Ep. 55: High Hooks In Love Handles

you know, Good morning, degenerate anglers. Welcome to Ben the Fishing Podcast that won't turn ghost white or throw up at subway tuna when you bury a four oh treble hook in the meat of your hand. I'm Joe Surmelie Miles Nulty and I have seen grown men, though never women, reduced to quivering sacks of fear and shock at the sight of just a little metal cylinder disappearing into flesh. Yeah yeah, and you know, I'll I'll tell you what you're right about him in too, they handle that much better,

that much better. Though, there was this one time I asked my wife to grab a rod out of my roof rack and she put a dog hook in her arm, and she cried and screamed obscenities at me. But but that was just that one time. To your point, though, it is interesting that the hook doesn't even have to be in that person's flesh, right, Like I've seen people nearly pass out at the sight of someone else like catching a hook deep. So, and and quick disclaimer, because

we're already going there. If you're one of those people who get squeamish about hooks and body parts, you might wanna you might want to skip this episode. We hope you don't, but you might consider. But we want to give you the option so we don't make you miserable the whole time because we're we're going straight to the shank for the next hour or so. I've got a handful of really good hook stories that I've collected over the years, both removing hooks from other people and from myself.

But one happens just a few weeks ago, and that's that's what inspired this week's theme. Yeah, story time with Miles film. I feel I feel like we need, like we need to make an intro for these at some point. I like that, but If you do that, I vote that we should integrate some kind of clip from Mr Robinson's neighborhood. Hello boy, the girl off One Man. Eddie Murphy was genius on now I mean little Richard Simmons, Come on anyway back to your story. No, we're not

talking Eddie Murphy. No, no, uh so I recently went to a like a family reunion at my uncle and a's place in northern Wisconsin. We had three generations, which was nice. It's I think ages went from two to seventy seven. That's a gap, it was a span. It was really nice. The it was your quintessential family week the lake right, water skiing, grilling, cornhole, water fights, copious cocktails,

lots of laughing, all the you know. It was. It was all the rich human connection that has been just totally missing for the past eighteen years, and we tried to cram it all into one week. It's also pretty much everything you see on Charlie Baron's channel, So it was it was very much like, uh, we've been trying to get on this show Charlie anytime now, anytime, any time,

you can come on anytime you want. But the one thing we didn't have enough of we just ran out of because we tried to cram it all into one week was fishing time. So last day of the trip, half the family is already gone, my two uncles and and these are the men, I should say, who seated my love for fishing. These are the guys who baited hooks and untangled lines when I was four, you know, the ones who nurtured and mentored and just put up

with me for decades. So these guys insisted, like last day, you're about to leave your flying out, we gotta go out for a few hours. And I said great, So we trail it up and we went over to this lake that used to be one of my father's favorites, and we headed right to the spot where my dad caught his biggest bass ever. And it's the same spot where we later scattered his ashes. So it's it's a

it's like a powerful place show my family. And of course, right there, right at that spot, my uncle Jim hooks up bam. It wasn't anything noteworthy, right, it was. It was like a half pound large still felt significant right where it was and what we were doing, what was going on, And so I think we experienced as a boat, this moment of of profound awe gratitude. It was. It was one of those one of those times that brings

out spiritual feeling. Even if you're not officially spiritual, you just kind of get the that that sense inside little connection I was talking about. Yeah, And as I was basking in that sublime glow, this loud, shocked, oh god, damn, it brings out from the bow of the boat. And I should say that my uncle Jim is not a man who swears casual. He does have quite the arsenal of expletives, but he saves them for very special occasions.

So I look up and I see one of the points of the rear treble on the lure that he was using, buried in the index finger of his left hand, right right next to the fingernail bed, which is a very painful place to get. I've had one there. And the bass, of course, is still pinned on the front trouble with two of the hooks. So I grab a set of fliers, I run up and hooked the bass.

I let it go. Jim looks at his finger and says, well, I guess we'll just have to push that through and I'll have you cut the hook And I'm not a fan of that. For the record, I don't so I say, you know, uncle Jim, there's an easier way. This is something I've done many times. I can take that hook out. I've taken a lot of hooks out of a lot

of people, and it will hurt much less. And though I am a grown man and have made my living in the fishing industry for over a decade, in the eyes of my uncle's I'm still kind of a kid. Oh yeah, you know, family members. Yeah, you don't know. I don't know what you're talking about. Forty years old. You don't know anything. Nothing. And I mean I wouldn't say I don't think that I know nothing, but like

I don't, I don't know. Because Jim mel Jim is unfamiliar with this, this tactic for hook removal, so he was skeptical. I think it's a good way of putting it, and so I spent ten minutes explaining what I'm gonna do, how it's gonna work, how I've done it before. I'm trying to instill confidence, and he finally agrees, all right,

go ahead and give it a shot. So I cut the eighty pound floral bite tippet that I was using off and I tied into a perfection loop and I snug it up to the bend of the hook, and I wrapped the leader around my hand and popped it. Everyone work perfectly, Yeah, it usually does. Trouble back right out of his ring finger clean went sailing through the air, and I had this moment of relief mixed with pride

having saved the day, improving myself, you know. And and the fishing trip is back on, and then the glorious arc of this trouble flying out of his left hand just comes to this sickening stop somehow, And I really don't know how this happened. My uncle Jim managed to place his right hand the other hand directly in the trajectory of the hook as it was exiting his left. Like I don't know how this happened. I literally ripped

the trouble out of his left hand. It flew through the air for several feet and then buried not one but two points really deep into his right hand. So I just I just throw in that while like the odds of that happening are slim, that's the kind of thing that that happens to me so frequently. I would have just been like, yeah, that's about right. I've been like, yeah, that's perfect. I could not believe it. And the weird so that's already weird. But this is another thing I've

never seen before. He managed to put one hook on the trouble into his right forefinger and another hook on the same trouble into his right thumb, so his hand was like pinned together in this weird, creepy, claw like maneuver. I've never seen anything like it. And of course he let out another string of very well earned expletives, and then he turned to me and said, I really liked your hook removal technique for about a half a second,

but I'm not so sure about it now, which was fair. Yeah, this technique, which I will explain in detail later in the show, it works great for removing single hooks. I've I have an excellent track record with one hook, but when you have two barbed hook from the same trouble buried in two different fingers on the same hand, that that removal job is just above my pay right, I don't know how to do that. So sadly we had

