Ep. 51: The Tuggy Is The Druggy

We'll catch a whole bunch of blues. Will put him in burlap sacks, throw him in the car, makes vicha the next that Good morning, degenerate anglers. Welcome to Bent, maybe the only podcast that can tell you the taxonomic and rigging differences between wax worms, meal worms, blood worms, tape worms, ring worms, Canadian worms, San Juan worms, and squirmy worms. I'm just from elly A Miles Nulty and I'll take a dozen extra large Canadian crawlers and a

worm blower, please, a worm blower. You don't hear that much? You mean you are? You are talking about those those little air needles you used to puff up your worms. Yes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. It's like for those you don't know. It's a it's a little plastic bottle with what I can only describe as a body piercing needle sticking out of the cab, and you stick that needle into the into your nightcrawler and give give the bottle little squeeze and voila. You got yourself a

floating worm. Put that bad boy on a slip sinker or a lindy rig and a ride, just top off the bottom where the fish can find it easier. Yeah. Yeah, And if anyone in the boat needs like a septum piercing or a tongue ring, just give it a good sterilizing, you know, pour a little hooch over it, crank up some nine inch nails, and just pop it right through. That's what you do. Oh that you made me physically cringe in my seat right there, because I this is true.

When I was sixteen years old, I had my septum pierced, and you did for everyone who failed anatomy and physiology. The septim is that middle flat between your nostrils, like it's the bull ring. And I do not recommend letting the clerk at the dark side across the street from All and one a mall jam a large gauge needle through there. It hurts. And and also who won't make you look as cool as you hoped or help you get dates? Doesn't? It didn't work like that for me

in the nineties anyway. Wow, wow, man, I had no idea. Whenever I think I had no idea, and then whatever I think of septim piercings, what is the I forget which Chris Farley movie it is. Doesn't he rip one out of dudes? Or now that's out of the nipples, he rips it out of the nipples. I never had the nipple ring that was only piercing I ever did. It was a bad idea. I would see you more and more as a nipple ring guy in your younger days than septim. If I'm being completely honest with you,

you know it was. I just it was. It was a split second decision, and I regretted it almost immediately. Yeah, So I had my ear pierced, and I wore hoops ticker gauge hoops for for for too long. I wore them and it was like not long after my I was born. I was like, you know what it's been, It's been long enough. I don't like, I don't even know if this is in style anymore. Like none of my friends who had an ears pierced, like we're still

wearing their stuff. Um, but I never had any desire to pierce anything else or like gauge my ears or any of that. But this does, This does take me back to two younger days and like time spent. I'm thinking about hot topic, the piercing pagoda South Street in Philly, you know, like, and I'll tell you what. The whole nostalgia vibe you're setting up also makes me think of the new lunch Bugs soft plastic crawlfish. It does. It does allow me to quote from the thirteen Fishing website

who sponsors the show. By the way, are good friends there. Um, bringing the lunch bug is like being the kid whose mom packed them a lunchable and a snack pack. These appendages slap harder than the capri. Son also included his donkey sauce in order to leave the lingering taste in the fish's mouth long after you've gone off. The recess also comes pre engineered to float, so you don't need to hit it with the wormblower to keep it riding up off the bottom. That's uh. I don't know who

writes the copy. They should work for us here bent and you can say. You can say what you want about the wormblower. Man, it is legit. I was reminded of its power last summer fishing on a finicky bite. We were in a red lake, Minnesota, and one of the locals like pulled out the old school wormblower as his secret weapon when the we like the freshwater drum and the wallet both were totally snubbing the floating jigheads. So you pulled that bad boy out and it's it's

a little barbaric, but it's highly effective. Yeah, And I'm not knocking the wormblower by any stretch. I just feel like that's a piece of kit. Once again, it just doesn't seem very prevalent in the Northeast fishing culture where I grew up, Like I know another places in the Midwestern stuff. Um but um you did in the beginning of this, I think have something you would try trying to tea up as like a as like a throwback talk.

You've gotten away from that? What is that you're you're you're distracting me with all this state of the art thirteen fishing gear start off topic. Yes, we were going throwback, Wormblowers, bad Piercings, nine inch Nails, and a certain Spotify playlist. If you haven't checked out the Bent playlist on Spotify, we recommend you do so. My cousin Nikki shout out to Nick was so inspired by the Bent playlist that

he made his own competing playlist. And you got to know Nick is is a is a badass DJ in Hawaii. He he created this fantastic radio show called Bridging the Gap, which you should definitely check out. But in his spare time, he also created the Bent versus Bridging playlist. Yeah yeah, And I don't know Nick, but I want to now because Gauntless, Gauntlets, throne Um, and I gotta say, this is a damn good collection of music, right, It's really good.

The thing is of the reason I I feel like we have to talk about it is because when I looked at that playlist, I immediately thought, damn, how did I forget about that song? He's got something about a Waitress by the Ziggins. He's got Happy Boy by the Beat Farmers. He's got Voodoo Glow Skulls that makes us hot. Yep, I find myself listening to it often. It's a great max props to Nick for he has Cold Beverage by g Love in the special Sauce. That's a Philly band

that's like Hometown Pride. G Love right there and some are Loving from Greece as covered by the Vandals, which you have not heard that. It's not just the standard covers right now. It's raunchy. They they reworked some lyrics. Um, but I will say man like, while while his playlist might be tighter than ours, is it better? I don't know, and we think, Um, you all should decide, Okay, So look up the Bent Verse bridging playlist on Spotify, um, and let us know if you think it's better than

the Bent playlist. We'll also we'll throw some links up on our instagram ms two so you guys can find it easier. But our playlist, it really continues to grow and evolve. In our first guest today, Mr brad Leone, our buddy, Um, he actually added a few tracks to the Bent mix and lately, we've been asking select guests to contribute a few jams, and Brad added get this Ghoul's Night Out by the Misfits, because it turns out he's a huge Misfits fan, which means I like him

even more. He also went to school with bass player Jerry only Kids, and was backstage at the Reunion show in Newark, New Jersey a few years ago while I was in the Nosebleeds for two ticket, so like, I was like, yeah, of course you are. He's like backstage bro, I'm like, yeah, of course you are. Um. He Also he also dropped cool Water and he wanted it by the old school country singer Marty Robbins. Okay, And while I appreciate that choice very much, I hope he doesn't mind.

