftover don't do anything for you. It's gonna be a living breeding system for it to matter, right, right, I mean it matter for a little while, but not

for very long. You need you need the whole thing. You need the animal there to keep things up right. And as you may also be aware, I'm sure you are, corals kind of struggling right now. It's got you know, you have warming oceanic temperatures and higher acidity, and and those are making coral colonies all over the world look like they kind of look like the bison herds standing near western train lines in the nineteenth century, just knocking over.

It's not good. But just in case that analogy is not ominous enough, A new form of bacterial infection with the extremely literal name stony coral tissue lost disease, was discovered on the east coast of Florida in two thousand and fourteen and has now spread across the state and into the Caribbean. And it is real bad. Over of Florida's coral reef has been affected. The disease spreads quickly, and once a colony shows signs of infection, it usually

dies within weeks or months. The causes fast, It's real fast, damn. The causes and origins of this disease remain unknown, but we do know that it's killing off star, brain, pillar, flour and maze corals primarily all the way from northern Florida to Costa Rica. And and those are the types of corals that contribute most to reef building and maintenance, like the big structures. Those are the ones that build

the big structures that we like. Stony coral tissue lost disease can sometimes be stopped by applying a mox of scyllin to the affected corals, but doing that at scale is just not like, it's just not realistic. Yeah, we yeah, we had a story a while ago, remember about the treating the bacteria um what was it treat They were trying to figure out how they could like treat coral reef similarly with like, and we couldn't figure out how to scale it. I don't remember the details right now.

I had something to do with Greek yogurt. I don't know, Oh I remember. Yeah, it was like a probiotic thing. Probiotic that's what I was looking for probiotics for for coral. Yeah, this is this is kind of similar, except and stuff of trying to help him GROW's trying to prevent them from dying. Yeah, And it was the same thing, like you can't I'd give him a shot of both one too, oh, just like when you were twenty. But I think the like, the point is that like the amoxylon is not going

to solve this. So the Florida Wildlife Commission, the Florida Department Environmental Protection, and other nonprofit partners recognized the severity of this disease and the enormity of what could be lost if all these corals to come to it. So in the initiative this program where they they took samples of the highly susceptible corals from around all the state's reefs and they transplanted them to insure coral farms and

aquariums across the country. Right, And the idea of this is that they're they're creating, uh, they're basically trying to ensure that these local corals would not be completely eradicated. Right. So and the hope being that, like later on, that these specimens could be used to repopulate like future reefs

in Florida. See what I'm saying. So last week, those same groups announced that they had successfully planted one thousand and fifty two coral colonies at twenty four different sites from Jupiter to Key West from those stocks that were

grown and maintained in coral farms and aquariums. According to f WC, the purpose of this project is to determine the fate of corals that are susceptible to stony coral tissue lost disease when out planted across Florida's coral reef where the disease is still present but no longer found in epidemic proportions. The knowledge gained during the study will pave the way for future expansions in the restoration of disease susceptible corals. All right, hold on this. The language

that they use there is important. No one's claiming victory or that there's a solution here, right. This project will help figure out what happens when affected corals get replanted in dead zones where the disease is already like ravaged and dwindled, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Production, said, understanding where and when it is safe to start out planting species that are susceptible to stony coral tissue lost disease again is a major first step in restoring the

resilience of Florida's coral reef. Now, he said, first step, all those corals they planted might just get reinfected and die again, or some might survive. Either way, that's going to be useful information moving forward. But while most of the susceptible corals in the affected areas got infected with the disease and died, certain individuals survived, suggesting that those

individuals have some kind of resistance. And earlier this month, the Florida Aquarium announced that they had successfully crossbread rescued brain corals with wild brain corals that resisted infection. In a press relief, the aquarium said, quote, the hope is that corals produced using this technique will be more resilient to future disease outbreaks and will help restore the Florida reef tract. Point is not all hope is lost, at

least not yet. Right. The the use of coral farms as both genetic seed banks to preserve the global diversity and and and like places to develop strains that are more resilient to disease, acidity and heat. Is probably like the most promising technology that we have, yeah, right, much like those those re planted corals in Florida last week, these are all possibly good steps like this might help.

