Ep. 48: Over-Stripping for Swedish Pacu

not catching fish anymore. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bend to the fishing podcast that you insist wasn't as big as you thought it was the second it snaps your line because you were high sticking. I'm Joe Surmelli A Miles Nulty, and I appreciate that intro very much.

Thank you, because if there's one constant in the angling community among us anglers, and I don't care who you are, what you fish for, how you fish, whatever, how long you've been doing it, we all lie, and we particularly lie and we lose fish. It's just something that we do absolutely and I can take it, and I can take it a step further like um in many respects. You don't even have to hook it, Like, how many times have you been fishing? Right at least I do that?

You get hit, you botch it for whatever reason, and somebody else on the boat sees it happen and goes, did you just get bit? And the reaction is so often Yeah, yeah, it was a little fish. Though it's

a little one. It's a little guy, a little twelve inure, but it could have been a twenty in brown and you know it, and you're still gonna say that, Yeah, that's that's yeah, that's kind of my That's interesting because like too, if I'm being honest here, and I usually am, I go the other way, like because any fish that I'm lose or miss are monsters. To clarify, I might have lost a monster. I'm just saying I never know, but like in my mind, that's what I tell myself

and others who are around me. If I don't catch the fish and I don't, I think it's personally because I get so jacked, Like if none, if it's a dink, right, I'm not saying like I turn a four inch or into a trophy, but if I hook a good fish, my mind will just conjure at image, like I'm I get this image of of something that's much larger than

what's actually on the line. Oftentimes, when I think I've got a good one, that I do land it right, like like I superimpose the image of the fish that I want to be fighting onto the fish that I'm actually fighting. And if I land it, the fantasy is out the window, it's gone, it's shattered. But if I lose it, I get to hold onto that fantasy and that remains the biggest fish anyone in the boat has

ever seen. Wow, that's see, that's interesting, see because this is where we differ, Like where where where you're like hopeful optimism crashes into my my pervasive cynicism. Hey, this is what happens. So so you get all juice stuff and imagine greatness. I'm just assuming the worst all the time.

But it's like this. It generally happens when I'm fishing with other people, Like it only works like I need witnesses, and I swear it's almost like involuntary, But I think it happens more out of anger and embarrassment than anything. Because when I lose a fish, like and I know it's a big one. I just want to move on, Like I'm inside, I'm seating, and I don't really I don't really like yeah, like I'm saying like that's that's

that's my point. Like you have like a fish come up and flash your streamer and like somebody else on the boat sees that line, godink and did you get bit and like you were sleeping on it or whatever it is right, and it's like I'm a bitch. That was twenty two inch brown, Like I'm like, yeah, it was a little one. Because I don't really feel like dissecting like why that just happened and how I just

set up. I just want to move on, like I don't want to dwell on it, so my gut is not to be like, oh that was a freaking giant because then you know people are like, well, why didn't you should have done this? Why did you strip him? Or once you pause, I just want to move on. You know, you you painted mind is optimist stick and but I I think my way is just as much

an ego thing as what you're talking about. Like I want everyone in the boat, including myself, to think I just hooked mega that they missed right, like they didn't get mega. I did, even if I even if I missed it, right, I see it that way too. Yeah, I can, this is true. I remember the details of big fish I lost, down to every little iota of the weather, where I was, what I was doing. I can go back more than thirty years and recount exact stories of big fish I lost. Those ones. They stick

with me, sure, I think. I think the story that encapsulates the point that we're talking about right now. I was fishing the Yellowstone with my closest fishing buddy at the time, and the conditions. It was one of those days where you just you knew, big trout we're going

to get caught. You know. We're on the ass end of runoff, and the water was high, but it was dropping and it had that emerald green like the oh that beautiful, and the flow was like it was high, it was ripping, so all the fish were pushing into the soft water on the banks, the big fish and the little fish. And when that's going on, I mean, you know what's happening. The big fish is just chowing on all those little fish because they got no place

to hide. And we were doing well on this particular day, like we were consistently getting solid fish, but we hadn't got the fish we were after and the one we knew we could get that day. It was just one of those days. And I made this perfect cast into the soft pocket and I just got slammed. Right. I was fly fishing this, I was throwing streams. I was throwing a nine weight for trout, and I could not

turn this fish. It was a big, heavy, stink tips giant, giant streamer, and like I got slammed and I could not turn. It takes off straight up stream. I'm fighting. I fight it for like I thought it for a good thirty seconds before the hook pulled. Now, I never saw that fish. It is very possible that I gaffed a sixteen incher right in the side and that thing

turned into the current and just dragged me. Right, But that's not the story that I tell anybody else who was there or myself or were you right now, Because in my mind, I know I had a thirty in brown that this is this is too good, right, this is too funny, because the story I have, man, it is exactly like that. But I came to the exact

opposite conclusion. So I was mousing for Browns at night with my buddy Joe Dimo Theris, who's been on the show several times, and man, it was it was a really slow night, Like we went miles without touching of fish. And you know what happens when that happens, like you start to start to like zone out a little bit um and then out of nowhere, just when you start to zone out, you get jacked. And that's exactly what happened to me. And just like your story, I swung

on this fish and I could not move it. I just could not move and I was only fishing a sixth weight I think. And this fish, it gave me three big headshakes but I don't know how to describe them other than wide, like it wasn't like a fish, just like jiggling its head real fast, like a little shaker, Like this was like the wall wall and it's pulsing the frigging rod And I got I got these few shakes out of it and in the fly pole, and

I instantly go, that was really weird. I wonder if that was a foul hook fish, right, I just and I I knew Darren, well it wasn't. But I just went to the instant downplay. Also advantage because it's dark, so it's like, how much did Joe really see? Right? I couldn't have seen what just happened right then and there. And Joe d who keeps it real always just like, no, that was a giant ass brown trout that you just lost.

