Ep. 54: This One Time, At Dolphin Camp. . .

damn it. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that overdoes it at Taco Bell and then calls DIBs on top punk. I'm Joe Surmelli a Miles Nulty, and I'm I'm relatively certain that I have not eaten at a Taco Bell since I passed the legal drinking age. Get out of here, almost positive that that's the case. I don't. I don't know that there's like a legitimate correlation there, or if they have anything to do with each other, but I

think that's that's how long it's been. I'm also struggling. I'm I'm like killing time right now. Dude, I have I have, I don't know that I have a whole lot to add to that setup. If I'm being honest, I'm just gonna guess that your theme is farting or black sheep. I don't know. It could be the nacho cheese chloopa, which I still enjoy now. It's neither of those things, though it could have been either one. Either one could have worked. The theme I'm going with this

week is is fish camp. And to clarify, I'm not talking about swank lodges right, Like you and I have both been blessed with the opportunity to stay at some pretty choice lodges over the years. But I'm talking about those trips with a handful of your boys, like all packed into a shitty motel room or a rental cabin or a house. Right, nobody's cooking for you. You're not there to be pampered. You're there to fish and live

in your own filth for a few days. Yeah, I think the difference in our experiences most of mine have involved tents, not permanent structures like everything. When I think of fish camp, it's always either just sleeping out in the dirt or in a tent. But I'm with you, I do love fish camp. Yeah, me too. I don't love camping camping, so that that's why that varies. But anyway, I got this idea because I recently had one of

those trips, and sadly it had been a while. Right, like for many of us listening, those trips are getting harder and harder to pull off, right because, like the one friend you could rely on to vomit in the family room and make you forfeiture, security deposit is now like running the children to ballet practice. Hold on, hold on, I'm gonna say that's another benefit to camping. There is no security deposit. You don't have to worry about that. Just I'm just gonna put that out. You got me there.

But there's also not a shower, which is important to me. Um. But you know that guy, he just doesn't have time to be the guy that doesn't end up fishing on day one anymore. You know, he's too hungovers. So such as life. But before I tell you about my recent crashpad adventure, what was your favorite fish campaign? I know you've been on many. That's a hard one, man, I there are lots like I kind of want to wax poetic on on the oh the days when I was running Spike Camps as a guide. But I'm not gonna

do that. I think I'm gonna focus on There was this this golden run in my late twenties that happen every year. I would quit my winner job whatever it was like six weeks before guide season would start, and I just I just packed the truck, I grabbed the dog, and I'd go. And there was this crew of three good fishing buddies who would join for at least part sometimes all of that trip. And I don't know. We did that for like I want to say, five straight years,

just just exploring all over the Mountain West. We'd like find new places we'd never fished every year, but we'd also go back to favorite places. And it was it was fantastic. It was it was like, uh, as I said, a golden time, right, and and you'd have these I know you have this right. We'd we'd run into what

I like to call single serving friends. When you're on the road, right and there are people you have no desire to stay in touch with, but they make those stories of those nights or days or however long he's been with them, and and you and your crew can can always talk about remember that dude we ran into in that parking lot and he gave us to that one. He's like, yeah, try this bait, and then we wound up drinking the hoops that he made in his bath and you get to hold onto those even though you're

never gonna see those people again. And so we had a lot of those, and we caught a lot of big fish. So those that's my favorite fish camp memory, smattering, I I think my best ever, which yours is better. But it was in Louisiana, and for transparency, it was actually an industry gig with Sims and Coasta. It just happened that all the people they invited were like really good friends of mine that I fished with. That's nice separately, right,

It just turned out that way, um. And they rented a house sight unseen in the Lower ninth Ward, not too far from the French Quarter. And it was weird because the place was immaculate and totally renovated, but like the house next door was partially burned down. Like it was a very that's very New Orleans. It's a very odd thing, um. And we would just get lit up. We caught a bunch of tuna, huge redfish, grilled food. Someone in the neighborhood like died of an overdose out front.

It was just good hangs, just wild times in that house, Uh, Philip, it coming on. You know what else I hear is a wild time, Joe, tell me catching fish on the thirteen fishing truro, which I just did yesterday. Actually it

is a wild time and thanks for bringing that up. Yes, so you know right the truro is thirteens version of like the very popular paddle tail swim bait right now, It's what everybody has one um and thus far I've only thrown them for Smalley's, but I appreciate the design very much right there, not uh straight copycat baits like other companies have pumped out. The body has three joints that allow it like flutters on the paws, and I've

seen it. I know it does this. And they have um like a pretty snazzy keel design that keeps them horizontal. They do they do uh croppy and panfish like to grab the tail and shake it, but they can't. They don't get the hook. Just in case you're wondering that only the bass in the northerns do that. Let's not forget though that the part of the reason that all these fish want to consume them is that they're slathered

in donkey sauce. Donkey sauce, which we like to slather all over this show as much as possible because we love thirteen and they sponsor us. Anyway, you were all of this, I think along your theme is because you recently spent some time in a modern day fish camp, a modern day version of fish camp, right and and I know all about this, I know where it was, I know you were with, But why don't you tell

all of all the people out there? Give him the story? Yeah, so this was in Ohio and I was there to film the final episode of doss Boat season three, right and now we were chasing some walleyes doing a little cat fishing. But we rented this monster of a house with a pool game room. They had freaking asteroids, pool table, the works. Right now. Granted it was old, like the whole place looked like it had been pieced together in the early nineties. But for like five straight days I

got to hang with some really fishy people. My old buddy and uh, a friend of me will say of the show, Ross Robertson was one of them, Um, but I was. I was hanging with with dudes I consider legends. Photographer Brian Gregson, he's our boy. Filmmaker are a body who is a good friend of yours. Both of those guys I consider good friends, and I'm lucky to have known them for as long as you have. And uh, look, I'm happy for you, all right. I want to say that I am very happy. I know you guys had

a great time. I know that good, good things happened. But I am pretty jealous. I know it's also true. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not jealous of the walleye. You guys couldn't have. Fine, you and you and Ross can go have your walleye, but the hanging out and fish can't have the bullshit and the good people the cat fishing. I'm jealous all that. I am confident, however, that good things are going to come out of that trip, even though I wasn't there. Yes, and like I said,

you were missed. We we poured one or five out for you. Um. And then in your honor, I set up the mics and decided to channel some of that storytelling gold into segments for the show, right, so let's move. Let's let's move into smooth moves where you guys know, we let guides, captains, anybody really in the fishing industry these days bitch about dumb or weird things their clients

have done right. And this will be the first installment you'll hear from what I'm calling the dost Boat Ohio Sessions. And since he's the director of DOS Boat, we'll kick it off with the aforementioned are a bat Why so sitting with me here in Ohio, UM while filming DOS Boats Season three filmmaker extraordinary are a BIATI? You said you just woke up from a nap. You were napping downstairs? Was not napping? Because we're working so well, I trying

