Ep. 459: Hind Titty

This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for el First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first Light dot com, f I R S T L

Different that doesn't really happen.

I feel like it does. I feel like a lot of times I'll be like, hey, let's call the show this, and it winds up not being called that. Okay, pind Titty should be this episode. No one's gonna know why for now, but later they'll know. Okay, Tommy knows what I'm talking about. I know exactly what you're talking about. Tommy knows exactly what I'm talking about. Joey. We're recording today from the Flagship First Light store in Haley, Idaho. What is that, you might ask, It's the flagship First

We all agree it's an.

Spa and Dom Cooper and between you guys, can you quickly calculate someone walks in the door, what's the likelihood they'll encounter one or both of you?

I would say seventy. I've live in here, so probably even more than that. Tom's in here a lot though.

So there's like a likely that you would come in and they would find you, guys, So after this they'll be comfortable coming in knowing who they're looking for.

Just give me a high five. I'm here every day.

Okay. Now you'll know because one of them has an insane mullet.

I've been working on it in a while, man.

And one of them's Australian. Sure and get it out. So you know we've had we had another Australian on recently. You guys have been making a strong showing Yep, we're an interesting braid of people. Great this other Australian is a pH in Africa and and you're here, and so we're catching them as they kind of get spun off into the broader outside world. Also joined by Tommy Edson, known as the blue collar scholar, always bragging up how good he does? I meet you? To trivia? He came down lost.

Then the pause gate scandal broke.

What was that?

Blue collar pause is my new nickname at work?

Oh and then we caught when that Yeah that he what The reason he performs well in private is he pauses the show.

I'm gonna let you finish. Go ahead, Well, oh you want me to go?

Yeah? You pause, think about it longer, which is like if I could like pause it for a couple of days, a couple of days and like be like.

It's actually yeah. It was more like, you know, for four days.

Do you ever do a little research while it's paused?

No, I'm I'm working a high play in a fast placed environment. And I was like, but at the same time, I could pause the game, continue with my job while I was communicating with somebody at work and not miss like I didn't know. There's times where I don't have time to stop even for the five seconds and write my answer down. So it's like and so, but then it does, Dick. I got to thinking about it and it gave me a little bit. I thought, does it

Texted you and You're like, oh you cheater.

Yeah. Yeah, So Tommy, here here's why we're gonna name here's why the show's gonna called high and titty Tommy. Recently, Doug, my buddy Bubbly Doug Durren sends me a screenshot of an exchange he has a Tommy Tommy has this to say to Doug. Quick cow question. If you're milking a cow and it's a race, which utter or nipple are you going for? Is there something in particular I should be looking for in an utter? We're gonna dive into

I wouldn't say it. You could, well, you could.

Say, Tommy sent me the winnings in cash rolled up in a paper, and.

You do that.

You shouldn't do that.

No, that's fine. So now they're just sitting on my desk like an envelope of cash that I need to go and find some way to integrate into. I'm gonna hand it off to somebody.

I figured.

That's why I like it, because I like to feel that.

Man.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good feeling.

When that judge hands you that water cash. You're like, there's a picture somewhere in me.

Yeah. Hobby tournaments you guys done.

That would be, uh the third one I think to this is our second year.

No, no, no, no, I mean how many uh, how many rodeos you participated in so far this year?

I think that's the third one. Oh, this this year? That's holdly, we only do two a year? You do two a year. When's the next one September. Oh that I knew there was more.

To come, all right, So we got we recoup some of our money and the money is going into the Land Access Initiative, Media's Land Access Initiative, which we need to do. We need to We're gonna get heavy duty on raising some money for that initiative coming up. So we're gonna get into what because we had a lot of questions. A lot of questions came in about I don't understand how that's a thing. What wild cow milking,

Right.

It's like most rodeo events like have a they have a where they originated. You know, you have like tie down roping, calf roping where you tie down your calf and you got to go back to your saddle bags and grab your whatever. Shots go up give, but you had to make sure he was stay tied. That's why the time is set for I think it's five or six seconds. You cow's gotta stay tied while he's down. All these events have like beginnings.

Like where they begin from. No, we'll get into the history.

We're gonna do that pretty soon, and then we're gonna get We're also joining us here in the in the first light store is zeb Hogan. I have two ways to describe you, and they seem contradictory. One is host of nat Geo's Monster Fish Show or the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species Scientific counselor for fish just seems different. I would lean into the latter one because it sounds like, really the guy you'd want to talk to you if

Correct published last month, Yeah, polish.

Last month and in it and I watched some things Krinn sent me, And what what really hooked me on talking to you is the question of how. Why is the question what is the big what is the biggest large? Sorry, the question what is the world's largest freshwater fish? Why? It takes a book to not quite answer that question.

Man?

The First Light Store is such an experience. The first thing I usually want to let people do is just kind of take a grasp what they're walking into. It's really cool. You get the whole first line product. Not anywhere in the world where you can see this. So when you walk in here, we've got a huge line. Even the First Light employees walk in, They're like, I didn't know we sold this much stuff?

Oh boy? Yeah, everybody I've been in here with it's like, God, I didn't know that this was all here.

Yeah, it's unbelievable. Between the waterfowl, the ladies line, all our Western big game, huge amount of product we can point a customer towards. So it's really cool. What I really like at the store is the ability to like see that customer, talk to the customer, and like figure out what they want to do in the world. Like, we've got a ton of people that are just doing elk hunts and Idaho, but then we get We've had people from every state in the country at this stage.

Oh really yeah cool, So it's really cool.

You know, we help out people that are doing their first Africa trips. We've got people going down to Mexico for mule deer. We've got all the sorts of waterfowl hunters, bear hunters this spring, We're all over in the store. So I just it's really cool to live vicariously through them and see what they're wanting to do and then to dial in what gear exactly they want. Super fun.

Yeah where were you born? Where you brought up?

I was born in Colorado, but I've been an Idaho boy now for most of my life. So I grew up in Idaha Falls for the most part, went to school up at University Idaho, up in Moscow, and I've been in the Wood River Valley now for about eighteen years.

Oh, a long time.

Yeah.

I managed to store up and catch them a backpacking store and outdoor store for a long time, just to block away from the old First Light headquarters. So I was there from the beginning with friends, with all of that crew and watch the brand grow. And then when they came up with the idea of that store, it was something I could not say no to. It's too cool not to work here.

Uh.

How many people come in and they don't really know what they're walking into, and how many people come in knowing what they're up to?

You know, I'd say a majority of the people come to check out the store. This is a destination store. People do trips around the store. So, but then we definitely have people to walk in here and they do like two or three steps and they there's a lot of cameo in here, and you can see them just do a reverse and walk out. It's just not the right store for what you're looking for. Yeah, So but the majority of people are so stoked to come check.

Out the store.

Yeah, And uh, Dom, walk me through. How did you come to what's the like the Australia the Haley Path to the typical Australia the Haley Path.

Yeah.

See, it was always an outdoors blug. But I came over to America when I was fourteen and, uh, you know, kid reading a little the Rourke in Hemingway, I thought, uh, you know, I grew up fishing and hunting was the next step?

Is?

It often is?

And I came over when I was fourteen and I went on a pheasant hunt and a coyote hunt, and it was probably the most miserable experience ever. Like you came over as a visitor, it came over as a visitor at the time. Yes, I had an old Model twenty one sixteen gauge that someone lent me and I went on peasant this pheasant hunt and there.

Was no dog or anything.

And it was on Blm Land in southern Idaho, and I think we got one bird up all day and I didn't have the gear, didn't have the gear at all, and I actually had frost nip on my hands and the one bird that flew up, I didn't even pull the trigger on because I couldn't work the safety.