to pull the plug on the fishing trip. After one fish, get back to the trailer, take Jim to the e r good news. We're all laughing about it by the time we hit the ramp, and my uncle's were even willing to let me take a few photos and a selfie of the incident, which you can see on my instagram. If you were into that kind of thing and you're not squeamish about blood, yeah, we'll throw it up. I'll throw it up in my story this week too. We love a good we love a good blood shot. But

that look, man, that's a pickle. Okay, I'm thinking as you're telling the story, I'm thinking on that because I'm I'm always trying to avoid leaving the water if possible, Like that's the last thing you want to do, right, um, don't. It's like, it's hard to say how I would have handled that without being there and seeing it. But I don't know. Maybe I might have made your uncle suffer

through like one line pole and one push through. Maybe I don't know, like cut cut off the bend of of of one of the points, you know what I mean, because separate it. I don't know. It's it's hard to say. It's a tough one. It's a dealy of a pickle. Um. I don't know what I would have done, just curious what kind of lure was it? Well, first, you were a sadist for just even saying that. But to answer your your question, Hannibal Lecter, it was a full sized

magic man lipless crank bait from thirteen Fishing. I'm asking because there's a difference between trying to do it with little trebles on a little something versus like trebles on a muskie lore. So it was. It was not a muskie plug, it was. It was a bass sized, yeah, lipless crank bait and a magic man from thirteen Fishing, to be specific. And there are three things that I can absolutely attest to about that bait. Number one, bass do eat it, seen it happen. Number two, the hooks

are extremely sharp. Number three the barbs hold very well. So we're proud to have thirteen Phishing sponsor the show, though for legal reasons, I am compelled to tell you that they absolutely do not condone any d i y medical advice we may provide, and cannot be held accountable for any injuries you sustain as a result of listening to the show. Yes, don't listen to us or me. At least Miles is smarter. But you should always listen to your guide, which is a painful reminder. We're gonna

drive home with our Smooth Move segment this week. Joining us again are good buddy from the North Canada, Jay Siemens. Why why did you hanging out with us today? For adult story of time? We got Jay Siemens. Jay's a photographer, cinematographer, filmmaker and former fishing guide at Wallaston Lake Lodge, which, if you don't know, is like Valhalla for big pike fishing. Jay, thanks for coming and making some time. Dude. What's good? How are you? We're good? Good? Uh? We still ice

up here. You guys down south are all in the boater, eddie, and we can still that's terrible. I'm wearing short span and jersey. It's yeah. We got open water here now there's not much ice left. Uh. And I don't know. I don't know that a lot of people know you're responsible with this, but you made a film a few years go called Common Thread that I really enjoyed, and I'm just curious about, like, where did that project come from?

How did that all come together well, as you mentioned, I guided at Walston for for seven years, and the owner there had had said, let's do a fly fishing film. We never really had an idea, but then then eventually there's this this woman named Mary, and Mary I used to come up to the lodge with her husband, and husband passed away, and the question was is Mary gonna keep coming to the lodge? What's what's going to happen?

And She's like, you know what, I'm gonna keep coming up without without the guys, I'm gonna come up and I'm gonna learn how to fly fish. So this seven year old widow learned how to fly fish, and uh, kind of just the film tells the story of what fly fishing means to her family and her brother and kind of how it was just a common thread that bound them all together. So I felt very connected because I had actually guided them years previously, and then I got to come back and film and so it's like

kind of the best of both worlds there. It came together really well, was it was. It was a great storyline, great narrative, and and also just fun to watch with the big pike and the fishing as as heartwarming as that is, we actually brought you here to do the opposite, right. That film was all about giving giving credit to someone who you guided and and and making them the center of a positive story. But you know this is smooth moves, So we brought you here to tell a different kind

of story about your days of guiding. So we're curious, what do you got for us? Man? Oh Man, I have like way too many that kind of focus on focus on me making really dumb moves. And maybe we'll save this for a different time. But one one story that sticks out of my mind where we're at this remote flying pike lake and we were just crushing the pike. We pulled into this one cove and I think we've probably got this one cove and and this this guest it's like, hey man, can I hook the fish? And

it's like a pretty strict policy. It's like the guy touches the fish, No, you're not touching the fish. And and this guy just kept hammering me. He's like, Jay, please, just I'm fine, Like they're catching doubleheaders and he thought he was doing me a favor and I keep telling him no, and finally like okay, okay, unhooked the fish.

The first fish he touches does a thrash, and he's got trouble hooks in his hand, and I'm just like, you know, and there I am eighteen years old and I'm trying to calm down this forty five year old man and it's just like just a disaster. So I mean, you grab, you grab the hook and luckily it's it's barblous hooks up at Walston and you know the key is to count to three, but you pull on the count too, so he's not expecting it and he got

the hook out. But that was a pretty good lesson, a pretty good lesson for him that I think he learned pretty quickly. The guide knows best, you know, even even if he is half your age. Well what about for you? I mean, he got a lesson there, but did you, as an eighteen year old, did you decide? Then they're like, I'm never letting client touch a fish

ever again. It's tough because you tell, you tell yourself that's never gonna happen again, and then you let someone do it and they lose your trust instantly when they, you know, drop a fish or get hooked or whatever that might be. But yeah, pipe pip, you're kind of squirrely. It's and it's not the big ones, it's the small ones that you have to watch out for. It are like, yeah, they're the ones that just start snaking in your hands.

And my last follow up question is is how did how did that particular client respond to the hook removal. Was it like a full on fall apart meltdown or did he did he take it pretty solid? He was good about it. He he went straight back to fishing. But I had another guest who put a hook into his buddy's head, into the back of the head when we were pike fishing. And this was one of my least favorite guests and probably seven years of guiding, and he just so happened to be the guy that hooked

the other guy in the head. And it was funny because the guy that put the hook that snagged his friend in the head, he was the one that freaked out more than actually the guy that got hooked. The guy that got hooked was calm about it, just holding his head, and the guy that hooked him was just losing his mind. And the hook went through his hat into the back of his head. And the same situation had to had to rip it out of his head.

