Ep. 70: Pop Go the Spoon Censors

haven't really decided yet. Good mornings generate anglers. And welcome to Bend, the fishing podcast that once tried to patch a pair of waiters with big lead chew and trailer bearing grease. I'm Joe Surmelli and I'm Haden Samack, and I was more of a bubble tape man myself. Oh that's good, that's good. There's something wrong with bubble tape. How about razzles? Do you ever have a razzle? It's candy than it's gum razzles? No, No, you never had a razzle. You come out here, when you come back

at here and buying you some razzles? Um, anybody who's had a razzle? You you were you were sure each time it just wasn't going to become gum like you're just about to swallow, and then suddenly it was gump. Total mind freak. Anyway, it cares about razzles. What's shaking this week? We've got kind of a boat theme going on here. We've got a sort of near death experience on a boat, and then we've got a boat that

cheats death. It comes back from the dead, but is reincarnated, um and isn't really a boat anymore, which which beat Yeah, exactly, which beats the more common alternative of talking about restoring a boat for ten years while it just disintegrates in the backyard. You just you just gotta let those go sometime, you know, you just gotta give it up. Just let it go. Man. Well, though, surprisingly the reincarnation of this boat could be more appealing to the misses. We'll see,

we'll see how that goes. Anyway. So, uh, before we move on here, man, what's shaken? What's shaken on the west side? Anything good? How you do one? Uh? You know, big game just kind of wrapped up here not too long ago, so I'm kind of going through like that reorganization process, and you know, my closet and all my gear and getting all that ship squared away. So that means, um, I'm cutting up an elk. Can no longer be your excuse when I call and you can't take the call.

I got like four mule deer quarters in the freezer right now I'm going to deal with at some later point. Um. You know, a lot of the trout water out here fish is great all uh all winter long. So I'm really looking forward to some winter fishing. Uh. Let's see, I'm really really really looking if it gets cold enough, I'm really looking forward to some hard water. And you're not going to believe this, but one of my best

buddies around here is our HR person, Christine. And see, I thought you'd be more surprised that, like, I had a buddy in HR. I thought that would be like, that's a power move at any company. You want to be friends with the HR people. Good for figuring. I just figured with the ship that we say, you'd be surprised if NHR person took a shine to me. Uh. But anyhow, Christine's from Michigan and she's real into ice fishing. So we've been scheming to hit it hard this year

if it ever gets cold enough. Yeah, well, I know it's been it's been kind of abnormally warm out there, right yeah. Well anyway, Uh, speaking of ice fishing, you mentioned the other day that our friends at thirteen Fishing, our friends and sponsors, they actually did get you that care package we talked about, right, Uh, yeah man, they Uh. One of our listeners wrote in the other day saying that there's a lot of yeah man in these episodes, So yeah, man, there is. I forget who it is,

but shout out to you guys. Anyhow, you said something about getting me some gear a couple of weeks ago, and sure enough, the other day a couple of mysterious boxes appeared on my doorstep full of ice fishing gear, and I could not be more excited to get out there and use it. Yeah. The thirteen guys are great. Um, what you get? What's your what's your favorite thing? What? What? What was in the box? Tell me it was in the box? That was your favorites in the box? In

the box? Phil drop that please? What's in the box? What's in a box? Well, they sent me a couple of like rod and real setups, and then I'm pretty sure every single finesse, babe, they offer like literally literally like every single one that they offer. I I just love the look of that flash bang though. It's just like fishy, So I like those. Uh. They also sent some of those freefall omen combos, and who knows, man, like I might even trick some folks into thinking I

know what I'm doing with all this gear. Anyhow. Yeah, as if I wasn't already looking forward to hard water, now I'm really looking forward to hard water. What have you been up to? A little trout, little steel brown trout had been pretty randy on a few of the local rivers and just got back from the Niagara River, one of my favorite places to fish, and and we we we messed up the lake trout pretty good and had a nice little i'd say a smattering of steel.

I could have used more steel, but they were just being finicky because of the conditions. So I'm happy to have just gotten a few um in the tough conditions. But yeah, man, I know you're headed back east soon, and I'm we've we've talked about it behind the scenes and now publicly, like we should get out together and float for those browns while you're home. Yeah, man, you know, I'd love to do that. Yeah, I could. I could

totally see that happening. I'll bring the I'll bring the streamers and rods and stuff, and you you just, you know, bring whatever special items you need for fishing. They're gonna be doing a lot of dube rolling when you're living in a van down by the river. I am not high, I know, I know, but I can't help. But it's a thing now, it's just funny. Um. Anyhow, if we get together to float, I will say, it will be in the comfort of my trusty clack of craft, which

is of course a hard drift boat. I see what you're doing. Yep. Now, if you, let's just say, hypothetically you're on the fence about buying a raft or a hard boat for all your floating needs, We've got a smooth move for you this week with a colleague of ours that just might sway you toward that fiberglass Why all right, Joe, So, we got another one of my friends from the Meat Eater office and here, uh he's currently are what what do you social media manager? Communications coordinator?

What is it? The latter communications coordinator? We got the communications coordinator in here with us. Uh. Corey Caulkins former fly guide as well. Man, how are you? I'm good. How are you guys doing today? I think this is terrific because again, like I work with Corey too, but mostly through email. So having you out there and we're finding out that all these people have these great fishy

story reason we're guides and stuff, it's terrific. Oh yeah, I mean like there's so much of the Mediator Office really is made up of folks who just live this ship in like a big way, you know what I mean? Where were you guiding? Mostly? Man? Started out up in northwest Montana in the Bob Marshall Wilderness for half my career and then the last seven eight years down here in Bozeman. So you guided in the northwest corner. So is that like the Kootney Drainage. I've only ever been

up there once, not that far northwest? Uh, the Flathead drainages? Okay, got you all right? It sounds good. Okay, So that's um. I feel like that's kind of the part of Montana that not as many people go to. I'm sure you've seen much more, many more crowds on the water when you switched to guiding out of Bozeman than that part of the state, right, Yeah, true, it's uh, it's still a little bit of a secret. There's some secret streams

and corners up there, but there's not many secrets left anymore. Well, I didn't. I didn't just spoil anything because Kutney is pretty damn big river that's very hard to fish on foot, if I'm not mistaken. So that was not a burden, correct, not at all. So Quarry is with us this uh this morning to uh to give us one of his smoothest moves man. And this one, actually, Joe, it does not come from a mega sport or it were a client.

