This is the meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast.
You can't predict any of this.
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 I T E dot com. Okay, join right now. By Renee Cross. Who played bass was Zzy Top?
Not?
Really? You did?
I did?
He did? By no idea?
You were not not at the member of the band. No, he he played bass.
Yeah, it's still.
He played bass with the guys. He played basis. You play basis? Easy top? Yeah, you don't need to give all the extra somewhere details needed. Renee Cross has actually run Cyrus Cove, Marina. I'm gonna start off by talent. I got you there's I got a couple of good stories. But when I met people, I met my buddy Jimmy Dorn. Just to give you a background, I moved to Seattle. I lived in Seattle for a few years, and there's this dude Jimmy.
Doring is now he's a pizza magnate.
Buddy mine. He sold his pizza joint.
I thought he opened up another one.
Different men.
He's in a lower margin business now missus Pizzas loves his place, but just lower margins. Anyhow, he heard that I moved to Seattle, and he sends a couple of emails just like the company email address, saying, hey, I saw Steve.
Move to Seattle.
If he ever wants to come buy and get a pizza, have him called to my restaurant. I never get these emails. I never see this. One day, I take my kids to get a haircut, and like it takes forever to get them all their hair all three of them their haircuts. And we're living like in a temporary place. My wife had just taken a job, and and I'm walking back with them. I'm like, man, it's just too late. I'm never gonna get back, make dinner, get everybody to bed.
It's not gonna happen. And I'm like, I guess we're walking past a pizza joint, Belltown Pizza, and I just like walk in. I think I'll get them a slice of pizza. And there's this bald headed dude standing there. I can't believe you came. I'm like, uh, do I know you?
What you mean?
Like you don't get customers. I met Renee, a cross here from Cypress Cot Marino. You probably don't even remember this at your fish cleaning station.
And my book. I wanted you to decide it.
Yeah, we were down. I've fished out of Cypress Coved a couple times now and and then oddly in different circumstances. But my buddy Greg Fonce's who I taught about all the time, has been on the show.
My Spearfish and mentor.
Uh.
He's got friends and connections down in southern Louisiana, And so we were we. I think I've gone three times, three years in a row, down to Spearfish down out of out of Venice, Louisiana, and have based out of Cypress Cove. So one day we're sitting there cleaning fish. I don't know if you were there at this time or not. We're just sitting there cleaning fish.
I think I was.
Some guy pulls out in the truck.
Oh yeah, I remember, yeah, I remember the truck.
And he wants me to sign his book, and we get to talking and winds up that he owns the whole damn deal.
I remember that cypress cove.
Marina.
Well, it's like I've told you before, Steve, I just liked the format of your show, and especially the cooking part. I love to cook. I mean I built my house almost thirty years ago now, and the first thing that I put in it was a commotional vulcan stove because I like to cook that much. I mean, people walk in there. At that time, you didn't have those big stills. Nowadays, it's it's kind of an arm you know. Anybody that builds a high end house, they're going to put in
a commercial stove. It might be Viking, it might be a wolf or anything else. But the reality is that my kids had given me your cookbook, and when I found out that you actually come in, I said, get that cookbook.
I want him to sign it.
It means up it to me. I was like a kid. It's like a rock star. I mean to me, you were. I like your show. I like the format of it. I like everything about it.
You know, that's great, man.
It was, it was.
It was.
It's a it's a great thing. And I'm glad that we finally get get to put something together like what we're trying to do in October this year.
Yeah, I'm gonna cut to the chase real quick. Then we're gonna come back around a couple of things. Getting an know Renee at Cypress Cove, we eventually hit on this idea of doing the thing we've been wanting to do for a long time, just looking for the great place to do it where we're gonna do.
A thing called me Eater Experiences.
And when we started getting this going, Renee was the first guy called because he's got this awesome place, and I want you to describe the fishery there because it's it's like one of the I mean richest I keep saying, like one of the richest marine environments on Earth, where it's like you're you're where the Mississippi dumps into the Golf of Mexico, but you're only twenty miles from offshore.
Yep.
We we like to say we've got everything from bash to blue balling, and that's a fact.
Bass of Blue Marnin, Bass of Blue Marlin, and you can be back.
At night exactly, yeah, exactly.
So we're doing a deal. We're doing a big fishing party where we're gonna base. We're gonna come in and take over. Not take over because is gonna be there.
We're gonna come in and do.
A big fishing party at Cypress Coved Marina where folks can come. We're gonna have a bunch of our guys from media down there. Folks can come and we're gonna fish. We've got tons of guides lined up. We stay at Cypress Coved Marina, so you're just staying right where you're fishing.
We got all these guys lined up.
Every day, people that come down, you get to do something different every day in shore, do offshore, clean fish, package fish, talk about fish. We'll do stuff at night for fun. It's gonna be a blast.
And you get to get experience some of the best food in the world because we're gonna put on the dog for this show and it's not gonna be anything trashy. One of the things that we like to specialize in and we do it out of our restaurant and we would like to do it for the people that are coming and take and on this charter as well. If you catch a bunch of fish that you feel like eating, you've come in from one end of the country. They're coming down to the bottom of the boot to the
Venice Louisiana, and hey, I caught some red fish. I sure would like to eat it tonight. It's fresh. Absolutely, we'll cook it for you that night when you have it nice and fresh and included with everything else that we're doing with this this package. You know, we want to make sure that you not only have the experience of catching these fish, but eating them fresh out of the Gulf.
Of Mexico, learn how to cook them right right right exactly. I met you had a fish cleaning station.
No.
Look, I mean we've had people bring them into the the restaurant and they have not taken bloodlines out and everything else that said. You don't understand this is for your experience. You want it right, Get that blood line out of that that doesn't.
Taste very well.
It's very early, very strong. So we're going to make sure that the gods cleaned the fish properly and the people that want to go here and cook it for they had dinner that night, they can have it excellent.
Also joined to a honesty, tell us is here, Hi, Steve, why are you looking at Phil?
I wasn't just kind of making a joke as though there might be someone else sitting next to me, Karen sitting behind.
Me, and uh, and Sets here, what do you what are you guys wearing there?
It's a new fancy color.
Everybody's been wearing that shirt on the podcast. We've never addressed that shirt. We'd like because it was kind of a thing in the future and it still is the thing in the future. But if you've seen us all wearing that shirt, which is one of the best shirts ever made on the planet. Not a summertime shirt, it's a winter shirt. Nope, uh, one of the best wool shirts ever made on the planet. But that color is
called walnut. And First Light has two new colors, a walnut and they have the new Western cameo circle, which you probably seen on our social media and people wearing it around the room. Here, Oh, Set's got a walnut jacket. One that's out, this one's out on.