I'm gonna take a little liberty with that pick, and I'm just gonna switch it to the Hank Williams Senior version of cool One because that one it's much more sad and depressing. And while I'm not a country music guy, Hank Williams Sr. Was like a badass mother like, he was pure punk rocks, and I'm a huge fan. I might even add more Hank anyway, Brad and I are going to get all the stalgic about blue fish party

boats in this week's Smooth Moves. Why so today with us on Smooth Moves, we got a familiar voice, Chef Angler, friend of the show, Brad the only welcome back, sir, gentlemen, thank you for having me. Yeah, so all right, this is this is a little out of your normal element where we're messing up the segment a little bit. Like normally, what we do here is we get a guide or a charter captain or a shop ride or somebody to

tell a story about a client doing something stupid. But in talking to Joe, we are all for showcasing the diverse menager of entertaining stupidity that just happens to blossom on fishing trips. Like we're we're opening it up. So even though you're not a guide or a charter captain, uh, you do still have a good story to tell us.

So what's your smooth move? Yeah, so smooth move. You know, I haven't done many big charter outfits like personal ones or anything like that, but like growing up, you know, we went out on party boats to bunch, chase and strike bass and you know, that's your paying to go out on someone's boat. So I think that that puts us in the in the category of qualification here. Absolutely, and I'm excited because like some of the most crazy shit I've ever seen in my life has been on

a party boat. Yeah, I could write a book about it. So there, absolutely, there, incredible And we were going out and like hopefully, if anything at the end of the days for someone who is not familiar with the fish I'm about to talk about, or a party boat or anything for that matter, we can all learn something here. So we're going out. This one that I was young, you know, I was going out with my dad out of New Jersey, out of u What the hell is that in? Wherein the hawks at? Is that Bellmar? Yeah?

Bis Bellmar? Right? Oh yeah, I'm going out of New Jersey there on the party boat. And uh, you know the one guy next to me, you know strangers, you know, there's one guy next to me. He was all all decked out. He had his LLL bean and his in his you know, his Fannie pack and his vest and his hat on and he had he had a trout vest on on a party boat like this dude was

like ready to go. Like he was probably like I don't know if he fished all the time, and he was just like a lack o kok or like this was just like his first time and he was all about it. Yeah, you were what you were. You you'll fish and you wear the vest. That's everyone knows that. You know. He was ready. He had his rags and his little tonaim flippers and he was ready to do, you know, and like and that's great and like so whatever.

So we're fishing. We're going out for stripe fast, you know, a half day boat or something, and before you know, we're you over throwing diamond jigs. Before you know, we're getting into these bluefish and like pretty good sized bluefish, twelve fourteen pounders. It's nice ones, you know, ten ten pounders or whatever. And I'll never forget this, you know,

my dad, you know, my dad always told me. But this guy, he's fighting this fish, you know, a big shit eating grin and he gets this thing up on the deck, you know, and he goes and picks it up with you know, thumbs it like a bast and he was just like there was just blood his rag and there's always a little cute little here he had was just covered in his own blood and uh, and then the whole trip he just like he was just wrapped up into the paper towels and paper or something

and he sat in the cabins. But pointing to the story being, you know, those those yellow like demons, they've got some razor teeth and you can't just go you can't just go shoving your fingers in any kind of fish's mouth. So that's a great tip. But also, now that I know the story, I'm going to guess that the vest and all that ship was a sign of of of of not knowing what he was doing. He was not a veteran. It probably was his first time.

But man, dude, I have seen you only make that mistake once, and I have seen so many people do that over the years. And what people don't know is those fish, I don't know, if you know this, they actually have an ant coagulant in their saliva. So like if you get oh yeah, dude, if you get if you get nipped by a blue fish, and they will like take the they will take the tip of your thumb off. You won't even feel it right away. Like their teeth are so razor sharp. But then it bleeds

forever and ever. Yeah, like his friends get a sent to the blood and the water exactly, that's what they do, Like Piranha commodo dragons. They're also the only fish that will eat till they're stuffed and then vomit and keep eating. That's also true. That's the real thing that bluefish do. But just spit stuff up on the deck. And I love them, one of my favorite fish. Oh dude, they're they're a blasts and we don't have time to get

into it. But like I missed those days when we were kids of going out nighttime blue fish, and there's not that many around anymore. Those nighttime blue fish trips don't run. But man, like the amount of gaffs I've been seen go through hands and fingers torn up onlines on those old blue fish boats, I miss it. Like I hope that swings back around for my kids because it's it's such an experience that I miss it a lot.

But cheers to the party boat and ocean health man. Yeah, man, we should all get together on a party boat at some point down the line. Oh my god, I would love to do that. Miles, you're gonna have to fly out. We'll go out in the party boat, right, maybe we won't. You do not need to convince me about this. I was. I was off fishing with Joe last month. It was a blast. I will go do that again any day. And the party. I've heard so much about the party boat scene. I feel like I just have to experience

it for myself because people start freaking them. Hold your ride out straight, movie rod moved down. Fish, it's nuts. We'll come a whole bunch of coming down the line. You're walking down, over and under people's rodsulos. We'll catch a whole bunch of blues. Will put him in burlap sacks, throw him in the car, makes of each other next around. This is a lot of fun boys. I may not know shit about blue fish. I don't. I've never caught one. But even I know you don't lip a blue fish

like that's a terrible idea. Yeah, but I didn't. You also ask me if you should lip a bow fin when we fished for those. Am I remembering that right that happened? I did that I did in my defense, if you look at a both in their teeth are not nearly as obvious, like if you you look at a blue fish and you just see teeth both in it's it's it's more subtle behind the gums exactly. So I will admit that wasn't my my smartest moment. I will defend it, but admit that it was kind of

a stupid thing to say. Yeah, Well, hopefully you're feeling a little smarter than that today because you are going to need all the wits you got to compete against me in fish news. Fish news. That escalated quickly. We've got a little bit of exciting housekeeping before we get rolling into news this week. Meat Eaters new audio book al Right, Campfire Stories, Lowest Calls recently dropped, and this