So same story, nearly identical stories, different mindset, totally opposite reaction. I will say, I'm convinced, however, that either of us were throwing a poppy mcpop face from thirteen Fishing, those fish would have stayed pinned because then the sticky probably yes, but then I wouldn't have been mousing or fly fishing. But I can attest to the sharpness of the hooks on that particular papo. Also sharp is our ability to just work in a plug for our sponsored thirteen Fishing,

Just like that. We talk a lot about thirteen rods and reels, but you, uh, you should, you should not forget their lures. We have in the aforementioned and beautifully named poppy make pop face. Uh, it's just no kidding, It's just a well made, just badass all around popper. I'm a big fan of the clear perch pattern for Smalley's So I have not thrown that one. I'm gonna

have to get that an arsenal. And I'm glad to know there's a fish out there that you still know how to land, but put trouble on it and you can get them in, because apparently we both suck at landing big trout, but personal shortcomings aside. It's it is appropriate that you brought up night fishing for truck, because that's what's happening in the story. We've got for smooth

Moves this week. This is part of the show where we let guide and captains and shop kids and anyone else in the fishing industry tell us tales of dumb ship their clients have done. And we're bringing back our good friend and ozark trout grew Steve Daly. It makes you, it makes you feel any better. At least you got the chance to like field those three headshakes. You've got the connection with your giant night brown for a few seconds. Because the dufus and the saga we're all about to hear,

he never got that chance. Why back again is the the the man, the myth, the legend, the infamous Steve Daly who it's been too long since we've actually talked, Steve. I don't know how long ago was that we had last had you on, but whatever it was, it was too long. You've been too busy, like making money or whatever. Right, so you've been you've been out collecting move moves stories about stupid ship that's been going on, and supposedly you have a great one for us. So yeah, I think

we need to explain that. Like as busy as as Steve is, like you came to us, you were like I need I have to tell this story. So this has got to be, like it's got to be a good one. Okay. So I've had these two reprobates in those of the boat that I know quite well, and they've called me into taking them night fishing because it is going to be and it has the prospects. There's some rising water coming after dark, and there was an

unusual water pattern that we don't usually get. Anyway, We've got in a dark and it's beautiful evening floating on get down the river, the sun setting, it's all picturesque, and we start fishing and there's there's one instruction I'm trying to give all night because some buggers aren't listening. Is slow down, That's the That's always been the key for me. Did you get out there and you think, hey,

I'm going to catch a big fish. It's it's all going to happen, and the adrenaline and cast at the cast more cast more, cast castre that's what we're doing. And it's like slow down and slow down and repetitive, mind numbingly repetitive instruction. The guide sitting there in the oars. So we've managed to go along. We've pulled up, and the fish is not great, partly because they can't actually track down the flies. They're coming back at the speed

of sound. And seriously, these guys couldn't have stripped any harder if they've been fueled on cocaine. All right, So we've got down and the night's gone, and we've got one small brown that fells that stupidly swam into the fly, and we've got a few rainbows that you barely want to talk about, and we've got down to the end, and seriously, they've almost worn out the beer. There's one

beer left on the boat. As we come back to the last little rock shelf from this, a little bit of turbulent water on the downstream side, and it's like, well, we're going to pull up here in it. This is my last shot right the boat ramps at seventy yards away. I'm trying to get these guys in a fish because I'd really like to see them catch a good fish for at least the effort and factually worn the fingers out scripping um. Did I mentioned they should slow down again?

This is about how the conversations going. And we're sitting there at this edge and just like they've just whipped it through and you know, it's basically a swing. Just stay in contact with that fly and let it happen. Wait for the bump. And finally one of them sits down and says I'm done. I'm gonna have the last beer. And the other one in the back is just like, I think he's tangled up or something stupid. And I

did the stupid thing. I said, let me have that, right, let me have and it's a boat ramp fish on board. I've been trying to work out how I'm going to tell these guys and it's like, just spin the evening out for another fifteen minutes. Let's go spaghetti my and a couple of glasses of red wine and you know, and enjoy the evening. And I make three casts. The second one I feel this tap and it's like, oh, when I don't say anything. In the third cast, whap

hits it said him to it. It comes back and because it's night fishing, it comes back like a log to Yeah. Yeah, they don't pull that, and seemingly at night and this thing just comes. I want to talk about that when you're done. But that's interesting you bring that up. I've noticed that too, that they don't fight at nate. They don't fight it nate, not like not like a daytime. And you know, we shine the light over the side, and here's the fish and I'm looking

at now I'm feeling really bad. The boys are actually quite exciting because it's the first indecent fish they've seen all night and the fact that they're idiot guy has swung the rod Joe man, you know, the saddest but the old story. You know, you know who the idiot burned. The name was no Viles, Bloody Dolty. Wait a minute, this was all about you, that was this was all about me. This is my smooth move in Daly's boat,

because here's the scene. But we're talking smooth moves. We've all done them, guide not guide, whatever, journalist, photographer, We've all done that stupid ship. And that's the Isn't that the fishing? You took a whole night flow in Arkansas and just burned your flies all night long. I will, I will, I will admit, I will admit to him to do this. I should also say this is purely an act of hubers, because at that time I was

at the height of my guiding career. I really felt like I was dialed into the streamer scene in my local waters, and so I was fishing it the way I knew was gonna work on the big brown shop

for me. And Dally kept saying, like, you know, you might want to slow down, and I'm like, I know how to catch big brown shout, like I know how to fish stream dude, Like I appreciate it, but I know how to do this, And I would not listen until he literally said, well, let me have a crack at It took three casts and stuck at twenty seven

right in front of me. It was it was one of those It was one of those times I will never forget because I I had to take that humility pill to recognize that even if I think I know the situation, that I know the style of fishing, that I know the fish, I don't necessarily know it everywhere