That rain where.
But the two new colors, which a lot of people have commented on, walnut and the new First Light Western cameo pattern circa. You can now any old Tom, Dick and Harry can go and find all your wool bass layers.
So Marino bass layers, the wick, the kiln, the furnace, all those Marino bass layers are now available in both walnut, which he's attractive young men are wearing, and the new Western cameo pattern Circa, which again people have seen on social media and asked about, but no one was really saying much about it because we just you just don't talk about stuff that's forthcoming. But those bass layers are
out now. So check out this fine color of these boys have on and then get over to first light dot com and check out the new bass layers.
Well else we gotta go. Oh oh, you know.
Another thing we got to talk about Yanni real quick is the every year Yanni and I do how many years we've been doing this?
Oh boy, I think we've done at least three turkeys, and I think we did one elk hunt to that.
Right this is year five, I believe.
So every year Jannis and I do a TRCP giveaway TRCP sweepstakes giveaway where.
We take it's kind of changed over the years, but it's.
Settled in on me and Yanni take two winners on a turkey hunt and we have a phenomenal success rate.
With our hunters.
The hunters have are batting one hundred. I think you went home Turkey list one year.
Yeah, because I put my I don't I put I put all those ahead of myself. All the money goes to TRCP, So THEODO Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, it's a fundraiser. We do uh, we just we volunteer our time. All the money goes to t RCP. And it's a raffle. So you bought like it's like twenty five bucks gives you ten entries, that's right, fifty bucks gives you twenty five entries and then legally they have.
To hundred bucks gets you a hundred entries.
Yeah, and legally you got to do something where you got where people can also enter because it's the sweepstakes and it's very complicated sweepstakes law. Did you just say where people gotta be able to enter for free?
Right?
So if you're that kind of feller and you really dig deep, you'll figure out how to not do anything and win. We never had to do nothing, guy win, I don't think, but I don't know. They probably wouldn't admit it.
They probably would not. I was gonna mention this there must not be too many people that try to go that route, you know, and try to come in under the radar and not buy some buy some of these raffle tickets. Because it's been extremely successful, thanks to everybody that in years tickets has has bought tickets. And it's it's I mean, I think TRS says that's one of their best fundraisers of the year, and it does a lot of good. I don't thank you.
I don't like talk about how much it raises because then people are gonna start doing the math and then realize that and they're going to think that they don't have a high chance of winning.
Yeah. I just want to say thanks, because people very high chance. I actually posted a video today of talking about asking people to enter. When I was hanging out with last year's winner with minutes after he had killed his gobbler. We're walking out of the woods and uh, it's cool, Like real people win and they come and hunt with us.
Yeah, and trcp's uh, you know, their mottos guaranteeing Americans quality places the hunting fish. All the money goes to TRCP when you win. When you win, you will I'm going to violate sweepstakes law. If you win airfare tags, food accommodations, we would give people gear. You don't pay for nothing. You gotta get yourself to your airport. Yeah, and we take care of everything you you the two people you hunt, I mean we're wake up before dark.
We hunt together, clean birds together, cook together. We don't go to bed together.
We have meals together. Maybe we go to our own rooms together. Maybe maybe have a cocktail if you're into having a drink. Lots of laughs, lots of stories. I basically just make Steve sit around and tell stories and we all laugh. It's fun and uh, and.
That's happening right now. We do whatever here. This is fifth year running. So go to t RCP. What's the best place to go?
Dot org.
You'll find it there.
Yeah, if you just Yeah, it's right on the front page right now TRCP dot org. And I think if you want to go right to it, you can probably go forward slash sweepstakes. But it's unnecessary, dude, I checked it today, went right there.
Our dudes get birds.
Uh do you know where you're going? We're going.
Well, we're text year no on Monday right now. We're taking last year's winners to Mississippi.
Yeah, I've heard about that.
And we're jealous.
We're scouting, we're kicking around where we're gonna take this year's winners. But don't worry. We'right.
We're gonna take you to.
A promo spot where I could go to a non premo spot.
Because we get birds, because.
We get birds. And also we're not gonna take you to a non primo spot. There's no way. Yeah, because everybody wants to pitch in. People want to pitch in. You know, my buddy Matt pitched in our guy this year.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if we can. Can we mention his name to say his first name?
Yeah?
Taylor is taking it very seriously. I believe if we were to not come back, he would be, uh, extremely upset. And he's doing everything possible to make sure that we're in Mississippi for at least a couple more years.
Good.
I joined you guys one year just to go along, take some pictures and whatnot. And everyone got a turkey that year, dang tooting Yeah, even you, no, not me, all the winners, all the winners. Yeah, I shot a jake that year. Remember you met, we're together?
What part of Mississippi.
Is it? It's about an hour hour south of Jackson.
Our south right where Jerry Clowd grew up.
I know exactly where you are, but I'm on My place is about an hour north of Jackson.
Oh lord, yes, next year we're going to.
We'd love to do that.
Oh there you go. Okay you listeners, Now you know where you're gonna be. Hut. Now you know the backup spot.
Yep.
Just think about how good the main spot. That's the backup spot. Renda tell real quick, do you identify as a Cajun? Is it?
Are you?
Do you call yourself? Do you run around saying in reality?
Yes I do? And uh, I'm actually born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, and New Iberia is just not very far from Avery, Allen, And to kind of give you an idea of that area, Uh, Avery Island is where Tabasco sauces made. The thun doesn't set on Tabasco sauce. And so the maccahanny family they used to put that they were actually from New Iberia, but they were from
Avery Island. And then when being in the middle of nowhere was kind of the neat thing to do they decided to put that they were from Avery Island on their bottles. Now, but that's where I'm from, and to consider itself a Cajun, and Cajun is from uh the original French speaking people that came from Nova Scotia down to South Louisiana. They referred to them as as Cajun. And when I was coming up, it was an idea of ours to learn how to speak French simply because
we could crack the code. Because my mother talked to everybody in French, and if we didn't learn French, we wouldn't know how to what she was saying. I never was able to crack the crowd. I took two years of French. And well, how'd your mom know it? She grew up actually speaking French as a younger person. She was from French nationality. She was a villaery from New Oallenge and uh, my triple great grandfather was actually a governor of the state of Louisiana and he lived in
on a plantation just outside of New Oallenge. And but she grew up speaking French. My grandmother spoke French, and she actually taught French for a little while, and she was a teacher for.