But yeah, you gotta be prepared for those things. And did the guy apologize after you told him not to unhook the face? Did he say like, I'm sorry I did that. I should have listened to you. Yeah, but I think the thing is like it it ended. It ended fine. We pulled the hook out. I think if we were calling for an emergency plane to come in and pull us out, it might be a different situation. But for him, it was just like, I'm gonna go back to fishing, and then you know, it is what

it is. So I have never had to go to the hospital to get a hook removed, but probably the closest call I ever had, I took a clouser to the face years ago and the hook it hit me just right in The hook actually ended up up under my son, like like it was buried right below my eye right. And what made this one also particularly memorable.

While I will not name names, just suffice it to say, a very well known fly caster put it there, and I felt way worse for him than myself, Like we got that hook out, no problem, right, but it totally ruined the rest of the float for him, and I had to keep pleading with him the entire it happened like first mile of a ten mile float, right, and I just had to keep pleading with him, like, dude, please snap out of it, like this was not that

big a deal. This ship happens, it's it's okay, but it like ruined him for the rest of the day. And we can't say this person's name for a lot of reasons, but I am lucky enough to know who it is, and I can. I can understand why it was in his head because it's sort of like his whole identity is being really good casting. I will just say this, we were forced by water conditions to use really heavy sink tips that day, which he doesn't do, like he preferred to never do that, so that was

also part of it. They're they're all kinds of good reasons, but still like I understand why he was uncomfortable. Yes, that by for the record, that that the whole thing is my nightmare. And that is why I wear the wraparound I shield like tight to my face sunglasses all the time, Like I can. I can handle a scar or two, I can handle some blood. I cannot regrow an eyeball. Yeah, I prefer to have both of those.

Those are those are kind of important and and hopefully neither of us will pick up any news cars or puncture a cornea in the heat of this week's battle of wits, but you never know, it's time for fish news. Fish news. That escalated quickly, so I don't really have much housekeeping this week, but I would just like to say thank you to everyone that wrote in to support my claim that dolphins are actually shitty animals. Yeah, okay, okay,

you said dolphins was like hating puppies. Well, I think a lot of people hate puppies, my friend, I learned. I actually I found this whole exercise very instructive and and the main thing I learned is that like at least twenty percent of our audience is made up of sadists. So I'm afraid of most of you, and go on with your your puppy and dolphin killing whatever. Yeah, I mean, the masses have spoken though, and dolphins are evil. We do. We even got an email with a subject line not

puppies that like, I don't. I don't know, dude, Do I smell a dolphins bent shirt down the road? Perhaps I do? I will not sign off on that, but I'll sign off on it twice. Um. Also, thanks to everyone, and I do mean everyone on planet Earth, I think for sending me the tuggy sandbox that was turned into a go cart, not just do you. I I got that one about eighties seven thousand times. It's like that was neat and I appreciate you, PLI you you know,

so got it message received anyway, that's it. That's all. That's all I got. So let's we'll get news he here. Remember this is a competition, Miles and I do not know what stories the other guy is bringing to the table. And at the end, our audio engineer, Phil will declare a winner. And can I just say, Phil's judgment is my favorite part of my own entire show, Like it might it might be the best part of this show. And it's it's getting out of the most professional part

of the show. It's getting out of control, but in like the best possible way. And every week, every week, Whiles and I get to listen to the show before it gets posted, and I anticipate Phil's bit like a child like hovering at the top of the staircase on Christmas morning, what's at the bottom of the staircase this week, I don't. Yeah, it's just I love it so much. Anyway, it is your leadoff this week for this it is so hit me, all right, This first one is is

really it's a core story for me. And I'll just started off by saying, I think public access to phishing spots is essential to American fishing. I think it is at the core of American fishing. Have to agree and and because of that, I consider the public trust doctrine, which is shaped water access laws since before the US was a country, to be one of the great principles

of the American ethos. In most cases, we the people are allowed to access and utilize our rivers, lakes, and oceans, a right and privilege that much the world just doesn't enjoy it. They just don't have And all of that is a big part of the reason we have such a vibrant and diverse fishing culture in this country. But

that access is not codified in federal law. The rules differ between states, so state legislatures and judiciaries have discretion in how they interpret and apply the public trust doctrine, which has led to the erosion of fishing access in some places, one of the major points of divergence affects access to rivers and streams without going way off into the weeds. A lot of this hinges on how states define a navigable body of water and how they recognize

historic easements. Some states, like Montana, have a broad definition of navigability inscribed in the state constitution. If a log could have been floated down a river at the time of statehood in in Montana, it's therefore navigable. I can't wait. Yeah, so long as you can find a parcel public land that abuts the river, you can legally walk and fish without trespassing if you stay between the traditional high water marks.

Other states, though, like Wyoming and Colorado and a bunch of other ones, have have a different, narrower interpretation of navigability. In those states, most stream beds can be privately owned, meaning that many rivers and streams can essentially be shut off from the public uh In and yet still other states, the specifics of who has the right to fish wear remains unsettled, which has led to fights over access all

over the West in recent decades. Landowners, some of them very wealthy individuals and often from out of state have long been trying to undermine the legality of the Montana stream access law. One particular individual, Jim Cox Kennedy, who owns a very large vacation home on the Ruby River, cloggs the courts with like a near constant stream of anti access lawsuits, and those lawsuits work their way up the chain and so far have been consistently rebuffed, sometimes

by the state Supreme Court. Kennedy even unsuccessfully challenged the legality of the Montana State Constitution at the U. S Supreme Court of Use back and and failed, all in an effort to keep the unwashed masses off a stretch of river he likes to consider his own. Thankfully, he and others like him, washed up Rocker hue Lewis, have remained unsuccessful here in Montana, but just south of here, in Utah, the fight has been even more pitched up.