It comes from from our man, Corey himself. Yeah, this was a very smooth move on a terrible act on my part, very part of the state of which part of Montana is this smooth move coming from the northwest or the Bowsman area, the northwest on one of the famed flathead drainages. So so lay it honest, man, because I know Hayden knows this story, but I don't. I have no idea what's coming. So I am very excited.

So there's this one stretch of river that we float the attapt to pack your raft down this really steep hill. It's a quarter mile. Takes about four trips. You roll your raft up, put it on a hack frame, pack it down the hill, go back up, which is the worst part, just going back up the hill. Take your frame down, which is extremely awkward, corners of the frame, raft frame bouncing all the way down. Go back up one more time for your gear. When you're at the bottom,

pump up your boat. It's a long process to get a boat in the water on this stretch. It's really it takes a couple hours. You want to try and be there before your clients, and then somebody drives your clients there. If you have the energy, you walk back up the hill, walk your clients down because it's kind of a treacherous trail getting down. So we're I don't know, eleven am a third of the way through our trip, catching plenty of cutthroat, and I think a client got

tangled up something. I had to drop anchor. So I dropped the anchor in a not very good spot. Water was a little fast, and hopefully other people can learn from this one. I'm sure it's happened too many folks, But I dropped the anchor in between some slab rocks. Finish on tie and this not we're ready to go, go to pull the anchor up. It's stuck, very wedge jammed. Yeah. Yeah, I've been here and it sucks. Yes. Asked the client in the back to do what he can in the

back to pull on that thing. He can't get it. He's about to snap the collapsible chair in a half trying to yank on this anchor rope. I'm back there with him, trying to like hold him up and pull the anchor rope at the same time. I actually asked the kid in the front to row as hard as he can upstream and while I pull on the anchor rope. It was a debacle, right, I'm sure we were stuck there for fifteen minutes trying to get this thing unstuck.

It came to the conclusion that anchor is staying right there, and I better cut the rope. I don't want to just leave the rope, which maybe would have been smart, because the rope would have left to, you know, place to come look later. The candy cane blue and white long anchor rope. So I decided to cut the rope. So I break out my pocket knife and brilliantly cut down on the rope and I sliced right through that rope. It's very sharp knife and punctured the raft, brand new raft.

This was the second voyage for this raft, RS Otter. Oh no, so I sliced down instantly, but right away put I put my hand out over the hole. Clients had no idea, they had no idea of what just happened. So my hands on this hole, my hands shaking because of so much air is trying to come out, and I wrote us down about another quarter mile with one hand on the oars, the other hand on this little slit three slit and the brand new otter, and I just go, guys, I think it's lunchtime. So we go

down to this spot pull over. At this point, the whole back end of the boat's drooping pretty bad. Like the guy in the back. They still not said anything like do they still not know what's going on? Even though they were back they were fishing still. I mean, I'm rowing out one hand, so it's just like this total oblivious nous. Yeah, they're fishing a clue. I just really like crab strokes man. Yeah, it was it was

awkward rowing. Luckily it was an easy spot. In fact, I'm pretty sure they caught a couple of fish between the knife incident. And yeah, it's pretty silly fishing back there. So we pull over do lunch, and luckily I had a patch kid with me and had never actually had to put this to work, but I knew exactly how to patch that boat. Got are all patched up, pumped it back up, they had lunch, We continued on our day. They had no idea that had ever happened. That is

like a smooth move in more way than one. It's the smoothest kind of move, because that's what a good guy does, like the best guide. It's like it's like an airline pilot, Like you could be like crashing, but like the good guy, like you will still be eating your complimentary you know, pretzels and not have any clue, like like unless you're like death is eminent, like the good ones know how to just keep that under wraps man,

And there's so many great captain stories like that. We're same deal, Like some catastrophic ship or potentially catastrophic shit is happening right now, but as long as the clients don't know, like you are doing your job so as the smoothest kind of smooth move. The recovery was smoother than the incident. It has everything a good smooth move has. Man it has like you know, a colossal cup, which is like funny, and then it right like you said,

it has that perfect It's like airline captain quality poise. Well. I also think we can all identify Corey with with

with slicing the boats. It's one of those things that in your head here like I would never do that, like that will never happen to me, Like I would always have like no, not to have the sharp objects going down into the raid because I ran a raft for years before I got a hard boat, right, And I was like, so I didn't trust other people with hooks and things, right, but I trusted myself and I was like, I know how to make sure I don't

pop this. So it's just one of those things that's like you never think that's going to happen until it does. Like and I'm sure that was a split second of cutting and you were just like, cannot believe I just right now. I was so frustrated that I couldn't get the anchor up I mean, I've gotten a wedged many times. It is probably my fifth year guiding, and we could

not get that thing up. It was driving me crazy, as you know, the pyramid anchor, and it was so rounded over it wasn't sharp anymore, and I could not get it up. So I was like, oh screw this, took out my knife and slashed. Isn't that when most mistakes are made, when you're just in like a complete fit of rage, you know what I mean? Like cool heads prevail, although like I would have been just as piste off about that, um and I've I've I've cut

off a few anchors before for the same reason. So if anybody out there gets their anchor stuck, make sure you cut up on your rope and not down. Man. I love Corey. That guy's genuinely one of the best outdoors and I know, dare I say the best. I respect for you guys are saying that you're breaking my heart. You said it. I don't know Corey as well as you do, and he might be the best, like except for that one time, just at one time, he wasn't