A good while, and then it died with you.
I can get myself out of a buy and put it up.
Do you do you use all the all the fish names and duck names in French?
Still no, not really?
Uh. But the hardest thing I had to learn in French. My first laboratory retrieval was was trained by occasion just outside of New Iberia, and he trained a dog in French. And I had to learn to command in French and the God's truth and.
Give me a couple, give me a came here, come he is.
Let me see the goddamn you. Now you put me on the spot. You're talking about something that happened forty years ago, fifty years ago.
Dog dead anyway, never mind that dog.
Has come here in French. But uh it the heritage of we loved to cook. I grew up learning how to cook. I probably started cooking when I was about six or seven years old. Huh and uh we had this I would call a part of our family, this woman that used to cook for my family for all anything that we had, cooked dinners every night. But she taught me when I know how to cook. And the first thing that I ever cooked was wild duck. Oh really, And it was because I loved the way she did it.
And when I was ten years old and nine years old, whenever I first thought it, that was the first dish that I cooked, and I pride myself on cooking duck. Today, I'm not much of a of a duck hunter as much as I used to be. I used to be mad at him. But then when we first started the marina, we actually did guiding services and I had five ab boats taking out people. We advertised on ducks unlimited to come down and fish the Mississippi Flyway and Venice had a fantastic duck population.
Well, so you were running you used to be. I don't know you were a duck guide, not by choice.
Okay, it's a I'm gonna give you a truth story on that we were. I was duck hunting in it the last year that I did it. I couldn't get enough guides to work for me to do it, and I was running my construction company and a marina at the same time. So did I have time to be a duck gud?
No?
And I wasn't the best call in the world either, But it was by the theftic we didn't have enough people to go around, so I ended up doing it. And I hunted twenty nine days straight morning and evening. And I came in one night. We had just finished cleaning all the ducks.
We had.
Everything was finished up and prepared, and you guys are picking ducks. Yeah, we had duck bluckers, though I did buy a duck blucker.
That worked extremely well.
What kind did you have?
I don't remember.
What's the kind I want to get?
Yanni you know that.
You Yeah, my brother in law got the foul plucker.
Yeah, I've never seen one, but Yannie sent me a video of one, and the minute I saw it, I was like going to get one of those.
This is a commercial one and I guarantee you can clean the duck in about a minute. Man, it's done. But the only nasty work that you have there is to gut it.
Did you run a new problem if the duck was wet?
Yeah, it's the biggest problem is the early season ducks. You still have the pin feathers.
Sure, I think that things.
That's a pain anywhere. You know. There's nothing you can do with those, but just go ahead and send them. Well.
Early seeds like the youth season, we started just skinning our ducks. He pluck them. There's no skin anyway, It's all full pin feathers, just the bomber.
But if I'm the one that's going to cook the ducks, I don't want them skin. I want that skin on it. That's where the flavor is. But we had been hunting that many days, and I had a friend of mine that was staying on my house boat and he had cooked supper for us, and he and I grew up duck hunting together. And I came in walking that night and I was tired, I was wet, and I looked like hell. And he looked at me, he says, my buddy, He said, it's the hell of a thing to have
to hunt, because you got that right. And that was it. I was done. I finished that year out and realized in all of that operation, I'd killed myself for two and a half months while duck season was going on, and we made about four or five thousand dollars. Then I said, look, I said, we can't deal with it. The airboats were always breaking down, and I had guys that were running airboats that shouldn't be running airboats, And I mean that's a tricky situation, and you get put
somebody that don't know what they're doing. And I had two air boats that you could put twelve people in and four p rogues at the same time and get up and run. You know, they was but the conditions there, you couldn't run the mud boats because we got a sandy salt at the moutha river. So it's just the conventional mud boats that were in existence at that time could not go through that sand. They just couldn't. Now you got boats that'll do it. Now the surface drives
can get around pretty good. But it's a whole nother ball game. And I guess that's what burnt me out on duck hunt and I just I go, I at least make a couple hunts a year, but it's pure to go out there. And I tell her whoever I'm going with, have whoever's hunting the day before, make sure they got plenty of ducks. But I want to go out to cook them. I'll go hunting and eat them. And I said, that's it. I'll be ready to come
and go home. But we got great duck hunting down there, but it's not as good as it used to be.
You know you gave me when we met what but you gave me not dark, you gave me sword fish.
I gave you sword fish. That's correct. And I just swd Yanni a pictured just a little while ago.
A couple of giants.
Of one of the boats that's going to be on this fishing trip with us. He has Paradise Outfitters, and I introduced the owner of Paradise Outfitters to Jannis when he was down there, and he just got a brand new forty seven foot blue Fin. It's an all aluminum catamaran and just this morning two huge swordfish, and he posted it immediately out there, and I already had it on Facebook. Electric reels, yeah, he had electric reels. When you're going down that deep, you want electric reels to
help you. But how a lot of times they'll take it out.
How deep are you talk?
You you're running anywhere from nine hundred is shallow, the deepest around fifteen sixteen hundred feet.
This is this I don't I mean, I've gone on and Yanni was there, but he wasn't paying attention because he's so seasick. But me and him went out with the guy. We went out with the guy. We went out with the guy deep dropping for sword fish and caught too, and it was so funny because we were out, I talked about all times we go out thirty I don't know how many, twenty miles whatever the hell.
We're thirteen far because we were off of Florida. So you got that deep water pretty great.
Thirteen hundred feet of water and he's lowering that bait down and I'm like, dude, there is not a way on earth you gotta present that bait and this big as this ocean is.
Yeah, and thirteen feet of.
Wale, hundred feet of water, Like, how do you know.
What's down there?
So no, dude, you solder got that bait settled in down there and he had a hit.
I'm like, what that's crazy, Oh, it just seems so.
And he's not fishing the bottom.
But the problem is not getting it down to the bottom to the fish, not seeing the fish. It's making sure you have enough weight to get it down there where that fish is. Yeah, So it's it's it's placement of everything.
Do you like to deep drop?
I do. I do. I'm not very good at it, but I do.
How much weight does it take?
Well, It depends on on the current, on the particular area that you're in.
You know, you ever used.
Eight pounds Okay, it's an eight pound sinker when we're out there all the time, window sash sure.
I mean you could use one of Joe Rogan's cattle balls for right.
Yeah, he didn't notice because because he was the seasick.
But when all that depth and all that weight and there's a good size, not big, but like you know, I was seventy pounds swordfish. They caught the first one. They're debating whether they're getting a hit or not.