to cover. We're between things happening, so you don't get in trouble in this um. It's kind of like a flophouse. I'd call it that we're in. Yeah, we're in this really bizarre little beach house and we well we I mean, look, we've been on the road now for two weeks, UM, and you've been seeing what we're doing. We go super early. Yeah, we got a bed weight and so one of our models is, uh, you know, you sleep when you can, Yeah, exactly, And so I was just, yeah, catching up on a

little little and to wake yourself up. You've got yourself a cold bush light, just a little bush light for the farmers. So I'm looking at the notes about the guest. My producer gave me it. Since here, you pretty much invented fly fishing videos, Is that accurate? Yeah? Yeah, man,

just just invented I think videos in general. Right, yeah, moving pictures, was like, we should make these pictures move But no, seriously, man, like you you have done so much on the video side, I mean, like pioneering things. You also a fishing guide for a while, right, I was a fishing guide growing up, um through high school

and college. But you know, we were kind of in the right place at the right time, which is a lot of which is a lot of luck, right, um, in terms of you know, really surfing, skateboard, skiing, snowboarding, like had gone through these media like explosions and media growth, and so fly fishing you know, took place in a lot of places where those activities happened. Therefore a lot of people were inspired by that content. And just so you don't just shoot fly fit, you shoot all kinds

of things. You're not just like the fly dude, right, Yeah, No, I mean we that's kind of where we cut our teeth. Yeah. When I say we, you know I have to. I can't just say I because I always worked with so many really great people. Um, but you know, you had a bunch of young fishing guides who grew up skiing and skateboarding and you know that stuff and watching this media, and it was like, why don't we have that right?

Why don't why why don't we have content that's more like lifestyle based in fun and exciting, um, you know, because you gotta remember fly fishing back then was like there was a lot of tweet right yeah, and like a river runs through and I just come out and people are like, oh my god, this is amazing. And it started to show this like other side and it's like so yeah. So there was actually an explosion right when we started making content. Um, it was pretty cool.

You have like probably six to ten different people with the same vision and they all started making content within like a year or two. Yeah, and then that blew up into like tom By the Drake magazine. You know, there were so many people making content almost overnight. Well so many it was like ten people. But that they're like, oh, let's have this event and let's let's make the five

minutes of fly fishing video. What Tom had come from Powder magazine, right, So it's it's basically we just mimicked what what you're seeing in the other sports. Yeah yeah, well dude, seriously, mean, I've been watching your stuff for many, many years, and it's it's very cool that like you like you spend today pointing a camera at me, and I'm like, here's the thing I never thought would happen with man, But this has been this has been a very fun week. Um. But I mean, so we're doing

smooth moves here, you know what that's all about? You could you could throw a smooth move from something you've seen while while film while guiding. You could go a lot of different directions. So I'm very I'm curious because I don't know. I don't know, like what's going to happen here. But the floor is yours. Man, make us laugh, make us WinCE, make us vomit. I don't know, so

lots of stories. I think the one that I have not told before that like exclusive I'm thinking through how I can tell it and be very sensitive to different people involved. But basically, when I was a young fishing guide in the Roaring Fork Valley, um, like I said, we're just coming out of like a river runs through it. And so fly fishing had ballooned almost overnight into this

activity that like everybody had to do when they're on vacation. Yeah, and so you've got you know, everyone's like, wow, we're gonna be We're gonna be in the mountains. So we have to go rafting, and we have to go horseback riding, and we have to go fly fishing and like these old boxes and so we did a lot of a lot of that, and so a byproduct is you just got a ton of characters all the time from all over the country, over the world, just tons of transient

people trying fly fishing. So one morning we had some folks from the South and they showed up, you know, heavy accents, and they wanted to try out fly fishing. And so I had a gentleman who owned probably one of the biggest NASCAR race courses or like race facilities. I'm not going to name the exact one, but it was in the South, and there's you know there's been some funny movies made about that course the track, but uh so, anyway, we had this. We had this gentleman

and uh he called me boy. You know, He's like, hey boy, because I mean I was twenty yeah. Nice and he's he was an older gentleman. He's like, hey boys, like, why don't you come over here and not help me? How do I set up this flywer thing over here? And like super nice guy but uh, you know, very very southern um And so I had these had him. I think I had his like his brother m a

or somebody. We're fishing get him set up, and I'm downstream helping his brother and he's he's hooting and hollering at me and yell and he's like he's very excited all of a sudden, and he's motioning and he's like he's like, hey boy, you gotta a dot. I can't really hear him and through like the moment, like like the rumble of the river, and I'm like, and so I'm kind of I'm like, what do you like? What's going on? What? I'm like, what's up? But he's like,

what do you need? He's like, boy, He's like okay, I get your net ready, it's coming down. He's like, grab your neck, get ready, and I'm like, I have no idea what's happening. And he's kicking and he's shuffling and he's moving around. He's like, Okay, here it comes. It's coming down, and he's really animated. I'm really excited

about this, and I have no idea what's happening. And this there's all this mud and you know, bugs and all this stuff flowing down the stream towards us, and we're like fifty maybe down below him, and I start to see like something, there's like a bunch of color coming through the water, and um, this big pink shape starts to kind of emerge, and I thought, maybe, oh, maybe he's dropped something. Maybe he drops his water bottle,

like I don't know. So anyway, I have my net ready and this big pink object flows through and I dip my net and grabbing come up and it's just a big vanny mustard. I mean, like just a baby arm of a of a dildo, and I mean the kind of takes like four D batteries, Like oh wow, he's got and stuff like this is a big one that's like three oh one level. You don't buy that when your first time, and was super bummed when they lost it right there, like it wasn't cheap and so

and so I'm standing there. Wait before you go on, though, did he legitimately think you think he had a fish? Like he he? No? I think he was Okay, So it was stuck in some rocks by his feet, and he knew like he could see it, and he was really excited about what he had found. And then he wasn't on his rod. He wasn't. No, that would have been amazing, got it. I imagine I was imagining it until we clare Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I should have Yeah, I should have died. I should have just lied and

said he actually hooked it. No, he no, he was really excited about this and he didn't want it. He wanted to get it and wanted me to net it and like didn't want it to escape. Right. So anyway, I he's still really excited. He's like, oh boy, oh boy, let's see that thing. And you know, I like walk up to him and I showed it to him and it's sitting in the net and he's looking at it and he's like, oh, boy, could you imagine how big it would be if it wasn't in all that cold,

cold water. So then uh so, anyway, so he had his prize and he was shaking it around and stuff. Yeah, and so what he did is, you know, he'd shove in the top of his waiters and he was walking around. And so throughout the course of the day, we're walking along this river trail and there's a ton of people from Aspen, you know, like look like little yoga people running around, bikers and like all the beautiful people are

like out recreating and being healthy. Everyone's super nice, right, and so as you're walking, as they're coming by, they're like, oh, hey, boys, how's everything going. He catching new fish today? And every single one he would be like, yeah, well got this, and he'd reach in and tuck it and pull it out and and shake this big pig dog around and uh and I was like, I was like, dude, we're gonna they're gonna call the cops. So anyway, that's probably my Did you get a good tip that day for