quite the best. Everybody slips up now and then sometimes with a large knife anyway, h a guy like Corey is like bound to have some smooth moves man. And as far as like our smooth moves go, I think, like that's pretty high up he's done. It was pretty smooth in the sense of like, you know, uh, cause and effect. Like it was like a very clear, clear cut part in the pun. Very good. Yeah, I like fun. That dude has done a bunch of really cool ship

as a guy. Uh, you know, just knowing him as a buddy, you know, he's done a ton of back country stuff, a lot of boats stuff, um, including I'm pretty sure a bunch of trips on the Madison, which gives us the perfect segue into a very special edition of fish News. Fish News that escalated quickly, very quick bit of housekeeping I have to share. Uh, we got a bunch of notes about our Canadian themed show last week,

all very nice, very nice. Um, but I got I got a message from one listener and he says, Um, you didn't apologize enough, Like if you're gonna go full Canadian, you have to constantly apologize. Here, I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, so they up here, you hold he said, you hold the door for somebody, and you apologize for doing it. Um so I got I gotta kick out of that anyway. Um, here's what's going on a little bit different spin on news this week, Hayden, tell the good people exactly what's

going on here. So the fishing world, uh, you know, was kind of in the national headlines for a little bit last week because of some recent events on the Madison River. Um, as many you know, the Madison there was a damn malfunction and in short, I mean we'll get into it more in like the interview, but the water levels dropped precipitously very quickly, and there was genuine concern that this was going to result in some sort

of ecological like disaster for the Madison. Unluckily, it was remedied fairly quickly, and the general consensus is this isn't gonna be something with a lasting felt impact. That said, we felt as if it was like really important to bring as much light as we could to the issue, not so much because it ended up being a really horrible and serious thing, but more because there was so much conversation surrounding it and we wanted to kind of

give people the bigger picture of what went on. Yeah. Yeah, So I was actually I was away when this happened. I just got back from three days on the Niagara River. Um, and you know how it is like when you're out in the cold all day with your boys and you get in and just want to go like eat you know, wings and drink beers. So like, I saw something going on here. I caught a few of the headlines. I

saw it in kind of bits and pieces. But then when I finally sat down and read the piece on the Meat Eater website by our colleague Sam Longdren, I was like, oh shit, right now, I know. Um, a bunch of the Meat Eater team like jumped right into action on on this and and went to ground zero, right Yeah, a bunch of our colleagues were immediately. I was getting text left and right. Uh you know, Oh we're going out. We're going out. Do you want to come?

You know? And I think that really speaks to it's like a microcosm example of the response that was felt, you know, from all sorts of you know, different areas. I heard of people coming from as far as South Dakota, you know, to go help. Yeah, well, I mean you have to consider we're talking about one of the most famous trout waters in the entire country, if not the world. Um, and that this also hits so close to home for

you and everyone else out in Bozeman. Um. You know, you had said I'd like to fire up a special report on this, and I was all for that. So who is joining us to tell everybody? So today we have Andrew Welch. He is the leader in hydro power license compliance for Northwestern Energy. And we also have John Way, who is the owner of the Tackle Shop in Ennis,

which is the oldest fly shop in Montana. So yeah, I think we're gonna have a a really good conversation and it's gonna bring to light a lot of like, you know, problems that existed before, how we're dealing with this particular problem and what we're gonna do to avoid problems of a similar ilk in the future. Absolutely, So we're gonna We're gonna talk to John and Andy and Phil. I'm not really sure who you're gonna judge with this one, Um, but this wouldn't be bene if we didn't hear from Phil.

So when this is all over, Phil surprised us. Alright, So today on the show, Joe and I are doing a special edition of Fish News covering some recent events on the Madison River that made national headlines. For those of you who don't know, Last Tuesday, a malfunction at the Hebgen damn uh caused the water to drop to

dangerously low levels on the Madison River. After the malfunction was discovered, volunteers flocked to the Upper Madison and worked to relocate fish stuck inside channels, while cruise from Northwest Energy worked by all accounts, NonStop to restore flows. After forty eight hours, the dam was fixed and the flows

river restored. With us today to talk about it, we have two guests, John Way, owner of Montana's old owner of Montana's oldest fly shop, the Tackle Shop in Ennis, and Andy Welch, leader of hydro power Licensed compliance for Northwest Energy. How is it going, guys? How are you happy to be here? I appreciate you guys taking the time to be here so much. This is this is terrific. Yeah, for real, Um, It's something that a lot of folks are deeply concerned about, and it's kind of like a

nuanced issue to unpack. And so it happened like two experts like yourselves. He's going to be I think hugely valuable to clarifying a lot of like the situation. It also makes it feel like we have a grown up podcast. We're not just grabbing ridiculous news stories, all right, So look, let's sort of get like right down to it. Uh, Andy, I want to start with you, man, Can you walk us through exactly like what went wrong? Sure? Yeah, thanks

for having me this morning. I appreciate it, you bet so. Yeah, the the malfunction that the damn was was caused by a coupler that broke essentially, and so the shaft that controls the outflow gate at Hebgen became in two pieces. The lower half was attached to the gate and it fell to a more closed position, reducing the flows to the Madison, and the upper part was still attached to

our controls. We lost full control all of that outlet gate and uh it closed to a more closed position about a foot and uh and reduced flows down to right around twofs in a matter of a few seconds. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was pretty drastic and right now right this story, um, a lot of it is based on eyewitness accounts. So John, I want to ask you to give listeners a feel for that. Can can you talk about a little bit about what you saw in the