is this is a pretty cool project. Um that anyone that listens to any of the Mediator podcast or just really kind of like appreciates a great story. I think we'll really dig you'll really enjoy this. We obviously like the the auditory format of storytelling. We do a lot of it. We think it's powerful. And the theme of this audio book, and it's only an audio book, you can't get a hard copy, the theme is close calls. So all sixteen of the stories are true tales of survival,

grit and maybe a little misfortune in the outdoors. And there are a few very hairy fishing related stories in the midst We got the hunting in the survival stories courses media, but there the fishing makes an appearance. Here

it pops up. One example, my good buddy Thad Robinson of Geo Bass Fame tells the story where he was fishing and filming on a remote river in Columbia and he and his his crew were hammering giant fish, Like they got in there and just started hammering giant fish, and all of a sudden, the local cocaine cartel shows

up and things get real interesting from there. Yeah. And like on a personal note, I remember seeing that they touch on that in Geo Bass if I remember correctly, But then hearing it this way, you get the backstory that you didn't get if you saw that, like it goes, it goes deeper. You know. I got the back story at a bar years ago, and so I'm glad that

it is now immortalized on test. Yes, and there's also just add there's a ripper of a story from our own colleague Brodie Henderson about his guiding days when he saved a four year old kid that was trapped under a boat and Matt like, dude, it gets the pulse up like I I almost call that the most haunting story in the collection. But we don't want to give too many details away, right, We don't want to spoil it. We don't want spoil No spoilers, no spoilers. You can

find Campfire Stories in the Meteor store. We think you should check it out. It'll give you something cool and and very well polished to listen to on Fridays after listening to our nerdy less cool, perhaps less polished ramblings here on bent Oh I do. I think our audio engineer Phil would argue with the unpolished partner statement. But but Phil, don't worry like that. But we're not talking about the audio quality, just the content. You polished these

territories to a high mirror shine on a weekly basis. Um. Phil also declares a news winner every week because remember this is a competition. Miles and I do not know which news stories the other guy is bringing to the table, and it is your leadoff this week, my friend. All right, I'm gonna lead with my big story and then go into my less big, stupider story. We talk a lot about red tides and fish kills in Florida, and there's a good reason why we keep hitting that topic and

why it keeps coming up. Water mismanagement in Florida is steadily decimating some of this country's greatest fishing. And you can say what you will about Florida. God knows, we have made our fair share of Florida men and salt life jokes, right, but I will admit publicly that there's a strong case to be made the Florida is the greatest fishing state in the nation. It really is. The

problem is we're ruining it. And to get a better understanding of the history and impacts of freshwater mismanagement in Florida, I really recommend that you read an article on the Meat Eater dot com by our good friends Sam Longdren. It's called Florida Water Crisis is new leadership Finally turning

the tide. That article came out a few years ago, so the takeaways are a little dated, but Sam does a great job of contextualizing how and why we got to the situation we're in now, where every couple of years, red tides bloom on one or both coasts, of Florida and millions of fish die, which is happening right now, and the primary reason for the unnaturally large red tides and consistent fish kills has to do with how we've

changed the way freshwater moves through the state of Floriaida. Historically, Central Florida's annual deluges of rain slowly snaked through the Cassimmee River, filled up Lake Okeechobee, the eighth largest natural lake in the country, and and drifted and filtered south through the massive marsh system that once covered basically all of South Florida, which were called Everlades, before finally winding

up in Florida Bay. Through the twentieth century, we've changed the hydrology of that area to allow people and agriculture to exist in those South Florida swamps and marshes. As Sam describes in the article, we did this by quote controlling Lake os size and temperament by redirecting much of the water that used to flow down through the Glades west out the Cloosa Hatchie River to Pine Island Sound, and east out the St. Lucy River to the Indian

River Lagoon. The natural flows southward through the Everglades into Florida Bay was largely blocked to protect growing communities and infrastructure and to promote sugarcane agriculture here to the southeast of the lake. At the time, the project was nothing short of miraculous. Enterprising, and brilliant Americans had tamed a volatile inland sea and transformed a wasteland of treacherous swamp

into an oasis of habitable and highly arable land. The Everlades, starved of fresh water, have been shrinking and dying ever since. About half of the original blades are now urban or agricultural areas. Much of the rest is drying up or suffering saltwater incursion. Pine Island Sound and the Indian River Lagoon are experiencing the opposite problem, too much fresh water, in the form of billions of gallons of nutrient laden water diverted from the lake to the Atlantic and the

Gulf of Mexico. That's a very simplified version of what's going on. I recommend you read the bigger picture, but that gives you some sense what I'm talking about. We know the problem, The question is what are we gonna do about it? And for years, anglers, conservationists and Dedicated groups like Captains for Clean Water and Friends of the Everlades have lobbied and Spot for Water Management to consider

the impacts on fish and fisheries. After two years of meetings, modeling, debates, and heated discussions, the Army Corps of Engineers just recently put forth a recommended Lake Okachobee Systems Operating Manual that would help dictate what happens to the lake's water. The draft big this is this is big news. I kind of buried the bead here, but this is big news.

The draft, which has a weird title. It's titled Plans c C, would more than triple the quantity of water flowing south through the Everglades into Florida Bay and cut discharges into the St. Lucy Estuary by about two thirds. These changes could yield significant positive impacts for the southern and eastern coast of Florida, but the plan is it's currently written, fails to address water discharge issues out of

the Kloosa Hatchie River on Florida's west coast. Captains for Clean Water, a group of anglers in Florida who have been fighting to protect fisheries for years, and full transparency It is run by a couple of guys who I consider friends. I genuinely think they're doing great work, but I'm also buddies with them, so keep that in mind. They put out the following statement. Plan CC provides a good starting point, but needs significant modifications in order to

provide the most benefit to all stakeholders. Making these modifications will decrease the likelihood of toxic discharges to the St. Lucy and Closa Hatchie Estuaries, ensure drinking water supply for millions of Floridians, provide dry season hydration the Everlades, and help to mitigate hyper salinity in Florida Bay. The Core is planning to spend the next month on a quote listening tour to get feedback on the proposed plan before finalizing the decision in August. And so now, right now,

this moment is the time to get involved. So many people, so many people have done huge amounts of work to arrive where we are at this exact moment. The next ten years of water management in Florida will be decided by this plan, and it's gonna be a make or break thing. Yeah, this is I cannot stress this enough. This is a big deal, And all I'm asking you to do is send an email and and grab a pen because you're you're you're gonna need to write this

address down. You're not gonna remember this this email address.