Until a few decades ago, most Utah rivers were treated as public resources. People fish them as they wanted, and most farmers and ranchers and landowners allowed that to happen so long as everyone remained like a bunch of fonzies and stayed cool. But in the nineties that all started to change as more and more folks wanted to experience Utah's exceptional fisheries, and those fisheries began to represent profit

and value. Landowners started shutting off access to rivers and streams and telling anglers they couldn't fish the places they've been going their entire lives. Courts began to see a consistent parade of cases to determine who had the right to what. In two thousand eight, the Utah Supreme Court recognized public easement to streams, essentially adopting a similar perspective as Montana. Two years later, in two thousand ten, the Utah State Legislature passed a bill declaring stream and riverbeds

private property. That bill privatized fort sent of the total fishable rivers and streams in the state. Overnight, floaters, voters, and anglers came together to create the Utah Stream Access Coalition, and lawyers have been going at it ever since. The coalition focus their efforts on two rivers, the Weaber and the Provo, hoping to establish precedents that might pave the

way to open up more rivers and streams. On the Weaber, they successfully showed the river had been used to transport goods at the time of statehood and therefore definitively met the federal definition of navigable. On the provo, that took a different tack, bringing a lawsuit against an exclusive resort on the Upper River and arguing that Utah's customarily accessed those waters prior to statehood and that use represented a

historic easement. In a district court judge sided with the stream Access coalition, and that was heralded as a huge win for water access all over the state. Put on appeal, the Utah State Supreme Court remanded that case back down to district court, and in a bizarre and unnerving twist, the very same judge who previously ruled in favor of

access did a complete one a few weeks ago. That judge declared, quote, public use of non navigable riverbeds and stream beds in the territory between eighteen fifty one and eighteen sixty nine could not create an easement dictated by the law in the late nineteenth century, and with those words, Utahn's once again lost the right to fish thousands of

acres of water. The decision was a crushing blow to stream access, not just on the provo but across the state, because if the court had upheld that historic use created an easement, most of the state's rivers and stream beds would have to be defined as public, and that that House bill that got passed would be a cent le null and void. It's made it easier for everybody to privatize. It all went back to private essentially. And and I'm gonna stop being even mildly journalistic now, not that I

was really doing a great job before. And I'm just gonna go straight up ed because this is horseshit. I'm unabashedly pro access, I admit it. That's that's my bias. I've written about and advocated for maintaining or expanding water access for a lot of my career. The fact that wealthy individuals are able to manipulate courts and legislatures in order to create legal loopholes that prevent the American people from recreating on rivers and streams. It infuriates me, It

really does. And I am not opposed to private property rights. I just think they need to have reasonable limitations for the greater good. I get it. I understand that anglers can sometimes be shitty stewards of the resource, and I sympathize with landowners that have to deal with disrespectful people fishing on their property and leaving trash or otherwise acting

like entitled jerk offs. That behavior is also unacceptable. We all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves with the utmost care and tact when we're fishing public water, especially when those waters cross private property. But shutting down access to of a state's flowing fisheries to appease the wealthy class is not an appropriate response to bad behavior by a minority of the fishing public. That's a wholesale taking of

public rights and resources. The fact that the same judge would completely reverse himself in the same case six years later strikes me as deeply shady. Yeah, and I think this is just a depressing outcome for the entire state of Utah and all of US American people in general. I'm very piste off about this. Yeah, that sounds like some kind of kick back there. I hate to say it,

like some somebody grease to pocket on that one. Um, dude, I'm I'm fully on your side, right, and this is this is a travesty though, Like you know, you brought up nav well waterways things like that. I think part

of the problem. And and this does not justify measures this drastic, but I've even had some some encounters and run ins on on private water and I think the problem is that so many people think they know what the rules are, but they don't actually have any idea and just sort of do what they want without paying attention.

So like navigable waterway. I used to belong to a trout club here years ago, um, which I don't anymore, but that's neither here nor there, and you'd have people sneak in all the time, like you'd see somebody trespass or or float through on a kayak and fish, and they would get all mouth because they're like, well, you can't. This is not this is a navigable waterway. I'm like, no, it's not. This is a creek that's thirty feet across in New Jersey. Same thing with the high water marks.

I mean, if you are responsible and you understand where you can be, that's fine, But I mean so many people have that wrong. I've heard people say that here, like, well, but of the high water mark, there's no Actually you're wrong, that's not the law here. So does that make sense that I'm saying, like I think stems too from people just assuming they know what's allowed when it's not, and

and just doing their own thing. Well and and to your point, the fact that these laws are piecemeal and they're different in every state, and in some states they're not even settled. Like I did a whole I worked on a very big report about this some years ago and really dug deep into the state by state, and there are multiple states that really don't even know what

their definition of navigability is, right. And this is a real problem for exactly what you're talking about, because no one really knows right like and and if you're maybe you are familiar with the law in your state, if you cross the border, it's totally different. And this is hard for me because I do in many cases believe in state autonomy and states rights. But I feel like this is a case where we need to standardize this system.

The problem is that if it gets standardized in the wrong way, that I'm gonna be extra piste and and I don't want that to happen. So really what I want is for them to standardize it according to my definition of how it should go, and that's probably not gonna happen. No, But navigable gets me all the time. I've heard so many people say this is navigable, Like do you even know what that means? Well, it's different.

Navigable in Montana is not navigable in New Jersey. No, you're right, But it just rolls off the tongue like, well, this is absolutely navigable water we're in right now, Like you, you have no idea what you're talking about. Most of the time, if I don't just heard that, Yeah, that's yours to say, I can be here because this is navigable water, Like, that doesn't mean you have to be able to take a battleship up it, Like that might be the definition. Can I dock a battleship here? You know? Um?

But yeah, dude, I mean that's that's absolutely brutal. And I'm trying to think of a smooth transition and I don't. I don't really have one other than this story is kind of kind of brutal too. I guess that's that's weak, but I'm gonna I'm gonna roll on. Um. So, it is late summer, right, which means the great white sharks

are frolicking close to the shore in the Northeast. The browns and black tips and hammer heads, they're doing their thing inshore in the mid Atlantic, and of course, as always their bulls just waiting for the perfect tourist to munch in Florida. But none of those species has made a move, at least not a newsworthy one recently. So if you're craving a harrowing tale rife with blood in the water, I suggest you get off the coast and let's head over to Lake St. Clair, so per the

story from Canada's CBC News. The Alex Kintner Award this week goes to Matt Gervais. Gervais lives in Windsor, Ontario, which is just across the river from Detroit Um and he's a pretty accomplished triathlete. So on August he plunged into Lake St. Clair with a friend of his to make a routine three kilometers swim for the fitness and the health. That's that's why I assume, that's why people

do these things. But he'd only been in the water for about five minutes when something latched on to his hand. So Gervais said, your mind goes immediately to shark. But I still had my wits about me to know that was unlikely. So it's actually more like impossible because to get there, shark would have to swim up to St. Lawrence Rivers, circumvent Niagara Falls via the well and canal

and so on and so forth. And look, I don't even actually bring that up to make fun of the guy's statement, but just to explain, right, like what a shark would have to go through theoretically, because there have been hazy reports for decades of bull sharks way up the Mississippi River and possibly in the Ohio River. Um, but getting to Saint Clair would have been extremely difficult, like not happening. So, yeah, you probably guessed it by now.