Madison since you were right there? Yeah, absolutely, and thanks for having me today, guys. Um. Sure, my guys and I were up there the day it happened, as well as the second day when the big rescue effort UM came underway. Most of the side channels were dried up to pockets kind of in the holes in the side channels and kind of along the edges. There was still a main channel UM with that most of that two

cfs flowing down the main channel. UM, but the flow to those pockets was there, There was no flow to those pockets UM. In me of the pockets there were, there were fish, sculpins UM all that kind of trapped in those pockets because the water came down quick enough that they couldn't escape back to the main channel. And this was all pretty much UM between the lakes between head Get and Quake Lake. Below Quake Lake, UM, conditions came down I think more more gradually and so those

fish had time to move. So the real uh stress area I believe was between head Getting Quake Lake. Sure. Well, just quick follow up to that, like in terms of stressing the fish, right, I would imagine that that sort of one thing on the side of all this, on the good side, was that this happened in the winter. I imagine this would have been a much bigger issue had it happened in the middle of the summer. Right, Oh, absolutely,

at least in our our respect. But the brown trout had just finished spawning, so there were reds all, you know, quite a few reds in that upper section. Um that did get dried out, and so that that's one of the big concerns moving forward. And Andy, I'm sure you saw a similar thing kind of going down there. Yeah, I totally agree with that. Um, you know it, it could have been a lot worse than a lot of

different circumstances. You know, the heat of the summer would have been pretty catastrophic for fish and aquatic life there. But also if it would have been a lot colder and we would have had all of these exposed areas freezing up overnight, and that can also be much more detrimental than the conditions we saw. And so it was actually with the lack of a very short freezing and uh cooler temperatures, things would have held their moisture for

a longer period of time. And and we I think we were rather fortunate relative to that, right, I think we can all agree that we did get lucky in that sense. Uh. It seems like it seems like a lot of the it seems like the biggest problem in the eyes of a lot of folks was the river falling while operators worked on the assumption that it was an instrument glitch. Um to be like kind of just blunt with it, I is, how come somebody just didn't

go out and check on it? Yeah, So you know, it's that's a very complicated question relative to operating a facility like this. Um, what it comes down to have agin as a you know, it's a remote facility. We don't have someone there, man, So we have a lot of instrumentation in place to monitor what's going on, and uh, you know, are the way things are set up. We did not have indication right away that, um, there was an actual problem within the damn facility itself. And so

we saw the U S G S gage. There's a lot of history with U S G S gages going up and down and and uh, and so one of the first things we did was looked to see do our controls show any change from what we saw yesterday essentially, and then if no, can we verify this is a real condition on the ground, call usgs UM you know, have them check their instrumentation UM to see if if the U S g S was real. From that point on, we sent people as fast as we could get them up there to get on site and get eyes on

the ground. We do have cameras at the facility, they're more facility based, and so those were limited to our value of actually looking at the river conditions down below. And then we started receiving notifications from outside folks that showed pictures and stuff like that that we were like, okay, this is real, um, and we that's when we started our response. So this brings up kind of like an

important point. Uh, there are there are a lot of reports saying that people tried to get in touch with Northwestern for you know, some folks estimated as many as like twelve hours between when this was noticed and when you know they actually got through. Could you speak to that at all? Yeah, you know, it's that's a really hard question to respond to in the way that who knows where they were calling who they're trying to contact. But you know, we we do stop by flas shops

um about quarterly with our my staff. We leave our contact info. UM. We you have websites for the Madison that you know has some contact info. So um. I truth, we don't understand who they might have been trying to get ahold of M. But I'd have to have more

information obviously to evaluate what really happened. Yeah, and see, I also think that's a little unfair, right, But one thing you said about the the gauges that that sort of resonates with me just because not just you guys, but everybody fisherman in general put so much stock and like you're always looking at gauges on your phone and wind gages and all these things, and like we we

we we take that to heart. But in reality it just goes to show that sometimes those things are wrong, you know what I mean, Like you need to have eyes on the ground, or or even in fishing scenario where it says the river is doing this, it might not be. So it just sort of it's like a little like how reliant we are on on those kinds of things, you know what I mean? I totally agree you know, it's it's equipment. It can malfunction, it needs to be adjusted to calibrate it. There there's all sorts

of things with us G S gauges. They do have a good alarm system set up on those. It just happens to be that the Madison River below Hepgin we have a minimum flow of a hundred cfs that's allowed by our license, and so we have alarm set. Like for me personally, I have a USGS alarm set at that level. We didn't quite drop that low, so that

alarm was never triggered. It was the rate of change that was the catastrophic impact, but it wasn't necessarily the full low level of discharge from the facility that would cause us to be alarmed. Sure, and I think another important thing to remember too. And John, I'm sure you could you could speak to this, but um, you know, there's there's so many damns like this all over the country, so many a lot of fisheries have this here, and um, you know, anglers come to rely on these tail waters.

They're great fishing. Um. But you also can't forget that then it puts sort of humans between you and the wild. Like if you have these things and a lot in a lot of cases, these damns create such great, great trout fishery ease. But um, you know there are people operating those and it is it is mechanical and things are going to happen from from time to time. Now, no real quick, before we get there. John's trying to get a word in edge. I'm sorry, guys, and I

agree with what you're saying, Joe. You know, the masison is so great because of the damn. We're always kind of really blessed with that clean cold water that flows all year. And something you said, Andy, Um, the minimum flow required is a hundred. Is there any plan going forward to to bump up those alarms to maybe two or three gfs so you guys have a better idea or more insight UM on a quicker basis. Yeah, for sure.