I will also put it in my Instagram, even though I'm terrible about that, and to get you a little carrot to get you to to check it out, I will put it in a post that includes a very embarrassing photo of me with a solid mullet holding a tarpet in Florida, so you can look forward to that anyway, Oh on our repost that then I'm into Please write an email too, ok at Chobe that's okay, E E C H O B E E Watershed Restoration at U S A C E dot Army dot M. I l oh,

they got to shorten that up. You got that wet that they need a bit ley Lincoln there man something that No, you didn't I know you didn't get that. That's okay. You can check out my I G. You can check out Joe's edgy. And if you're feeling overwhelmed by this, there's an easier, though somewhat less impactful thing

you can do. You can go to the Captain's for Clean Water website and they have this this very straightforward form letter that's like a call to action that they will help you send if you want to go that route, um that that would simplify it. It might not be as impactful, but you could do that road as well. I just gotta say, this is one of those rare moments when we can actually have a positive influence on our fisheries and and it really will not take more

than ten minutes of your time. Yeah, yeah, And it's it's interesting, like for as much trouble as Florida as having, there's so many conservation issues out there where like it takes so long just to pinpoint the root of the problem.

And even though it's not really as simple as I'm gonna make it sound, this is one where it's like there's kind of sort of a switch we can flip to stop all this, you know what I mean, Like we know exactly what the issue is, and certainly there's just an incredible politics and and so much involved in that, but it's a very identifiable problem, so you know what's going wrong. We we know the problem. Yeah, and were

actually there. This is a moment where there's movement to change the way that that water is utilized and managed, and it's crucially important that we get this right. Well, I'll tell you what, man Um, Like you said, the next ten years are going to be so critical in this fight. Like if it doesn't flip within the next ten years, maybe even sooner like it will, it's going

to get to a point of no repair. Yeah. So I'm I was really happy to see this news pop up, and I very much hope that the outcome of this is one that that benefits the fish and the fisheries in Florida and the anglers all of us who want to go fish there, because it's pretty amazing. Yeah, Florida. So Miles has just enriched us and and and giving

us a call to action to do something great. I'm going to do no such thing with this story other than to say, hopefully within the next ten years the glades are good, because maybe within those ten years my son will be selling his first boat for a bigger boat that maybe he could run down there in Florida in the in the newly rejuvenated every Glades. I don't know that was a dumb transition ten years. Yeah, you'll

understand in a minute. Okay, because I've been pretty bombarded about my first little story and I appreciate everyone sending it along. I actually saw it as a Facebook post before it became real news, which I use real lightly. But this is this is just so fantastic. Okay, Uh, this is from wish tv dot com out of Indiana, headline, tiny tug boat takes Lake Monroe by storm. And yes, the tiny tug boat in question is a tuggy sandbox.

Wait wait, wait, like the same one that you have in your backyard, the one that you got off of the Craigslist ad with the woman that didn't speak in English. That one. Yeah, she just pointed it ship same one, And I was gonna say it's like the tuggy seems to have inadvertently become like the official boat of the Bent podcast ever since we brought it up in that Sale Been segment a while back. Because in that segment,

I noted that the tuggy is no longer made. It's been out of production for a while, making it a hot commodity already. And now I believe this podcast has driven the price higher. Right, Like I posted a shot on Instagram from a listener of an abandoned tuggy flipped over in a trout stream, and people were like, oh, we took that how to pack that thing out like

an elk? Right, So, needless to say, I've gotten just all manner of tuggy photos since then, But now here comes this story, and I swear it's like it's like what Google does, like after you utter the word tuggy sandbox, suddenly there are just tuggy sandboxes everywhere you look. That's how I feel like it's been since that sale been anyway from the story. A Facebook post by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources drew plenty of attention over the weekend.

In the post, d n R officers on Lake Monroe appeared to be ticketing a man in a tiny tug boat. That's not exactly what happened, though, so everyone who sent this to me, right, because in the picture you see tattoo dude in a tugg e and like off the side of the frame is an arm coming out with a citation right to hold hold, hold hold on. Let me ask a couple of questions. I need, I need to see this in my head. Is he floating on a body of water? In sandbox. He's floating in the

tuggy sandbox. There is an electric trolling motor on the sandbox, and it looks like the d n R boat is sidled up next to him. All you see is a d n R officer's arm coming out of the side

of the frame handing in paperwork. Okay, continue, Okay, So everyone who sent this claimed to me that he was getting ticketed because his tug he wasn't registered, tuggy didn't have numbers, okay, which made sense in my head because I'm thinking, like, if you're the kind of person that's you know, going to uh turn a tuggy into an actual usable vessel, you might not be too concerned about numbers. Okay, but he does also have a trolley motor, like I said,

But that's that's that's inaccurate. The DNR replied to their post and explain the encounter in more detail. They said, to answer the question if he was receiving a ticket, No, the boat is registered and I was handing him his registration paperwork back. He was totally legal and a fun guy to chat with. This is so much Yeah, I was like, damn, dude, registered, is tuggy like that's exceptional. So who is this tuggy pirate? Well, it's Kentucky native