We have another muskie attack from Yeah, I did this one. So from the piece, looking at the fish through the water, he could see its teeth gripping three of his fingers and part of his hand. Gervais says it was over quickly. He managed to free himself off after about five seconds, but his hand was covered in blood and badly injured. Swimming on his back with his injured hand in the air, he and his friend made it to the shore approximately forty five to the break wall of a home on

Riverside Drive. They climbed a steel ladder to reach the backyard, where the homeowner helped clean the wound. So Jervais ended up with thirteen stitches in his hand. And and no doubt, it's a nasty bright right, Like it's it's not the most gruesome thing that I've ever seen, but it's it's ugly enough. Like he took a good good it's I've ever seen. Yeah, yeah, like he there was some there was some tissue damage there for sure. So here's yeah,

there's stitches. Yes, So here's my cynical takeaway. Right, you could not ask for a better bolstering advertisement for St. Clair muskie fishing, because let's be honest, right, let's be honest. Saint Clair kind of sort of has a reputation is the place to go for muskies when you don't want to work too hard. And there's there are musky dudes

right now who are fuming at that statement. And I under dan, but like it's it's it's kind of true, like I'm extremely musky challenged, right, you know this, lots of people know this. I talk about it often and time and time again, over and over and over, I hear, just go to St. Clair, man, Just go to St. Clair. Get it Head off to St. Clair, get it done right, because the place is filthy with them almost painting it as the place to go if you're musky challenged like me.

Now again, I'm not saying that there aren't St. Clair guys that that fish seriously and put in their time. There are, I know some of them, but I also know a shipload of people that took their first, second, third, and like eighth muskies there in the same day. And it's it's often while while trolling. Um. So it's it's undeniable that St. Clair's muskie population is huge. And stories like this, I don't know, they can easily make you think like, well ship they'll just eat anything that that

hits the water. You know, musky saw aggressive, they attack your trolling motive, little cherry garlic hot dog and it's on. So you know, I'm sorry St Clair Sharpie's I get it. But that that is the that is the reputation that Lake has. It's true, and and this doesn't dispel any of that and all the things. I agree with everything you say, but the piece that I took away from this did you read the article about this in the Windsor Star. Yeah, the one that like made muskie sounds

super aggro. It might be. It's one of the worst pieces of fish journalism I've seen a very long time. I just I just want to hit some high points for everyone out there, just because to me, this is so ridiculous. Here's a line. Uh, local tray athlete and endurance sports coach is still recovering after his right hand was chumped by a hungry muscle lunge. Now, let's take

a minute and and think about that statement. What kind of an idiot do you have to be to think the muskie was attempting to eat a full grown human. There was no attempt to consume. It wasn't hungry, it was piste off. Let's like basic, basic understanding here, dude, you dive in from shore. I bet you he swam out on top of a freaking giant weed bed right like, I guarantee it was full of milk, foil or spatter dock or whatever. And that's just where the muskie lives.

And you interrupted it. And here's a really really excellent piece of this is what this is. This is a journalist who just did their research. The piece says, quote, muskies in Ontario can grow up to forty inches in length and way up to twenty three pounds. I know, I saw that. Followed by followed the next paragraph, the biggest muski caught in Ontario on record weighed in at a whopping sixty pounds. Do you not see like you be? They're right next to each other on the page. Do

you not see how wrong that is? If they only grew up to forty in nobody would be musky fishing in Ontario. We should go elsewhere. I mean, this is this is like journalism one oh one. Yeah, I saw this was written by a bot. I don't. I do not understand how this got through any editor. It just infuriated me. I'm glad you pulled some of this in because your spot on with like fourty inches is like the bare minimum for me to feel like I actually fought a muskie. They grow up to do they? Now?

That's my fear with fly fishing for muskies, because again I haven't achieved that yet, but also it has to be I've put forty two inches on it. If it's under that, then I still don't feel like I don't want to. I can't catch a little tweezer and be like, did it. I'm done accomplished that, Like, it's got to be at least a real one, and I'd put it a couple inches over forty to consider that. So well, your bar just keeps getting higher, which is gonna make

this a more and more difficult thing to achieve. And if you're gonna do it at all, you you have to try. And I know I was just gonna say one step one would be going to do it. So you know, as bad as all of those headlines were, because there were some bad ones with that, I'm gonna I'm gonna bring up my personal favorite headline of the week. And this one comes to us from Live science dot com and it was sent by listener Derek Arniston, so

thanks Derek. The headline reads sexually frustrated sea snakes mistakes scuba divers for potential mates. I love that, and I took muskie. I'm glad you took this one. I debated. I love that title because it actually really does sum up the entire article pretty damn well. But as we know, I'm not into the whole brevity thing, so I'm gonna give a little more context. In detail, a recently published study analyzed hundred and fifty eight interactions between olive sea

snakes and scuba divers near the Great Barrier Reef. These interactions went something like this. A diver would be cruising along underwater, checking out the corals and fishes and whatnot, and then all of a sudden, a sea snake would appear, coiling itself around the diver's fins and repeatedly licking the water all around the diver. When the diver tried to relocate away from the coiling licking sea reptile, the snake

would persistently pursue. While these incidents never resulted in any bites or injuries, they were consistent enough to be curious, hence the study, and that study found that the majority of those interactions took place during sea snake mating season, which suggested a correlation between sea snakes sexy time and diver harassment. Man they're turned up, they are really turned up.

When a male sea snake wants to make he performs courtship rituals like winding his body around a female snake if she flees, which is apparently a common response from female sea snakes the male pass her, which and all that explains the coiling around divers fins and and following

them when they try to leave. But here's what I don't get why divers right our sea snakes actually mistaking human divers or are they just like it's implausible, That seems implausible, but but apparently that is what's going on for a couple of reasons. One, sea snakes have very

poor eyesight. They only recently evolved right there there there recent evolution from land snakes, and and so their hardware that they have is better adapted to out of the water, and they just don't see all that well under there. But like you're hinting at, that's only part of the answer. It seems this is also an act of shall we say, desperation. The studies lead author Rick Shine said it's clear that most approaches to divers were by males who had lost

contact with the females they were pursuing. They frantically search for a female if they lose touch with her. So you've got all these very excited and spurned snakes that are searching around everywhere for anything that might give them the time of day. And since they can't see very well. They're just trying out whatever moves and then using their tongues to try and identify the object that they're rubbing

up against. Another author of the study, Kim Lynch, wrote that is likely why tongue flicking was such a commonly observed behavior during interactions with divers. They can only really confirm that you were not a female snake by licking you, and the whole thing. We can just admit that whole thing sounds creepy, you know what, very quickly. I just watched a great documentary on Woodstock ninety nine and they pretty much said the same thing about all the dudes there.