that net jab? Just the tip, just the tip boom, We're out a segment done right there. You know, this is true at the fish camp I mentioned earlier we like to fish as one stretch of river that paralleled a pretty busy trucking highway. You couldn't see the river for most of it, but it was right there. You could hear while you're fishing, could hear the trucks going by, and uh. On more than one occasion, I found sex toys circling in an eddy like right beside brown trout

sipping delicate mayflies. It was. I haven't used that anywhere, but the metaphor always struck me as potent. It's gonna end up in something I write one day, I know, yeah, yeah, And I gotta say I'm a little I'm a little surprised that took us this long to run into a dildo related story and smooth moves like that was that was inevitable. But well, that one was a ringer. Yeah, but that's just it, right. It's not like we haven't

heard others. It's not like nobody else has has thrown one out there, but it's mostly just been you know, like I found one, well, like you know, of course you found one who hasn't, or you get the dudes who are like my buddy rigged one and caught a fish with it, which, in my opinion, that's a cry for attention, like you're trying too hard when you do that. I have I've already given my opinion on penis shape

lures solidly opposed. We don't need to revisit that was ironically though, we're going too later, whether you know it or not, but just ironically great, well, we all have that to look forward to on our a story. Of the reason I like that there the image that six of me is the guy parading around holding onto that thing in an as spin. That's that's what I appreciate about that story, is that the backdrop and the way

that he treated it. Hopefully I'll be able to parade another victory trophy around Bozeman this week when I beat your ass in that weekly competition we call fish news fish news. That escalated quickly quick bit of sad kind of bummery news before we get started here, So we just don't you're horning in on my territory, Smellie, sad news. Is I own the sad news in fish news, not you. That's my that's my world. Sorry, how dare how dare?

I said, without running it by first anyway, So we just covered ho Jack's Bar and grill, and that's my bar, remember dirty Wing Joint in New York, in New York's mud Shark territory. So several people hit me up to alert me that according to Google, it's closed permanently. Oh no, another another COVID casualty I that I could not figure out why it was closed. Um, but so I really wanted to go there, right And their website is still active, but it appears not to have been updated since very

late last winter. So um. You know. We also had a guy right in and say that was a disservice because like those wings will like clear you out, you know what I mean, Like you eat too many of those particular wings. So I don't know what the real story is, but we may never find out. So I just thought i'd bring that up case in case anybody was car tripping across the country right now, like headed

there for those wings, turn around, okay, go somewhere else. Um, and if anyone has another suggestion for good wings and perhaps a good garbage plate, which they had at ho Jack's up there in the Salmon Belt, let us know you're familiar with the garbage plate, you know, you have something similar in Hawaii. I think it's your plate lunch where they just take like burgers and dogs and put them on a plate and then smother them with like gravy and all kinds of let's not playing for bigger

genre food. You're thinking about the Loco Moco continue, That's what I was thinking. Anyway, They had garbage plates at the at the hoe Jacks, so I have to find a new place for them. Also, we definitely had some interest in the rosary bead split shot stick from that one. That one kind of hit right, so all I can say, right now, right, we'll we'll work on it, we'll, we'll see um. But we even had a few great suggestions, like like one dude said the cross should be a

snag hook waited snag hook, not our and jarn. And then I had a fan reach out on instant he was like, I'm a pastor and a religious authority and I approved that sticker. So that's like a ringing in dar right there. So I like the one guy who wrote in and said, uh, you know, you guys have to get an actual Catholic to do the art on that, otherwise I'm going to be offended. I thought that was

I thought that was pretty funny. Well, if anybody out there is a nun or a deacon that happens to be crafty, crafty with sharpie, I'm sure you're I'm sure you're listening to Bent and you write in so I don't know. We'll see see if we can make that work. I hope. So, I hope it comes together. And Uh. In the meantime, we have some some actual business to attend to, because it is time for fish News. Just

so you're all aware, this is a competition. Joe and I do not know what stories the other person is bringing, and we are competing for I would say the adoration of our our Caesar, shall we call him the audio Engineer? Uh? This week, Joe is up first. Uh. And then I'm gonna I'm gonna back clean up. So what do you got, Joe? Yeah, So a bunch of you find folks forward to this story along, and I thank you for that because it's giving me a reason to ship on trolling, which we

all know is something I really enjoy personally. Um. And by now, I'm sure a lot of you have caught wind of the ne State record King Salmon caught in Michigan. But seriously, I don't think I've ever gotten this much of a kick out of a state record story before. Okay, so here's what happened, and we're gonna we're gonna reverse engineer a little bit, all right. So on Saturday August seven, nineteen year old Louise Martinez boarded ice breaker Charters in Luddington, Michigan,

with his family. By seven thirty am, Louise had put a forty seven point eight six pound king salmon on deck, breaking the previous state record of forty six point zero six pounds, which had stood since nineteen seventy eight. A right, so old record, right, yeah, like double his eight Yeah,

exactly right. So this catch, of course just totally thrilled d n R. Because the fish was in really great shape, right, They got great samples from it to study, and according to those guys in the story, like this really says some pretty positive good things about the hell of the salmon population in Lake Michigan, and in particular their food source. Right to grow in that big they gotta be eating good. So it was it was like sort of all positive

this catch, right. So those are those are the basic facts. But what makes this story awesome. Is Louise himself right? The first time the kid ever bought a fishing license was the night before this trip, Okay, so he did not angle, and the story says that this was the first time he was ever salmon fishing. But I think there's like some miscommunication here because I wouldn't be surprised based on how they're playing up that that he only bought the license the night before this might have been

his first time fishing period. So there's a little conflict in there, but regards maybe like he went when he was a kid before he had to biolys could be yes, right, So he just bought this license Friday night on the boat Saturday. So in the shot back of the dock, which I'll post in my Instagram story this week, Luise looks like he could kind of not give a shit, okay, And dare I say, like, be happier in front of a computer with a headset on than fishing. Now, listen

before you jump on me and say, well that's not fair. Okay. Here are some quotes from Louise from the story. Okay, first one ringer, I honestly fell asleep the whole way until my mom said, you're up, and I was like what. They handed me the fishing pole. Fishing pole, and I started reeling the thing in. So that was the first one. Right away. I was like, oh, he was sleeping. They were trolling. There we go next quote. The first ten

minutes were tiring. My arms were sore. I was ready to give up, but my mom was yelling, don't give up. Keep reeling it in. Right, Okay, these are yeah, and then here comes the clincher. The fish started to jump out of the water. You could see it, and they were like excited because it was huge. I was like, it's just a fish. There's nothing special about it. At least that's what I thought. So people people are comparing this to winning the lottery, which I get and I

would say is accurate. Right, you bought a license to night before you go out on a boat and like bang state record King. I just think it's funny because like the gravity of the situation, I think is is really kind of lost on him, you know what I mean.