I actually already adjusted by water alert for the U S g S. But yeah, there's there's there's certain essentially stages associated with the different levels of cfs that we're releasing from Ebgin that um have different impacts on the river there and you know a hundred and see it it's a hundred and fifty cfs is are low UM and then six hundred cfs at Kirby, which is downstream

at Quake Lake. UM. So you know, there's there's definitely gonna be a follow up on this to look at not just alarms, but everything in the mix on you know, what we can do to prevent the equipment failure, what we can do to respond in a more quick and controlled manner. There's also gonna be UM looks at just impacts everything you can think of, and all of those well being brought into context and say, okay, what do we do next time that would alert us quicker be

able to have us respond quicker. UM. But for instance, you know below Hebgin, somewhere around three cfs is where that first side channel in the corner right there starts to lose flow, and so we manage it the best we possibly can to not go below that UM and a six hundred cfs at Kirby onfs all the way downstream it and it's UM really drive how much water we're releasing from Hegan. So I think it's important to note that like this story is not as much about

an environmental catastrophe as it is a close call. And I think the reason that it was a close call, was because delayed or not. Once the issue was recognized by you know, volunteers and Northwestern, Um, the response was you know, pretty swift and decisive. And you know, I think like that like kind of ought to be you know, celebrated. So John, I want to start with you, and then I want to go back to you. Andy. Uh, John, can you describe the volunteer response? And then Andy, Uh,

you know the same question to you. Can you talk about Northwestern's response? Yeah? Absolutely, Um, the volunteer response was pretty overwhelming, you know. UM, and I believe it was kind of driven by social media. It really kind of shows the power of social media. Uh, every fly shop, every outfitter from west Ellstone all the way down to Bozeman here, Uh put something out that this was this was an issue. There was this rescue effort to try

to help save these fish that were trapped. UM, please show up and help and and uh the response was was unbelievable. Um that I think it was Wednesday. I drove up the valley and every parking spot had three or four cars in it, you know, with people out with nets and buckets and and trying to save a few fish and Um, it really shows the power of

of social media. And I believe you know, within six hours, everybody you know in the fishing community coast to coast knew what was going on and and knew what the next step would be. It was pretty overwhelming. Yeah, yeah, And what do I want to talk a little bit about Northwestern? Yeah, I'll just follow up on that to it's I was there Wednesday morning early and U met a bunch of the volunteers all the Madison Foods parking lot and kind of gave an update what was going on.

But the response was absolutely humbling. Um, just to see everybody from all over there come into a place and be respectful to the situation and also just trying to be there to help, you know. And and that was a pretty big deal, I would say, And it was it was just a um, it was a kind of an overwhelming experience to see that. And we had a bunch of Northwestern staff there to to volunteer too. Is you know, this is the lifeblood of our lives too, you know, we we live in Montana for a reason.

And uh we uh we actually made a change of plans and just said okay, let's let's support the supporters here from a Northwestern perspective, So how about we just go and start distributing refreshments and talk to people, and and it was. It was a really great day all on all considering the circumstances that brought it forward. So and I have to say, Andy, I I give kudos to Northwestern Energy. You know, you guys were were in

the parking lot at Madison Foods. I believe the president of the company even came down to n S and and I mean he didn't have to do that, you guys didn't have to do that, and even being on this podcast, you guys, I mean didn't have to but it shows a level of commitment going forward and commitment to the resource. So I appreciate that. It's it's you know, we manage these things for you know, benefit of the resource, but we see it as a privilege to generate electricity

from the water there too. So those are kind of level of priorities and I think you'll find that from the top down in the company. John, I gotta ask kind of a kind of a little bit tougher controversial question, right because I feel like this is a this is I have to ask this, So what we've seen here in the face of crisis is like this extreme coming together, volunteers, anglers, everybody out there working for one calls. Right, But it's also no secret that I mean, the Madison has just

gained this reputation of being so overcrowded. I mean, it's been in the New York Times, right, I mean they've run articles about the uptick in track fick on that river and how insane it's gotten. So do you see this as, at least on a local level, something that come next summer or next spring when the season really kicks back in hardcore? I mean, I think it's fair to say that you have guides out there who make their living their pitching in the help, right, That's that's

that's that's their livelihood. But then you have all these you know, tourists and locals and all these people who, in another breath, some guides could be like, man, these are the people who are clogging up the river and making this place crazy. So what does this do for sort of long term pr on the river? Is this now sort of like do we go back to the in fighting with the crowds, or is this the moment

to be like, well, look, okay, they bug us. There's a lot of people whatever it may be, but when it came down to brass tacks, we're all out here helping keep this going. Yeah, that's a good question, Joe, and something I've thought about as well. You know, you go Fourth of July weekend and her thirty boats putting in Alliance Bridge, and the average tour or Montana resident wants to go float with their family on July fourth, and and here they are. I understand where that anst

comes from. Um, and I understand where the bad vibes to guides are because that's what they see. They see us out there, they see us in the parking lot, they see us on the river, and that's all they see. But I hope now they see this as well. Where

the outreach was from the guidan outfitter community. Yeah, to you came, you know, was it was a big part of it, and you know, everybody pulled together, but a large part of that outreach and a large part of of those volunteers were from the guiding outfitter community who dropped everything and I mean and ran up there. So I hope this is a great opportunity for the public to gain a little more faith in the uh the outfitting community. Andy, I would ask, like, what's what's the

lesson here for other fisheries and other places here? Like, what's what's the takeaway? That's a tough one. You know, the Madison is a unique place, UM, with conditions there. It's amazingly beautiful, free flowing reached between the two dams. That just gives it some character and and there's a lot of things to balance there from you know, recreational and outfitted use to you know, Northwestern making sure we're

managing things right. So UM, I think the best thing to kind of get out there is just you know, how are we communicating what's getting done out there from all parties and and that way we can manage it the best we can. Um. You know, with so many vested interest in the health of the fishery there, it's that it doesn't seem like you could do anything reasonable alone, obviously, and that's been showed through the process the last few years.