Season This works is because there are parallels that we can all drop to humanity, like for being honest, I think I think it's a couple of things to hit olive. Sea snakes are venomous and they can be deadly to humans. But I think it's important to reiterate there have been zero cases where a snake has bitten a diver while they're just swimming along. The snakes are very curious and pretty tame underwater. The only time people get bit by

sea snakes is when they're doing something stupid. Like trying to handle them. Don't do that, So take away here. If you find yourself, you know, in this predicament you're diving in the Great Barrier reef. Just never You'll never find yourself in this predicament in the United States. You have to be there. But if you if you're there, just just ignore the snake humping your leg and carry on with your dive. He will leave you alone once he tastes you. Just don't look at it and make

eye contact. It will go okay totally. He will taste you eventually, and then he'll lose interest. Like I don't. I don't even have any good follow up on I feel like I said everything I needed to say already. Wow, that was a very me story, I feel like. But I'm I'm glad you grabbed that. I don't think we've done a sea snake anything on this show since so how appropriate and I actually believe it or not. I have a transition, a better one than the last one.

We'll go from the Great Barrier reef. How about to a reef in Lake Erie. Take you back to the Great Lakes. There are no sea snakes there, although you know land praise um, but this is actually an uplifting one, very uplifting news for Lake Erie. Uh and a bunch of you find listeners forward to this along and I thank you. This comes from w g RZ News and according to this story, natural lake trout reproduction has been observed in Lake Erie for the first time in sixty years,

which is kind of a big deal. Okay, So these fry were first found by the New York d e C. This spring, and they actually trapped them on an offshore reef. They were out there looking for suitable lake trout spawning habitats, set some traps and they caught these fry, So they took some they did some genetic testing and just recently

confirmed that they are in fact lake trout fry. So, historically lakers were the top predator in Lake Erie, but commercial fishing started for them, I mean like seventeen hundreds way back right there for a long time, and by nine they were pretty much done. There were no more lake trout and Lake Erie they pretty much got wiped. Now, population restoration efforts have been going on for a long time. Right back in the early eighties, um they really started

started bearing down on it. But by then those efforts faced a lot of new challenges right by. By then there was pollution in Lake Erie. The water wasn't as clean as it was in the seventeen hundreds. Um, you had those sea land praise which became a big deal, and they particularly love to latch on and suck the life out of a slow moving, kind of lazy lake trout. Um. But there have been all kinds of initiatives happening over

the last few decades to bring back these fish. So this recent finding is sort of like the big win various groups have been waiting for for a really long time. So here's a quote from DC Commissioner Basil Segos, and he said this right after the DC he confirmed that those were Lake trout fry. He said, today marks a key milestone in the restoration of Lake Trout in Lake area.

After six decades of significant investments to improve water quality and habitat and promote sound fisheries management, this phenomenal Great Lake story of recovery is a testament to the perseverance of the researchers and biologists from d C and partner agencies who have worked tirelessly to help restore this fishery. So we both love lake trout. We've talked about it this. I know. I'm a big I'm a big lake trout fan.

I believe you are too. Um And the one thing they don't talk about in this story is the incredibly stark difference in lake trout populations within a very short span of about seven miles. So Lake Erie flows into Lake Ontario, right, and it does that via the Niagara River. And while the Niagara River isn't very long, you've kind of got that whole Niagara Falls thing like right there

in the middle of it. It's quite the obstruction. It's quite the obstruction to to to fish movement, right, but from the falls to the mouth of that river and throughout all of Lake Ontario, which is just like right there, it's like a stone's throwaway from Erie. The Laker population is crazy, Like I've fished it um a bunch, and the number of fish in Ontario and that river is

just insane. But what really struck me is that I've spent a whole lot of time on Erie, just above Niagara Falls, um all over the place really, and it never dawned on me until I read this that I've never caught a lake trout there right, because there they're pretty aggressive fish, right, So if you're on the Lower Niagara or Ontario, it's like, yeah, you're targeting salmon, but you're gonna get some lakers, you know what I mean. Like you're after small mouths, but some lakers throughout the

day are probably gonna eat that tube. You know, your pining steelhead, you're catching lakers. And I've thrown a lot of musky lores and drug tubes deep and trolled crawler harnesses and RiPP jerk bits all over Lake Erie, and this story made me realize, like, wow, I have never had a by catch laker they're doing any of that. So as a big fan of Lake Trout, this is this is really great news and I hope this keeps trending in the right direction here. Yeah, that's really interesting.

I saw this news and I'm really glad you picked it up because it felt like, you know, that's you know more about those fisheries than I do. You fished them a lot more than I have. Yeah, but I didn't make the I didn't think about that parallel between Ontario and Erie and the difference in those fisheries, because again, I just don't know him that well, you take a little short highway drive, there's no lake trout and like just go right down the road and it's fill you

with them. But I wonder if you know, as we all know, Lake Erie was a biological dead zone in the seventies and that never happened to the same extent in Ontario, and I wonder if that's the reason for the difference in the lake trout population. I don't know, but it seems like it might be likely that one, you know, we all know about Lake Here in the seventies, lak here. He still holds that connotation for some people, like, oh,

you can't fish. There's no fish there are now, but there didn't used to be, Like fifty years ago, there weren't any. The thing you remember that was even when eries water was real bad, it all ends up in Lake Ontario. It flows Lake Ontario. So I mean, I know there's been different efforts and programs to keep the lake trout healthy on Ontario, but it is. It is stark and they all run the Niagara River to spawn

by the thousands, so there's there's natural reproduction there. So I mean, I don't I don't think we have the answer. It's just needs to needs to dig in on this. You talk about lake on Lake Erie and Ontario as these separate things, but if you know, if you really pay attention, dude, they're like right there, Like it's like millimeters on a map that separates them. So no, I see it, I see it. I just I also know them to be very different lake trout fisheries and I

don't know why so smart people. I mean, right right now, yeah, exam, right now, it's just fry. I'm sure those super Aggara Walleye will will kill their share of them and they'll have to. I'll have to deal with that. But um, you know, this could be the road back to serious trophy laker fishing on Lake Erie, which I would not be sad about. We'll see what. We'll see what Phil

was sad about or happy about. See who wins. And then after that we're gonna do We're gonna do a tackle hacks and and do a super deep dive on hook removal, which we've been hitting at this whole time. We're gonna get down to the nitty gritty to make sure you can pop some of those bars out. Your uncle, I'm afraid you're gonna have to get off my river. What did you say, my river? Get off my river? It's mine. You can tell because I spelled my name out with pebbles on the bank there it says Huey