On that little Model twenty one.

And at the end of the day, I was like, man, that's a miserable experience. But you know, going back to guys like you know, Teddy Roosevelt talking about this strenuous life, I was like, man, this really sucked, but I had a lot of fun.

What is it in me that really enjoyed this? And ever since then, I was.

Just absolutely obsessed.

With Western hunting.

So ever chance I got, every holiday, I'd come over to Idaho and hunt. I nearly got kicked out of college twice because I was trying to do that.

But were you hunting in Australia too?

A little bit?

So I'm from Queensland and there's you know, a lot of Queenslanders and Australians listening to this. Know that Queensland does not define any game species of our game, so we have, you know, we have quite a quite a robust population of red deer and fallow deer and shittle deer and pigs. But they're not defined as game by the state. They're defined as pests. So it's a lot of control rather so than managing them as a as

Were you involved some kind of ranch and type radio tape activities over there?

Yeah, So I always had a bit of a question for adventure. So my mate and I basically worked out, like what weeks we needed to be at college in which we didn't so that we could just scrape by and pass because.

We want to do it to cowboy and hunt.

That was basically our life over there, and Mum and Dad went too fond of it at the time, but you know, they understand it now. And I was very lucky my old man and my sister actually came out last year and we came on a hunt with me for the first time, and we were lucky enough to harvest and elk together and work our butts off for it and pack it out. And it's a very very very special experience. Have you guys married, No, at least this guy is married for a long.

You've been married a long time fifteen.

His wife's actually he's watched a hairdresser and one of the most highly acclaimed hairdressers in the valley.

So you got like a revolt going against your wife.

She you know, she tips a big game. How she doesn't like it, but she gets a glass of wine in hair and.

She want to run her fingers through the back of your hair.

It's got the Kavorka man, you can't.

All right, So there you have it. So if you come, if you wind up anywhere in the vicinity, come down to our flagship first light store, only place on the planet right now where you can walk in touch stuff.

Yeah, it's a pretty neat experience.

A couple of weird looking dudes get some great products in your hands.

Yeah, well now they know, now they know, Like it's like, yeah, a couple of alarming looking fellas, but deep down, a couple of hearts of gold.

I wouldn't go that far.

We like to hunt, man, that's the most important part.

Yeah. Ever, if you can speak to the equipment, that's great, man. Yeah, absolutely, well, thank you man. Thanks for letting us be down here too, because we had to lock the doors.

Oh absolutely, Now, this is a really cool experience. That's awesome having you guys here.

I'll point out that there was a person out there that wanted to come in who had a pretty very set She knew exactly what she wanted. Absolutely, that was an educated customer coming in.

We get a lot of those, Definitely a lot of people they know exactly what they want to put their hands on. They just want to try it on, see what they need. A lot of times we can close that sale right here.

Yes, she wasn't here to run her fingers through your hair. She was here to make a purchase. Oh you never know, man, All right, Tommy, thanks coming down now, help enlighten, enlighten people about the rodeo event called tell me what it's called?

Do?

I want to make sure I got it right.

Technically, our turn our our event is called shoot Cow milking shoot cows.

Basically you and you want me to just start like.

The I want to know the history. I want souped nuts.

As I understand it, the history is like basically you're loading cows like with manpower instead of with horsepower.

And you know, basically the way that's.

Kind of the crux or the beginning of how where that rodeo event started. What, as I understand it, how it works is your basic rodeo arena, your basic oval. One side is almost always grand stands. The other side is your bucking shoots, and you're where all your rough stock is bulls horses, bucking horses, whatever you have.

In most standard proteo arenas, you have six bucket.

Shoots three and three with a gap in the middle, may or may not be a gap in the middle. Wild cow milk and what they do is it's a three man team. You have three positions on that team. You have a milker, a mugger, and an anchor. Anchor

But they presumably they've checked to see if the cow is lactating.

Oh yeah, but that's something too as usually sometimes you do get one that's not nearly as moist as the rest of them.

You know, you'll try it one once in a while. That's what hands my question to Bubbly Doug.

You know, I want every upper hand I can get, yep, So I went straight to the man.

Yeah, but.

Then the buzzer goes off and all six shoots open that you will all six guys open their shoots, and six cows come bull dozing out of there, and it's your job to stop them and not get run over.

And there's eighteen people in the arena.

Correct, the rules of.

The of the.

Of the event are.

You cannot touch that cow with your hands until she crosses a chalk line about twenty five feet.

Out in the arena.

You can hold onto that rope, but you cannot physically touch that cow. Put your hands on that cow. As soon as she crosses the plane of that chalk line. Boy, she's fair game. And usually the go to move is just wrap her up in a headlock and just hang on, man, just don't let go. Okay, but there's a lot going

So so you do you try to snake that teat right down into that beer bottle.

You try to squirt it into the squirt it in there. You need one good squirt. The last rule of it is one good squirt. You need one good squirt. Yeah, you don't got to fill the bottle. No, the rule is is that you go out once you.

Find we just had it. We I'll point out we just had a where we did a deep dive on competition regulations. I was proudish thing. Yeah, yeah, one good squirt isn't gonna.

Cut it for me. No, it's not gonna cut it for you.

How who defines a good squirt?

The judges?

Because once, once you get once the milker yells the word milk, it's the mugger's position to pull the halter because.

The milker has runner back up, back up.

Okay, it runs out of guy's holding the rope, correct crosses the plane, somebody stops her. Okay, someone grabs it, and someone tries to stabilize it. The milker goes in with the bottle.

Yep, okay, get some milk. The rules are that you need one drop to come out of that bottle in five seconds of it being upside down. But you gotta have the halter.

That's what I was looking for and sprint all the way across the arena to in front of the grand stands, where there's a judge standing.

There with a flag in a rope.

When you step into when you step into that ring, she'll she'll draw, she'll throw a flag and say time. You got to turn that bottle upside down. And you got five seconds from that moment for one drop to produce a drip?

One drop?

How uh, here's the thing I struggle with. How if you put muttons? Okay, picture of dial and mutton busting is here, and bull riding is here? Where does this fit about dead Center?

About dead Center? Nor? Yeah? Yeah, it's like it's it's just like a thing where like dudes that like like me.

You know, I'm getting on and get into my mid forties, and my only good excuse is that, man, I just missed some good old girk conflict.

Got it.

You know, you can't get away with ragged on dudes in public anymore. You got to get into a rodeo for that.

Man. Yeah, you got a boss at work. You know when I was a boy, he just went up and just beat somebody up me too. Guys. Now everybody's all touchy.

You got a boss at work that's real. He likes to give his business, you.

Know what I mean.

And the guy at the gas station you know, I'm right, zep, the guy at the gas station that gave you a ration of it last week and.

You let it go. But you can let all that girl out in the rodeo arena. What are you laughing at?

Cream? It's true. It's so true, man.

So that's all you're looking for, just and a and a buckle. I want first place, of course. I'm a competitive dude.

Don't want to win, and you want there to be cold hard cash at the end of right and a sweet T shirt and a sweet T shirt. How did you first become aware of it?

A good friend of mine from high school? And uh, they running? Do We compete against them in that rodeo twice a season and they run in other ones. And We've been buddy since, you know, high school. I've seen him do it at the rodeo and I ran into him out to dinner one night at a little kind of local pub, water and whole place, and I'm like, you ever get down and man, I'll jump in there. You need a man on the team.

He's in. Uh. I was like, you get down too, I might need I might know somebody else. It's interested. He's like, y'all to just start your own team.