There's there's got to be that equilibrium though that you know that well the resource will support the use and trying to figure out what that is and in this ever change environment is is something that everybody has to get together on So we're gonna wrap it up here in just a second. But before we do, I I kind of wanted to, Yeah, you put out a call

for listener questions, didn't you? I did? I did. Um. We're kind of gonna boil those down into some more assiscinct questions because basically everybody asked the same ship um uh First, UM, what would you guys say to folks that are in New York that are reading about this and think the sky is falling? You know, John, what would you say? Andy? What would you say? I think, Um, we we we almost had a catastrophe. I don't think

we did. I think you know, the swift action of the volunteers, Northwestern Energy and Fishwife and Parks all um prevented a pretty big catastrophe from happening. Um. I worry about the long term biological impact um on brown trout, aquatic invertebrates, and that especially in that stretch between the lake. But you gotta remember, this is a three to four mile stretch that was really affected. The Madison is sixty miles long here. There is a huge portion of of

that river that that is not affected. The Madison is still a great place. It's still gonna have lots of fish. Um, We're gonna learn a few things, I hope, and the sky has not fallen yet, ye and yeah, I totally agree um with that perspective. Um. Obviously, going forward, Northwestern is going to do what we can to analyze exactly what happened at this situation and and come up with some corrective actions that we you know, fully intend to implement.

But then also, you know, talking about the long term fishery, you know this this is a challenging one in the way that we don't have good baseline data for fish in this exact reach below he gain between having in the quick and so we're gonna have to come up with some, uh with some ideas with our partners on you know, what can be done here to really evaluate the impact, because undoubtedly there's going to be an impact, um, you know, but what that is and in the the

impact in the overall fishery and the long term is is a whole different question. And so I think that uh, you know, to answer that is it's going to take you know, some kind of specialized folks putting their heads

together to to figure that out. The positive thing is we we do have a macro invertebrate sampling spot right down in this reach, and so we'll be able to track that and we have twenty years of data directly in that area to be able to compare and see, you know, whether or not there's an impact of the bugs. If there is, how long it persists, those sorts of things, so we can get an idea of how you know, the resiliency of the the river there is is reacting.

And then the third piece I will say too is you know, we we've long standing how to program in the Madison to to provide mitigation enhancement measures for the impacts caused by the dams. And it's a perfect framework to to be able to look at some of this stuff to develop some potential projects to help out and uh, you know it's it's a very viable way to to respond to this once we do understand exactly what the

impact maybe. And you know, it's we've spent a lot of money over the is you know, about six and a half million since two thousand investing on projects on the Madison and so that will always continue and hopefully we can you know, make some meaningful impact that will help out this reach. So andy, um, moving forward, is there is there a plan in place right now for increased sampling, increased biological work to to figure out what effects might have had? Um or is your more money

shut a shide for that anything like that? Is that into works At this point, I would say the discussions have started on how we need to kind of start talking about this. Frankly, we're we're getting our breath right now. Um. Northwestern did a full on, full court press on this. In the forty eight hours that we had with limited FLOWCA went out of Hedgin. I think I slept six hours. UM. It was. It was a pretty wild situation. I'll tell you.

Tuesday night at ten o'clock, we had twenty five people on a zoom call, um, you know, trying to figure out. We had divers, we had engineers, we had our environmental staff. It was. It was a full on effort to do the best we could to get those situations remedied as

fast as possible. Now that we have that done, I think we take a quick breath and be very diligent and purposeful on how we go about trying to figure out what the impact maybe and then respond with some sort of action after that, and and I don't want to promise anything right now on exactly how that will look, um, but obviously there's there's some follow up that's needed in Northwestern's committed to doing that, all right, guys, Well, you know, thank you both so much for taking the time to

talk with us. So nice to get insight directly from you guys on something that so many people are reading about on social media and elsewhere. This has been great. I think it's going to clear up a lot of ship for folks, um, you know. I I think it's going to be valuable. I think this might be a very very valuable bit official news joke. I think so too, perhaps one of our most valuable. Again, it was really it was nice to change, get up and not just

talk to each other. Have some some people here with some more interesting things to say than just you and I do so and real quick, I gotta ask and you are you a are you? And angler yourself? I am man. I do a little mixed bag. I find myself out on reservoirs a little bit right now with a three year old. She's not quite proficient at wade fishing yet, so but we're working on it. Quick tip on that, don't buy the three year old waiters because

by the time she's four, they won't fit anymore. That's I bought them and like she got to wear them once and then by the next time, it's like, oh, ship, these don't even fit you anymore. So tip of the week. Thanks thanks for that. I always appreciate parenting tacks like that. All right, well, thanks again for coming on, guys. Appreciate you, guys, Thank you, thanks for having us. You know, there was a chance for that to get sort of combative, and

it didn't. That was a very nice conversation. Both those guys were super on point. I'm I'm really glad we did that. Yeah, me too. Um, I'm really glad that we kind of took the time to tuck into that because a lot of folks were like pretty freaked out, and I think it's important that we all kind of come to the table and have a balance talk about what happened, you know, why the sky didn't exactly fall,

but also not forget to really highlight what we just avoided. Yeah, to be clear, like this really could have been it could have been catastrophic, horrible. Uh as far as I'm concerned, you know, we kind of burned or get out of jail free card. If the weather had been different, if they couldn't have gotten the damn fixed quickly, if it had been a different damn, if a whole host of

things had happened, this could have been just terrible. Yeah, And I think it's also you have to point out that, as much as I like to take shots at social media, right everybody has bad shits say about social media. Prime example of how social media helped this situation very very quickly. So for all the bad that we say comes from it, here is a great example of some good. And that

was a really interesting report. So we're gonna hear from Phil, which, since he's not judging, perhaps just pontificating, this is like a wrapped present under the tree. It's a surprise, right um. And speaking of stuff to put under the tree, Right after Phil, we're gonna hit the sale bin because we've got a one of a kind item just begging to have a giant bow put on it in your driveway. All right, Welcome to our inaugural episode of Ask a