Oh, it's just like you've imagined.
A seventy pounds. They're like, is that one? It looked like a blue gill?
Tap it?
It looks like it looks like a blue gillt happened six fo zebco.
Wait because that rides like a broomsta.
Yeah, dude, this is is going to like I'm like, these guys are insane. And he throws as switts. Thirty minutes later, it's like, holy cows swords.
They're sitting there, well, you know it. Original people in Louisiana were fishing for them. There's three or four charter operation that really tharted it down there and made it popular.
You know, but what are they dropping down to? Like, what is it?
What are you looking for down there?
You're looking for drop off your ledges like you're gonna be in you talking about going for Kognac is a platform off the coast of South past and it is eleven hundred and eighty feet of water and it's only eleven miles off the coast. I mean, it drops off
pretty fast there. That area is. It's right on the edge of the continent, the shelf right there, and you once you get further out of they flat for a while and then then it goes down and you've got deep caverns and ravines, different canyons, Photo Canyon, You've got Mississippi Sound. But all of these areas you want in a fish right on the edge of them. You know, I'm not a professional thword fisher. I pride myself from
fishing blue malling. But you learn from talking to the Chrotpo people and the guides that we have working out of there what works. And you know, they've given me numbers and given me spots and tell me what to look for. You know, we've been successful with it, but not like they are because they do it almost every day, you know. But you have certain charter operations that do nothing but thwordfish deep dropping sort dep drop them thword fish.
Me and Seth, we're going to try to do a TV show called deep Drop Boys, and we go around to the deepest places in the world and lower debate down and see if anything happens.
That's the thing we should do.
Good idea, get you a good lp real They've got plenty.
Just see it in every episode. You just watch to see if we get a hit. It's gonna be fascinating.
There might be some things down there that you do not necessarily want to bring up. You might want to just leave them there.
Uh tell me, how'd you wind up buying a marina?
I didn't buy it. I built it. I decided that it was something that we wanted to do. I built my competitive marina that is owned by two very good friends of mine. Uh that that own it now. But originally it was owned by a guy by the name of Dave Ballet, and I was friends with him, and I was in the construction business, and I built it for Sulting. I was in the construction business. We specialized
in pile driving. You built it for hire, You built it for a client for client, finished marine, not cyperus Cove, and I had designed a lot better. I don't thank you very much.
I appreciate its got more soul, man, but I don't want to hack on Venice Marina. But you go down there, it feels a little bit like, uh, it's busy.
No, this is the thing. They we both have our places, we do and we we're different clienteles sometimes, but we both have our places.
It's a it's a good place to go about asking you to hack. I'm just saying, yeah, it's just it's just like a I don't know, man, I went down to buy some box. It's different. It's a lot going.
It's different, and the owners will tell you that they're different. But we don't try to be. We got our own niche that we're trying.
To not hacking, not hacking, just it's just you know, different.
Did we eat there Venezuna?
I think, whatever, what what happened?
I built that marine?
I built it and uh we were keeping our boat there. Uh are designed and financed some boat houses there where people were building like condos in the backside of it. You could put your boat under cover, and Unit one and two. When I built it, I said, these are going to be for me. And then as we sold them, I didn't get paid until we shold them, but we told them all before they we were finished. So it went very well, and we built twenty four of them down there, and so I had Unit one and two.
And then the owners that of Louisiana Fruit Company, which is a big land company down there. They owned about eight or nine thousand acres down there. They came to me and asked me if I would be interested in owning and building a marina on their property. And I had seen plans at their company office because my property where my construction company was based, was on Louisiana Fruit Company land. So he had showed me a couple times this dream of his to bill a marina and the
basin for the marina with an old bora pit. The dirt that came out of that basin originally went to build mainline Mississippi River levee. So he said, we want to use this basin. We don't think that we'll have a problem getting a permit for it because it's a hole in the ground now, but it's got ridges and cypress trees and willow trees all through it. It's a mess, but it'd be a good starting point. And so I said,
you know, we want you to do it. And I said, you know how, I'm vested into Venice Marina because I mean, it was a friend of mine. And I said, but at the same token, he said, don't you think that we need another facility? I said, yeah, because Venice Marina was filling up. I mean, it's just it was there and the fishing had got out that Venice was some of the best fishing in the world. And I pride myself and I believe that that it is one of the best fishing bots in the United States for sure.
Oh dude, And I mean, listen, the variety is unreal.
I fished, Oh, I've been fortunate to do a bit.
Of angry.
Dude. There's nothing like it.
You're right in it.
And I mean, Alaska. I love Alaska. If I had to pick between Louisiana Alaska, I'd go Alaska. This guy have a lot of sentimental value there for doing fishing a't. I mean, it ain't the same thing.
And the thing is that the variety, man, that's a true statement. You can catch bash behind the dock in the marina and then go out and catch thousand pound blue mauling. I mean when you're cleaning fish.
The when you're cleaning fish and throwing fish heads in, it's like catfish and mullet too, but catfish, Like the only way you could picture a m tomba is if you manage if you went and kicked over a half dozen bee hives, what you'd expect to see. That's catfish eat like catfish eating.
The the gots you're throwing them. It's unbelievable.
And a lot of those catfish are blue wall a blue cat and I mean they're big ones.
That's what we're gonna do if we have a weather as.
I do I do for my Cajun Canyon Tournament, which is a blue water tournament, but we did a catfish tournament that you could not leave the marina, you could not go on a boat. But it was something to give people to do because we had a weather day and we had to push it back one day. And I turned those captains and owners luth and went up to all of the captain the owners and I said, give me three hundred dollars, give me three.
What do you do?
And I said, we do a catfish tournament. When it take off, okay, I sell, Yeah, Well the owners out there too. I mean, it wasn't just a crew. It was like ants going all over the marina facility. And you know, the the winning catfish was caught on a jug line. He let it loose right up behind a doc which is righted to begin into the first piers, and he hit it on a rug line. He threw it out there.
What do you have for bait? Fish had or something?
I have no idea what he had for bait. I think he was quit and what he had available. And the next thing I know, I see him sprinting down the main dock. This catfish ate that bait and he's taken off. And Heath had before the pass to go out of the marina. He and I told him no boats,
so he's got to get it. So d Doc is the last dock and as he's going out of d dock, he reaches over and just barely grabs it and catches the fish and he wins the contest, grabbing the jug, grabbing the jug when he was going underneath the dock it went under the free docks before it went to that way. He and I mean he's hauling butt going down that main pier to try to stop that jug.