You only need one more.

Like you know what, Joshua point yeah, no, yeah, I'm a beat him for a buckle. I beat him this week, this last one. You did you know?

Yeah, you know that joke where you say that you're milking the cow. My dad did this to me and you say, hey, did you know there's always a star on the end of a cow's teeth and you go to look and.

Right in the face. No, I never got that.

That's a good joke.

That is a good joke.

My old man he had a buddy. So he had a buddy that ran that was a ran a dairy place, and my old man and go down there, and the way I remember, man, he'd always be coming back with that milk, but no pasture eyed milk. And like in my head, I'm sure it wasn't true. In my head, I remember that there was grass, it's like moss in there, and we hated it, man, and we would call it cow's milk. He'd be like, the hell you take all

Yeah.

You ever take a big swig after that competition?

Oh No, it's usually reserved for in front of the judges.

But you know, I'd be game. Yep.

You know when someone asked a question and they're sort of like acting like they're asking a hypothetical question, but you realize they're actually asking a question. No, it'd be like one of those questions. It's like, let's just say, Okay, this guy writes in this big, long letter about recovering a k Craig. If I get some of this wrong,

Right?

Am I getting this more or less correct?

You lost me his wife's milk? H Oh, okay, now you got me back.

Yeah, And I don't know what the're right to him?

Uh cholesterrum.

We haven't replied, Oh, because we.

Have an answer or not a real answer.

Oh half a finger weighed in on it.

Oh, he's the man for the question.

But you know this just came up, and I'm gonna bring it up again. The half a finger brought up a great point, and I feel like raising it twice because how throughout your entire life you have been told if you touch a phone, it's mother will abandon it. Like how many times have you heard that?

Growing up? Including birds too? You were always told to never touch birds either.

Halfle finger brings up a great point where he's like half a fingers Like all the collaring research that is done on funds, right, they net them tranquilize and whatever, handle them, draw blood, wave them. If what you've been told your whole life was true, all of that would be in vain because those fauns would all be dead. But they're not.

That's a good point.

When you go to a bear den and they work up bears in a bear den, s, what are they doing handling all of them everything? They got them inside their coat. Yeah, I see where they got them in their coat to warm them up. But then on the same hand, you're told your whole life the minute you touch it, it will be abandoned. Helffle Fingers first point. The doe wasn't dead. Helfel Fingers first point. The fawn

I don't know.

Ninety percent of Alaska, you're not allowed. During blackbirar season, you're allowed. You're not allowed to kill asau with cubs. Most people in granted, don't get a lot of opportunities. Most people site check it like is it got a cub? Nope, But likewise, in the early spring on their first So those babies are born, right, they're born in February January, and they come out, and that early spring when they come out, she probably has that thing hidden. I have

Really, well, there's your argument for bay biting right there.

There you go.

Where are that louse? He's leveraging this for political purposes?

Don't get me started.

We want to protect that in this stet. So yeah, is it that risk?

I think it's at risk everywhere.

Sure it is. Oh yeah, well you get Clay nukeomb started on a subject.

Oh yeah, lusty or to yeah, big time.

I was talking to Clay this week about bear hunting. We shot a bear on Wednesday and couldn't find it. I heard a death mone right before dark and I could not find it. And masters tell me it's like, oh yeah, that bear is dead somewhere right in the timber. And got in there that morning with a dog and found it right away.

Oh great, Yeah, it's cool.

Still good, it's good.

Yeah. Back to Heffelfinger. The notion that human scent will cause the mother to abandon it is an old wives tale perpetuated by biologists to keep people from touching newborn fawns. Researchers handle fawns all the time, and although they use gloves to minimize scent transfer, the mother does not abandon the fawns. The farmer anecdote is more proof of that maternal instinct is strong. Number three right, Tommy, I'm ready. Human breast milk is better than whole milk from a cow.

Oh? Yeah, Me and the rest of and the rest of the team, Joe Wee, Steve Maby We're coming.

And what's the buckle saying on it?

Usually I think they say shoot cow milker or champion.

Champion, Yeah, like, but you rest your arm on that.

Oh yeah.

And then here's my other question for you while I got here, Can you give me give me a layman like a like a like a Joe blow, like a Joe blow. Washington perspective on what's going on with the with with the with your Guys Game Commission in Washington funny you ask, can I can I give you further endorsement please. Tommy is the kind of a hunter and fishermen who instead of just sitting around complaining, follows and is involved in his follows and isn't involved in his states wildlife management.

Yeah, you keep yourself educated as most as best I can. You said it best when you said Layman's because like I don't. There's a lot I'm very trusting and that's probably a problem given the current state of our commission. Our commission has been a lot of guys that use the word compromised, and a lot of guys use the words infiltrated. But there's definitely some red flags going up about what's going on in our commission.

And you guys have a governor appointed game commission of how many folks nine folks nine folk?

That way, there can never be a split, you know, typically it's x amount, or it's so many from the eastern side of the state, and typically and so many from the western side of the state. I think that is that way because the western side of the state tends to be standing in a different place than the eastern side of the state as far as politics, and it makes it in the past.

It's remember it if you looked at it on a map and you imagine it split apart and the parts fell. The side that would fall to the right correct leans to the right. That's great way. I'm never going to forget that.

That is a good way.

That is a side that falls to the left right.

There's uh, there's some serious like red flags and question marks being raised in Washington's game commission as far as decision making.

Totally ignoring the biologists that are paid to.

Do the studies they do to find out to come to the facts we do. We lost our spring bear season mm hmm, but like we don't. And it's because interest groups. People that love animals don't want other people that love animals killing animals is basically what it's coming to.

The approach they've taken is historically those game commissions have been populated by people with skin in the game. I mean that. I don't know if that's the point. I

Correct. Correct, And.

Where we're at now is that there's a new draft policy and I think there's some litigation that's been done or taken action against them.

As a rebuttal to this, to completely like.

Basically rewrite the goal for Department Official Wildlife's Commission in and of itself, it's unfortunate, And look, I'm not the best at when it comes to complaining about things.

I'm just not. I'll just find a way to do what I want to do in a manner.

But so maybe I'm not the best spokesman. It's unfortunate that now we don't have the luxury as sportsmen in Washington to sit around on our laurels and just complain about it because I as soon as I hear it from somebody that I know for a fact is never sent an email to the Commission, has never done the homework or cited a study. That adds to the fact that we're trying to work under the North American mettle of water wildlife Management. Why are we going away from this?

We all have to get enough of that shit. We all got to come together. That's enough of it. You know.

Well, I've talked a bunch like I'm a believer and slipper. I'm a believer in slippery slopes. A lot of people aren't, but I think there are, Like I think I think Wildlife Management that there is a slippery slope. There's a playbook that it goes by. You're generally going to go

Do you support them using a gun? You know?

I don't know about that, right, So it starts the specifics peel away, right the playbook and attacking hunting and fishing is to peel out, to peel out the easy parts, meaning you would never go you would never start a group that, you would never start a group that was out in front of whole foods collecting signatures to ban hunting and fishing in Washington State. It'd be a fool's Errand instead you'd go and be like, Okay, we're going to go after spring bear season because there's the issue

That's exactly true.

Yeah, people think that way, But I think that if you look at I think that if you do a case study of some issues in Washington, you do a case study of some issues in California. I think that most anybody that does any extractive use of renewable natural resources, like wildlife resources, would at some point be like, man, I probably should start paying attention to this.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

You know, Monday mornings have become my mornings for what I call hate mail. It's not because I'm sending off nasty messages. It's because I hate the fact that I have to sit down and spend twenty minutes on my Monday mornings sending off these emails to these wildlife commissions about this topic.