And and that's important because if global coral reefs collapse, which is like a super real possibility with all the things going on, we're in a lot of trouble, and and like what's going on Florida and these other groups

like coral Vita based on the Bahamas. Essentially what they're trying to do is turbocharge coral evolution to stay ahead of the rapid changes happening in ocean ecosystems right now, which from like an objective standpoint is just interesting and cool, But from a personal standpoint, it offers this glimmer of hope and otherwise totally dismal trajectory. And so I've just been following all of this, dude, it's fascinating, and like

you have to applaud all of that. And there there's certainly there's a glimmer of hope in that, right, Like that that's a very hopeful thing. But also like looking at it from from a realist perspective, right, because that's just what I do. So like this, this bacteria can kill off a reef in weeks or months, not a whole reef, a colony, a colony, okay, but like just

looking at it from a timeline. So if this works, that's great, But like, how long would it truly like maybe you don't know, but like how long would it take to repopulate that? And like how looking looking like like nothing ever happened and it'll probably it will never

be the same, right, things have changed. But the idea is to maintain as much of that genetic diversity of different roles as possible and try and maintain what what keep it at a healthy ecosystem and stay ahead of all these different changes coming in between acidity and warming and bacteria. There are all these different things happening to coral populations all over the world. And the hope is that this this farming technique is going to do a

couple of things. One keep that diversity alive when parts of the ocean just go dead, and also give them a chance to figure out what sorts of strains might survive those unique changing conditions, hopefully and replant them. The timeline on that, no one knows. It's just yeah, no, and I know there's no answer. I'm just like supposing out loud. It's like, it's great, we can do that, but like I just wonder, like, how would that translate to a mile of reef like fully restored? You know,

how long? Would I Will we see that? Will our kids see that? You know? So a mile? Yes? The whole thing? Now? Maybe maybe our kids maybe well maybe I don't know. I don't know, but I'll say if things like we need we need as many people to care about things like this um as they care about the TikTok video that I'm that would be great. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be amazing? That a win?

So I actually hate to admit it, but this story, UM might force me to rethink previous statements about refusing to get on TikTok And this is you just you just gave us a very good, weighty story about real life things I've done. No such thing here. There is not nearly as much value in the story. But it is a fun one, um and it while it is fun, it also makes me question our society, which I always enjoy doing. So anyway, this comes from the website of

North Country Public Radio headline fishing for Customers catching a phenomenon. Okay, I don't know if you heard anything about this, so I guess set this up right. So I'm like paraphrase in the story, So, an owner of a local toy store in Saranac Lake, New York, he's he's crossing an intersection in town and he spots a dollar on the sidewalk. He reaches down to pick it up, and of course

the dollar is magically whisked away. So he follows the dollar into Blue Line Sports, which is a fly shop, and he realized he'd just been franked when Ryan Baker, a fishing guide with Adirondack trout Fitters who works at Blue Line Sports, said, well, come Instar, how can I help you? While holding a rod with the dollar dangling from the end. Now, look, that's the oldest trick in the book, right, a dollar on a string like this

is this is not new? Okay? Well, that day Baker and his roommate Read Mason, who's also a fishing guide punked more than a dozen people with the old dollar bill trick, and I have to say, like, this is such a fly shop kid thing to do. I could I could see the conversation like, yeah, so like most of the time you walk into a fly shop and kids just like you know, playing Mario Kart or like

tying more squirmy worms or whatever. There's a lot of downtime, you know, there's a lot of downtime like sweep something clean. I don't know exactly exactly, So I'm down with this as as a way to occupy time and drum up a little extra business, which they did that they did with this little trick. A matter of fact, Baker himself said, we just figured let's keep fishing. We're always fishing. So I put dollar bill online and put it out on the sidewalk, right, So that's all. That's all cute and