To get it out of that.
But he got it. He was proud as all of it.
That. The other thing that trips me out about that area is, uh so, for one, we like we would work pretty hard to catch caffish now and then you know, uh huh, and the they're just like, oh like swarm and you know you would want to get in that water man like they eat. And that also that night broom, oh bullfrogs. Dude, that alone, the calfish and the bullfrogs alone to get me excited.
Had we had two of the captains that had a weather day and they were they worked for Paradise Outfitters too, the ones that caught the swordfish today, and they didn't have anything to do, so they came over and I saw them at a little flatboat. I didn't pay an attention to it. It went around and went right there in front of the fish clean station with that flatboat ank it out. They back in about twenty minutes, laughing
and cutting up and drinking beer and raising hell. They had a sixty two pound blue cap that they had caught. Geez I said, do not put this on Facebook. I'm a fill any fuel. If y'all going around the corner and the flat boat, you ain't going two hundred feet.
That's funny because I was talking to a one day as we were trying to plan out our immedia experiences.
Uh, and he was complaining.
And it's funny because you're you're half joking, but not really.
He was complaining.
And when the fish are too close, Oh, when the plagics are too close, because you can't make no money. Yeah, well I was hoping he was hoping they'd move out more man all the I'm glad when they were really biting good in Green Canyon, that's one hundred and twenty miles off.
That's a good place to go. But you know, it is the reality of Venice, Louisiana, and it's it's been proven many times. And Moulden Magazine, I don't know. It was about seven and eight years ago they showed Venice, Louisiana as the number two fishing spots in the United States.
Well, it was number one.
I think Costa Rica, I think we I mean not not Costa Rica. I don't know where it was, but we were number two, and then we were number three. We were number three in the world. I don't know who it was, but it was not the world.
For the world, it wouldn't be Puerto Rico with it.
No, No, it's one was in the United States. The other was in the world. But to be in the top ten where it's better in the US, yeah, I don't know. Not for the variety, and I don't know what they'd taken in consideration.
Marlin Magazine, Malland Magazine. Yeah, not Bullfroger Man. Oh no, okay, I got no idea.
If it's Marlin magazine, yeah.
And Maller Magazine and Marlin Magazine. Sam White, who is the editor Marlin, is a good friend of mine and I took him down to do a fishing trip and this was in We ended up going October the twenty eighth of twenty ninth, and we had set the trip up earlier, and we had two hurricanes that canceled trips, and we pushed it back, pushed it back, and we finally were able to make the trip. And I called him and said, look, come on down, We're gonna make the trip. He said, Renee, it's too late. He said,
you don't think those maland are gone. I said, you don't understand something, Sam. We're in South Louisiana. People are not worried about the fish being out there. Some of the October hitch we all me included I, next start swelling. Were going in the woods somewhere. We ain't worried about going fishing, going to coal on that water. I said, but those maland don't leave. We went out that weekend. We went out for a day and a half. Because
he wasn't able to spend a lot of time. We left at like eight nine o'clock in the morning, went out, caught two blue malland that first day tagged him let him go. We were out at in six thousand feet of water. We were fishing, and one of the mates came up to me and said, Metro, no, you think we can we can put out some lines for swordfish. You said, you think we can catch him here? I said, I can tell you one thing. We not gonna catch him unless you have a line out. But go ahead
and do that. And I said, put them out. Put one at a one hundred feet and put the other two hundred fifty feet all right. We put them on a balloon. We got the lights on them, and we're fishing with squid, with rig squid, and we set in the baits at that depth and just let them drift back behind up. Just two nights at night, all right, so they'll come up at night. I've never fished them a lot in the daytime. Maybe once or twice, okay,
we always caught them at night. We didn't realize until they started doing it in Florida that you could catch them in the daytime, but you have to de drop to get them that in the date and nighttime they'll come to the surface. So we were out and I asked sam I said, you ever caught a sword fish? I said, you edit to them all the magazine. You've been all over the world. Now, I said, you want to catch one, and he said yeah. So we had barbecue steaks on the back deck, said Samson, I'm going
to take a shower. All of a sudden, we on, and the mate sitting we on. We got a fish on. I said, that don't look like a shark, and I don't think it's a tuner. And so I told my captain, who was on the crew with us. I said, go in, and I said, tell Sam to come out and catch his thwordfish. So he's going out there and comes back. He said, you told him. He said, where is he? No, Sam, So the mat betray what you want to do? You want to take us, I don't want to catch I
just took a bath. You know, I'm full. And so he goes back and he says, I said, you catch him, you set the hook, you catch it. So he was on that fish. Finally, about fifteen twenty minutes later, Sam comes walking out, looks at me. He said, y'all really had a swordfish.
I said, I sent peeking there to tell you if he had a swordfish.
Sam. He said, but Renee, I've heard a lot of stories about you bullshitting with people. He said, I thinking you were playing a joke. I wantn't the bud to come off that travel. I said, well that is.
And he was about one.
Hundred and fifteen hundred and thirty five pounds so, and when he did the article, he had to picture that sword lay in the back of the deal. We had six pages of fish, and we caught another one that morning. We had to go in about noon three for three on blue mallon and one thword fish at night and a couple tu fish. We had a great trip at the end of October. Two weeks later, a boat out Orange Beach that is based in Venice, Louisiana, or based
in Louisiana. The owner actually lives in Lake Charles and that's where the boat is documented from. They went out and they went twelve for fourteen on blue maland and three swords. Two weeks later in November. They don't leave. They're they're full time. And last year in October, we broke the golf record on blue Maland. The original record was caught out of Venice by a member of the New Orleans Big Game Fishing Club, which we're going to have all the festivities at for the trip down now.
It's caught by by the name of Linda Kerner. And the fish was one thoy eighteen pounds and that was the golf record for years, and this year it was broken and a new record was caught in October. Late in October one thousand, one hundred and forty five point six pounds blue. That fish dead or live now he is dead. He came up dead. I mean you can't weigh him without killing. They had a little freshkyet a hole on a wastecale if they're not. But the fish
actually drowned. It got tear wrapped, and so when they come in backwards like that, they will drown and mauling up allegics as well. And that O gonna.
That's a lot of smoke marlin.
That's right.
I had some marlin when I was just in Hawaii. I had some marlin. Poke How did you like it?
Yeah, I didn't like as much as I I find it strong.
Strong, you know, honestly, with in poke, I thought it was just a little bland.