The only thing we can do, man, is just get involved. You have to send off the you have to do it.

We have to do it in Washington anymore, because they're gonna come. I mean, predators are up next. Commissioner Baker has talked about it. I hate to name drop, but it's true, has talked about want to do away with coyote hunting.

Mm hmmm.

I mean.

Back last spring when we were having this spring bear just discussion, they wanted to do away with any and all spring hunting.

Yeah, and then turkeys, like do you know?

And then when that was brought up that I'm not gonna name who in question brought that up, but they didn't even know turkeys were hunted in the spring.

That's how far out of our square we have a trying to fit a square through a round hole in the block box.

Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, but what's the what's your guys governor's stance been on this?

He's pretty silent on it, and he's the one to put Yeah, it's best I can understand.

I think he's included in the litigation. I don't know.

It's uh, you know, like in the Constitution they say, like the rules to be president, like you gotta be whatever, forty sure, you gotta be born here and in America they should be that you gotta hunt and fish.

I agree. If you're gonna make rules on it, you should have to do it.

Yeah, don't have to worry about all this garbage.

I agree.

Thank you, Tommy, You're welcome. You got any more you want to add? How much money could you win at the best if you did the best, if you did like, what's the possible winnings for the next rodeo.

Best.

Yeah, how much money was going that envelope you already sent me.

I'm not gonna say more than one hundred and fifty bucks, less than three hundred bucks.

So when it's all said and done, we have made money or lost money, you'll make money.

You'll make a little money.

Good.

I don't want any kind of pencil pushers. No, no, no.

At the very high end of it. I think the very high end of it. I think we're looking at at least six hundred bucks.

Oh double. You're gonna have people lining up to invest in you. Man, good, send three hundred to get in. You can double your money. You can't do that on the stop. I didn't.

I gave you that offer. That offer doesn't stand for everybody else. Yeah, sponsorship changes. I might start keeping some of the money.

We'll see, all right, Tommy, stay tuned, because you're gonna have a lot to say about this big about this question. Uh Zeb Hogan, host of Gels Monster Fish, author of Chasing Giants in Search of the world's largest freshwater fish, and United Nations Convention on Migratory Species Scientific counselor for fish who came up with that title. Did you make that title up?

No, they did.

The help title you would be the u n COOMSSCFF.

Yeah, that's only United Nations group I've ever been involved with, but there are a lot of names like that.

Yeah, got it? So what uh I know, I know you can't answer this. We can't answer this. But if I come to you and I say, hey, man, what is the world's biggest freshwater fish? Tell me all of the hemin and han that needs to go into that answer.

Yeah, so that's how this all started. Yeah, I was working in Thailand two thousand and five. Did my PhD there on uh oh, migratory fish, migratory catfish of the Maekong River. Yeah, looking at the impacted dams on migratory fish. Most fish are migratory in the Maykong, so they're getting like salmon, and so they're moving for what purpose for spawning and also so the Maykong there's a huge flood pulse, so water comes up increases tenfold in the rainy season

Downstream, they spawn up high.

Yeah, they spawn not not necessarily the headwaters, but like in the upstream spawning areas, and then the fish all go in the.

Floodplain tributaries are in the Meo.

In the Maykong or there's like a thousand species of fish in the Makong, so they are they really Yeah, so they do everything, but like a couple hundred.

A thousand species of fish.

Yeah, so more more species in the Maykong than they're in the United States.

What.

Yeah, it's the second most diverse. Amazon has over four thousand species.

Huh. That's man.

Tropical tropical big tropical rivers have a lot of different kinds of fish and a lot of big fish. So that's how I got involved. I was doing my PHDT there working with local fishermen. The fisherman that I was working with caught a six hundred and forty six pound catfish and you saw it. I saw. This is how

And this is hook and liner net net. Okay, And so that's so that's just making a mess out of that net.

It's a big net. It it's just the meshes like that. It's just a big only designed for that fish.

I s yeah, okay, okay.

So it's a traditional they've been fishing that way forever. It's a only during that few weeks only using that kind of net, specifically catching.

There after hogs after job.

Yeah. And there's a ceremony associated with it, really. Yeah.

And they're doing it for commercial purposes, like they're selling fish.

They sell it, no, but they only catch I mean, the whole time I've been working with them, they probably caught ten of them. So it's not like you're not gonna make a lot of money.

Got it?

Got it?

So the first time I saw it was in nineteen ninety seven. This is right up in the Golden Triangle area, right where Thailand Laos and Miramar meat, so way up in the northern part of Thailand. First time I saw

And how impressed were they by that fish?

They didn't they didn't realize it was the world's largest fish.

But I mean were they were they saying to themselves, no, this is the biggest one we've ever heard of, or they're like, oh, that's kind of what they're.

Like, that's kind of no. So the guys who caught it, it's a team five guys, and they were on there. They were students on their summer break, like young, young guys, and they barred their uncle's boat, went out. You take turns, so it's there's like one lane where you can drop the net and the fishermen take turns. It's a floating net, so you drop it, it floats down for like a coometer. If you don't catch anything, you pull back in. The

I gotcha.

They didn't to them. I mean, it was a big fish, but you know they're all four or five, six hundred pounds. Yeah, I'm with you, And so they didn't realize, and so I sort of said, hey, is this the world's largest freshwater fish?

Like is that? Like you were asking, is this specific fish the world's large.

Biggest freshwater fish that's ever been caught? And so you mentioned earlier like the definitions, there's only one for all of this work. There's only one definition or only one criteria, which is the fish has to spend its whole life in fresh water.

Yeah, but I don't know how fair that is. That's kind of one one of the main reasons I wanted to ask you about it. So let me get kathaway with it. For instance, Sure, Okay, when we were when we were doing our Fishing Game cookbook, we had the fish broken out saltwater fresh water, and it came up with a question of salmon, right, and we debated back and forth. Is it freshwater saltwater? My brother Danny studies salmon the US Fish and Wildlife Service. I said, hey, man,

Why do you why do you have to choose? Why do you have to pick?

Because the cookbooks only we didn't want to make it. We didn't want to make a category that had like bull sharks, salmon and straight baths or I don't know whatever. Yeah, you know in American eels.

Yeah, So this, like the criteria is just it's just for the I'm a research professor at the University of Aderina.

So you guys like you guys like the off you skate.

No, but it's not it's not splitting. It's a simple criteria that fish, that particular fish has had to be spent its whole life in freshwater. That's the only criteria.

Okay, how do you know one of them I want to move on from this, But how do you know that one of them big ass cats didn't one day go down and get into brackish water.

Well that's what that's what that's what we study.

Okay, what happened?

They don't?

Oh, all right, there you go.

I think the interview is over.

They just don't.

They don't like brackish water.

Some fish do. But you know, the point or the sort of the work that I do, and the point of the asking the question was that if you if you just ask, okay, what's the biggest freshwater fish? Then you have white surgeon bluga surgeon in Europe they can get like three thousand pounds.

So what's the great lake surgeon? Lake surgeon that they just not contenders.

They don't get big enough. But okay, but they only fresh water yeakay, so there's actually they would count for you. Soty River in northern Idaho has a population of white surgeon that does not go down to the ocean.

So does the Snake River, Yeah, because of the dams. Yeah, oh yeah, that's another that's anotherness there. But there are some sturgeon that choose not to go to it's just their ecology, okay, yeah, and so one of those could be a contender.

Or do you have to not because the species will go to saltwater?

The fish just the fish.