and I was wrong. It's fascinating to me though, because I feel like that's a lack of It's not trout fishing ability, it's like night fishing ability, because everything you do, like even striper's like you're throwing a black plug at night. It's like, how do I reel that? Like pain? Everything is slow? Like I feel like that's any predator fishing at night slow as the way to go. So was that was that like A had you not night fished much? Then? I mean I have had. I have night fish, but

not nearly as much as you two guys. I think that's true. You don't. The rivers around here are not necessarily safe to float at night because water. I feel like I need to reciprocate and now like dig up a guide who can smooth moves me because I know that they're out there. This took me way off. At what point in the story did you realize this was about you? I imagine as soon as you started up, dude, Oh you said, of course, I don't. I feel like

a horse's ass. No work perfectly funny. I think it's hysterical. But at the end of the day, this is less about smooth move. Seriously, this is this is not about just customers. We just get to get the stories because we see more of them. It's about stupid people doing stupid ship when they're fishing, when it comes down to it, and that's the that's the joy, because yeah, I get people in my boat all the time when you comers and go yeah, it's like you don't need to be

any good to love this game and have a great time, right. Truly, I hope that every story I tell about clients it's because I love those clients and I love those other bits because they're really funny. Doesn't mean I don't like them. That's the thing about this guy. We all screw this up all the time, and embracing our own screw ups and being able to laugh at him with our buddies

is half the fun of fishing. What a twist man for everyone listening, No joke, I honestly had no idea that was going to be a story about Miles I was. I was genuinely surprised, and I actually, man, that was that was very well played, beautiful played. Thank you, thank you,

I was, I will. I will say I was proud of that idea when it came to me when I was not sleeping one night, I was like to do this because we we dog on all these random strangers in the the statement, right, and most of them, most of them probably deserve it. But it's not like you were, I are above criticism, right, Nope. We we did that whole show a couple of weeks ago about flexing and fishing and sometimes sometimes it's easy to fly X when

you're the guide. And this goes for paid guides and informal guides, Like anytime you're in that kind of role of of leading, you're on your homewater, you know what's going on, and you get to sit there and critique someone else's fishing, but you never actually have to fish yourself. Right, And and when I get thrust out of my comfort zone and I have to be the angler on someone else's boat, on their water, not knowing exactly what I'm doing,

there's a good chance I'm gonna screw it up. And I admit that I learned from it, but I screwed up. I commend you. I commend you. I thought I was burying my soul talking about downplaying the size of some fish. I goofed, but that was next level, So good on you. Um. Anyway, let's find out who our audio engineer, Phil is going to commend this week. Following the Battle Royale we tend to sometimes now and again referred to as fish news,

fish news. That escalated quickly, So we mentioned last week that we'd be unveiling a pretty significant contest this week. More can then the previous contest. And if you subscribe to the Fishing Weekly newsletter, and we hope that you do, UM, you you already know what's up. Okay, you've got the inside track. But for those of you that don't pay attention, because um, one of you is going to get to be on bent with me and Miles. That is correct.

One lucky winner, one very very lucky winner, super lucky, so lucky. It's gonna get to record a smooth move segment with us. It's gonna be remote. We're not like, You're not gonna fly out to sit in Joe's home office or my spare bedroom slash office slash child playroom. But we do want to record your story about the most idiotic, insane, funny, crazy, or just what the thing

you've ever seen or done while out fishing. That's right, and to sweeten the pot, said winner will also get him or herself a swag pack of meat Eator fishing peril and stickers. Plus we'll throw in some bent stickables because that's what we do. But I mean, the bigger payout is obviously the fifteen minutes of quasi semi fame, if you'd call it for for you and yeah for you in the world of degenerate anglers, so true, all

your other degenerates will be jealous to enter. All you gotta do is go to the meat eater dot com slash get bent all right, follow the instructions, share your story. You can write as much as you want. I'm gonna get I'm gonna give you a little hint here we are into the whole brevity thing. We are less is more, So give us the gist, give us, give us the lure,

the hook, whatever you whatever you wanna call it. Uh. This contest is open to everyone, but you bent die hard to know what we like and you know how to get our attention, So we're we're privileging you. You do, you do, and you've got until July to enter and get our attention. We'll pick a winner. Miles and I are doing the picking, of course, shortly after that, and set up a time to record with you, which is seriously very easy and chill like. It's not a scary production.

Anyone can do it, you know, So don't worry. You don't need a microphone, you don't need you You just need to be able to talk and tell a good story. We'll do this and we'll all hang out, will crack a beer, will shoot the ship digitally for a bit. It's gonna be good times. You know what else, though, is a really good time m drinking beer or other beverages with our our audio engineer, Phil. He's just such

a such a cool, fun, hilarious, handsome person. And I'm I'm I'm not just saying that because fish News is a competition where Joe and I do not know which story is the other guys bringing the table, and that Phil will pass judgment on us at the end. That's I'm saying it because I mean it. Phil from the bottom of my heart. So it's your lead this week. Man,

what do you guys have at it? Yeah, okay, you aren't saying any of that to get on Phil's good night, all right, So maybe Phil will enjoy a feel good story that I'm starting with here. UM. And this one comes to us from the Washington Post alright headline, WAPO right headline, when the pandemic closed this Maryland school, He saved the trout. Okay, it's funky one, right, Okay, it's I I like this one. So I'm sure some of you guys are aware of the program called Trout in

the classroom. Miles, I know you you've heard of this. So it's run by Trout Unlimited, UM. And what they do is provide schools with tanks, filters, water, chillers, food, and about a hundred fertilized rainbow trout eggs. And the kids get to raise trout at school, right. And they tend to get these setups in the December, and the kids care for the trout and by May the fish are usually about two inches long, and just before school lets out. The part of the fund is they release

these fingerlings into a local stream. UM and just in case sister Helen Laurett, the principle at Incarnation School, where I went as listening, where were you on this one? Okay, because this is amazing and I'd have been all about it. We were only ever given rosary beads and told to sit quietly and let the Holy Spirit grow within our hearts.