ha ha funny. But Mason had been filming all the reactions to the prank, and he compiled a bunch into a single clip, said it to the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song, and posted it on TikTok. And this is from the story Mason's TikTok account had something like fifty followers before this video went viral. According to Baker, overnight he gained more than nine hundred followers. His cell phone was flooded with notifications. Eventually he had to shut off notifications, according

to Baker. Quote from Baker, it was constant, he showed me. He was like, dude, every time I refreshed my feet, it's another hundred, another hundred, another hundred. Every second he would refresh his feed. So then twenty four hours the video racked up more than one point six million views. Wow, Okay, now, first, good for you guys, Like that's that's awesome, right, um, And they said it absolutely translated over the next couple of days and into more bodies in the show up,

which is also awesome. I'm happy for those guys, right. But the part that gets me, um, is that like, that's the thing that would get one point six million views, because again, hell, the dollar bill on a string thing has been around since paper money was invented. I think like I felt for this on the boardwalking Jersey when I was ten and got laughed at by a bunch

of kids smoking cigarettes and napalm death t shirts. So I just I just I just can't believe that the dollar bill on a string thing still has that kind of juice in like people don't even carry dollars anymore. Like if it's more than ten bucks I charged, I charge that ship. Um. So of course the post was also lit up with comments here's just a couple. Uh, bro deserves a raise, And to that, I say, similar to what you just said, maybe Broke could have also

been restocking the thing. Um a bobbers, you know what I'm saying. So it could have been, but I think in this case it was a better use of his time for sure. That Another one was like, honestly, i'd buy something, and like that's great for the shop if it's true. But like would you like if you tricked me into a health food store, I wouldn't be like, ha, you got me and while I'm here to give me a bag of them kale chips. So you know, anyway,

like well played boys. And I think it's fair to say that the TikTok algorithm is kind of wide open right now, Like people have said that to me since the TikTok commentary. They're like, dude, the algorithms wide open, don't so I don't know, maybe it's time to jump on that, but I thought this was a fun little story.

Good good for that fly shop. I give props to both of those those guides who were clearly bored, and I hope their manager recognized that what he might have thought was a waste of time and they should have been restocking or cleaning actually turned into something more valuable. So hopefully people thinking about that, like, oh, maybe we should give these kids some some marketing responsibilities and I'll

tell you they're smart. I also feel like that the dollar bill trick, like, um, I knew somebody who did it with a ten dollar bill once in college and end up like almost getting beat down, Like some people don't appreciate that trick. No gotta watch that one easily just turned into you know, a knuckle sandwich. So the other they all say is that it's it's possible that the reason that people came chasing after that was because

they were trying to figure out what it was. What is that that fluttery green thing I see on the ground and where did it come from? It's like a bitcoin I can touch. Where Whereas that story covers a part of human culture where everything is maybe vapid and has no consequences. The one I'm going to talk about is is purely consequence And I gotta say, uh, this one really pisces me off. This one, this one really

grinds my gears. A couple of weeks ago, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife sent out a news release in regard to a series of steelhead poaching incidents that occurred last winter. So Oregon DFW they use fish traps to capture migrating steelhead so that they can harvest the milt and the eggs from these fish and then raise small in state hatcheries right and then released the small back

in the rivers and keep steel head around. One of the places they do this is an area of Woodward Creek, which is a tributary of the South Coquille River, and that that area is closed to the public and not easily accessible. That's why they do the trapping there. Bi'll just set the traps and then they rely on local volunteers to check them and and say like, hey, there's got some fish in there, and go check them. The

biologist then removed the fish and they spawned them. The last winter they ran into a problem According to district biologist Mike Gray, we would get a call from a volunteer saying there were six or seven fish in a trap. Then when we got there the trap was empty or there was only one fish in it. We found evidence that the trap had been damaged, so we knew someone was getting in there. And this went on for weeks. Right they'd get calls saying, oape fisher in the traps

and they'd come up empty handed. Of Ventually, troopers set up surveillance cameras and caught three individuals on video the first night they did it. Those individuals and possibly others,