Yeah, you're interested in the individual fish.

But as a way to learn about all these fish, like the the reason why this is an interesting question, Like I didn't I didn't know what I was asking when I said, Hey, is this the world's largest freshwater fish? What makes it interesting is we don't know, and we don't know anything about these fish. So there are probably forty species of fish that get over six feet long or weigh more than two hundred pounds in fresh water in the world out and they're over fifteen thousand freshwater fish.

Hit me in North America. Hit me with what we got.

Alligator gar white white sturgeons.

Also back up on the parameter six feet in length and.

What was the way or over two hundred pounds either six feet long or over two hundred pounds, and we got go ahead. Alligator gar, alligator gar, Mississippi American paddlefish, white, certain populations of white sturgeon, lake sturgeon. Some people say Colorado pike minnow used to get that big. They don't really anymore, But that's North America's largest minnow. About blue cats blue cat, blue cats and flathead get.

Up to about one hundred what's the record these days? I think the records about hundred fifty pounds.

So they don't break, they don't break.

But you read like old like Mark Twain, or you read old accounts from eighteen hundreds. There are accounts of catfish that big you don't know whether, you don't know what.

Like hawk Finn looking at it there and he says it's two hundred pounds.

What about What about the old tales about guys in the eighteen hundreds dragon white sturgeon out of the Columbia with teams all, Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's true as far as I know. Yeah, I mean surgeon, white surgeon fifteen feet.

But those are saltwater fish, though.

They're fish that don't spend their whole lives with fresh water. They're they're they're an adamus fish. They move back and forth. There's not there are lots of fish like that, but the ones that move back and forth they can get bigger because they typically when fish are out in the ocean, generally they have access to more food and.

God, they're able to utilize marine resources. And yeah, okay, so go on on the numbers.

Oh so yeah, so it's just a small number. I think that's it. So, I mean.

There's I thought there's fifteen.

They're there are like thirty or forty big fish all over the world, Okay, and there we have it in the US we have five or six.

Oh I'm sorry, I thought fifteen, and they get really big. So just a small little collection. Yeah, let me just there's the thing I can't move on from because I want to understand it. You know, when you hear a crazy story and you probably know this better then some bull shark go away?

The hell? Up?

The how far did a bull shark go up? With the Mississippi so like Illinois.

I had a book when I was a kid that's had them in the Great Lakes. I think they're I don't want I don't want to say something that's not true. But the book I had when I was little said that they made it all the way up to the way up they will, is there that's unusual?

Yeah, no, very unusual, right, But I'm just it's a physiology question. Yeah, if you look at a shark that they can go and spend like we're in at least an individual can go and spend presumably months in fresh water. Uh, physiologically, like could two of them go what? Why can't two of them go up and reproduce in fresh water? Or is it or is it open that they maybe could or like, like what what winds up happening to them?

Bull Sharks as far as I know, don't breed in freshwater, So it is physiological, but I don't know why that is. They're they're very adaptable. They can live in saltwater, they can live in fresh water. They don't breed in freshwater as far as I know.

Well, yeah, there has to be some barrier because they're there's not reproducing populations of them up in the Great Lakes whatever, yeah, yeah, or wherever the hell, right, So there's some like reason why it doesn't work, but it's that's not well understood now.

But you have another. So three of the largest freshwater fish are freshwater stingrays, which are related to sharks, and the species I study the most is just a species in Southeast Asia get over six hundred pounds freshwater stingray and it breeds in freshwater, so it it'll do that every every every fish is different, yep.

And the fact that you can take this is always puzzled me as well. Is that you can take stripe bass, which are right, it's an anagamous fish spent a lot of time in brackish water, can spawn in purely fresh water. But then you can take them one day and throw them into some reservoir and they don't even change tune.

Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean some fish have the ability to.

It's just I don't know, it's hard to understand how that could be.

Right, Yeah, we have and I live in Nevada right now. We have Lahan cut through trout. They can live in brackish water, and so that's actually like they're they get really big in Pyramid Lake near near Reno, and that's actually what's one of the things that's kept them in that lake is that, like we invasive species haven't been able to get into the lake because it's brackish, got it.

So that's how they get it for themselves. Yeah, oh no, kidd okay.

It works with some fish as advantage.

All right, So pick a back up. I can't remember where I left you fish.

So the so the book, it starts with the catch of the world record fish. And so what I've been working on for the last twenty years is just trying to travel all around the world together as much information as possible about these big fish because, like you said, like seventy percent of them are endangered with extinction. So some of them are like all the Meekong species are basically on the brink of extinction.

Really.

Yeah, And so my kind of where my background is working in Southeast Asia. Maekong has like seven or eight really big species of freshwater fish. And then Mongolia, which has the world's largest trout species. Yeah, what's that fish called timen?

Yeah?

Yeah? Is the arapaima airpima's one yeah, yeah.

One of them.

Yeah. So it's like a diverse assemblage of fish air breathing arapaima. You know in South America. South America has short tailed sting ray, which you get up to like five hundred pounds. So what it like most people never heard of short tailed river ray, but that's like, that's one of the biggest fish.

I've seen in South America. I've seen a bunch of the big ass yeah yeah yeah.

And then big catfish they can get up to like four or five hundred pounds that migrate from the foothills of the Andes and then they'll migrate all the way down to the Amazon Estuary and all the way back just like seven several thousand kilometers.

Does the surruby catfish get up to two hundred.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, uh huh yeah, like in Argentina, are there all over actually, oh yeah, they'll get that big cool fish.

And how many does the mekong have to get that the hill criteria.

Like seven or eight? So giant freshwater sting right, yeah, giant catfish, child catfish, seven stripe bar wallago catfish, a lot of more catfish. Big carp the world's largest carp species. You can get up to ten feet long.

No, yeah, what like what makes that river so product? Like, what makes it so that.

It's a big river? No one, No one really knows, because they should. If it just went by numbers of fish, then the Amazon should have more. But for whatever reason, the may Kong has the most and it's like super productive. There's a giant lake in the Mekong called the Tonelysop Lake, which is huge, like you know, one of our great lakes, but it's in the dry season like two meters deep.

Got it?

So no one knows for sure. Tropical big tropical rivers with lots of different kinds of fish, you'd expect to have big fish too.

Yeah. Yeah, So does have had you uncovered since that work? Have you uncovered one that top six forty six that hits the definition?

Yeah?

Really?

So the book ends with the catch in two thousand and five, or no, it starts with the catching two thousand and five and then ends with the new record breaker. And what is that giant freshwater stingery? Oh, six hundred and sixty one.

Pounds oh barely.

Yeah, yeah, I mean where it come out of, out of in Cambodia. Yeah. And the cool my favorite part of that story is that in two thousand and five, the catfish was that giant catfish was killed, you know, fair enough, but critically in danger species. So that catfish

So I want to I want to back up on that catfish. In what form are they selling it? They're butchering it into selling by the poun I mean, not the pound, but you know what I mean, Like yeah.

Yeah, in Thailand for whatever reason, So back up a little bit. Like in Thailand the meat is very prized and it's said to have certain qualities long life or I'm not exactly sure.

Yeah, on those big catfish specifically.

Yeah, have you eaten them? Yeah?

Were they good tastes?

Like catfish. Yeah yeah, I mean yeah, they're good, I mean most Yeah, but he can't tell like someone told me it was actually like a tourism thing, like it wasn't actually like a real traditional belief that it was some part of a tourism campaign or something. I don't know, I see that. But in any way, in Thailand, it's very expensive. So like we were working with fishermen up there tagged. We did tag a few fish up there. One fish would sell for like two thousand bucks, which

The equivalent of two thousand US dollars.