Um So, Anyway, the fifth graders at Westbrook Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland were all set up to raise their trout, and then the pandemic hit, and needless to say, uh, nobody was particularly concerned about the fate of those trout, except, of course, for one man, Malik Walker, the school's services manager right now, Being a pretty avid angler and seeing that he was only one of a very few people that had access to the school on a daily basis

through the entire lockdown, he decided he was going to care for these trout. But this ended up becoming like quite the undertaking and learning experience for Walker, because he he admits in the story that while he's caught plenty of fish, he's he's never raised them. Okay, So, according to the story, about fifty fish died in the first two weeks, most because they're apparently jumpers. And a little little trout would leap out of the tank. So you know,

he secured the lid. That was kind of step one. And then then dude just went on YouTube to figure out like, okay, what do I that's what you did? Any problem, it's on YouTube, right And for a while it was fine. He fed the trout and figured out the proper tank cleaning schedule and all that stuff. But eventually the food that provided food ran out. So what did he do on a weekly basis? He would like hunt down spiders and crickets and grubs and anything he

thought would fit in those tiny trout mouths. Okay, good on him. So now the school year ends now at summer, and before you know it, it's fall. And remember the kids usually released the trout at two inches. Well, uh, Walker did lose a lot of trout along the way. But by December twenty, a full year after the eggs arrived,

he had fifteen foot long rainbow trout. And listen, while I realized that's not many compared to the starting number of eggs the school had, that's impressive when you understand how delicate trout are like. They are extremely difficult to raise and keep in captivity. Everything has to be perfect,

so that's quite an impressive feat anyway. So then last December they finally they transferred the remaining trout to coolers, and some of the students got to go help release those fish into the Pawtuxet River, but Walker did not go because he got attached to his trout. He was too sad, and in the story he even said, yeah, he even said he's kind of giving up on on freshwater fishing now and only targeting saltwater fish because he

bonded with those fifteen trout. Now, I could be a sicko and point out that Walker's rainbows are at least gonna taste like more than a wet paper towel because they've at least been eating natural forage instead of the friskies cat food like all the other stockers. But won't. I won't say that, okay, because for Walker's sake, I really hope none of his fifteen trout have already been run through with a wonder boner story. I did not see that coming. You threw me, That's all I got.

What do you You really knocked me off balance with the wonder boner. That's what they do you know, you know, I think it's a very heartwarming story. I don't know about his I don't know how he came to the conclusion that, like, well, freshwater fish are now friends, but saltwater fish remained the folks. I don't quite get that, but still striper in the eyes before he clubs it,

you know what I mean? Sure, whatever whatever you gotta do to get through the day, and I'll I will say that I appreciate like the upbeat, positive, heartwarming, you know, like, what's the word I'm looking for? Human interest suspect you took to lead off today's news, and I am going to go the opposite direction, entirely not interested in humans at all. No, no one's gonna be happy and feel good at the end of this story. And I will say that this week I'm doing something a little different.

Joe doesn't know this yet. He's finding out too. I noticed the theme when doing my fish news research this week. So what I'm doing is, instead of doing two stories, I just decided to gather a whole bunch of related stories into one big story up. I'm doubling down with with one giant fish news roundup. And uh, you know, the main takeaway that I got from the reading I did this week is that I'm glad I'm not a fish. Uh you know, might have been a shitty year to be a person, but is shaping up to be a

just exceptionally shitty year for fish. I'm I'm sure that you have heard about or are living through, the unusually hot, dry weather that's roasting most of the country this summer. Well, for us, right that means we we might have to spend our days mainlining a c and just facing pints of ice cream for health reasons, you know, for your health, cool off, for your health, for your health. But for fish the stakes are somewhat higher. If you go on on the interwebs right now and you search fish kill,

you will find a disturbing littany stories. So in the interest of keeping you all informed, I'm just gonna give an overview of of the fishy death and destruction going on moving from west to east Phil. This needs a sound bite right here or something something some kind of depending surprises very don't look at shut your eyes, Mary,

and don't look at it no matter what happens. The Klamath River flows along the Oregon California border and was once a thriving salmon and steelhead fishery, the Klamath River basin is currently experiencing extreme and exceptional drought, the worst in four decades. While I'm going to focus on the fish and fisheries aspect of the story, agriculture in the area will also be decimated again this year, so let's

hold that too. Salmon in the Clamate have been struggling for decades, in part due to a parasitic disease called sea shasta, which has become a significant problem due to the combination of lower water warmer temperature is a lower water table, and the impacts of dams. The parasite can kill salmon of all age classes when concentrations reach a high enough level, and right now the concentrations are extremely high.