three year Old about fishing? Hey, three year old, what do you think it is cooler Wally I or Wally Wally. There you have a folks, Wally the robot who picks up trash in a post apocalyptic earth, cooler and better than Wally. Back to you, why did you put the hand to pay? You don't know what I'm getting? Man? What you didn't have to be so hurtful with me? So angry? Al right, throw up hands west side flash gang symbol whatever that is, uh, because that's where we're

going for this installment of sail ban. And today's item keeps up with a sail bin trend, albeit a very subtle one that most people I don't think would pick up one. And what is that? So I'm fairly certain that every single West Coast silban we've done has been for some sort of shelter and or alternative to like a traditional family home. I'm pretty sure. Oh you know, uh, the population is exploding in California. Um. We're also looking

in like mostly like fishing classified. And I think that the people who peruse fishing class sufides are like they're typically a certain level of broke, yeah, or trying to live off the grid or of a taxes something like that. Yeah. No, that's true anyway. So this is coming from the Pacific Northwest specifically UM and and we've had from the same region. We once had a listing for an ice shanny that literally is that what they call like a meth trailer

out there. I don't know people from the Pacific Northwest let us know, um, but it literally it fell off a cliff. Like the photo in the post was a dude standing at the top of the cliff shooting down on this busted up thing, and the post was just like free if you're willing to climb down there and

get it. So that was one. And then there was very early on in Bent history, there was a camper that was turned into a boat and there was one photo of it on like a beautiful Sunday afternoon floating with all these these these young people partying on it. But then the rest of the follow up shots were just the interior and you could tell it had been sitting in a yard forever and it's just like completely covered in mildew and black mold. That's how they were

trying to entice you. You know, man, that black moles ship is uh. It brings up a memory or two. Man h In my like really, yeah, in my apartment or what. No. No. When I was a musician, I was working at this one recording studio and I could have my own like private writing room. I just had to fix it up. And there was a bunch of black mold in that which, just in case you guys are paranoid like me, black mold is actually not like

a neurotoxin. It is something that can triggered like asthma and respiratory ship but it's like long term, it won't hurt you. So all you grunge kids, you know, listening from your party house, uh in the basement, don't worry too much, man, but you know, do do clean it up? Yeah? I mean I think it's one of those it's it's it's one of it's one of those things like radon in homes. I think people probably worry a little too

much about you know what I'm saying. This could be horrible advice which we put what we should and this is also why we're not the home improvement podcast, So please keep that in the consideration. I don't listen to this and be like Seahune, I don't have to get rid of any of that black mold in the kid's room. Joe and Hayden said, it's fine. Um, anyway, we're getting

way off here. This entry comes from Bent listener Mark Jeraldlammy in Portland, Oregon, and he found it on Facebook Marketplace and it is the exact opposite of a camper turned into a boat. Exact opposite. Uh. Yeah, it's a it's a boat turned into a camper. And before we even like dive into it, it's legitimately nicer than a couple apartments of lived in Dude, I got I gotta I gotta say, unlike the jan kee ass camper boat,

someone puts some extreme love and money into the boat camper. Uh. A matter of fact, it's so nice that the title of the listings suggests this could also be a tiny house. I think. I guess tiny houses are still a thing. You could just live here, you just live in it. To let you know, Joe, As long as pinterest is a thing, tiny houses will continue to be. I'm curious, man, tell me sell me on this tiny house. Yeah, so this interest. So this thing started its life as a

twenty one ft sea swirl. And while it doesn't say what year, I'm gonna guess by the looks and style it's late eighties, maybe early nineties. And here's what the description says. This old c squirrel speedboat, which is inaccurate. It's more like an express style boat has been has been converted into a camper slash, tiny home trailer, brand new living space. It's one long vinyl floors, all new

appliances and that he's not kidding. It has like stainless steel fridge in it, like they're nicer than the applying Is it in my kitchen right now? Um? In floor storage hot cold water, both electric and propane heat, propane stove, dual tanks, air conditioning. It's got an air like a window unit air conditioner, UH standard house outlet for power, but also is set up to easily add a battery bank and solar panels to be more off the grid.

Plenty of infloor storage for batteries, water tanks, et cetera standard garden hose attachment for both waterline and drain designed to easily remove the closet space if you want to

add a bathroom. You can actually see where like whoever built this, you know, chopped the front deck because I'm I'm looking, I'm looking at the thing as you're describing to be full disclosure for our listeners, and and most of the console off, and then they've raised it to create more headroom inside, like like imagine like creating a gap between the hull and the deck. And then they yeah, it's yeah, it's a lot of work. It's almost as if they made the wall is like taller and the

boat's original windshield is now like a picture window. You know. Yeah, it's pretty brilliant. It's pretty brilliant. And if you can picture the notch that would be cut out of a boat transome to accommodate the outboard, the door is just built into that notch, so like that's like now the space for the full size walk up to the door.

It's it's it's cool. Yeah. What I actually think is most brilliant is that if you were just driving through a neighborhood and saw this back into a driveway at a quick glance, it just looks like a boat totally. You could probably get away with living in your friends driveway longer because he can just tell the neighbors that, yeah, that's my buddy's boat. It's also extremely economical, which is not something that you can often say about boats. Yeah, no,

very much, no money pits exactly. Yeah. Here, here's what the post like continues on to say, insurance on the trailer is four dollars per year, four dollars. Yes, it still needs to paint and finishing touches, but it's ready for like whatever customizations you want to throw at it. So he's asking for I'm sorry, that good of a deal, but you're gonna see it's it's still worth it fifteen dollars, which honestly, I'd hesitate to say is a bad deal,

particular when you're talking about housing. But the very best part is that the disclaimer at the very end, in parentheses reads, this is no longer a boat. It will not float. There is no motor, no mechanisms. It's a camper, not a boat. No trades, no takes backs. It's camper. Not about I. I kind of love this, I truly do. My My only hesitation would be that you're still pulling it on what looks like a kind of okay shape

roller trailer, and um, I mean trailers break eventually. Trailers have their own issues, so um, you know, if it no longer floats, the only way to swap trail trailers. If anything happened, I guess would be to find a boatyard with a lift to lift it off there. You can't just like dump it off in the in the lake for a sec to swap out trailers. Um And I don't know. I feel like true campers are built on beefier frames than your your average boat roller trailer.