Yeah. Wow, it was like twenty thirty bucks a kilo or something or yeah, just as flays yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So it would be butchered and then sold a lot of times. The restaurants or you know that even send it to restaurants like in Bangkok or like not local restaurants.

And the people buying it are they care.

What it is?

Yeah, that's why it's where so much.

Yeah, it's not just like generic fish. It's like the big ass crazy catfish.

Yeah. But in Cambodia. So this is I actually kind of shifted work to Cambodi because in Cambodia it doesn't have any special significance and in fact, people don't like it. So in Cambodia it was fifty cents of kilo. So, and what I was doing is I was I was working with the fishermen. I would compensate them for the fish whatever they could get market rate, and then tag it and release it so we could follow it.

Oh really, so you'd buy it off of them.

Yeah, yeah, so, but in Cambodia I could do that, but in Thailand.

It was still exportant. You'd burn your budget.

Yeah.

So, and then how much of those fish moving?

They migrate at least six seven hundred kilometers. I mean they're making big, big migrations. They'll move out of that big lake down in the Maykong and then way up into the may Kong.

Are they spawning way up in the Mekong and finer water?

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, so they'll find like that. It seems like they like Rocky, like they the Tony Stop and the lower Maykong is all kind of silty, and they seemed like they go up in these deep pools. The Makon can be up to two hundred fifty feet deep, so really deep, and uh, it seems like they're like those deep pool areas. Say that again, two hundred and fifty feet deep.

Yeah, the Mekong River.

Yeah, so the Congo is over seven hundred feet deep. So some of these river yeah really exactly true. Yeah, but yeah, but the make make the cool thing about the Maykong. I didn't even appreciate this. We we start started doing some filming in these deep pools last year, so we'd send came cameras down. You get down like ten feet are like twenty feet. It's completely dark because the water is silty. So you get down like we tried scuba diving.

Sit.

Yeah. But yeah, it's just y'all. I always, you know, I'm always seeing the fish at the surface, and even when we're doing our research and stuff, we were always seeing these fish like they live in a in the total darkness. I don't know. I just I just didn't didn't compute to me. Before we actually sent cameras down, We're like, oh man, it's in The fish are down there like doing their.

Things, smelling and feeling. Yeah, I can't see squat you ever, I'm guessing you never tried to noodle one of them, big son.

So have you ever done that? So I did it, like not in the not in the Maykong, but in in the US. And it's actually like I I it's a like a real rodeo. Yeah, like it's no, So I didn't. I just went out with people who knew how to do it. But like you dive down, you do. It's teams, teams, three person teams a lot of times, and you dive down and the fish grunt. They make a noise when you get close to them, so that's

It looks it looks funny, but but that's not practiced.

And uh, there's no version of that that you found.

And no, no, for most catfish, the easiest place to grab them is on the mouth. So even in the Maykong, like when we handle the fish, we just grab it like it's lip. The Maykong giant catfish doesn't have any teeth. The Wells catfish in Europe, that's Europe's largest freshwater fish. It does have kind of teeth, and we also grab it by the mouth. But you'll get your you'll get your.

Yeah, yeah, why did they want that big? Do they do they butcher those big sting rays or is that just bycatch.

Every in the In the Maykong amazon is a little bit different. In the Maykong, everything is eaten, so it doesn't like there's nothing that they catch that that they don't eat. So yeah, so the sting ray would be butchered. The crazy thing about the sting ray is that like big and this is just human part of it's like human nature. These big fish people seem to have a reverence for even if it's not like religious, you're around a fish that big, and it's just it's pretty special.

Like there's a sort of taskit and acknowledgement that it's like you probably shouldn't have cut that one up.

Yeah, but like for our for my I mean for my work, I get it. I I workretty much exclusively with with fishermen who are fishing for food. So I mean that's one of the reasons we compensate the fishermen is because otherwise, why would they why would they want to work with us?

You know, in Guyana, they like there was there's red redtail cabs a couple times that I've been down there, Like they'll they'll kill that one and cook it. Yeah, the srubies they'll kill and cook. But then there's one I wish you probably you might know the name of it. There's a big dark one they called Toro. It's like, a yeah, that's it Jiu. I forgot the other name there's They thought maybe I would know it as Toro, which is like the like from Spanish infusion. Yeah, jau uh.

Yeah, those are cool fish there they want that one kill h they're they're like more rare, So maybe there's you know, there's yah, it's just.

Kind of you know, we had all kinds of other fish like no, no, that's not one though, I mean its enormous.

Yeah, I mean maybe they don't taste good. I don't know.

Well, I don't know. They just kind of had a different different you know, like there's like a language barrier so you can't really establish what it is, but there was that was something that Yeah, it was kind of like like the same way. I don't know, but I don't want to use the word taboo. There's just things that would seem edible that they don't eat. The same way. If you were walking around here and someone's like, why are you not eating that dog? Be like, how do

And you bring it up. Like in Cambodia, there's the same feeling. So people feel like if they kill a giant catfish and it's a make make giant catfish, it's one species, there's a belief that if they kill it they'll get bad luck, and like it kind of is self fulfilling. I've seen it a lot of times someone will catch one and then within like a week they'll have a death in the family or something really bad

So what like, what could you say is true? Is it always a different culprit or if globally we're imperiling or globally we're damaging and potentially losing giant freshwater fish, Is it just like a different enemy in every ecosystem or is there are there general truths?

It's mainly dams really, So yeah, that because like overfishing, overfishing very rarely causes extinctions, so it'll you could get the population down really low. But with fish at least, it's very rare that you could like catch the last ones. It's just hard, like these big systems. So fishing is usually not the culprit in terms of extinction. It's usually something that changes.

Then it can drive scarcity, but yeah, doesn't.

Drive like the disappearance. And so like with dams, they're it's blocking spawning habitat changes water temperature messes up their spawning cues. So you see this like the Chinese paddlefish, which is a fish that could get up to like twenty feet long, just went extinct like two years ago because of three wards.

I mean, I didn't know about the damn fish, but yeah, really yeah, so talking about that fish then.

So Chinese paddlefish one of two species of Have you ever seen an American paddlefish? Yeah, so they're cool, right, I mean, so Chinese paddlefish was a predator. American paddlefish are like filter feeders. No, they when they open up their mouths, it looks like a basking shark or something. The Chinese paddlefish was a predator more like a billfish, and it would use it like a sharp paddle, and it would use that paddle to hunt, and.

It was actually going after catfish and whatever else.

Yeah, yeah, probably yeah, carp catfish.

And grew to twenty feet long.

Yeah, no, kid, Yeah, but the last one that was seen was like early two thousands.

When they built that big ass dam.

They built two big dams, Kazuba and three Gorges. Three Gorges is the really big one. And those dams just made it impossible for the paddlefish to survive to spawn. It must have blocked there. They couldn't access where they need to spawn anymore.

And did someone point out that this is a question I've had about the dams we've done on the you know, the dams we've done on the Columbia system and the others were was there someone that said, uh, you know, if you do that, that fish will be gone? Was that a known thing?

I don't know. I wonder what people knew one hundred years ago. We know that now.

But no, no, I'm talking no, no, I've asked that question many times around salmon. There was always a way that that there was probably in people's bag that there's always a way people felt they could explain away ways in which it wasn't the end of salmon because it was gonna be ladder, you know whatever. No one would there was no one saying like and yes, this will be the end of King Salmon or in yes, this

You know, maybe it never maybe it never is. Yeah, we used to have King Sammon and Nevada, believe it or not. We used to have runs that came all the way up to Snake.