This year. The fish kill began in early May, and now nineties seven percent of juvenile coho and chinook salmon are testing positive for the parasite. Of the observed juvenile fish have died. The parasite is predicted to completely wipe out an entire year class of fish whose numbers have already plummeted in the past two generations. You need to get Malik Walker out there on that real quick. He'll

he'll hook him up. Sorry. Moving over to Montella, the famed Madison River, which I have fished probably more than any other body of water in the country, experienced an acute die off of whitefish, trout, and suckers amid water temps soaring into the mid seventies in June. Yeah, it's a bit early for that, bit early for that for you guys. Anglers also reported seeing brown trout with the telltale white markings of the Saprolena fungus, which is sometimes

referred to as cotton molds. You know I'm talking about because it looks like inspected fish have these like billy white cotton bits. It's it's not good. The fungus can be fatal, especially when fish experience other stressors like elevated water temps. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks instituted what are known as hoot owl restrictions early this year on the lower Madisone, meaning that anglers cannot fish from two pm

to midnight. A string of consistently warm summers has greatly diminished the trout population on that streat to the river, especially brown trout, whose numbers are at fifty of the twenty year average. I will not be fishing the Lower Madison at all, no matter what time it is, until temps get below sixty five degrees, and I hope that

other people will consider doing the same. Crossing over into Minnesota, the dn R is reporting piles of dead fish washing up on the shores of some lakes across the northern part of the state and even into the Minneapolis suburbs. According to Tom Bury, a limnologist who worked for the Minnesota dn R, quote, this is a rare occurrence. We have such extreme drought conditions right now. Bury also said that rapidly warming water temperatures are putting stress on fish

and making them more susceptible to infections. Cruis it on down to Kansas City. Bush Creek lost an estimated fifty two thousand fish so far this summer, after oxygen levels dropped to one part per million, which according to the local fish biologist, Jake Klaur, is lethal to nearly every fish. For context, five parts per million is considered good oxygen

saturation for most warm water fish in the summer. The vast majority of the fish that died were sunfish, but common and silver carp also went the up, and if carper dying, yeah, that's not good. You know, it's bad. That's not good. While fish skills happened nearly every summer in this creek, this year is the worst coal hour has ever seen. To be fair, though, this is an urban, paved water system, So while it's concerning, it's it's not the tragic like saying that we're seeing over on the planet.

In Madison. Scooting over to Delaware, two hundred thousand juvenile menhaden died in Rehoboth Bay as a result of low levels of dissolved oxygen. Chris Basin, executive director for the Delaware Center for Inland Bays, describes Rehobeth as a very unhealthy estuary. Miles and miles of concrete canals were cut into the bay to allow for easier boat passage and docking,

which destroyed the natural salt marshes. Whereas those marshes were historically flushed by tidal flow, nutrient and toxin lade runoff from lawns and agriculture now gets trapped in the canals, which leads to massive fish kills like this one. And finally we land in Florida, where it seems like fish are dying just about everywhere. Many of Florida's fish are dying for the same reasons as in other parts of the country, lack of dissolved oxygen exacerbated by alba blooms.

But while in much of the country these blooms are being caused by midsummer drought and heat, Florida's algae tends to bloom when rains flush fertilizer into lakes, rivers, estuaries, and bays, and Florida is just starting their rainy season. On the west side, The coastlines north of Tampa Bay are littered with fish carcasses as a red tide moves

up out of the bay. An Emergency Services regional manager told The Tampa Bay Times that his crews were removing one hundred and fifty cubic feet of fish parts, or enough to fill two commercial dumpsters every day. This red tide and related fish kill have not yet reached the catastrophic levels of eighteen when much of Florida's west coast was coated in dead marine life, but the red tide

season still young, we still might get there. This part of the state hasn't yet received the kind of significant rainfall that usually precipitates a major red tide event. So it's it's a little confusing, but I have an idea that might explain what's going on. The researchers are not

yet able to make a definitive link. This bloom comes just months after the Piney Point incident we reported on holding ponds discharged nearly two million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay, adding the equivalent to about a hundred thousand bags of fertilizer into the water, and that bite have something to do with the red tide bloom. Maybe sticking with the algal bloom theme. Over in Boka, Ratne one thousand dead shed washed up on the banks of Sabal Lake.

Once again. The culprit here was a lack of dissolved oxygen due to a prolonged drought followed by the season's first rains, which also contributed to a blue green algae bloom and an outbreak of Ciono bacteria around West Palm Beach that's currently threatening the health and safety of public drinking water. And finally, finishing this doom and gloom story on Florida's East coast, just stop that might not have

anything to do with dissolve oxygen. For once, scores of colorful tropical reef fish like trigger fish, parrot fish, and angel fish are washing up on Palm Beach. The exact causes of this fish kill have not been announced, but divers in the area report that water temperatures dropped twenty degrees from the mid eighties to the mid sixties in less than a week. Such erratic shifts are rare, but can happen when winds, currents, and eddies conspire to cause

what are known as upwellings. The previous week, a strong current from the north was passing the outer edge of the reef, which may have contributed to the stark temperature change. I'm sure I missed a couple of fish die off catastrophes, and if I missed one of the ones in your area, let us know where. You're not catching fish anymore, I apologize. There are so many I can't keep track of them all. When I was talking to my wife about this, uh, she asked me less. She was like, what's what's your

takeaway going to be? And how are you going to make this? You know, I'm struggling with that myself, but I'll go ahead, and the answer is simple, I'm not Yeah, this really isn't funny. You like reporting like you're reporting this out of a job, is what you're doing. Like three weeks from now will be like our new store will be like we talked to the one guy that caught a fish in the United States of America, going to him live. I felt the need like this was

such a pervasive theme. I felt the need to jam I'm not not even doing it. This is news and this, this ship is happening. I saw a bunch of these two and I feel like the reason I didn't grab one is because I'm like, well, which one, Like it's it's all the same thing. But you did it the right way, you did the journalistic way, and you've covered them all. That does not make it any less depressing. No, don't feel any more excited to do my next story,

which is done in a takeaway ahead. Yeah, my, my, my, my, go ahead, if you gotta take away hit it. All I was gonna say was, look, look, these droughts and these fish kills are what they are. There's not a ton in the like we can do to stop that right now. But I will say, um, you know you were talking about the Madison in particular, and then shutting them down the fishing there. Um, you know, summer is fishing time. We all love to go fishing in the summer.