It was like, yeah, cool, okay, Like I don't know, imagine fish, Yeah, Like I imagine that this is how like Phil would behave in this situation and I mean like impossible to wake up that morning, like I don't want to go fishing, sleeping in the wagon Queen family truck, stir on the way to the dock, and then just curling up on the bench seat of the boat and going back to sleep. Um anyway, So final thought for debate,

because this story illustrates something I've always thought very well. Right, So, in my opinion, the person and who should get credit for breaking the forty three year old record is the captain of the boat, not the guy that reeled it in. Because in trolling scenarios, especially like this, where clients are just being handed the rod, the boat is catching the fish, the captain is finding the fish and choosing the lords. And personally, like I rag on trolling all the time.

It's not that I don't ever do it, but the only time I feel like I'm part of the victory when trolling is when I'm actively working and like setting that spread like intuna trolling, I want to be dirty and you know, rigging the vally who and deciding how far back this will go and how far back that will go, so that when something gets bit like you feel like your intuition and knowledge helped make that happen, right, But just recently so where we were filming dost Boat

in Ohio with my boy Ross Robertson, and he put us on some really nice wall eyes he always does. I credit him with the biggest walleye I ever reeled in, was with him years ago, super dialed super out and I appreciate that so much. But he he noticed that bite, you know what I mean, he grabbed that rod, he handed it to me. I reeled and followed instructions. You know, so nice fish. But did I catch that fish? I don't think I did. Like if that had been a

record fish Ross caught that fish. I just I just reeled it in. So happened to be holding the rod, and I just happened to the rod. So not taking anything away from Luis, although maybe like a tiny bit just because it's funny, because I don't think he wanted. I don't think he wanted to be there anyway, Okay, But I mean I just always get a chuckle out of these trolled records in a lot of these scenarios because it's like, man, you just happen to be there,

It's exactly right. So we're just the warm body on the crank that's correct, which which requires very little skill, like maybe a little bit of endurance, Like, oh, you had to reel it in for ten minutes. I'm so sorry for you, but like there's no skill there. Yeah, I mean, look, and I'm not taking away I mean a forty seven pound king that's going to huge, right,

that's a huge king. But even then, I mean, when you're in a charter boat scenario, you know you got at least a captain maybe a mate too, doing the same thing, telling you, like real slower, real faster, moving over here, point your ride this way, do this, do that, and as long as you were listening and following instructions, chances are you're gonna land it, you know. So I just think about that stuff when you know there's so many guys out there they're like really chasing something that

would kill to be the guy that that has the state. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think right now this is a great moment for me to admit that I saw this story in about eighty different places and I never read it. Oh and and this was like, I'm so glad you did, because I looked at that I was like, this is there's nothing here, There's no there there, and I'm gonna I know, I'm admitting that I'm wrong right now. I want to apologize to all the listeners who sent it

to me, like, dude, you gotta check this out. And I just made an assumption that was totally incorrect, that this was not like record cool. Well do we skip over a lot of record stories, a lot of roodcasts. We do fish news. There's some kind of record horseshit every week. Most of them is like guy went caught it, and that's what I assumed. So when you never read it, but I'm so glad you did, because this those quotes

were absolutely old, and I can only imagine. I haven't dug into it, but I can only imagine the anger and the victual and the fighting going on between people who are like that kid didn't deserve that fish. I've been drying my whole I can only imagine. And that's what makes for a lot of our good banter. Right. We talk a lot about disagreements between anglers, or factis angling, right, Like fishing culture just has all these layers of confrontation,

some of which are healthy and fun. Like our constant good natured walleye bashing. Others are more annoying, like the superiority complex that fly fish. It's even the ones who suck like really cling to as an entity, and and others are actually destructive, like the obnoxious social media battles. Right that we talked about that. But there's one thing that brings most of us together. Dolphins. Just about everybody

loves a dolphin, and and why wouldn't you dolphins? You can, you can go ahead and do that, but you're you're in the minority because dolphins are like smart, curious. I'm spending two US on gas and I'm off sure. I'm like, there's ship busted everywhere there. I'm on the bow, I'm on the pulpit, I'm out on the pulpit with a popping rod, and it's like it's dolphins. God damn it. Anyway, I'm sorry, God, that's okay. You can have that opinion, but you're a getting I think you will recognize that

you're in the minority. I mean, dolphins are like aquatic puppies. Just about everybody like, like, there are a few people out there who hate puppies, and I think they're equal to the dolphin. Haters. If I had to guess, I personally, I don't agree with you because I've seen I've seen lots of dolphins in my life. I've swam with dolphins, I've surfed with dolphins. I've I've watched them ride god knows how many bow wakes. I've even had them steel fish off my line, and they still make me happy

every single time. And I think that most people can agree with that. Do you ever see one with your kids on the beach and you're like, look, kids, there's a dolphin but they don't ever see it because it's only rolling every once in a while, and like it goes from cute to like angry. I'm like, look right there, keep looking, don't there was? Did you see it? And they're like, now, I didn't see anything, Like just sorry,

you're getting me going on dolphins and he were. At some point, We're gonna have to dig into your dolphin hate. But I'm still confident that you were in the minority. But I recently learned something about dolphins that I never knew before. Are you familiar with mud ring feeding? Uh? Yes, that's where they get up real shallow right different, But we'll we'll cover we'll cover off on that one too, like that's they're gonna rein. But I think of like

it's a tactic. They still okay exactly, And and and dolphins have all kinds of creative and interesting feeding techniques. They've come because they're smart. And I'm sure you've seen video. And the one that you're talking about, uh, is called

strand feeding. Right when you get this whole group of dolphins and they push bait fish upshallow and they actually create their own bow wave that throws bait fish up onto the sand, and then the dolphins throw themselves up just enough on land to eat the fish, and then they can kind of scoot back into the water. They also do something called crater feeding, where they swim along the bottom and they send out those sound waves in order to echo locate. They can actually echo locate prey

that's hiding under the surface of the sand. And then when they find when those hidden nuggets, they swim up a little, they get ahead of team, and they plunge their beaks down in the substrate and come up with their snack, and they leave behind these big craters in the bottom. Is why it's called creator feeding. They've also got this other behavior with the the highly technical name of quote fish whacking, where they use their flippers to knock bait fish into the air and then spin back

around and consume the stun prey. But maybe the coolest and most cooperative dolphin feeding behavior is mud ring feeding. This is first observed in the Florida Keys and then written up for the first time a few years later, and it goes like this. A group of bottle nosed dolphins finds a school of baitfish, almost always mullet, on a shallow flat. One of the dolphins then starts swimming rapidly in a wide circle, keeping its tail near the

bottom and kicking up a plume of mud. That dolphin accelerates and closes the circle, and it creates like a mud plume enclosure with the bait fish inside, and upon being caught in what is essentially like a mud pen, the bait fish try to escape by jumping out where the pot of dolphins is waiting to catch them with open mouths. It's pretty cool. It's it's definitely worth looking up on YouTube the next time you're bored. I have either seen this on Blue Planet or buil Dance saltwater.