White malin is good to eat, and I think stripe marlin is excellently. Stripe marlin used to be on the menu you in the United States all over the place, and then when Bill Fish Foundation started trying to protect them a lot more, they just eliminated them off the menu and nobody but you won't find it in the United States anywhere.
In Hawaii, right in the grocery store, I don't know what the hell Marlin it is, Right in the grocery store, you can get like a little to go can of marlin pokey. I'd be damn Yeah, Kimmy Warner's walk No Danny Bolton walking around the tub of it at the beach look funny to see on the label.
Yeah, we take all of the malland for any of our tournaments that we have, we bring them in. We've got a deal working with the outfit called Feed the Homeless out of New Orleans, and they literally come in and get it and we'll stake it out for them and they cook it, and you know, it beats a pint of a cheap wine in a paper bag on the side of the street, you know. But it is fixable. You know, a firm believer. You can make a pine not taste good if you put enough season.
It's all relevant either gotta yeah, either cooking it too long or not long enough. Man, it's just occasionally not.
Or take it and take something out on a on a nice pine board and put it in an oven for three hundred and sixty or five degrees and throw the fish away and eat the pine board. You know, that's same narrative.
But when we were trying to get this whole thing planned out, Yanni went down to check everything out at Cypress Cove Marina make sure I wasn't high. Uh did you take Yanni do anything fun?
Or was he just in and out?
Weather was horrible? Well, it was bus to go fishing. That was the plan.
But even with that, we couldn't go out because the weather was so tough. But even with all that, I was still able to catch a red fish. Yes she did, because we're at Renee's house boat, which was in the marina, and he had crap pots down and I was just kind of pulling up crap pots just to see what was in him. And sure enough there was a red fish and one of them I caught him, said the other one I thought. I caught him and released him. That's how good the fishing is.
So you have crab pots hanging off your house boat. That's right, my crab right there. Absolutely. Tell tell people what we do, our experience as event in October. Tell people where where all they get to sleep? What all kinds of things are for sale for sleeping?
For sale for sleep?
No, no, no, like what accommodation not for sale? What accommodations? You got a bunch of different things, Like I've stayed in your time.
We do, we do, but we're gonna have everybody here we're gonna have everybody will be in uh in your hotel in the hotel and the different uh theories of rooms and stuff that we have there. We have a top of the line is the kitchen sweech is all brand new, while if they brand new, it's two years old. Now, Uh, that's what I stayed in one of those you sure did, uh stained the steel kitchen, big living room and then it's attached to one bedroom with two queen beds in it.
And uh, then we have a regular room with the two queen beds and then microfridge and in it as well. And then the discipline chain room. That is the only thing that's different with it. It's the same two bed system, but it does not have the microfridge in it. And you know, we're looking at connecting rooms to where you actually can possibly have two bedrooms associated with the kitchen sweets. That's something I'm looking at to do this summers they had that.
And then when you were pulling together the guides for our trip, how did you.
Who do you know and how.
Did you do all that?
Well?
Understand this we've got right now based on forty people per trip per group. I wanted to bring the quantity of people per boat for inshore to only three. They can take up to four, but only put three on the boat to give a more opportunity to fish, And the same thing goes with offshore. Offshore, you can take up to six. I wanted to leave it to four. I want the people to go out and experience as much as they can possibly do and catch as much
as they possibly can catch. On the offshore fishing part of it, you're going to find that some of these people that maybe have never done it before but wanted to do it maybe might be a bucket list item, and the fact of being able to do it in conjunction with you guys being down there, it's intriguing, you know, it's exciting. It might be just like me. They might
want to get that book signed too. But the reality is is that they're going to go out there and they get into the tune are pretty hot and heavy. It ain't gonna be long before they're gonna look at that captain. We had enough. I mean, it's not unusual for a big tunea fish, they have three or four people before it finally gets on board because it wears
the mom it's tough. You're fishing in deep water, and when a yellow fin come down and he wants to go down, he's going down and he's gonna find the bottom. He's looking for it for sure. And if he dives down there and he gets tail wrapped and you got a winching back up, it's a long, hard.
All right, technical fishing question. What prevents you? What's like, what's the weak part? What's the weak link in the fishing system that doesn't allow you just to stop that fish from pulling that maneuver. They hard hit it and a tough so you can't just apply you.
You're limited to drag, okay, I mean you can only put so much drag. You put too much on it. Yeah you can.
You can lock it up.
He breaks it, you can't.
He breaks it, and then where you're at then okay. I see now in the early part of the year, and a lot of people don't associate it with it. It's always associated with the East coast. The bluefin move in. Now you get attached to a bluefin, all bets off. I mean it's the biggest bluefin that was caught in the Gulf of Mexico, was caught out of Cypress Cove thousand. I have a record on here what the bluefin was, and it was. It was actually a New Orleans big
game boat that caught it. If it's a thousand, one hundred and fifty something pounds it.
Was caught on that's a valuable fish man.
Not after it's caught. They fought that fish for about twelve and a half hours.
Oh geez.
Literally the adrenaline comes into the meat and they literally burned themselves out, all right. And that fish if when you see the fish markets buying bluefin tuna, they core it and they take it out and they're judging how much fat quantity is in that fish. They lay that thing out and they're looking at it. When you see a fish that's been caught with a rodden reel that's been on the line for over twelve hours like that, it's black and the color of the meat and the
quality goes way down. It's full of adrenaline, it's strong tation. It's not anywhere near as good as the East Coast fish that are caught in one hundred and fifty two hundred feet of water.
Then you got yourself a whole bunch of cantuna.
What they do is they take those on the east coast and fishing in that shallow water, they take those one thirty reels, those one thirty class reels, and they gear them down even more, and so they cranking on that fish and it can't go down.
It can't.
It doesn't have the three to four thousand feet to get away from. They're going down two hundred feet. They in the mud, all right, they can't go in, and the boat can help you. You can back down on that fish and you can have it sitting in the boat in ten to fifteen minutes. And now if you want to play the fight out, you can lessen the drag and you can go ahead and work it out
to do that. And a lot of people do it for the sport, but if they are commercially fishing in them, they want them in the boat as quick as they possibly get it, because they want to look at that core and they want to see the fat content. They don't want that adrenaline to burn it.
Up to wear it.
The meat is not as tasty as it would be if it's caught quickly.
How big is your red fish on.
Foot long?
Maybe it was a record for that day.
On those redfish. One thing that blew my mind is when you're fishing in shallows, like inshore fishing for red fish. You see in like onesies, twosies, little groups diving down on some of those offshore rigs out there, like rigs that are in thirty five feet. Sometimes you dive down to the bottom on those rigs and it's it's hundreds of red fish.