Everybody does it, That's what we're all about. But I really don't think that enough people pay much mind to fish care when it's hot, you know what I mean. Like that's and and just very very quickly, like the last couple of weeks, I've been floating to Delaware here with my dad and taking my kids out, and I've been just taking out this old nasty shad that I had in the freezer, and I'm trying to catch channel cats, right,

I just wanted. We're swimming and having a good time and just like trying to reef on a few channel cats, and I can only catch stripers. And it's very late in the summer for there to be as many stripers as there are this side this size, in this part

of the river eating shad. And that's great to catch them, but every single one of them, I've had to spend at least five minutes reviving them so that they can swim back to the bottom of this cold run that they're apparently sitting in you know what I mean, And you know looking at that going like, well, man, it's so neat to be doing this this time of year. But I mean you could physically see it, like you pull them out of these runs they're sitting in and

they're whooped. I mean that water is seventy five degrees now. Um, And I think that in general, even with quote warm water species, large mouth muskies in particular pipe, um, take that extra time even if they fought hard. I mean, give them, make sure that they're they're going back breathing and strong and kicking off on their own. Because I don't think we think enough about how hot water affects fish. That's all I got to say. No, your takeaways very

very similar to mine. Um, And I think that we all I think. For a long time, I won't speak for other people. For a long time, I sort of fell like, well, summertime is my fishing time, and and that's the time you're you're allowed to fish and supposed fish. And as I've learned more, especially about cold water species, but warm water species too, muskie is a good point.

Those things are delicate. I'm learning that that that that's not actually the case, and that it's incumbent upon me to know the conditions on the plate at the different places where I fish and make my plans accordingly. Right, So I'm gonna change the way I fish this summer right for right now anyway around me, this part just just kind of is pertinent to me. I'm gonna I'm

gonna fish way higher up in the systems. I'm gonna fish the tiny little creeks and high mountain lakes where it's still cold, right, instead of the big rivers with the big fish. I'm gonna go. If I want to catch and release, I'm gonna go up into the high creeks um And if I do fish those larger rivers and lakes, right, I'm I'm selectively targeting fish I intend to harvest because that's the way to do it right

for a while. Anyway, catching release of of vulnerable species is out for me, And that may sound counterintuitive, but it's just not ethical in a lot of places a lot, and I feel the same way. I'm either gonna have to find some new channel cats spots where there's actually channel cats. But you know, I'm fishing these usual places where I know the cats are in the summer and

there's just this abundance of stripers there. But I feel bad to the point where like I'm like I should just I'm gonna stop doing that for a while, you know what I mean. And just they're there for whatever reason, and they're comfortable in this particular run, you know, just just leave them there. Um. And that's the thing I think people don't realize. Yes, you let that fish go, it swims away, but it's not going to survive. You just get to avoid the uncomfortable confrontation of the reality

of how many fish are killing. Right. So any fish I'm catching the major rivers, they're going, they're going to the smoker. And once I get all I want to eat that day, I'm gonna stop fishing. Yeah, and you know, fish earlier in the day, just pay attention to those. Otherwise, if it's hot midday, I'm going carpet fishing. That's what I'm gonna do. That's that's my solution. I'm trying to think of a transition here, and I guess we can.

We can go from uh a country where where a whole lot of fisher die, into another distant country where where one is just emerged and just one out of nowhere. And I also think the story is a complete lie. So this is a short and dumb story. But I flagged it literally because I think it is fabricated. I literally think some website or rag paper was short on a story and like through darts at a board and

put them all together and landed on this. Okay, uh So I grabbed it from perth now dot com and the headline is um testicle eating pacu fish found lurking in European waters. Yeah. Yeah, right. So now just based on that, you might say, okay, maybe because people all over the world dump exotics where they're not supposed to be, right,

and your Europe is pretty large. It's fair, it's fairly large, um, And I mean there's plenty of places in Europe that could sustain a paku for a while at least especially in summer um. And these fish are, of course, they're native to the Amazon, to the rainforest, and they're kind of, I would say, becoming sort of a posh fly target. Do you agree with that? I think the only thing because people want golden dorato, but then they get there and they can't find the golden round. So the guys

like here, you go catch one of these. I think that's how that happened. Fair, fair, So if you don't know what they are, they look like a giant piranha. In fact, they might be related. I don't know that for sure, but they look like a big piranha. Um, but they have instead of sharp piranha teeth, they have more human like teeth. And they're vegetarians, right, um, so guys on the fly they catch them on like you know, things that look like floating nuts and seeds and flowers

and ship um. Anyway, anyway, they're They're also sometimes referred to as the ball cutter fish because they have been known to mistake the testicles of unfortunate swimmers for tree nuts in the water. And like, I've never heard that. Oh really, I've never heard the testicle lunching story. Yeah yeah, okay, now here's the how I've heard this a ton. I'm very shocked you've never heard that before. Um now, now,

how often does that really happen? I'm guessing not that much, like maybe a couple of times, right, But like it was Jeremy Wade that basically built the entire River Monsters franchise out of telling you it happens a hundred times a day, you know what. I It's like every thirteen point four seconds, another man one of his nuts to a packu. Right. But regardless, Um, this is the thing that the media has latched onto, the ball cutting, which is why I'm shocked you haven't heard it. But here's

where this story gets odd. Okay. According to the story, the European pacu in question was caught by fisherman and R Lingren off the coast of Sweden. What right, And there's two very there's two very big things wrong with this facca refreshwater fish. That's number one. That's a big one. That's a big that's the first big red flag waving

out there. Right. Um. But but also, while I might buy a pacu being caught in like the south of France or some river in sudden Italy, perhaps like Sweden, the maximum high temperature, because I researched at at midday in summer in Sweden it's seventy three degrees So I find it hard to believe that a pacu would last in any water there, let alone salt water, which they cannot be in ever. Um. But as I found this