It was one or the other, I don't remember. I sure hope it was build out. But but here's how this counts as as fish news actually newsy. Since this feeding behavior was first recorded twenty two years ago, it's

only ever been seen in Florida. Dolphins are known to have localized fishing tactics, certain behaviors that a group of dolphins in one area figured out and then they passed down through the generations, and mud ring feeding has up until now, remained totally unique to the dolphins that are in and around Florida, But researchers recently observed bottlenose dolphins in Belize doing the same thing, and this appears to

be a totally new behavior for this population. Now, my first assumption upon reading this was that some dolphin from Florida, like got a wild hair, maybe gotten in some trouble with its Floridian pod, and just bailed the belieze. But it turns out I don't I don't know very much about dolphins, because I was completely wrong. They don't do that. They don't just bail out and go to a different Yet, researchers hypothesized that the Belize dolphins figured out the strategy

on their own. They're not just biting the style of their Florida cousins, like like high school kids from Michigan after spring break. Since Belize has significant mud flat habitat much like parts of Florida, it makes sense that the dolphins might independently discover that they can crawl bait by

stirring at the mud in a circular motion. I for one, am no fan of mullet when I'm flats fishing, and so I'm I'm hoping that dolphins worldwide start figuring out how to just kill them on the flats, and that I someday get to observe this phenomenon in person while I'm sidcasting to either tarpan or Jack's standing on a flat. That's what I hope. Why the mullet hatred. What's wrong with some mullets up on the flats? I mean, I

think you know as well. They're they're the most unpredictable, neurotic fish out there, and you're you're stocking up on whatever, like your jack's or your bone fish or whatever it is, and then all of a sudden, some mullets is like it goes flying out of the water and spooks everything within within the area, like the fish that you're just trying to get up on for no reason. You didn't do anything to that mullet. They just throw themselves out of the out of the water for no reason, to

freak everything out. I I know that happens. I don't know if that's ever happened to me specifically, because I feel like, yeah, like bone fishing and stuff I've always done in in like Abaco or Turks and Caicos, and I feel like there were no mullet there on those flats. That has happened to be more times than I can count. But I mean seeing it in Louisiana where you're going skinny for Red's and it's like, mullet, mullet, mullet, Oh four hundred mullet just went into the sky. We need

to go over there over there. So I don't know, I don't share the same hatred for mullet those dolphins. You like mullet but hate dolphins. I think that that puts you in a very unique category. No, I think it's just it's just a difference in what we do. Like in the in the the the salt seen over here, dolphins can either throw you off, like you'll burn some gas chasing dolphins because you you just mayhem out in the distance and you think it's stripers or whatever. Done that.

And I've also been in scenarios where like you're on a good bunker pod and you know you're marking bass or something underneath it, and the dolphin has just come in and it's like, wow, that's done. Now, you know, I've never had that happen. The other one, I've definitely chased down dolphin thinking oh, something going on over there, but I've never happened. I'll tell you. And I don't know if you've experienced this, even though I know you've

been there. The scariest, meanest, most asshole dolphins are the freshwater pink dolphin. But I also love them. I think they're kind of amazing. I thought they were super neat until I'm like, I just want to release this nice peak hot bass that after all the fight and all the fun it's given me, I just wanted to go back to its home. And they you want to talk about correlation between puppies and dolphins, those things were like dogs, man Like, they would not go away. They were like

dogs begging at a dinner table. Almost the entire time, there were one or two of those pink dolphins around our boat and they would come take your hand off at the wrist if you let them, like they were aggressive, you let it, peacock go. I have video where we're like, please please get back to the roots, SNAr a little fish, and like just pink dolphins blowing them up out of the water. So I have some of that video myself. Yeah, yeah, so pink dolphins. Yeah, dolphins. Hey, let us know you

love them or hate him. I don't know. They're okay. Even when I was a kid, Like, somebody give me a shark coloring book and a dolphin and whales coloring book. I'm like, I don't want the dolphin and whales coloring. What's wrong with you? I don't want that. What's wrong with you? I have no transition whatsoever to this story. I've been struggling to think on it. Uh, there's there's no there's no clear connection. So I'm just gonna get

into it. Um. This one comes from the Banger Daily News, uh main for those of you who don't know where Banger is, and it sets up an interesting debate. Okay, So, according to this story by Bob Mallard, Maine is poised to receive four point five billion dollars from the Federal American Rescue Plan designed to help states recover from losses

due to the COVID nineteen pandemic. Okay, Now, three point two billion of that goes into COVID testing, vaccinations, unemployment benefits like super COVID directly related things, Okay, But it leaves an extra one point three billion sort of just hanging out there, which can be used. According to the story, However, Governor Janet Mills sees fit and she says she's gonna put that money into the main Jobs Recovery plan to

help boost the economy. But she's already earmarked twenty million of this taxpayer money to quote modernized to fish hatcheries and install upgrades at all eight of the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife hatcheries. Right. So Mallard, who's is pretty well known guide, outdoorsman and writer, right, he's been around um, is asking is that really what we should be doing with that money? And if so, is that

fair to the non fishing masses. Right? So, Mallard says that the wildlife and Fisheries Department claims recreational fishing brings million to the state economy annually. But then he did other research with the Federal Reserve that shows Mains gross state product was sixty six point two billion, And I'm sorry for the numbers, but they have to be there. It matters, right, And so what that means is that recreational fishing represents less than one half of one per

cent of the total gross state product. So then Bob goes on to say that there's a press release that claims there were three licensed anglers in Maine, and that's residents and non residents combined, but the real number was more like two. If that's true, he says, if you do of the math and look at Mains one three million residents, less than fift percent held a license in So what he thinks is that this is a reaction.

This this this money going to hatcheries is a reaction to the bumping license sales in which a lot of states saw, right, we don't need to beat that to death. There were a lot more anglers out there, a lot more licenses sold. Um. But he brings up the argument,

which is a fair one. I think he says like, hey, can we bank on those people year after year, or as the pandemic slowly fades out and people get back to work in a little bit more normal life and so on, will they be there Because twenty million is a pretty big investment in like sort of an uncertain future in that department. Right, So I'll wrap this up with with a quote from the story, and this is sort of drives his his his problem with all this

home Mallard Rights. Most disappointing was mills statement that hatcheries were at the core of mains fisheries. This statement is misleading, dangerous, and somewhat self serving because the state government does the stocking. The idea that stocking is the most important component of Maine's recreational fisheries completely ignores what Maine is best known for,

wild native fish. So to promote the stocking of hatchery raised fish, many of which are non native over wild native fish, including some found primarily or solely in Maine, is a disservice. And we've certainly covered issues in Fish News before with problems that Maine has had with non native species. So I don't know, I grabbed this because, like to some you could hear, oh, man, that's great, they're gonna put Main's gonna put all this money into

into fishing. But here's the guy who's pretty hard core angler, pretty plugged in, and I actually see some of his points. Is that the best use of that money? Right now, I think I actually agree with him. I kind of think I do too. Instead of hatcheries, if that money had been earmarked for habitat restoration, right, I don't. I think it would be an easier argument to support, Yeah, because that has a broader based value for more citizens.