Lewis's River, No trespassing. And you can see there's a crudely designed skull and crossbones. They're on the bottom, so you know I mean business. Also, Miles is the winner. That's a power. Yeah, I'm getting hats coming from inside the city the flood. The first time I ever had to perform a serious hook removal was my first season guiding in Alaska. We were fishing for soak salmon and one of the clients snagged a fish right in the flank.

When the angry ten pound buck took off upstream, the two odd shortshank wide gap egg hook popped out of its side and came flying right back at my client's face. He took it smack in the middle of the soft rubbery flesh of his upper lip. I turned to the other guy and asked, did you pinchers barb Nope? He responded, you nope. Ship. I pulled the spool of the heaviest monofilament that I had in my boat bag and cut

off a section. I told the client to relax, that this would be relatively painless and that he had nothing to worry about. I didn't tell him that I had never actually done this before, because I figured he was already freaked out enough. Why pilot. As I prepared to remove the hook in the way that I had heard was supposed to work, I noticed that the client's legs were starting to buckle, so I suggested that he sit

down while I performed the procedure. He did. I slipped the line around the hook, placed my finger where I thought it was supposed to go, and yanked hard. To my complete surprise, the hook came flying out clean. It was as though the lie I had told the client had turned into truth, and suddenly I had the confidence of a guide who had seen this work dozens of times before. As the hook came free, the client went into shock. His eyes rolled back into his head, and

he started convulsing. The rest of the group, which consisted of his brothers and father, huddled in a tight circle around the client to prevent him falling or hurting himself. After a few seconds of shuddering and sputtering, the man's eyes popped open. He looked around the tight ring of familiar faces looming over him and asked, who's calling the play.

From that day on, I was a complete believer in the mono loop hook removal method, and I have since used it to remove many hooks from many people, myself included. The idea is to use a section of strong line to back the hook and the barb out of the same hole that they went into. Here's how it works. First, you need heavy monofilament or floral carbon at least forty

pound test. I do not recommend using braid for this cut at least a two foot section of that heavy mono and tie a strong loop knot in one end. I personally like the perfection loop, but you can use any loop knot so long as it does not slip under tension. Then do your best to isolate the hook, cut the hooker lure off the fishing line it's attached to. If the hook is on a lure, cut the split ring if you can, and get the lure out of

the way of the hook. If that's not possible, tie a very large loop knot so that you can work it all the way over the lure. You want to get that loop of heavy mono as far down the bend of the hook as possible. You want to get it right up where the hook enters the skin. Once you've worked that loop of mono down the shank of the hook all the way to the skin, you're ready for the critical part. Stay calm and keep the person with the hook in them calm. If you can't, like,

remember it's only hook. I mean, yeah, it's painful, but no one's gonna die, so just keep that in mind. Wind the tag end of the heavy mono around your dominant hand enough times that it won't slip no matter how hard you pull. Place the index finger of your other hand on the eye of the hook and hold it steady. This is crucial. Don't move that finger, don't flinch. Don't let that hook shank pull up, or bad things will happen. Tell the person with the hook stuck in

them that you're going to count to three. After you count to one, yank as hard as humanly possible on that mono in the opposite direction that the hook entered the skin. Couple of things here. Always try to pull when the person isn't expecting it to keep them from flinching. Do not give a timid pull. You have to gank with everything you've got, and you have to pop that

bar about on the first try. Make sure that you keep your finger on the eye of the hook to prevent the shank from lifting, or you'll bury the hook point deeper instead of backing it out. This method, it's not difficult and it's not complicated. I think the most important thing to making this work is confidence. If you pull hard enough and keep that shaft from rising up, the hook will come out and it will be surprisingly painless.

You can then bask in the praise and glory when the barb leaves flesh and you've saved the fishing day. There are a few caveats that I should add first. Don't try this if the hook is someplace critical, like an eyeball or a vein or a testicle, or if the hook looks like it's wrapped around attendant or embedded in a bone. Be smart and recognize when something is best left to a physician. Second, while this works on pretty large hooks, there is a limit to the size barb.

I will try to extract myself. The biggest I've done personally is a four ought, and I'm not sure I would go too much bigger than that. Taking a hook deep. It's just part of fishing. It's it's a rite of passage in some ways. If you fish long enough, you will bury one in yourself or someone else. You've You've really only got two options. You can debarb all your hooks lose a lot of fish, or you can learn how to effectively remove barbed hooks from yourself and others.

That is a totally legitimate way to take hooks out of people in a pinch, right I acent. I will say, however, that I'm not sure just listening to a podcast segment makes anyone an expert on hook removal. You know, you don't You don't. I thought I did a good job. You don't think that was a sufficient like that that

my description was not sufficient? No, I just I just think medical practices in general require more than just a radio edit, Like like I don't want my doctor to tell me they've never actually for in this particular procedure, but like they heard a guy heard a guy describe it once. You know, that doesn't seem like like sufficient

like preparation to me. I once ended up right true story with a heavy gauge treble from a tuna popper in me, like like in my side flab, like I rubbed up against the rods that were in the vertical holders on the center console, right, and I did it while I was lunging to the to the to the stern to grab a trolling rod that went off and I like rubbed up against it, pined me in place. Now we're sixty we're sixty five miles off shore, right, And the buddies I was with had never done a

line pole. They never had to take a hook out of anyone. So the site of insertion, it was, it was too far behind me, you know what I mean. Like I could reach around and feel it, but I couldn't turn around to a blind because yeah, because I've

done it to myself many lots of times. But there was there was no way, right, And and they he didn't feel that my description of what to do was sufficient prep Like I'm saying, like, no, man, like, look, you grab the flab and pull it tight, pull it as taught as possible, and you gotta go one to three and rip it. And like they just were uncomfortable, right, They didn't. They didn't know, so they're like, I don't know,