Nick Riley, of course. And while I wish there was more detail, because there isn't. Nick has apparently restored and made many Tuggies seaworthy. What like this is a thing he does often in his spare time. And in this man on the show, Oh I'm getting there, okay, okay. In the story he said, we have cup holders, we have boat cleats so we can tie up to other boats. We recently just put a Bluetooth speaker in one. I didn't bring that one with me, but you can have

tunes while you're driving your boat. So listen, Like this dude is like he's like pimping out Tuggies. It's not a stunt. There were like several photos he provided of his home where there's like you know how car guys have like five cars in the driveway. Dudes got like all different model Tuggies and all different all different stages of restoration. Right, He's like the American restoration guy specifically

for Tuggies. And what I was getting at with the boat earlier is like seeing that my son Jamie, he he loves his tugg e and b is literally fishing, like off the couch with rubber sharks and stuff like that. Like I'm starting to wonder should I send our tuggy to Nick for restoration? And Nick, if you're listening, let's talk. I'm really not kidding because he's only three, right, so there aren't exactly a lot of personal watercraft options for

three year old. I've looked into this, okay, Like the smallest kitty kayak you can buy is still too big for him. Um. But the crazy thing is, like getting a tuggy to float is not easy. It requires real work because they don't have a bottom, right, and the shell is just thin, hollow plastic that's open on the bottom. And I've watched a few videos. I don't think these dudes where his skill is nick Um. But if you're serious about floating one, like guys, pump him full of foam,

you know, like shoot him up with foam. You gotta make them water tight, you gotta build a bottom. It's legit work. But if ours floated, I'd totally drag it behind one of my boats and let the kid bob aroun on a laker in the bay, you know, tie him off to a little rope, give him a little fish, Like how badass would it be for him to tell people later like I got my first boat at three? You know what I mean? Would you first boat? Oh? It was eighteen, no three, I had my first book.

And it's a perfect for him. So I'm extremely tempted. I want to just do Like I want to do a covering water segment with this guy and find out, like how did he get into tug your restoration where I'm betting we can get him. What's the most that anyone's ever paid him for a tuggy? Like there are so many things I would love to know. Man, maybe he's interested in doing. Like if I cover the shipping, do a custom bent tuggy. Oh man, your kid running

around the custom bent tuggy? Yeah, then all I then all I have is build a custom trailer for the cozy coop and the kids off. I already I'm not even kidding, Like I put rod holders and everything he has, everything he has, he wants a piece of PVC on for his little ice fishing rod. Yeah. I hope this goes somewhere. I really hope that we get some followed through on this and it goes somewhere. You know, you were talking about d n R officers who who ultimately

we're doing the right thing and coming through. Uh. In this case, some DNR officers did some really good work, and you know, it wasn't a perfect outcome, but I think I think we can give them some credits. So I'm gonna close out my contributions this week with a short one and and this is sadly another story about fish poachers in the great state of Oregon, which we're

gonna have to come back to. Thirty one year old Tyler Warren was recently sentenced to three years of federal probation and forty hours of community service for illegally taking bull trout from the Metolius River. He also got a thousand dollar fine and a three year suspension of his fishing license. Warren was not alone. His buddy, thirty year old Thomas R. Campbell, was right there with him back in December when the two harvested an unknown number of

bull trout out of the Metolius. These two are clearly not MENSA candidates, because the following day, Campbell posted photos of himself with what looked like dead bull trout to Instagram, which tipped some people off. Can I interrupt you for one second and just tell you that if the tug E hadn't become news, we were crossing over. I had this and the tugg E news dropped and I was like, tugg E beats poachers. But this is a good story and the the outcome is right up your alley. Tell

you for the win again. Yeah, there you go. I'm glad you're doing it. They post these foes to Instagram and then tip some folks off. So investigators then go in and they seized Campbell's phone where they found just damning evidence, Like there are pictures of these guys cooking bull trout filets. There's a picture where they're posing with a dead bull trout that they stuff and they stuffed

like a beer can in its mouth. Uh. There's another photo where they're carrying two bags full of bull trout filets. It was pretty yeah. Yeah, And last year Ambule was sentenced to five years federal probation, a six thousand dollar fine, and three hundred hours of community service to be served

on habitat restoration and conservation projects, which I support. Now, bullshroutter listed is threatened under the Endangered Species Act, but the Matolis River has a relatively healthy population and it's one of the few places in the U s where anglers are allowed to target them. Keeping bull trout, however, is a federal crime. Not to mention, it's just kind of a shitty thing to do. If you ask me, go wax some rainbows, bonk a few browns. I don't care.

Bull trout are not in grade shape these days. And the thing is, incidents like these they jeopardize what little bull trout fishing opportunities are left in this country. For examp, my state, Montana, we only have one watershed left where you're allowed to fish for bullies. And so I'm not so much pissed about the individual fish like that sucks.

Killing those fish sucks, But I'm I'm more pissed about what this does to the public image of anglers and the potential that incidents like this have to convince management agencies that the public just doesn't responsible enough to to have nice things like being allowed to fish for bull trout, and they can easily go in and shut that down if it looks like people are gonna keep doing idiocy like this. And my final question is like, what's up

with fish poaching in Oregon? Just a few weeks ago, we we ran that story about the group of folks who were stealing steelhead out of O. D. F W's fish traps. Is this is this random coincidence or or is fish poaching a rampant problem in Oregon? That I don't know. That's what made me think of you, because I remember at the end of that story we were saying, like, what's enough punishment for these guys? Like a million years

of community service that's all based on habitat restoration. So when I read this, I was like, oh, like they hit that kid. Now three hundred hours of community service that has to be done on habitat restoration, which I appreciate. Yeah, it was because at the end of that story, though, I called out and I said, what do you guys think would be an appropriate punishment to fit this crime?

And we got some We didn't get a ton of responses, but we got a few suggestions, and interestingly, they all the common denominator was that the violator in question should suffer some kind of public humiliation. That was what all of you seem to want the most of, like like make these people publicly humiliated and have to own their crime that way. So, for whatever it's worth, from here on out, I'm gonna make a point of calling these folks out by name whenever I report on fish poaching incidents.

I'm not saying that our little podcast here is going to act as a significant detern for bad behavior, but maybe, like maybe one or two people will think twice before doing something stupid to avoid getting called out by us, And to me, that's enough that that that's success. Well, one thing this story didn't really clarify that I'm curious about.

If you look at the charges and the sentencing, Warren got significantly fewer hours, significantly lighter probation, but yet the damning evidence was pictures of him, like it seemed like from the story, doing the worst stuff. So I figure that dude had the better lawyer and like snitched on the other guys because all the damning photos were of him.

Yet the Campbell dude that So I don't know what was going on there, and I also don't understand I would imagine there, I don't know, maybe some COVID related stuff, But like you said, they just got sentenced. He just got sentenced very recently, but that's a big gap between December and now. Like I'm not sure why that took so long. But they also pleaded guilty so that they

didn't fight this. I mean, how are you gonna not guilty when their photos of you holding giant bags of filets of dead bulltog You can't be like no, no, that didn't happen, Like, how you can are you gonna plead not guilty? There? Yeah, so good sentencing, and I agree, Like, let's just even if it's a short story, let's just keep calling poachers out by name, get their names out there. Yep, yep, totally.