continued to return to raid the traps. One of them noticed the cameras, stole one, shot another out with his rifle, but he didn't get all the cameras, and so far that individual, Kane M. Horner, is the only one of of the poachers to have been identified, and fish traps weren't the only places where wild steel had theft occurred in the area last year. Brew have you ever heard of broodstock boxes? Uh? No, I mean I know a broodstock case. I've never heard of broodstock box. Now I

had neither, so this this was new to me. Apparently this is something ODFW does. They they set these boxes in rivers near popular fishing areas, and the anglers can like, if you catch a steel head, you can release it into that box and then let ODF you know, like, hey, I got a fish in the box for you. Interesting it, Yeah cool. And so anglers were doing this and they were calling in and the biologist show up, no fish

in the box. Alright, So these were also getting rated A biologists ultimately had to resort to netting a bunch of the creeks and the rivers in that area to get enough steelhead to maintain their numbers, and and that practice is both expensive and it's detrimental to the ecosystem, and steel is just a bad deal. Is not what they want to do. That's why they started doing the

boxes in the first place. Now, yes, say, I am not I'm not in favor of raising steelhead and hatcheries and releasing in the wild because hatchery fish have a sub hatchery fish have a some negative impact on wildfish recruitment survival. And it's a complicated topic with a lot of tension, and there are valid concerns on all sides, and I'm not going to get into all of that here,

because that's not the point. The point is when I first read this story, I thought maybe this was like an ed Abbey monkey wrench gang style insurgency by wild steelhead activists, right, And if that were the case, If that were the case, I would not condone these actions, but at least like I could understand them, like, Okay, you have you have a cause of some kind of like you have a relief. And that's where what I

first thought. And so I'm like, yeah, these are these are like wildfish vigilantes and they're breaking in fish traps and brud stock box and they're setting the fish like they're setting the fish free as a way of increasing wild production and sabotaging the hatchery programs so they can't get their numbers. Like I I see that as idealistic, if misguided. But the end of this story is that O d f W caught the one suspect identified on camera while he was illegally fishing in a section of

the river that's closed to allow steelhead to spawn unmolested. Yeah, so that wasn't the answer. No, they're just dart bags. Yes, they're not vigilantes. They're just despicable humans with no regard for fish, and they were just breaking into those traps and boxes to steel steel head for themselves. The first arrest went down in February, and o DFW just sent out this press release just like just recently, which to

me that suggests the investigation is stalled. And they're they're they're talking about it now because they're like, hey, anybody come forward with information because we want to catch these other people. And I just I can't wrap my head around the sense of entitlement that a person would have to have to do something like this. But I don't I don't know, Like they didn't just steal from the hatchery.

They stole from They stole from all of every everybody, everybody. Yeah, they they stole wild steel head, which are like such a rare, diminishing resource. I find everything about this violent, despicable, and I do hope the punishment ends up feeding the crime. I actually can't even think of the best punishment for this.

I don't I don't know what it is. Should he be like should he be sentenced to spend the next twenty years working on habitat restoration, Like is that valuable that that work should he get should he be required to get poacher tattooed across his forehead in in big black letters? Who has to wear it like a scarlet letter? I don't know. I don't I'd love to hear anybody's thoughts on what you think the punishment for this crime

should be. I'm not holding my breath that that we're gonna get justice out of it, but I think it might be fun to hear what you all think should happen to this guy. Oh, I'd love to hear the poacher things. Great, that's not gonna happen. The habitat restoration thing though, Dude, that's a that's a pretty that's pretty.

I like that. I like that a lot. But you know, you you you talked about like motivation for this stuff, and you know, the guy's stealing from everybody and just reading so many of these stories with so many different kinds of fishery, and this one's definitely on another level because of how precious those fish are to begin with,

you know, how rare. But I also feel like, you know, it's like murder, Like everybody wants to know why, and sometimes the answer is because I'm just a ship bag that doesn't care, Like that's that's sort of like the end of the story, Like we see it out here with stripers all the time. These guys putch all these stripers, none of them probably follow or or they just don't care about anybody else's conservation effort going on behind that.