That's right.
I had no idea, Like you know, like there's certain fish you associate with where you happen to see them, but it's not really where they are. Like when someone pointed out like bonefish, bofish don't live on the flat. Bonefish go on to a flat, Like, yeah, permit don't live on a flat. Yeah, they go up on a flat. I remember one day we saw a big permit you know, on a reef and it went into a hole, it went into a cave, and I said to my body, I'm like, that's so weird. He goes, that's not weird.
It's weird is when you see him on a flat. Yeah, Like they visit the flats now and then so to go like out deeper and see like, oh, that's really herpid and redfish.
Man you can't. You can't shoot them.
And the thing is that that redfish, I mean, I don't know people realize just how big they get. But the state wrecked and Louisiana sixty one pounds.
That's a big red fish.
Oh yeah, man, I never said anything like that.
That is no child.
That's a lot of fun right there.
Absolutely, it's a blast. And the thing is that that's not your most tasty as fish anyhow. And now the new Louisiana regulation they don't allow you to keep the bullredch anymore. Now that has just been agreed upon and voted on by the legislatures. I don't know exactly what day it goes into effect, but it's pretty soon. But the big red fish, that's not your best eat of fish. It's not. But it is a blast to catch. People need to experience that one time in your life. To
those big fish. And I mean, you don't know, you think you're attached to a rocket. You don't know it you got on that because your average rod and reel that you're going be fishing for red fish is probably carrying twenty pound test line, you know, and it's a small bait cassie or spinning reel, you know, and then all of a sudden you get hooked to one of those. You wish you had one of those big one thirties that they're doing with bluefen. I mean, that's why hard is gonna pull. It's not.
I always say, if that fish jumped, it would be the number one game fish in our waters, the one I've ever the best fish. It just it just doesn't show itself, which is why other fish like the tarpa and and others kind of get more lime, right. I mean a redfish sometimes it can be like a bonefish. You know, you get into him, You're like, oh, this is a monster, and you get him in and he's only sixteen inches long, but they just pull and pull.
But that's healthier red fish. You can have a smaller red fish that's coun fight more than a bullt. It just depends on the fish. Just like us, we're not equal. I damn sure it can't keep up with y'all. I'm sure you did.
Let's talk about the other species. Let's hit offshore first. We talked about there's marlin opportunities, tuna opportunities.
Offshore.
You're gonna be looking what those guys are gonna be targeting. Foremost, it's gonna be yellowfin tuna, but with yellowfin tuna and fishing with live bait because that's what they're gonna be fishing with. And it's to what bait they're going to be using at that time. It depends on what the fish are eating. I mean, these gods know, all right, certain times a year you got different things. It might be threadfinn herring right that they might be using. They
might be using live pogy. It just varies. They may be using chum and dead bait. It might be dead pogish. It depends on what they're hitting. These fish come close. A couple of things, especially in October. One is the mullet run. When the mullets start running on the coast, those blue those yellow fin come in close, all right, and so they're after the bait, and they're also after the pogy poga fish, which is man Haden proper name for it. But they come in and they're big schools.
Now.
Sometimes the taste of the meat varies because of what they're eating. You know. We've found that happening with kobia, all right. You catch a kobia off the coast of Florida, which is slowly dwindling. They're trying to figure out what's happened to them, But you don't catch them like they used to, and they did at all sight fishing. And as those pogi were run, I mean of the kobe were running along the beach. But those fish over there are not eating poke with whom they get off the
coast of Louisiana. That's what they primarily eating. The flavor of the meat changes, so what they're using to debate is what the fish is going to be eating at that time. So you're going to have the opportunity in October the offshore on the offshore day, people are gonna the goals of target target yellowfin tuna yah by catch for that blue malling absolutely the most blue mall on that were caught by the Charlie boats while they were fishing for yellowfin tuna in October, I mean that is
when they caught the most blue malling. You had them both catching two and three a day, you know, which is that's not what they're targeting, but they got it.
What about wahoo?
Wahoo are definitely good at that time of year as well. And my mind, all dolphin we referred to them as dolphin, but it's not flipp on all right, it's it's a mami or dorado, all different names, but those are the ones that you're gonna be. They're gonna target yellow fin. But in order to target yellow fin, this is gonna be what we call bycatcher. You're gonna you got a good shot at the blue malland because they're going after the same thing that those yellow fin are going after,
so the chances of getting one are pretty good. You know, if you target in blue malland you're gonna have some different tactics. But most people want to go after the yellow fin and appreciate the fact that they lopply catch a blue malland at the same time that's.
What they're after, the yellow fin because.
So damn good to eat.
Absolutely, that's why I mean it. It is fantastic.
The good thing is all those fish are good to eat. I'm coming down with a lot of soy sauce and a lot of with sabby.
He's gonna have he's gonna have a bandal ear for.
You need one more thing you need uh h no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Sharp knife the root ginger horse, radish no, well.
Sabby root, the root another root.
There's a horse radish root.
Think color, you get it every time you get.
You're talking ginger, ginger Utah.
I couldn't think about.
It, man, that's my azer dessert like ginger.
I like the ginger seasoning.
It just gets in the way of eating another piece of fish.
When E is in Hawaii with my family, Man, we didn't catch him, but man, we ate a lot of a lot of yellowfin tuna there.
Uh.
And then for in short, you're gonna target speckled trout, redfish.
Red fish is gonna be number one, Okay, And you know Venic the red fish capital of the world, and tuna is right up there with it. But red fish, speckled trout, that's this time of the year. The speckled trout are running in the river because what happens the river is that it's lowest point in October and it turns green. I mean you're gonna catch deep water, salt water fish in the river. So red fish have been known during the month of October and November to go
as far as New Orleans in the road. I mean it's not unusual, and it's been so bad it's good for fishing, it's horrible for our water systems because all of our water to intakes come out of the Mississippi River, and so we got desalination machines on our water plant in Venice to be able to take care of the salt you know, the regular water plant. Now, when the river is running and you got primarily fresh water, but what happens that swalt water rides on top. The fresh
water is heavier, so it gets up on top. But when that salt water moves in like that, does speckled trout move in? And I mean we'll catch speckled trout fantastically right there where the jump goes into the river. That's where Tiger Pass meets meets the Mississippi River. I mean you'll see boats all lined up in there right around that curve where that water's going into it. Those
specultraut of there. And this year has been one of the best year ever because we had an extremely large amount of thought water, so much to the point that the city of New Orleans was very concerned about their water systems and they will lay in water lines from north of the city bringing water out of the river to their system to be able to convert it to clean drinking water from five ten miles north of the city had pipelines running down the side just to bring
Mississippi water. It wasn't it wasn't fresh water, goup it. They have to go further up to be able to get clean water. But so in that you're going to catch black drum, which there is no limit on that. Speckled trout is that we've just reduced it to fifteen per person. Flounder does not have a limit, but the season is closed from October fifteenth to sometime in late November. Got it all right, And that's just been in the last few years. Also, sheephead, which are very good.