We'll see again. I don't know what's going to do anything, but that's what we're gonna We're gonna do that here. That's our little part. Okay, Well, I'm gonna close out with a feel good story here, I think, uh, I think we should do that. Uh. And I don't really have a good I don't really have a good tie, so I'm not gonna try and make one. I'm just gonna move along and say this is a feel good story. Um, but I think it may have hit on a premise

that could be adopted all over the world. So This comes from the Drum dot com and the story is about a fishing tournament of sorts in Mexico and this happened on the West coast in Mositlan, where like in all Mexican coastal towns, you have a lot of commercial fishermen.

And bear in mind, of course, that when we're talking about commercial fishermen in Mexico, like I'm I'm not really referring to like a crew on a big trawler, right, We're talking about the thousands of independent guys that go out every day in tiny pongas and row boats and whatever they can cobble together to try and catch a

few fish to sell and feed their families. And and uh, we're talking about a group of folks that I mean, these guys have a pretty hard life, right, These guys struggle to make a couple bucks a day at best, and that's due to many factors, you know, making any sort of living this way in the into orders of Mexico is just getting tougher and tougher and tougher all the time. And of course one of those big factors is pollution. So beer Giant Corona, one of my favorite

summer beers. They came up with a concept they called plastic fishing. And what they did was they got eighty of these local, independent commercial fishermen to compete against each other in a tournament to see who could haul in

the most discarded plastic in a single day. All right, And there was a video in the article that documented this whole deal, and Corona went all in, like they hyped it up prior, like they were, you know, had trucks with the loudspeakers driving around the poor neighborhoods, you know where these fishermen live, and like hyping this thing up. And then at the actual event, they set up a stage and had a way in just like you'd see to at an off shore tournament. And this was all

pretty cool. Now. The winners of the event, right, get this hauled in a whopping eight hundred and fifteen pounds of discarded plastic. Here's the cool part, right, here's the

cool part. To incentivize this whole thing, Corona offered to pay the same price per kilo of plastic as the fishermen we're getting for a kilo of fish, So that eight hundred and fifteen pounds of plastic ended up being worth fourteen thousand, eight hundred pesos, which is about what these guys would make if they were lucky in a

single month of fishing. Right, So you might say, though, what about the other seventy nine contestants that worked their asses off Corona Roped in Mexico Recicla, the country's largest recycling operation, and all the other contestants sold their haul to them for slightly more in some cases than the going rate per kilo for fish. So in this case, right, the goal was to show these fishermen that you can actually make money fishing for the plastic that is making

it harder for you to catch the fish. Now, right, Will there be a long lasting effect here? Will these guys continue to collect plastic or use that as a means to supplement their fishing income. Who knows, right, that's yet to be seen. But I think the whole model here has play everywhere. Like if you turn something into a competition and it gets people to react, right, and if you can offer real prizes or money, I think it's possible to change attitudes about some of this kind

of work. Like, yes, we all participate in river clean ups here and there, and and you do those things because you care you want to volunteer your time. But this model could almost make this stuff like a lot more fun. I think like people get riled up over a good way in at a tournament, right you tack on a free meal and beer at the end. Fully adopt the fishing tournament model like Corona did down in Mexico,

and I could see this really working. I thought this was extremely cool and I hope it leads to more tournaments. If you will likeness, I do too. I think a couple points one. Turning something like this into a tournament is like you said, it's a fun way to raise awareness. It's a great one off it it gets some attention on the topic. But the broader question I have is

can they turn this into a commodity? And by that, I mean you're saying they were able to sell some of this plastic at a premium rate to this recycling So I'm guessing. I'm guessing they could only do that because the recycling company came down or came over, came from wherever they are, and was there at the event, so they didn't have to worry about the additional shipping costs.

But is there a way to scale this so that people could turn that refuse and the plastic that we want to get out on the oceans into a commodity that's worth their time and effort. That would be something I'd like to see it. Yeah, and certainly this doesn't touch on that. I mean, it's just covering one event, But I mean I think that's sort of what this

is hinting at. But you're right that I don't know, do these guys have the means when Corona is not calling in, you know, the army trucks from the recycling place to get that stuff to them to sell. But I mean it certainly opens up the door to another way of thinking. Yeah, it makes me think there might

be a way to do that. It might. It makes me think that there might be some possibility where if you get the infrastructure right and you get the discarded plastic to the recycling plan and they saw it as valuable, this could be a sustainable model if if someone was able to put that infrastructure in place. I would love to see that that grow. So you know, if you guys are out there and you do that kind of infrastructure work, you should think about picking this up. Well,

I am I'm so proud of Corona. That's such a nice thing they did. I'm gonna go buy another case of their beer this summer and enjoy one. We're gonna hear from Phil uh see, who he deems the winner this week. He's got some choices to make, and then um, right after that, we're gonna you even smarter, and Miles is gonna do a little freaking philistines so that you

guys read more. You need to read more, all right, You guys are really playing nicely into your roles this week, with Miles bringing in the important yet heavy stories about endangered species and the dire state of Florida's Gulf Coast, and Joe bringing in a story about a guy literally writing a sandbox across the water. I can't decide. I can't decide. I know I say this is hard every week,

but this week I mean it. And if I've learned anything about my life so far, it's to just run away from your problems if you can't deal with them. So I've taken inspiration from Joe's story, and I've a fashioned a pontoon out of some empty barrels what most mostly empty barrels of crude oil, And I've attached this outboard motor here and uh, you know, I'm just gonna take this week off. See you guys next week. Don't worry. I promise I'll pick a winner. Okay, what's a fasting.