When you're talking about hatcheries, you're really just talking about the people who want to go fishing and keep fishing, right, So yeah, I think I think that's a pretty salient point the thing. And this is not not really germane to your story. It's sort of a sidebar. But only fient of Main residents hold a license. Shocking. That's according that's according to his math. Yeah. I mean, I'm just going by by his research and what stats he had in the story. But I mean, regardless, I mean I

get the point that he's making. You know, a lot of states make this claim, and it makes you wonder what the government agency says oh, well, this state makes so this much money off fishing per year. But do you really know that? Is that inflated? Is that padded out? You don't really know. But at face value, I mean you see it in a press release like Maine to spend twenty million on fishing, you know what I mean, Like it's it's very easy. I think for some fishing

folks be like, oh, good for them, that's good. That's yeah, stimulus money going doing the right things and the right stuff. But when you really break it down, it's like, ah, I don't know, we're better. They could do better with that. I think the same thing here with Jersey, like do we need to redo all our fish hatcheries like they're making fish and supporting what everybody needs for the stock er season in the spring, Like that would would that be the best use of similar money here? No, I

don't think it would. So just kind of puts a different spin on some some Covidy stuff and it gets I like, I like how he's thinking, I like how he's questioning. Yeah, I know that sounds like a really interesting piece. Um, I have zero connective tissue between that, we had none. No, that's not my first transition was seamless. Okay, it was. That was good. That was there. But I'm just gonna follow up on something from previous Fish News.

That's what I'm about to do. I'm following up in the story I told a few weeks ago about Josh Jorgensen, also known as black tip h and the very large tarpan that he caught in the Pacific. In that segment, I said, I wanted to dig deeper into that population of fish without having to cover questionable handling. World records are angry. YouTube commentary Well, today, listener Ben Kurth sent me some additional reading on the topic of tarban in the Pacific. But before I get into that, let's do

a quick recap. Over the past few decades, anglers on the Pacific side of southern Central America and northern South America have been encountering tarpan, which initially caused quite a stirb but is becoming more commonplace. The researchers know how the fish got there. Some controversy remains over whether the fish are migrants, if they're reproducing, and impact they're having on the ecosystem. In the video, we talked about Jorgensen and his guide refer to the tarpan they catch as

quote invasive, a loaded and possibly inaccurate term. I wanted to dig in and better understand this population of fish and what we do and don't know about them. When anglers talk about tarpan, they're talking about Atlantic tarpan. There is another species called Indo Pacific tarpan, but they're not a primary sport fish and they don't get nearly as big.

Atlantic tarpin have historically been found in well, the Atlantic, and they've been happily cruising around in that one ocean, munching on baitfish and gulping air for about a hundred and thirteen million years. Just over a century ago. In nineteen fourteen, the Panama Canal was completed, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the isthmus of Panama. Tarpan we're first spotted in the Pacific locks of the Panama Canal in the late nineteen thirties, and then ten years later

large adults were identified swimming around in Panama Bay. They have slowly spread up and down the coast and are now found from Guatemala to the Columbia Ecuador border, with large adults becoming more and more common in the southern part of that range, which is where Jorgensen caught his fish.

The most recent comprehensive study that I could find about this topic was published in twenty nineteen in the journal Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries, and after reading that study and a number of other sources, both research based and anecdotal, I feel like I have a better grasp on the situation. There is no doubt that tarpan have migrated through the canal. Interestingly enough, concern over aquatic species, specifically sea snakes, migrating from the Pacific to the Caribbean,

almost prevented the canal from being built. Biologists ultimately concluded that sea snakes couldn't survive the passage because of much of the canal's fresh water. They were correct. The sea snakes never made it through, but other species have. Tarpaner thought to be the first fish that successfully traversed the fifty miles of saline, brackish and fresh water and then came out the other side. Studies have shown that adult tarpan have plenty of suitable habitat and forage in the Pacific,

so why haven't they just taken over that coast. To answer that, you gotta look at reproduction. We know tarpin are moving through the canal, but are they successfully spawning. Juvenile tarpin as small as seventeen centimeters have been found in a few places, but in fifty years of sampling, no tarp and larvae have been found on the Pacific side. They have, however, been detected at the locks on the

Atlantic side. It's possible the juveniles or larva are making their way through the canal, but it seems pretty unlikely. So the question remains, what's going on tarpin. Our broadcast spawners the adults gathering in these big groups several miles offshore, and they mixed the milt and the eggs and and then the fertilized larva. Then ride wind and currents inshore, and they're looking for brackish canals and lagoons. Because they mature slowly, young tarpan need a place to live where

other creatures won't eat them. Tarpan spend up to the first decade of their lives in low oxygen backwaters where other predators just can't get to them. They can't live there,

there's not enough oxygen tarpink and gould air. Ye, the Pacific coast experiences far more tidal shift than the Curban side, right, And so that means that those baby tarpan really don't have a place to live on the Pacific side, right, because all those mangroves and lagoons and those those brackish habitats they get completely flushed out of the low tide.

There's no once it makes sense. I mean, even if you just know about fly fishing, like belize, it's all Eastern side because they have all the shallows and all the mangroves and stuff on that side of Central America. Right. So, so there's a real lack of habitat for young tarpan to get through that life stage over there. The most likely hypothesis seems to be that the tarban they're spawning in the Pacific, but very few if any, of those larva are able to find habitat where they can grow

and mature. Right, So what you end up with over there is this perfect scenario for growing truly enormous fish. Right, Some adults are moving through the canal and a very few juveniles may be surviving into adulthood. That means the tarpan that are on the Pacific side. They just don't have a whole lot of competition from their own species, right, and fewer apex predator fish in a system often means that individuals have the opportunity to grow exceptionally large, which

might explain the crazy huge fish that Jorgensen landed recently. Yep, finally I'm gonna hit on that invasive species tag. According to researchers, tarpan are not, allow me to repeat, not considered invasive. That is inaccurate because there are no observed negative impacts of tarpan and the Pacific and no imminent threat of a population boom. They are not labeled as invasive. That's just a fact. Furthermore, they're not likely to become

an invasive species for several reasons. First, like we just talked about, the Pacific coast lacks abundant habitat for juvenile recruitment. Second, tarpan are highly susceptible to over fishing. They're pretty easy to catch relatively, and they're very slow to reproduce and grow. With all the subsistence fishing in that part of the world, tarpan are gonna get caught and they're gonna eat. If

they're a rapes, this is gonna happen. And third, that part of the world is also experiencing pretty rapid coastal habitat degradation. Again, that's a problem for tarban and as part of the reason that they're listed as a vulnerable species globally. All of that is just best guesses. We don't know any of it. For certain eighty years feels like a long time for tarban too have been swimming the Pacific. But if you think about it, that's only

sick for seven generations of fish. It's it's possible the tarpin could find a foothold and take over on the side, but the evidence suggests that's just not likely to happen. In the meantime, though, the coast is probably the best bet. If you're looking for a record fish, that's probably where it's gonna happen. So you think it's shifted out of Africa, it was Africa forever. I know it was. I'm I mean, I I think based off of what I no one else is saying that, Like, that's just me stepping out

a little bit. But if you think about a new species in an open system, where they have the ability to grow without much competition from themselves. Yeah, I think there's a good chance. Well, if somebody gets down there and gets one, let us know, it won't be me. I did a two one time. I don't ever need to do that ever ever. Again, you're good. Once once

was plenty. Well there you go. Man. I mentioned last time this came up that I had heard whispers about this and like little sort of you know, talk about the Pacific side. But it's fascinating to to hear that take on it, and that makes a lot of sense. They just don't have the shallows that the East side had. Uh. What I want to know though, is more about what's the Indo Pacific tarpin? Should I be chasing that or is it like is it like the bone fish in