Yeah. But with these newer dams in China, you know, it wasn't know you would that they would blink this fish out.

The biologists know, but you know.

We tend not to listen to those guys. Yeah, exactly when it comes to they never get invited to the last meeting.

That's that's true. I mean I could laugh about it, but it's true. Like they're stronger interests at play. But on the Maykong it's and you know this happened on the Columbia too. It's like what you really want. So you know, there's just I think salmon populations are like ten percent of what they used to be on the Columbia or whatever. But Maykong is the same way. Like two million tons of fish produced by the Maykong River

So you can go in and say, here's this, here's this species of fish, Here's what its life history is, here's what it's habitat needs are. If you do this that, here's the price you'll pay. Yeah, do with it what you will.

Yeah. And that's happening right now. So in Cambodia, this world's largest sting ray is just swimming around. It's actually in a small area that's protected by the local community. It's right between two of these big proposed dams where it lives just stuck there. Well, no, the dams aren't there, so it's just swiming around happy. I mean, it doesn't know any difference. But so and that's an area where hundreds of fish spawn. It supports the whole fishery for

Well, where are they leaning If you had to guess, if you had the crystal ball.

The Cambodian government has said no dams before twenty thirty. So that's good. It's good in the sense that they're always altern you know, technology improves, alternatives could them up. So it's as far as like that type of development decision energy, it's always good if it happens in the future because things are always improving.

Yeah. Isn't it a funny kind of reverse colonialism that we have a little bit where we've uh really effectively developed our country and created this economic powerhouse and all this infrastructure and dams and the ability to generate so much electricity and be global players, and then you then go to the developing world and and uh and say, man, I'm here to tell you not to do the things we did.

Yeah, well, because you're yeah, exactly no. But it feels that way. Yeah, but it's not don't do it. It's like, hey, because I mean I'm trying to think of an example in the US. I mean, we're starting to bring down some of our dams in the US that are like the ones that don't generate very much electricity or that totally messed up the fishery.

We're taking them down fast, and we're putting them up.

Yeah, but we had our one hundred years of you know, building a lot of good and I don't know good and bad dams whatever. But I think what the goal is in places that are still developing and building a lot of these dams is just don't, like, you know, using the best information that's out there, just try to make the best you know, like maximize benefit, minimized cost. I'm with you, rather than like, hey, you can't do this, rather.

Be that you can and if you do it this way, you'll decrease the damage.

And anyway, like if or biologists, you know, if some of it doesn't do much good to say you can't do this anyway, I mean, no one listens to just say hey you can't, you can't do this. You have to say why you have to. I mean fisheries are everyone relies on fisheries there, so they like yeah, oh yeah, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Yeah, you know, I wanted I forgot. I was gonna tell you about the thing with fresh water salt water are you meet with the Susitna River system in Alaska, so in south like the Seuxsitting that flows out near Anchorage, So south central Alaska. There's this big river system and very important like big salmon runs kay like you know, kings like just everything right, I realized, I don't know if that river gets sac eyes, I should know, but

Northern pike.

Northern pike are going out into salt.

Yeah, I think blue.

I think blue colandering around and then shooting up new river systems.

I mean blue catfish will do that too, weren't they?

Oh I didn't know.

I feel like I've heard heard of that as well.

And then you're left to be like, well, how the hell did it get in here? Must be those more of those rednecks doing bucket biology. It turns out that fish is like whatever he gets, you know, I was asking Danny. I was like, so do they He goes, I don't know what the fish is trying to do. I don't know what it wants to do, but it does it.

Yeah, they spread, I mean they thinks spread man when they You remind me of a story and the Ebro River in Spain. So a German fisherman took over like thirty baby Wells catfish in his VW bug in the seventies and put them in the Ebro River in Spain where they're not native. And we were there several years ago and that's it's now ninety percent of the biomass of fish in that river or Wells catfish just a normal Yeah.

That's one of the big ones, isn't it.

Yeah?

Well, I mean yeah, I mean you don't need to go that far because the Great Lakes.

Yeah, it's like if.

You go back in time on the Great Lakes, like there was like a sturgeon fishery whitefish right, yea dominant species all the way down in Chicago, like dominant species. And it's just been that it's been rewritten and rewritten. Cart were put in there because they thought they'd catch on as food and then all the accidental, all the intent. It's an experimental aquarium.

Yeah, on the Ibro too, so that they were introduced there and people it's catching relief, like it's not catching release by law, but all the anglers practice catching release, so like no one's eating them either. The Spanish people apparently don't like to eat them. The recreational anglers just like to catch and release. So that's why there's like them. It's you get these weird situations.

Yeah. Now and then they'll make it that it's like with certain invasives, they'll make it that it's illegal to keep it. Yeah, to return it alive, it's it's illegal to have. It's illegal to put it back. But I don't want to name his name, but you know when they got Lake Trout, they got Lake Trout and Lake Yellowstone and they're very worried about the cutthroats and there, so they're encouraging everybody to go and you know, they wanted people to catch them and kill them. It was

We had a thing a couple of years ago or three years ago, maybe it was a little longer than that, when all those Atlantic salmon got out of that net pin up up in the San Juans people oh man and people were up there just wailing on them things.

Yeah, and it was like if you catch one, kill it sort of thing.

Easy to catch.

From what I heard. I didn't go up there. I can't say firsthand, but from what I heard.

That no one's catching anymore. They all died or got caught. Yeah, they didn't take hold.

Yeah, I haven't heard of one.

We have a similar thing going on in eastern Washington with Northern Pike in Lake Roosevelt.

And I've heard in a couple other places too, where it's.

Card yeah, kill them on it's kill them on site Northey's and uh it's Roosevelt and Banks Lake in eastern Washington.

That was what I was told.

Uh arapaima, that's cool fish.

Yeah, And that's something.

Are they all right?

They weren't, but it's sort of a success story because uh there they don't move that much and so it's used to be a traditional. It still is, but like a they have to come up for air, so it's a traditional like spear fishing, harpoon yep. Uh.

The boys I was with, like their dads, that was a market fish, trade fish. They'd kill them and salt them, Yeah, for very small amounts of money, and they just don't know.

Yeah, that's gotta be a tough, tough fish. Do they make cowboy boots out of them things? Skins?

They would get a dart and they would get a prong into it and then just basically handle it like a whale.

With it with a line.

Just yeah. The goal is to get it tethered, you know, to get a toggle in it, and then you just whatever.

Nantuckets slowly, Yeah, you just slowly.

Once you get a rope on it, you just it's just a drawn out you were in Ghana, Yeah, but no, I never did it, But I'm just saying they were telling me about how they would do it. They would basically that you had come up or you'd find it basking and like the first order of business was to get a toggle in it with some rope and then and then it would would begin the process.

Yeah. I think the species in Ghana, so there are a couple like scientists recently figured out there's more than one species, and the species in Guyana is apparently a lot like fatter than the other species. And one guy, one biologist works down there, says that he actually thinks that they'll get a bigger like a seven hundred pound or something. He thinks that he thinks that that's the biggest.

It's going to take the record.

Yeah, but that's it. That's the thing with I mean, this whole project. I always assume, like there's no rule, like you could fish, the fish can be caught. However, like the only thing is like, okay, where you know, where was it? How big was it? I always assumed that I would hear from people biologists and fishermen and all over the world with stories of bigger fish. Like I I didn't think it was going to be me

Remind me again right now, the current fresh water record.

Is six hundred and sixty one pounds.

Do you got do you know what you ought to do? Man? Why don't you just get like a little pot of money.