It's a guy who doesn't care about books or interesting films and things, then unfasting. The book selection this week is called Keeper, a memoir written by Martin Donovan, who worked as a riverkeeper on the River Test. If you've ever heard of the River Test, you know it's one of the most renowned of all English chalk streams, which are perhaps the most famously stuffy and elitist fishing spots

on the planet. Some regard the Test as the birthplace of modern fly fishing, which is to say that a handful of stiff aristocrats wrote books about fly fishing in the late eighteen hundreds that featured this river. If you're up on your fishing history, you might have heard of Frederick M. Halford, whose books at the snooty tone that has plagued fly fishing culture for the past a hundred

fifty years or so. Halford's books also sparked the British nobilities embrace of fly fishing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fishing access in England and much of Europe differs from the states. In Canada, where most water is held in the public trust. Over there, private ownership extends beyond the banks and beds to the water itself and even the fish swimming in that water. Americans find it difficult to comprehend the gulf that separates nobles from

commoners in Britain. I mean, don't get me wrong. Wealth disparities in this country create a huge divide between the rich and poor, but the scope of generational privilege that separates the noblie from the plebeians over there remains at a level we have not yet achieved. We can still fish much of our water, at least so long as we can afford a license. In some basic tackle. Shock streams are different. They flow past vast a stage that sprawl along their banks, and these are usually owned by

some noble family or another. The family hires land managers, who oversee the homes and the grounds and the river. The land management agency then hires a river keeper to maintain the fishery, look after the flora beside and within the stream, and act as host and guide to the various guests that the nobility invites or allows to pay

for the privilege of fishing their beat. Riverkeepers are generally blue collar workers with expansive knowledge of stream ecology, fishing, and social dynamics, who also wear callouses on their hands thick enough to work a shovel in a skythe Though the Uppercross family technically owns their stretch of river, the place belongs to the river keeper. Riverkeepers and their families, if they have them, live full time in the cottages beside their piece of water. They manicure the walking paths

and the swaying clumps of vernunculous weed. They study their beat daily, with guests spotting fish and delicately guiding. They may not own the beat, but they know it more intimately than anyone alive. Riverkeepers often spend their entire careers working one single stretch of water, and then passed that stretch on to their children or other family members. The dream of becoming a keeper transfixes many young anglers, but few actually get to realize how bloody difficult a job

it is. Martin Donovan is one of the gifted and lucky. In the late nineties, when he was just twenty eight years old, he managed to land a job as a riverkeeper on the nursing beat of the River test right near his hometown. A decade later, he wrote a memoir that chipped away the veneer, obscuring the hallowed but mostly unrecorded profession. This is not a scandalous tell all about how horrid the aristocracy are through the eyes of an

everyman hero. It's an honest and often self deprecating book that catalogs his love affair with a river he would otherwise never have been allowed to fish. The mentors that helped get him his opportunity and a title little swath of the myriad strange, awful and wonderful characters with whom he interacted. There are no villains, per se, and if

there is a hero, it's the river itself. I'm gonna give you a couple of samples, first from a chapter where he's trying to find a river keeper job and failing. My first real chance at a keeper's job was, as you can imagine, having waited so long, I was very excited about the possibility. I had one or two very friendly interviews and a tour of the river with the headkeeper,

Bernard Aldrich. He told me that there had been nearly eighty applicants who had been whittled down to a remaining three, who then had to face a final interview with the land agents. In basic terms, land agents act as the grossly overpaid link between the wealthy estate owners and the common man who works their land. On matters of personnel and estate management. They bridge the gap between those two disparate classes of people, thereby cutting out the necessity of

awkward direct communication between his lordship and the riverkeeper. I found myself in front of three rather dour looking men. None of them made eye contact, and my deliberately fixed and confidence smile was therefore wasted. As I settled uneasily into the chair, there was no smiling or welcoming, just a straight, cold stare which seemed to pass right through me. They introduced themselves, but at such speed that I didn't

catch any of their names. I was nervous, but I felt prepared for the interview and was ready for anything they threw at me. The middle one cleared his throat and prepared to fire off his first question. What action would you take if one of your paying rods, let us say, a wealthy well to do. Lady had a

little too much to drink and told you to off. Unfortunately, it was a question I hadn't given much thought to, and I remember thinking that perhaps reading up on the history of the Mount Baton family may have been a waste of time. As the sweat prickled onto my forehead, I wrongly thought that maybe this was the time to give an amusing answer. Well, if she had already given me my tip, then I probably would just golf. I can't be sure, but I think the one on the

right briefly smiled. The other two glanced down at their paperwork with lifeless sculls to remind themselves of my name, so they could quite deliberately put a long pencil line right through it when the interview ended. The second passage recounts Martin's first experience fishing the beat that would later become his home and his first interaction with the man who would become his primary mentor and whom he would

eventually replace. During My Mischievous youth, nursing was considered out of bounds and the wrong side of the water meadows for us test would nippers, Although it was only half mile or so away, We only ventured over once. We came over with our rods and bread and started fishing on a little stretch of water we knew to be private. Fishing on new waters was very exciting, and although we didn't catch anything, we had great fun exploring different parts

of the river. After a couple hours of fruitless casting, we saw a stranger walking down the banks towards us, and we laid flat on the ground, probably thinking that if we couldn't see him, he wouldn't see us. Unfortunately, his eyesight was better than we had hoped, and while giving us a telling off, he reeled in both our lines and told us we were in big trouble. We stood there, apologizing and hoping to God he wouldn't tell

our dads. The stranger told us that we'd have to walk up mill Lane and see the river keeper, who would decide our punishment. It seems quite incredible in this day and age that we actually did walk up to see the keeper, but we were too scared not to. Nowadays, if I catch it the nippers fishing on the river, they usually tell me to ugger off, or they'll call their dad's. When we got to the keeper's cottage, he

was outside saying goodbye to a couple of fishermen. So we stood in silence, heads bowed nervously, waiting to admit

to him that we've been fishing on his river. As the fisherman drove away, he turned towards us, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up in fright before either of us had a chance to speak, he asked us if we had caught anything, and then he told us to make sure we didn't fish on his stretch of river again, or more importantly, didn't get caught fishing on his stretch of river again. With that, he said goodbye and disappeared to the house,

waving as he walked through the door. We stood there for a couple of minutes, looking at each other, not quite knowing what to do. Then the door of the fishing cottage opened again, and his head popped out and asked if there was anything else we wanted. My mate held up his flask and asked if we could have some water. The keeper came back to the gate, took

our flask, and disappeared into the house again. A few minutes later, he returned with a lask and said that he hoped the water was okay because it tasted a little different down Mill Lane, and perhaps we should try it before we left. We thanked him and said it would be fine, and that we really should be getting home. At the bottom of Mill Lane, we stopped and opened the flask, which he had filled with beautiful cold orange juice.