It's just it's irrelevant. It's pure selfishness and they just don't care. So I hate to say it, but I would guess these guys are not super in tune with the plight of the steel head, Like it's just like there they are, and I need those. It's awful. But I want to believe that there's more of a reasoning behind it. I want to believe there's some like coherent philosophy, even if it's at odds with my own. But maybe right, maybe it's just blind stupid I want. I don't know.

I'm just curious. They probably they probably didn't didn't get into this, But BECA, is there any correlation between the phone calls and the group In other words, like were they checking all the time or would they just seemingly get hit after somebody called and said they're steel heading the trap? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know. I mean, how would they know? Like, is there a ring? It's just like a ring? I I I'm I'm joking, but I doubt it. I just

think these are just dirt bags. They're everywhere, dude in everything, like they're everywhere, but this one is particularly and I want to I want to think better of humanity than that. I don't think you're wrong, I just want to. I want to assume that people have some sort of coherent reasoning for the shitty things they do. And I know that's not always true, but it helps me make sense

of it. Okay, well we'll see what Phil thinks about all of this, about the poaching, about the TikTok, about coral reefs, about killing off smallmouth, and then um, after that, we'll do a little weekly word and give you a new word to call somebody who you don't like or maybe who poaches your your steelhead. All right, it's my favorite part of the week where I get to choose which parent I would like to live with after the divorce,

and this week that parent is Joe Sermelli. What kind of an idiot falls for the old dollar on a fishing line? Trick? I mean, come on, alright, guys, Sorry to cut it short this week, but I have to run off to the Western Union. UM. Don't mean to name drop or anything, but there's a Nigerian prince who could really use my help. And then after he pays me back with interest, I'm quitting this job, retiring early. I never have to listen to this shitty podcast again.

Que Webster's Dictionary defines fish. As we started this week's show in Staten Island, New York. But for the Weekly Word, we're gonna hop on the Jersey Turnpike and make the two hour drive south to Philadelphia. And this journey is actually by request of several listeners who have asked me

to give an oral history of the term shooby. And that's s h o O b i E. Like most slang terms we've covered in this Weekly Word, John shooby isn't tied directly to fishing, but it's used pretty often by anglers along the Jersey Coast from roughly mid state to the southern tip of Cape May. However, research shows that shooby can also be heard uttered in Delaware and even certain parts of southern California. And that's all well,

and good. But I'm gonna go ahead and say that even if there are shoe bees and Cali in the first state, the term was still borrowed from the O. G. Shoobies, which come from Philly. Shoobies or shoes for sure, have been around since the late eighteen hundreds, and back in those days, the Jersey Shore was not the sprawling, crowded tourists scene it is today. In fact, only a select few areas of development even existed along the coast in

the southern half of the state. Now these days, thanks to the Atlantic City Expressway, you can get from Philly to the beach in about an hour. Of course, back in the early nineteen hundreds, your fastest option was by train, and furthermore, the train was a relatively affordable option for poorer families in Philadelphia who would pack the cars on a Saturday morning for fun in the sun. Now I've read accounts that the price of the train ticket also included a boxed lunch that came in a shoe box.

I've also heard that after ponying up for that ticket, many families just didn't have enough money left over to buy food at the beach, so they carry their lunches to the beach in shoe boxes. Either way, the day trippers were easily identified by their shoe box lunch pails, and the term shooby was born. While shooby is alive and well, how one gets to find as a shoeb has morphed over time. Shoobies making a day trip these days aren't hanging around Wildwood and Avalon eating stale bread

out of a Buster brown box. But according to Urban Dictionary, a shoeby can be any person who looks out of place while at the beach, usually identified by the wearing of black party socks with shorts and flip flops, and or a severe sunburn. Other sources note that common shooby traits include pale skin, a lack of familiarity with local customs,

and wearing shoes on the beach. However, Philly Magazine went all in with an article that featured a series of questions aimed at helping you figure out if you are, in fact a shoebie. Here are a few examples. Have you ever used wet towels as car drapes so pedestrians or other drivers can't see you shimmy out of your wet bathing suit. Have you ever spent more than five minutes getting your towel in the perfect tanning position to