But this is a minor concern, right whatever. Bottom line, If I was like twenty two again and trying to start some crazy YouTube channel, like imagine touring in this, the comedic value of parking this at the lake like having a boat you can live in on a trailer, a big boat, but just like being confined to the parking lot while you sure fish. The comedic value alone is worth it. I think it's fantastic. It's it's pretty funny.

It would be a good stick. Did you ever see a show back in the day called gun It with Benny Spies? Oh? Man, I I know Benny Spies because he did some work at Outdoor Life, but I don't remember that show specifically. No. So he used to go around in this camper, and I believe like every time you'd open the door, a bunch of beer cans would fall out. This seems very Spies esque to me. Yes, yes, I think the comedic value alone would in fact be worth the fifteen grand. It's a great stick for the

right person. Mark, thanks for sending this along. Maybe go grab it man, right, I'd I'd say nothing else. That's definitely one of a kind. There are some Bent stickers and such now headed to Mark, and if you'd like some of those, keep an eye on your favorite online classifies for him, and send any weird ship like this that you find to Bent at the meat eater dot com.

So Mark is getting some some Bent stickers for sending in a sale band, and so is listener Andrew Jacobs, because he is responsible for this week's end of the line segment. All right, this is the one where completely out of nowhere, we're going to go from a shady camper boat to shady strip quote. That is correct, That

is correct? Right? So you know, spoons, spoons are pretty great all around, lors Um, but but I feel like there there's so many modern new fangle lures on the market that the spoon has kind of taking a back seat, although it shouldn't, especially with ice season ramping up. You're gonna get out and do some ice fishing, you should use some spoons. So I'm gonna close by covering a spoon that everyone has heard of, but you might not know anything about its risk a history. Well, that's not

loud enough. The Little Cleo is probably one of the most popular well known spoons ever made. It's so popular that it even has its own Wikipedia page. Of course, it also has one of the shortest, most factless write ups on all the Wikipedia, which is odd to me because the Cleo has a fascinating story, one that I just recently got tipped off to by listener Andrew Jacobs.

Prior to Andrew reaching out, I had no idea this simple loure, enjoyed by anglers of all ages and from all walks of life, was sort borne out of a chance encounter in a nudy bar. The reason I was unaware this is simple. I just never really fished a ton of Cleo's. I mean I never really fished a ton of spoons at all, really, especially in freshwater and salt.

I huck a cash master crippled herring or crocodile spoon all day, but in sweetwater for no particular reason, I threw Thomas buoyant spoons for trout and Daredevil's if I happen to be chasing larger freshwater spoon eaters. This explains why I never knew that for forty three years, every Little Cleo spoon had a dancing, topless woman stamped on the back. Andrew sent a photo of a vintage Cleo featuring said half naked lady, and I wanted to know more.

These days, the Little Cleo is produced by Acme Tackle, but when they first hit the scene in nineteen fifty three, they were made by Seneca Tackle Company, which was based in New York City. The company was started by a fella named Charlie Clark, who had already made some money

as a saw writer and music publisher. As the story goes, Charlie had visited a hoochie Coochie club way back in the nineteen thirties and was smitten by one particular exotic dancer that went by the name you guessed it, Little Cleo. Years later, when the spoon was developed, Clark decided to name the lord the Little Cleo because, according to a story I found in the Oklahoman, he believed the wiggling and dancing of the Lord would bewitch the fish, much

like Little Cleo's dance had charmed him. The stamped image of the real topless Little Cleo had a good run. It survived into the ACME Tackle era, which brought Seneca Tackle in. She danced into trout, bass and pike mouths through the Reagan years, kept charming Walleyes and Stripers while George Bush Senior held office and just about made it through Bill Clinton's first term. According to my research, in a female employee at a major chain retailers all topless

Little Cleo and got offended. While I couldn't figure out exactly which retailer that was, it had to be one of the giants like Walmart or maybe Bass Pro, because in the interest of not losing that retailer's business, ACME took Little Cleo off the Little Cleo citing that she was quote a victim of the politically correct nineties. Andrew, thanks so much for sending the shot of your vintage Cleo and helping me educate myself and our listeners about

this classic lore. I want to post your photo on Instagram. But now, twenty five years after she made waves, I find myself wondering do I blur the naughty bits on the back of the spoon? Do I let it ride? I haven't really decided yet, but the bottom line is that naked lady or not, the little Cleo is likely to keep seductively wiggling its way into fish jaws for decades to come. So that's it for this week listen.

Instead of a recap, we just want to take a minute to bring you guys up to speed on something that's kind of long overdue. Right, So, for a while now, many of you have been asking for a dedicated listener Q and a segment where we answer your questions on the show. That's right. So, starting with the first episode of Joe and I are going to build in a

weekly segment dedicated just to answering your questions. And we're bringing this up now so we can let some questions build in the archives and get this sucker like rolling in the new year. Yes, true story. You guys already send us some really great questions, right. We get them on on Instagram. They come through Bent at the Mediator dot com in the email inbox, and we always try

and answer as many as we can. But here's a chance, um, for some of those answers to help fellow degenerates and be heard by the masses instead of just a quick type of the answer back to you. And of course if we use your question on the show, you'll get so to that end fire away. But in the meantime, we've got eyes on those Degenerate Angler Invent Podcast hashtags and we're always excited to see the sale bin links, bar nominations, awkward photos and the news clips that you

guys send our way. Yeah, and we'd also be excited to see you patch your raft with only the items available in the pitssport excuse for a Sporting good section at your local target