I can remember standing there many years ago, drinking orange juice and thinking, what a kind thing to do, and what a lovely man. That was my first encounter with my second river keeping guru, the legendary Vic Foot. I've said it before, man, I'm fascinated by British fishing culture, but usually not the tweetie chalk stream kind. I've just I don't know, I've never had I never wanted to do it that way, you know. I mean, it never seemed to like grab me to fly over there and

try that. Um like, I want to know more about like baiting, roach, carp and chubb swims, not you know, lord and ladies trout. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. But as I said, this book fascinates me because it splits the world's Yeah, it's it's this window into the blue collar work that keeps all those lord and ladyships in Fish, which I can kind of resonate with. It's not the same as as the guiding culture over here,

which is part of why it was interesting. And I actually hadn't thought about that book for the better part of a decade, and we started working on this Philistines bit and and then I found it as I was looking through my bookshelf and picked it out. And I've forgotten how enjoyable it was. And I think it's because it bridges that sort of cultural gap in a way that that you can relate to. And you're also kind of laughing at those lords and ladies, but you kind

of you turned out liking some of them. You you get it a little more. Well, it's strange that actually works, because I actually did I did something similar for this week's end of the line. I've actually been thinking about covering a particular spoon that is like seared into my childhood memory but seems to have completely this appeared from Fishing's historical records. Well, that's not loud enough this end

of the line. I gotta tell you it's it's really it's like a cry for help, okay, because I don't have all the information. I'm seeking the information from you in a desperate attempt to prove that I'm not crazy, we aren't living in the matrix, and I'm not uncovered like a dark conspiracy. It all starts with the ACME Tackle Company, which all of you are familiar with, whether you know it or not, arn't. Lavelli founded ACME in nineteen fifty two, just three years after he and his

brother formed a jewelry polishing an electroplating company. Lavely took some of the jewelry and bent the shapes to create metal fishing lures. Acme's big break, however, came when Lovely struck a royalty deal with a company called Engineering Design Associates e d A was making a lure and Lovely wanted to handle marketing it. He tweet the design slightly and then gave it a jewelry caliber polish which hadn't been seen on other metal lures of the day, and

the Castmaster was born. ACMEE went on to develop some of the most popular metal lures ever, including the Phoebe, the Sidewinder, and of course the Little Cleo, which is so damned popular it even has its own Wikipedia page. All of those lures are still in production today, made it Acme's facility in Rhode Island, and while I've used all of them my entire life, my fondest memories are of the Acme lure that seems to be an anomaly

or maybe like a glitch in that matrix. When I was a little kid, my family rented a house every summer in Long Beach, Child in New Jersey, and I'd spent hours and hours sitting on the thirteenth Street Bulkhead fishing for little snapper blue fish and barning Get Bay. Now, my grandmother, who used to vacation with us, owned debate and tackle shop, and the lore she'd recommend that I cast every summer for those blues was her number one best selling snapper laure in her shop, the Acme Hippie.

The hippie was only about two inches long, made of thin chrome and kind of being shaped, didn't have much taper, and it was just sort of rounded off at each end like a band aid. As a young impressionable kid that didn't know any better, I assumed every one of the Jersey shore casting for snapper blues was throwing a hippie bolstering this notion was that the best of my recollection.

Every divy little tackle shop and dime store at the Jersey Shore had a card of hippies somewhere near the register, and every summer my Grandma would buy me a couple of new ones early in the vacation. As years passed and I became more proficient and angling, I drifted away from the tiny metal hippie, realizing that Hopkins or cast Masters or crocodile spoons were really all just as effective.

Matter of fact, I hadn't given the old hippie another thought for thirty some odd years until I ended up on a podcast that required me to talk about old lords, and I went a searching. What I essentially found, though it was nothing, it almost appears that they act mee hippie never was. Now. I know that's not true, because I used the damn things for years, and my daddy used them before me. But after searching for it a bunch of different ways, I found only two pieces of

Internet evidence that proved the hippie existed. The first was on an ancient fly by Night tackle website still listing Acme's era Snapper Blue kit. It was of course sold out, but there in the pixelated thumbnail of the product is the hippie. The other hit took me to a Russian tackle site. But when I got there, the photo of the hippie I clicked to get me there was nowhere to be found. Try as I might, I could uncover no history of the hippie. I didn't get a single

hit from a single message board thread discussing it. Nothing. So how could something so widely available for so many years of my life just vanish into the ether? I have one theory, aside from the theory that the Russians

are somehow involved. Could it be that the hippie had too offensive of a name, forcing ACNE to rub it out permanently as the world got more PC don't scoff at that, because when Andrew Grillos is potent dry fly the Hippie Stomper was picked up by Orvis, they thought changing the name to the Hollow Humpy was a smarter move. In reality, I guess the Acme Hippie simply wasn't popular enough in markets outside kids chasing snapper blues and jersey to run with bangers like the Phoebe and Cleo, and

it was just sort of phased out. But considering there are forums and threads and fake news about everything on the planet on the Internet, the lack of hippie content and reference is startling. So please, if you grew up fishing the hippie let me know. Help me figure out whether this was reality or just some weird dream I had, Because I know the truth it's out there. That's all

we have in this week strolled down nostalgia Lane. But for those of you who did irreversible harm to your short term memory in your younger years, here are a few things that were never good ideas. I do not recommend using word blowers for facial piercings. Brad Leone does not recommend sticking your digits in a blue fish face, Martin Donovan does not recommend partying with British Land managers. And Joe does recommend that you help him solve the

mystery of what happened to the hippie spoon. Please I'm going nuts here, okay. I also recommend that you send more awkward photos bar nomination, Salbin items, fish news stories, and lightly used facial jewelry to bent at the meat eater dot com. Drop the hashtags degenerate Angler and Bent Podcast for the chance to win sweet sticker art. Yeah, and don't forget to check out Nikki's Bent Verse bridging playlist on Spotify and let us know who wore the nineties better use ms last b