San Diego Bay? Do you ever hear of those? I have heard of those, see, but you haven't been excited enough to go look for them, because people are like, yeah, I'm not excited enough to go on an Indo Pacific carbon trip. If I happened to be somewhere fishing where they existed, I would probably chase them because it would be cool. But they don't get very big comparatively, they're they're pretty small. Okay. Where do they live? Well, the

Indo Pacific, So you're talking like Japan, Australia. Who aren't slang terms for these regions? Where there you go? So they they are not invasive, Phil, you got a lot to chew on this week. I took a little shot at you, so maybe that hurt me. Miles called you Caesar, so maybe that'll help him. I don't know. We're gonna hear from Phil. We're gonna he's gonna declare a winner, and then we're gonna move on to awkward moments and angling.

And this one is really awkward and kind of scary, and I'm really hoping more rather than fewer of you watch the movie that I reference in this segment. Phil, Honey, it's time to wake up. What I gotta wake up? It's time to edit the podcast? Mom? Yes, okay, you ready? Yeah? Yeah, let's let's do the podcast. How do I How do I do it? Okay? See that button there, the blue one? Push that one? Okay, okay, good now edit edit? And then what do I click? Now? Okay, now I want

you to export hit the export boton. Oh that's right, okay X export to Await MP three, MP three Yes, okay, all right, you got it? I did it. Good job. And the winner for best engineered podcast episode of all time goes to Phil for episode fifty four of Ben. Is there anyone that you'd like to thank? WHOA? I mean? Yeah, I guess, Uh the guy upstairs? J C. My boy, how's the view? Uh? Tony at Arby's Joe, Sir Mellie the winner of fish News this week. Oh my mom, Mom,

thanks for waking me up. And I couldn't have done it without you. Phill, Honey, it's time to take out the track mob. Shut up. You're embarrassing me. Guy. When did you take a picture at the Life Black? So last time on Awkward Moments, we had a young lady holding a striper that looked like she was about to cry, remember this, while her husband stood behind her with a

sinister look on his face. And I joked that it looked like a movie scene where a female victim is held at gunpoint and told like to start walking and don't say a word. Right. Well, this week's awkward photo conjures another movie scene, and and it's the ending to sleep Away Camp and the look on antagonist Angela Baker's face during the big end reveal that she's actually been

a boy the entire time. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, look up the ending of Sleepaway Camp on YouTube and you will agree she makes one of the most terrifying faces ever. I had never heard of this movie. Come on, you never heard of it on Sleepaway Camp? No clue. But at your request for this segment, I did look it up and I watched the final scene and yeah, the faces that, I guess you could call the face terrifying. To me, it looked

stupid and cheesy more than terrifying. And I have zero desire to watch that film. But I see why you wanted that reference. I totally get it because the expression on the face of the person in this photo really does mirror the one where that the one that that movie ends on. It's very close. It's right there. Yeah. So this week's photo was sent to me via d M by listener Luke Zekel, and he writes this was

taken on the Upper Genesee River in New York. By the way, boom, there's another shout out for the gym everywhere, right, We're making the Jenny famous on the bench. Um. This was taken on the Upper Genesee River whilst fishing for smallmouth with mass flies. I bumped into a decent brown trout, which was my first mass trout. He then adds side note, this fish was caught after switching out a master splinter that I had thrown for two hours with no bites

and immediately hooked up on its replacement. Wait minute, who was it you, Joe did? Did you invent I master splinter fly? It's it's possibility, that's my patterns thought. The thing is, what you don't know is that we're usually inundated with people fawning over how much they loved Joe and the splinter and blah blah blah. You're like so great for making it. So I gotta say I appreciate this because that was a very well turned, subtle dig.

Because I don't know about you, but I mean, do you think do you think he was suggesting maybe that your fly sucks? You know? I kind of think he was kind of think he was saying, my fly you But guess what, Luke, Okay, ten and fifteen other people say you're wrong? Okay. Anyway, regardless regardless of the fly. That's okay, I don't care what she caught it on props on the first night, Right, that is an accomplishment, and luckily that accomplishment was documented just so well, just perfect.

So onto the photo. He's night fishing. So obviously the photo was taken in the dark, which is perfect because if I were going to make a fly fishing themed horror a movie, I think I would want this photo for the poster. Yes, and we'll we'll do that. That's a great idea, by the way, it's a whole new genre.

We'll talk, we'll talk. Yeah. So Luke. Luke stands in the foreground on what looks to be a muddy flat He's wearing socks and sneakers, two tone gray board shorts, a black under armor hoodie, and a very snazzy sling pack right across his chest. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Now Luke is shaggy blonde and wearing what i'd call I'll call emo style glasses. Is that still thing? Is emo still a thing? I think? So? I still I don't. I don't know what it is anymore, but I think

I like it. Got It's hard to quantify because I don't know what it is. I think of emo is Wheezer Blue Album, but that's people say I'm wrong. Anyway, He's got a red baseball cap on backwards and strapped around his dome is like a it's a pretty serious headlamp. Right to me, it looks like the kind spelunkers use. Right, Maybe that's that's his other me, maybe he's a spelunker. You never know. He's to see anybody in the caves on the Genesee River let us know. Uh, he's also

got his fly right in his mouth. And while I have to clarify, I mean no way, shape or form like knocking the gear, because we're all about fishing what you can afford. Just for context, just for context, it appears to be like an older Martin or Shakespeare combo, which I can tell because of the thickness of the butt end, the green coloring, and the rod has like the E v A grips instead of cork. So not digging, just setting up the photo. Nope, nothing, nothing wrong with it.