the sun. Do you carry enough blankets, towels, coolers, umbrellas, and other beach paraphernalia that your family looks more like a Safari expedition When you finally get to the beach, do you go in the water, dip down to your waist to wave your hands in the water, and then get out? Do you insist on listening to a Philadelphia radio station on the beach, even when it sounds like

noise from World War two field radio? Do you engage in any kind of relationship with seagulls, feeding them, chasing them, et cetera. Now, if you answered yes to any of those questions, you might be a shoebe Now if you want to know if you're a fishing shooby, I devised a few questions of my own. Do you roll a surf cart full of tackle in three hand of foot rods onto a crowded beach and soaked blood wears for

croakers right where everyone is swimming? Do you attempt to walk out onto a wets not cover jettie carrying six ft spinning rod and wearing spiry topsiders that have no tread whatsoever. Do you repeatedly bomb a tuna size plug under the bridge directly into the wakes of three jet skis and ski boats at noon during a deadlow tide and expect something to eat that if you answered yes to any of those questions, I've got an old shoebox

full of banjo minnows with your name on it. Look, man, if it'll get me a shoe box full of vintage banjo's, I will strap on some topsiders and go jetty skiing tomorrow. Hook it up, send them. You won't. You won't get very far. Just a couple of rocks out and you'll bite it. That's usually what happens. But you like, if you like vintage banjo's, I have some. You know, I

could actually arrange that. But speaking of vintage and flexing, uh Miles is gonna see us out this week with our end of the line segment where he's going to discuss an old bait that you might legitimately find in an old shoe box in your grandpa cedar chest. But that also paved the way for decades of chest beating over one's skills to rope hog bass. Well, that's not loud enough, Burt. When I was six years old, my

holy grail was a five pound large mouth bass. My uncle Bob had one on his wall the gate mouth green and black, emblem of his fishing greatness. Now, as a grown man, I realized that a five pound large mouth is a respectable northern specimen, but nothing onspiring, and that this particular skin mount, an amateur garage job done by a buddy of his bargain cost, is actually far from exceptional. But thirty five years ago I didn't know

any of that. I idolized my uncle and would sit on the musty cabin couch staring at his fish and ask him to tell me the tale of its capture. Again. It happened in the spring in the shallow back bay of the small Wisconsin Lake where I first learned to fish. We never caught anything in that bay because when I was there in the summer, the bass were in deeper water.

But I would still make my uncle take me back there at least once a year and have him show me the down log, where on a fateful day in the late seventies he caught two trophy bass and a handful of casts, one weighing four and a half pounds and the other the wall hanger, coming in over five. He caught both fish on the same purple rubber worm.

Older listeners will remember the worms I'm talking about. They came pre rigged with a leader threaded from the nose of the worm through the body, attached to two or three hooks that's stuck out of the belly. Sometimes the hooks had thin wire weed guards on them. Sometimes the leader came dressed with other fish attractors, like beads, a spinner blade, or a propeller. Back then, we called them ubber worms, even though they weren't actually made of rubber.

Over time, I've noticed that the terminology has changed to more accurately describe what we fish. Most people call them plastic worms or just plastics. Now only the real old heads still talk about rubber. Synthetic worms go back a very long time. The first American patent on an artificial worm was submitted in eight seventy seven, and it actually was made of rubber, but real rubber worms never took off.

Rubber is relatively stiff and does a poor job imitating the supple juiciness of an annelid undulating in the water. For nearly a century, anglers and lure inventors struggled to find a fake alternative that worked as well as a live dirt snake. Once that finally happened, however, it changed sport fishing more substantially than just about any other new technology and history. Except the fish hook itself. Nothing flexes

in modern fishing like soft plastics. The man credited with inventing the first plastic worm is Nick Cream, who came up with this prototype in ninety Some evidence suggests, however, that a man named David DeLong may have actually figured it out three years before Cream, but DeLong was not