story in three places, Um. One ran a picture of a piranha, so that was totally out, and the other to show they show a pacu, but they're clearly taken in South America, so I'm not seeing any photographic evidence of this, this alleged Swedish pacu. But wait, because they did bring in an expert in the story to tell

us absolutely nothing. So here's a quote. Henrik Carl, from Denmark's Natural History Museum told local media the pacu is not normally dangerous to people, but it has quite a serious bite there, but incidents in other countries where some men have had their testicles bitten off. Carl added that the pacu fishes are largely vegetarian and nip away at those in the water only because they are hungry. He said, they bite because they're hungry and testicles sit nicely in

their mouth. And I say, Henry, Henrick, you always you always know just how to put things so as claves understand. So then the story just goes goes on to make jokes about Swedish meatballs or sweetie meats as I like to call them, and ends on something about kimono dragons being equally dangerous. So great job ridding the frigid salt waters off Sweden of that one ball cutter in our Lingren,

who I don't think actually exists. So there's there's my second story, which hopefully we gotta we got a little laugh after the piles of dead fish from that man. I've got to say we have. We have dug up some absolutely horrendous fish journalism in nearly a year we've been doing this. I think this one wins what's up there. I think it's completely I don't find the ball biting thing to begin with, right, but I get that that's a that's a lore about these fish. Okay, fine, ball biting.

But then you add in those other two completely implausible elements of a freshwater fish living in saltwater and a warm water fish living in frigid water, and then you get the poor dude from the Natural History Museum. You bait him into talking about how testicles fit so nicely in their mouths, like that poor guy's career. I'm telling you, they threw it and they said it hit fish testicles Sweden, and they just went from there. I actually hope that's true,

because then it's creative. Those were the three elements. Do you have another story Todair. Do you put it? Put it? I put it all in my round up? Alright, alright, so Phil, that's quite a round up to go through. If you're feeling morbid today, Miles is the clear winner. If you're feeling more jokey, I guess I'm your guy. But regardless, after we hear from Phil, we're actually gonna do a fin clips, which once again brings more testicles

into this podcast. You guys, supply the testicles, I'll supply the dick. So here I am to announce that the winner this week is Miles Nulty. I know you guys are saying it's impossible that the South American fish was found in Sweden, and I'm inclined to believe you. But sometimes I go to Burger King and I get in order of fries and I find an onion ring in

those fries. Magic is real, guys. It's all around us, and someday, if you're lucky, you might just find some of that magic off the coast of Sweden, with its fish lips around your scrotum as small mouth baits go helgra mites get a lot of attention. Matter of fact, we did an entire end the line segment about the many moons ago, because those big, black, nasty, pinching Dobson fly larvae just have this uncanny ability to get eaten by a small mouth, even in a place where you

didn't know small mouth existed. Crayfish are good for small mouth, and of course you can't really go wrong with a live shiner. But there's another bait that's talked about less often. In fact, I might call it somewhat hush hush. That's closer in effectiveness to those helgram mites than a shiner or a crayfish could ever be. I'm talking about mad Tom catfish. When you talk about mad tom catfish, or stone cats, as they're also called, you're not talking about

one specific fish. These are members of the Ichtluridae family, which is the most species rich family of catfish in North America. Now, if you're a science geek, you can spend all day breaking them down. Just to name a few, you've got the mountain mad Tom, slender Matt Tom, Caroline and mad Tom, elegant Mad Tom, ozark mad Tom, and

the brindle mad Tom. The thing is, for the most part, you'd never be able to tell one apart from the other using what ich theologists call moristic traits like the number of fins or scales or morphometrics, which is a fancy way of saying size and shape of the body. Furthermore, because mad tom coloring is often dictated by its environment, the freckle belly mad tom you got might actually be a brown mad tom or a margin mad tom. Now, if there's anyone listening, going, what the actual hell is

he talking about? I fish, I know catfish, but I've never heard of a mad tom. Well, that's probably because you've never accidentally caught one. That would be extremely difficult unless you were micro fishing, because mad tom's are super tiny. An absolute slab would measure eight inches, and you're not likely to bump into one at your favorite pay lake. Mad tom's prefer moving water and can be found in everything from mighty rivers to tiny creeks. As long as

there's a rocky bottom. Mad tom slip under rocks and slide into tiny crevices where they spend most of their day. These little fellers are nocturnal, so the best way to collect some for bait is to have a good old fashioned rock flipping session with a dip net or sane net posted up downstream to catch whatever you kick up. Fun fact, though, be careful because mad tom's are slippery, slimy, and wriggley, and they have spines sharper than a hypodermic

needle that will inject you with venom. You won't wind up in the hospital or anything, but you won't be happy for a while. And I know because I've been there, man, I've been there. I also once knew of a guy that was collecting mad tom's and putting them in a zip block bag, which he then put in the front pocket of his shorts, which resulted in a mad time spine to the Franks and beans. This may leave you wondering, then, if they're all spiny and poisonous and ship, why do

small mouths pounce on them? And I really don't have an answer to that, but they do. I can't count the number of Smalley's I've caught that either spit up a mad tom or had one sticking out of its throat, And over the years I've caught plenty of mad tom'ss bike match wal Nett and crayfish, but never really enough to fill up a bucket. So similarly to helgram mintes. Using one is kind of like a rare treat, also

similar to helgra mintes. I can't recall if I've ever hung one under a float on a summer day and not how to get child by a bass. You will find some Mad Tom imitations available, but to the best of my knowledge, gets its baby blue eyes. Swim Bait was the first specific Mad Tim imitator on the market, and I know it's pretty hard to find, and I also know it had a bit of a cult following, but I've never gotten anything to follow one of mine.