I fished with a very similar rod for many, many years. But it does strike me as a little odd that his chest pack would sell for double the price of his rod. Reel and line combined. But I don't know. Maybe it was a gift, maybe he was borrowing it from some boogie friend, doesn't really matter. Let's focus on the image, which has this very strong ethereal quality to it. Yes, right, and taking a quick photo in the dark using your

phone flash just tricky. And whoever took this doesn't seem like they have solid photography skills really now now, And like pretty much everything except Luke's middle is blurred, like blurred to the point where it feels like it's not entirely there or not entirely solid, and that likely didn't result in what he was going for. I'm guessing he was going for like a bragboard shot of his first mouth brown but what he got was definitely not that

I would, however, say, it's it's a lot more interesting. Oh, totally totally right. So Luke is looking down, but not at the blurry twelve inch trout in his right hand. It's almost like he's staring at his friend's feet, like

he's staring into the abyss of yea yeah. And if you photoshop the rod out of his mouth, it would just look like he's screaming, right, uh, And once again not kidding his face at the end of Sleepaway Camp, right, So take the rod and the fish out of the shot, and this is like some like evil psychopath that just lunged out the woods that or it looks like this was taken at the precise moment, like he was stabbed in the gut by the psycho killer at the end of a movie, at the end of the heart. It's

one of the could go either way. He's either the victim or the killer, but either way it works. It looks like the climax to a horror film with fishing gear at it in and I think what probably actually happened is he was trying to get situated for the photo. He's like yelling instructions to the photographer while holding his rod and his teeth, but he's just like, whatever, I don't care. Fish isn't that big. He snapped the thing

before anybody was ready. He didn't bother to look at it and just told me, no worries, man, I got it. Looks great. But he didn't get it, at least not in the way that Luke was. I'm sure hoping Luke's left hand is this just a fleshy blur, so he must have been waving it or moving around and that motion resulted in it gives it the appearance that Luke just has no left arm. Yeah, left arm doesn't exist, no, for sure. And did I picture with the rod just being like, oh, Carl one truck one and he just

went click and like picture man um. But yeah, and the and the position of the blurry left hand, it makes it look like he's got one t rex arm, which adds to the creepiness of the whole thing. Right, And I know people know what a t rex arm is like. If Luke was chasing you with his arms and t rex posture and it's look on his face like snarling and possibly drooling, you'd be terrified. I would. I would run away if I if I ran into this dude on the river. It's good, Luke, congrats on

the first mouse brown. Yeah. Man, I'm sorry Joe's fly suck, but I'm very happy for you whatever. I'm not sorry about what we said about your photo because frankly, it's scary. I'm sure you're a very nice dude, but this image could give people nightmares. And if you do get nightmares, let us know. And if you've got an awkward photo that could make us laugh, or haunt our dreams, whatever, Send it to Bent at the meat Eater dot com, and you just might end up getting roasted on the show.

I don't know if I feel bad, but I do. I do kind of think we made Luke sounds scary. It was appropriate, but I don't know if it was approp I don't know it was right. I don't. I don't feel that bad. I'm sure he's not I'm sure he's a lovely young man, right, but in that just that Nano's second in time, right, his face looks like like like the screaming spider creature head thing from the Thing. I'm sorry, and I found it frightening. I found it frightening.

You're it was begging to be called out that it is kind of a horrifying image while also being hilarious And speaking of being frightened, Joe is going to close out the show with an end of the line segment about a fly you will not find for sale because he invented it, but it's super easy to tie and based around one hell of a fish Camp story that will also keep up with this week's um low hanging sub theme fish Well, that's not loud enough. Fair warning,

I'm changing names and locations for this one. Matter of fact, I've never told this story publicly, but given our theme of fish Camp, and despite trying like how to come up with something better, I just kept coming back to this, knowing in my heart that the time is now and I'm doing the right thing. Years ago, in the before times, meaning the pre kid times, a group of my best fishing buddies and I would make an annual pilgrimage to

fish for steelhead in let's say Michigan. I had been friends with a few veteran guides in the area who always graciously helped secure a crash house and graciously invited me and my buds to crash at it while subsequently helping us get on the fish. What you ended up with, however, were two factions in the house, the older guys and the punk asked twentysomething's and we all got along smashingly,

but naturally we all had different routines too. The older crew would drink a Scotch with dinner and turn in about nine pm, which was right around when my crew was ten beers into a mandatory thirty carrying on while most Extreme Elimination Challenge roared on the TV in the family room. It was around eleven PM when nature called my friend Ron, we'll say Ron. When he came back from the bathroom, he looked shaken and upset. What happened? Man, we asked, Ron had opened the wrong door in the hall.

Instead of the bathroom, He opened the door of one of our guides, Barry, who was lying fully nude on the top of his made bed reading a magazine. It wasn't a pornographic magazine, nor did Ron catch him in the act of pleasuring himself. As I recall, Ron said,

I think it was like a woodworking magazine. Barry was equally startled, of course, and at a loss for words, just blurted out, do you need something naturally upon here in this The rest of us just completely lost our ship, and for the entire rest of that trip we didn't let Ron forget that he saw Barry's junk. Fast forward to the following summer. Back in those pre ki days, I had all the time in the world to completely refill steelhead boxes before the next winner, and after churning

out a hundred fresh estas eggs. I decided to get creative. I tied a fly that combined the power of the San Juan worm with the jigginess of the cloudser. I put two pink bead chain eyes on a nimp hook, added a little pinch of pink ice tub, and finished with a long, pink shineel tail that i'd singe and

roll into a point. It looked more like a bone fish fly than a steelhead fly, but I thought in shallower runs I might be able to fish it without the obligatory thirteen to fifteen split shot on your leader that winner me. The same crew of Buddies and Barry made the annual track, but compared to the year prior,

the fishing was a little slow. About midway through the first day, having gone through twelve colors of eggs and fleas with no luck, I tied on my creation, and within a dozen drifts, no kidding, I was tied into a steelhead. Not a huge fish, but it was a victory, and after I released it, Ron came over and said, hey, man, what what did it eat? Now? The fly had no name, but at that point, despite my disdain for penis shaped lures, I looked at the bug in my hand. I saw

the resemblance and just said Barry's wiener. I gave a Barry's wiener to Ron and a couple of the other dudes. Now did they destroy No, But we stuck a few more steeles on that little jiggy worm. The problem was that Barry was just as curious about the pattern, which we told him we called the BW. For the next few days, every time Barry yelled out, did you hook

that on the b W? We about died. Now it's been too long since that crew got together for steel But if we did, I guarantee someone would still have one of the original b ws in their fly box and the story still wouldn't have gotten old. So that's it for this week. If you're headed a fish camp, and boy, we hope you all remember failing to not could result in fly being named after your package you're trying to shoot that night, Brown, make sure we can

see more than dead people. And if you want your fish camp adventure filmed, r A Bati will do it for bail money. I've also heard I have it on good authority, are runs a special hire him to film your King Sira GT. Twelve flies free now If you want free stickers, all you have to do is keep using those degenerate Angler and Bent podcast hashtags on Instagram. If we repost something you tag, you get stickers. Simple as that. You can also get swag from us if

we use something you sent on the show. So please keep all those salban items, bar nominations, awkward photos, and anything else you'd think we'd like. Come into Bent at the meat eater dot com. And if you find a set toy in the river, maybe next to some majestically rising trout, remember to fill it on newspaper so it doesn't slide all over the place.