as successful at marketing his creations. Laura also claims DeLong as the first person to scent his worms with annis oil, a tidbit I have to mention as a nod to our resident stryper expert, Bob the garbage Man Britana Nanananwski. While soft plastics really gained popularity and came into their own in the American South, they are Midwestern in origin. DeLong was from Indiana and Cream held from Ohio, where he worked as a machinist. The mid twentieth century saw

the peak of American industry. Guys like Cream and DeLong understood industrial design and production. They also had enough disposable income to go fishing on the weekends and enough Moxian confidence to dream of quitting their day jobs and king of living at what they truly loved. Cream saw his opportunity in an emerging new chemistry, plastics. Exactly how do

you mean it's a great future in plastics. The story goes that Cream paid a visit to DuPont Chemicals in Cleveland, and a lab tech gave him some chemicals to take home. How exactly he talked his way into walking out with a few buckets of proprietary chemicals to play with remains unclear. Maybe he paid the guy off, Maybe they shared a couple of nips from a pocket flask. Maybe Cream was just that smooth. Maybe the story is total bs, but it makes a good story, so I'm sticking with it.

Nick Cream and his wife Cosma spent the next year playing with polymers, pigments, and oils in their kitchen. Each time they thought they had a viable mixture, Cream would carry a vatio it down to the basement and pour it into a mold he made from a steel model of a real nightcrawler in the couple took the first

plastic worm to market. Like I said, cream Lure wasn't the only company making similar products with pre harnessed plastic worms, but they also sold unrigged replacement worms, and a few years later, an unknown bass angler fishing on Lake Tyler, one of the many newly created reservoirs in East Texas, came up with a rigging technique that would make Nick

and Cosma Cream's worms world famous. That anonymous angler removed the brass islet from a bell sinker, threaded his line through the weight tied on a bare hook, poked that hook through the nose of one of Cream's replacement worms, pushed it through, turned it around, and inserted the hook point and barbed into the worm's soft bellies so that both were hidden within the supple plastic. The Texas rig

was born. By nine cream worms were the hottest commodity in the Lone Star state, selling for a buck of peace, which translates to about nine dollars today. Cream Lure was making good money, and a year later they moved their headquarters from Akron, Ohio to Tyler, Texas. Cream Lures achieved early success by being the first large scale plastic bait manufacturer, but competition caught up quickly. Cream had to find new ways to stay ahead of the spreading sea of soft

plastic lure options hitting in the shelves. He recognized the marketing power of influencers, a half century before anyone ever used that term. Cream tracked down the best local anglers and started paying them to travel all over the South showing off the effectiveness of soft plastic bits and teaching

others how to use them. He also targeted the pros and allegedly struck the first angler endorsement deal with John Powell, who he paid eighteen thousand dollars to fish Cream worms on the B A S. S Series in n Additionally, Cream conscripted Bill Dance, who endorsed the worms of tournaments, events and on his long running television show Nick Cream died in He's been inducted into the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, the Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, and

the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center. More importantly, though, every time an angler rigs up a soft plastic bait, which is to say, thousands of times a day all over the world. They're unknowingly paying homage to a machinist from Ohio who wanted to build a better worm. So that's it for this week. If you're staring into the mirror trying to get that beach bod to pop in just the right ways, remember never suggest your guides fish finders on demo mode.

Bring your own lunch when creeping on pay leaks with strangers. If you decide instead to take that lunch to the Jersey shore, don't pack it in a shoe box. And Nick Cream and his inventions flexed harder than macho man Randy Savage Clean to the boy. Yea, how perfect was that clip? Anyway, right after you slather your bleached white skin with a quart of SPF two thousand, feel free to share sale ben ittem bar, nomination, awkward photo, or newsy bit with us at Bent at the meat Eater

dot com. We've also got eyes on those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on the Graham and using them as the fastest way to score stickers from us. We also hope you've gotten eyes on the new fish hoodies and T shirts store because they will look great on you while you were jamming out to the Bent Spotify

music playlist on the beach this summer. That's right. They'll also really bring out the ship and that ship eating grin you love to flash while flexing on the twelve year old bass fishing at the local golf course Pond. Don't Don't Say back My life