I don't feel right about this. Um. And while I'm sure your little segment there was was more comprehensive than my yelling at them to just wrap the line around the hook and pull, I just still don't think it qualifies as a hook removal certification course. Um. Like, at least watch a YouTube video or two or better yet, I've heard that you can you can kind of sort

of practice this on oranges. Oranges like thee yeah, yeah, yeah, Like like the skin of an orange is a little like human skin, kind of like how they practice they practice tattoos on pig skin, right, not the same elasticity, but similar density. So you can try putting a few hooks and oranges and practicing at least the basics of this process before you have to actually do it on a squirming, bleeding friend or family member. All right, that that I give you That practice is a good idea,

that sounds that seems sound. I will admit that the first time I ever did the line pole was on a real, live human and I had to pretend like, oh, I've totally done this before, don't worry. Uh, And it worked, But it is it is uncomfortable. I think starting with fruit might have been a better choice. But back to that, what happened on the boat, Like did you just get were you just stuck pinned to the console? Like what how did that end? Now? So, I mean it was

kind of it was kind of stupid. They just they thought the line pole was a bad idea. They refused to do it, and they just felt better about pushing it through, like that's what they knew. And because I couldn't do it to myself. Oh, I just I was like, well, either I'm gonna have a hook and me all day or I don't know, go to the hospital later like I'm not we're not going in the bite is good. Or I'm just gonna have to let him do it.

And it was brutal. I mean it was just in brutal, dude, because it was in such a soft spot of meat that like it took twenty tries for him to put enough force to finally pop the hook through. But like we're sixty five off, what choice do I have? You know? Yeah, yeah, that is truly awful. I've never had to push one through or go to the hospital personally, and I hope none of our listeners will after listening to this episode either,

So go back, re listen to that tackle hack. Watch some YouTube videos do a few dry runs on poor innocent citrus. If you're wondering what kind of hook you should practice pulling out of the fruit bowl tonight while you rewatch b side Fishing, Joe has the perfect suggestion in this week's end of the line, Well that's not loud enough, Burt b ten S. Some of you listening right now just went, yeah, man, you know it, damn skippy.

And chances are if you're one of those people that understands what others may interpret as a bingo calling or a secret launch code, you tie your own flies to drill that down even further. I bet you tie your own streamers specifically. Perhaps you're even a hashtag streamer junkie. I mean I am, and I credit none other than Brian Wise of fly Fishing the Ozarks, who has been on this show with fueling my early streamer junkiness back in the day, or like eight ten years ago something

like that. It was Brian's tying videos on YouTube that opened my eyes to all sorts of streamer patterns I'd never heard, ever seen before, and he often tied them on Gama Katsu B ten s hooks, so I ordered myself a pack in size too and pie Gali. I've just never looked back. Now. I understand there are plenty of great hook options out there. All the kids are digging on the Arax hooks nowadays. You've got your cheese and your fire holes and so on, and they all

make fine products. But I just like the B ten s better, and since it's never really been broke, I've never really found a reason to fix it. The BA ten is classified by Gami as a stinger hook, and while some may argue, I call it the best all around big fly hook ever made. I buy Size twos impacts of one D and without a doubt I tie on that particular hook more than any other. Betends have a long shank, but not too long. The point also doesn't extend as far forward as it would on a

traditional streamer hook. That point is also angled up, but not too much, just slightly closing the gap just a bit, making it easier, in my opinion, for fish with slightly smaller mouths to still get pinned on the larger flies you tie on this hook. These hooks just have like the perfect anatomy and their killers of course incorporated into a dungeon or a cheech leach, but their use extends

far beyond meaty streamers. Beat ends are very strong and they're also very light, making them my go to for small mouth poppers, master splitter mice, and anything else that needs to work on the surface. All gamkatsus are corrosion resistance, So when I need a hook for a false albacore candy or schoolly straper deceiver, guess what it is. It's B ten s size too. I even use them for both in flies, which is saying something because their mouth is hard enough to bend carbide steel, yet I've never

had one bend out a B tent. Truthfully, I might go as far as calling the B ten as the greatest all around hook period, well beyond fly fishing, and because I kind of buy them in bulk, they kind of find their way into my conventional bags as well. They're actually my first choice for nose hooking a fluke or swim bait because that little bit of extra shank length creates I guess what i'd call a sturdy your pivot point and to my eye, my plastics wag better

than they do on a short shank. They're also great hooks for fishing delicate live baits like peanut bunker, and I've had Mahi mah he's up to twenty pounds do their damnedest to get loose after eating one of those peanut bunker, and they failed. Most importantly, no matter how you use this hook, you can count on it being raised a sharp and I can tell you from experience

those needle points don't really roll over. I've honed a few that have dulled, but only after multiple trips, multiple rounds of use, and like way too many connections with rocks and wood. Now, maybe I'm just biased, but I've used a lot of hooks, and I swear the b ten as just grabs faster and more often, and when

they go in, they go in buttery smooth. And I know this because I've driven about ten of them through my thumb while packing bucktail on the shank without a packing tool, and I once had one buried in my heel for a solid twenty minutes before realizing it because it just went in so clean I didn't even feel it. So that's all we have for you in this week's Angler e m T Certification course. Remember to always say that you're going to count to three, but pull on one.

Never flinch off the shank, don't grab the pike when your guide tells you not to. And oranges provide a perfectly acceptable stand in for human flesh in a pinch, at least according to Joe. Also, I'd say never trust a guy who eats the orange peel garnish out of his cocktail, just saying, if you actually try that orange trick out or know of a better alternative to mimic the human dermists, tell us about it, send an email

to Bent at the meat Eater dot com. Also, keep tagging the good stuff with the Dennered Angler and Bent podcast, and if we like what we see, we send you good stuff. You might get some stickers, but listen, please don't flood us with disgusting pictures of hook stuck in bodies, because we already get plenty of those. It's pretty routine. And uh, I don't know. We'd much rather see your cat or perhaps a nice potted plant. Don't go, don't go, says to my life