Years ago, I snatched up a few packs when I bumped into them randomly and quickly lost all of them in the rocks while trying to slow crawl them to you know, mimic a Mad Tom. Frankly, I think it's more fun trying to collect the real ones, and I'm a lot more confident that the real ones spines venom at all will lead to a big bronze back faster

than any anatomically correct mini catfish lore. You know, right, you know, there's a bunch of streamer dudes out there right at this very moment wondering like how am I gonna how am I gonna tie Mad Dog Like they're googling Mad Dog anatomy and trying to figure out how to make it, and they found that. I guaranteed it's already been done. Like you know those um uh, those those sculping heads, the flat fish call. Yeah, it's the

fish call, but it's the sculping head. Yeah. I've seen people tie in rubber legs in front of those to create whiskers. But honestly, I don't know, man, I can't see that being any more effective than other streamers. Like I think mad Tom's are a rare forage. If this makes sense, that's just not worth trying to mimic perfectly, you know what I mean? Like fishing a brown tube or a yellow cloudser in the rocks is sufficient, there's

no need to try and match one so precisely. But if you expose a real one, right, and that fish season smells a libby, that's just it's like it's not hold up under a rock. It's just floating around out there like free for the taking. It's eight. It's just like how they can't pass up and exposed helgramite. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, Generally, I think anatomically perfect bait fishing. Streamers are over overrated because they're moving fast.

But I guess we can't help everyone out there figure out how to get more mad tim flies stuck in smaller faces. But we can, well, I say, we you can help with stripers. I don't actually claim to know shit about stripers because I've I've caught like two in my life. But we opened this episode talking about losing giant fish, so it only seems right that we close

with a negative wisdom that will help prevent that from happening. Yeah. Yeah, So we're gonna finish out with our tackle hacks segment this week, and uh, we're we're bringing back our old pal, Bill Wetzel. Bill is a legendary surfishing guide on Long Island.

He leads people into the rocks and waves at night, which we've both agreed is one of the toughest guide gigs on the planet, you know, because you put yourself in such precarious positions, right, and Bill understands the importance of making sure in those situations you've dotted every eye so you don't lose that giant and striper when it

hits um. So I got to sit down with Bill for this tip and look at maybe coming to you from a a salty Northeast surf dude, but I promise it has value wherever you chase Striper's snook, bull reds, perhaps even muskies. I'm getting hats from inside the city Blight the Blood. So joining us again, Bill Wetzel, surf Guide Extraordinary from from New York, and we've had you on for smooth moves on other shows that were just delightful.

So as much as I just want you to tell us stories about crazy ship that's happened in the surf um, you are also an incredibly knowledgeable angler in this scene. So uh, let's try to tackle hacks man. You know, we're just looking for that sort of nugget of wisdom you've picked up or developed or something within in Striper's surf fishing that maybe you think guys don't think about enough or or or don't do something to just help

people catch more fish. So one of the things I tell a lot of people to do is, I mean, what what the catcher release thing? A lot of people are starting to even use single hooks, but I still use a trouble in the front and the trouble in the back. I feel like I dropped less fish doing that. With plugs we're talking about, right, Yeah what plugs? Yeah, I just fish plugs. I fish live yield as well, but I don't do any dead sticking anything like that. So one of the things I tell people is to

crush your barbs in the rear. And immediately when I tell people that, they say, oh, for the blue fish, I go now for the stripe pass for the blue fish too. If you get in the bite, it's easier. But what what a bass does. He'll hit the front of the plug, usually right, and then the rear of the plug will be caught in the side or depending on how big the basses, maybe he's like lower lip and hopefully that plug that Steve barb will get that initial hook set and then as he's fighting will come out.

Now when it does that, he only has the front hook in his mouth and it helps for him not to get leverage on the plug just and then if they get leverage on your plugs, spit the plug. You know what I mean? Got you? So you're saying, if you only have those front trebles in the fish's mouth and you're pulling against just a very well set front treble.

You have a better shot of landing a big fish than if you're also pulling awkwardly because that rear travel is in the face somewhere the gills the lower lips right because they'll get you know, they'll get lover each on your pluck. And you know that's how you know you're straighten out your hooks. I don't care what kind of hook you have, it they'll straighten it out, especially

a big fish. No, they'll straighten out the hook. This is a game for for for for this cult where you put in hours and years and months looking for those big fish. So I think it's fair to say that small tips like that make a difference, Like this is one where you don't know when you're gonna get that big fish shot again. So every duck should be in a row for this fishery. It's the tiny things, man,

it's the tiny, tiny things. And some of the tiny people overthink some things, and they spend so much time on overthinking that they're not you know, and they're not fishing, you know what I mean. You know, just go out there and fish, man, that's it. You You use plugs, you learn all the plugs out there. Learn, learn when to use them, when not to use them. Learn how they work. You know, do it in comp situations, rough situations, you know, all kinds of situations. How you got it,

How you learn that plug? Learn it and then move on to the next plug. If you're just starting now, you know it's gonna take you a few years. It's not freaking Internet overnight ship, you know what I mean. So that's it for this week. To recap all the trophies that didn't get away, Miles landed himself a visit

to the doctor to get his hearing check. We filled a cooler with a killer bait that might sting you in your naughty bits, beached facts about one trouble hook being better than two, and hung replica amounts of our shame and suffering up for the Internet to enjoy. That We did that we did enjoy. Uh. Speaking of which, if you've got a shameful or awkward fishing photo that you're willing to own up to, send it to Bent at the media dot com so we can ridicule you

bluckly we can all use together. We're also always accepting bar nominations, sale bin items, questions, concerns, hot tips, and cold ridicule. If you send us any of those and we use them on the show, you get a sticker pack. Of course, you can also score that by using those degenerate Angler and Bent Podcasts hashtags on Instagram. If we repost something with those tags, that that you've posted your stickered. And if you happen to post a picture of a slob fish you caught with a guide, tag him or

her too, because you're obviously a good listener. M six s