And start like a global derby?

Yeah. So with with sting ray, we're like, I'm ninety nine percent sure that they get up to maybe one thousand pounds. So it's just what what we were able to record and luckily able to like tag and now we're getting information about it. But we're I'm pretty sure that they get a lot bigger. You know, what are the chances is the one that we found exactly is the single biggest fish.

It's not so no, no, well no that's not that's not true.

Yeah, we are most of the biggest fish females that you're seeing, Yeah, the sting rays.

Yeah. Yeah, and apparently that's the same with marlin as well. Yeah. Uh yeah, the big the biggest sting rayser females. Interesting, Yeah, they typically anchor themselves to the bottom when you're fishing for them. Yeah, so they'll you hook into one and it'll go down to the bottom and basically fishing forward is trying to get it off the bottom. And then it also weighs six hundred pounds.

But there's been many times where we nearly cut a snag and it turned out to be sting, right.

Yeah, I've had both where I thought it was a snag and it was a sting right. Yeah. It's always cool when you you just have something that's you're just cussing and then it starts to move, dragging the bug.

Yeah, you don't think there's a great big white sturgeon up their land locked.

Up there, and.

I'm curious.

Yeah, the global Big Fish Derby.

My money, and I'm biased, but my money's not a good old American.

White Yeah, I feel it because, well, the other thing is choos all these records and stuff, like if you start a derby, then you have to have rules.

Yeah, why don't we talk about that?

About that, about that Lord Hope of blood Socker. The records.

So I gf a uh all of the records. So they're much smaller than like the largest documented fish.

Oh yeah, so like the biggest white tailed deer yeah yeah, yeah, he was killed by a hunter.

Yeah, and so I I gf a record for giant catfish sting ray pima. It's all much smaller than the largest fish because you have to follow the rules.

Oh yeah, it's just way different like the biggest whatever. It's like wound up being that just washed up on the beach one day, Yeah, dead.

Or whatever, which from a like biology perspective is fascinating. So like that's I yeah for my work, I include that, but you know it wouldn't work for a derby.

So your book came out.

When book was published April twenty.

Fifth, how's been going. It has been fun good. Yeah, it's a great book. Did you book events?

Yeah, still doing them. Yeah, it's been great. It took U took over ten years to write, so it was really it wasn't a.

Ten years ago. Did you know you were writing it.

Ten years ago? I knew I was interested, Yeah, we know. So we I worked with Stephan Lovegren, who's writer with National Geographic and we've worked together forever and so we wrote the proposal in twenty eleven and then spent the last ten years just traveling around together.

Information here that you know was where was the publisher ever? Kind of be like, hey, what happened to the book?

There were a couple public.

I got it.

So but I want of landing with University of the Bad.

Approach, which is where I work, Yeah, which is where you work.

That's great.

So it all, it all, it all worked out in the end. And we didn't know, I mean started out asking what question is? You know what fishes the worlds are just? And yeah, it wasn't until this last year that we found a larger one.

So but like I said, there's a question mark that lingers over.

Oh yeah, they're always there, always will be. And it's what I'm gonna you know, it's what I do. So I'm gonna keep working on it.

And but if you, uh, let me ask you this, if you had and you kind of answered it, but if you had to guess, it's it's if you had to guess, do you think the record will stay with that sting ray species or do you think that or do you do you got a feeling like the catfish is gonna blow it away?

Or what I want the record to be broken like because that's that means healthy?

But are you betting on the sting rays? Are you betting on some other things? Like just from your hunt?

Right?

Come on, you know Tommy's betting on white Stairs.

I'm betting on Whittairs and I'm going all in.

Yeah, I mean I think it's the sting ray, but you do. So they're like, yeah, there's these stories from way back when of much bigger fish.

Yeah, divers from Bonneville Dam coming.

Up with these stories, and these dudes, these twenty foot sturgeon is bigger around as VW bugs.

I grew up with those stories. Man, well and those big calffish eating people.

Yeah.

Yeah, or like Locked Nest Monster, if.

It's come on, they'll come on.

No. No, but I'm saying any like, you hear so many stories. Yeah, when those stories turn out to be true, maybe not Locknest Monster, but whatever, Like that's good, Like that's interesting. It never, it very very rarely turns out that those stories are true. But yeah, I hope, I mean,

So I got one last question for you before plugging your book again. If you go to the Makon River and I take a crawler leaf worm, put it on a hook and flick it out, am I probably gonna get hit fast?

Oh not? No?

And I don't mean by the giant can. I mean it's a hit in general?

No? So really?

Yeah, So you can draw on a worm and not get a hit.

There's so many people fishing. So like I went h on the river one day and I for like five miles. I counted a thousand nuts. Oh yeah, So that's what I'm saying about, how it's incredible that these fish are still.

They got to put on a type species there.

No, so yeah, yeah, yeah, South I mean South America, it's still I mean they have I forget what that species with the prana like if you try fishing in South America like prana in a second, it has been my experience.

Sure, Yeah, you throw that bait out there, you're gonna get a hit.

Yeah, yeah, because in South America, in a lot of places, people are still selective about what fish they're eating. They want a big fish, certain kinds of fish. In may Kong, it's like, I mean, you catch a fish like that, that's that's food.

I was in the Philippines one time and we were at a fish market and I was expressing to the personnels with that, like, how could all the fish in the fish market.

Be so small?

Meaning I mean, there's it's all fish the size your finger right and squid And he said, yeah, it's like this. He goes, Then you'll come in here tomorrow and there'll be a forty foot whale shark laying there. He goes, It's just what gets caught, man. He's like, it's what gets caught. Wow, if it gets caught, it's going to be here in this fish market.

Yeah.

Selectivity is.

We work a lot with local people fishing and we monitor we for the last three years, we've recorded every single thing that they catch in their fish trap. And these fish traps so it's a it's an arrow shaped trap made out of a bamboo that can be like a klometer long, so it's you know, like a fight net yep. So it's a big wall within like an arrow, so the fish get like they hit the wall, they

But yeah, it is kind of trying to understand the system. Yeah, like why, well, if you're wondering why, you'll find a lot out. You see that Tommy that's hosting You'll find a lot out in Chasing Giants in Search of the World's Largest freshwater Fish by zeb Hogan with Stefan luvgren U host a National geographics Monster Fish, which covers as well The show right covers a lot of the material in here, but if you really want to read them, book Biology Yeah, it's got a big photo section in

Never read the book. I'd like to.

It looks good. It's a beautiful book, color photography, chasing giants in search of the world's largest fresh water fish anywhere books are sold.

Good.

Look, man, I appreciate you coming out. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tommy, You're welcome and boys appreciate it. Head down to the to the first Light store.

We'll take care of you.

Hailey, Idaho. You'll know when you see them.

This place is crazy. I'm jealous of the mannequins.

Plug plug it a little bit morement.

What do you want me to talk about this place? It really is a destination. It's incredible. You walk through the front door.

There's a great, big giant bull laying there with three years where the sheds.

Laying next to it. That's admirable, dude.

A rifle sitting right inside.

You can just come in here.

Stick them up.

But I didn't know.

It's the women's section that explains why none of them clothes look to fit me.

Well maybe one day, Tom, he's pushing for your job down here, man, I might.

Be politicking my way into something.

Okay, all right, guys, thank you very much for coming on.

Man, appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Oh ride all, ride all.

On a seal ry shine like silver in the sun.

Ride, ride, ride on along, sweetheart.

Were done beat this damn horse to death, taking a new one. Ride.

We're done beat this damn horse today, So take your new one and ride on