To Oh we shoot, we shoot them over fish.
They are very good to eat a lot of people, Yes they are, Yes, Sarah.
It's not easy.
The flavor what.
Sheephead is you for more than anything, anybody that's trying to we call it mock crab meat. It they'll take it and feel it and then they'll ball it and crab ball just like it were balling crabs, and they'll take it and mix it in with with crab meat. If you're trying to stretch it, you know, some of the restaurants may not say they're doing that, but some of them are. But it is. You can't tell the difference, to be honest with you. But fried or baked or grilled,
it's extremely good meat. It's pretty wipe meat. You know, it's a good eating fish.
Yeah. Ut, layout the dates and whatnot, lay out the details.
This is getting me excited talking about it. I'm really looking forward to it. You and I are going to be there almost for the entire duration. Oh good of Yeah, you didn't know that yet. No, I knew I was gonna be down there. We're gonna be doing a lot of fish. We're gonna be doing a lot of fish catch.
And I think we're gonna be doing a lot of fish cleaning, helping.
Dates, dates, dates, dates. We can't forget to about to mention our other meter experience as well. So the dates for this are going to be October fourth through eight. This is in twenty twenty four, this year, this year October four to eight, October eight to twelve, and then October twelve to sixteen. So you'll get in like the day before or afternoon evening. We'll have a big feed, meet everybody and figure out who's gonna be going on
what boats? Get that all lined out, and then we'll have three days in a row of fishing.
You do two in short one off show.
Let me rephrase that in Louisiana. It's catching.
Okay, we're gonna do three days of catching and then the next day you'll be out of there. So the the pricing details are we going to We're not going over that today, right, That's that's all to come. You can get it on. You can go see right now actually a teaser, a little video we have on the website.
Now when you go to the main media web page right up top with all the other tabs, on the far right side there, there's a tab that says experiences, and from there you can go and find all the details about these two trips.
That we're doing.
And if you want to get a sense for the area, we filmed a spearfishing episode down there, fishing out of Cypress Cove, so you can check that out. It's not you know, it's different because that was spearfishing. This is rotten real, but you can check it out. And then we're gonna follow up with our co lab project with the guys at Foul Planes so foul Planes and Meat Eater fall Planes. Lodge is in Great Bend, Kansas, and they run you know there. I mean during duck season
they're running and gunning hardcore. But we got a bunch of their slots. Okay, I have to do to co lab with them and their guy. They're very proud of Chef Dave. So there we're doing three runs okay, November twenty one to twenty four, this is for duck and geese with Fouleplanes Lodge, Great Ben, Kansas. We're gonna do a run November twenty one to twenty four. We're gonna do a run December thirty to Jan two.
That's the one I'm gonna be on Joannie's doing that with Brent Reeves and I are gonna host that one.
And we're doing a run Jan twenty to Jan twenty three. So that's three days of duck hunting, duck goose hunting three nights. Threason to do three days is that's what you can travel with. You can travel with a three day possession limited ducks. I never put that together. It's common to book a three.
Day duck hunt for that reason. Yeah, because if you if you so they're pretty confident you're gonna be limiting out.
Well maybe but or in case, yeah, but yeah, I never never said that. But guys, come, you want to bring your ducks home, you can because it's a federally regulated you know, migratory waterfowl. You can hunt three days, you can feasibly get three bag limits and then bring all your ducks back home with you. And you're not over the over the possession you know, not over your possession limit. And this is where I'm gonna like, I'm gonna buy a power plucker and I'm gonna have it sent.
You're gonna have to buy two because you probably have to leave that one there because they're gonna like it so much.
By two power pluck one for your garage. I'm gonna buy two power pluckers.
Leave the man. Let's see, I'm.
Gonna buy a power plucker and I'm bringing that some bitch down because I'm not plucking all those ducks.
Maybe they have a power plucking. I don't cal and his thumb. I want to show up.
Oh yeah, cow's like this thumb right here?
Get it done.
You know, the commercial pluck because they hit a state they'd like a condition.
Take its taking off. You got a feeling about it. If that's one of the funny things about when I've been down at your place, Man, did you guys take air conditioning? So seriously, dude, I had to go out last time I was down there, when I was staying at Cypress Coke.
Go out and buy a sweatshirt.
No, I would go outside to drink my coffee in the morning. I would go to warm up before I got Before I got like blisteringly hot outside, then you wanted to be inside. But in the morning, I would get out of my bed, get my coffee and step outside.
From it to warm up.
I'm in like an hour later. It's like ninety You just want to die, man, with that daybreak coolness outside is refreshing.
Man.
No, when I would go to visit my in laws in North Carolina, I pack accordingly, even if it's in the middle of summer. I'll have a hoodie, come in and put your coat on. Well, yeah, because we're like it's Nothing's the worst If there's like a little bit of rain and you get a little wet and then you go into a grocery store, I mean, I'm liable to catch cold they keep it so cold in there.
But yeah, the same way that we're going to do fish cleaning and uh other activities with the whole crew down in Venice when we're doing the Kansas Duck hunt, we're going to be cleaning, processing birds, doing some cooking together and uh, it's gonna be an extremely fun experience and how.
This works, like we're partnering, you know, we got facilities, were partner guys. But how this works when you like, no matter what you go down to, you know, you go down to do this and you'll you know, you'll be able to monitor like you like, you'll know what fish you caught, You get your fish processed, you get your fish packaged, and you're going home with like recipe ready. You know, if you make a catch, you're going home
with a recipe ready fish. And we'll talk through how we like to do it and how the guy's down there like to do it. And Renee knows a whole been doing this his whole life.
And just Renee, I kept telling Renee, I got I had the fortune. Is that's the right way to say to eat dinner at Renee's house. And it was incredible. Now I'm not gonna say that everybody coming down on this trip is gonna get fed. Quite like that, Renee might correct me, but it was incredible. We had oysters. But did you know you didn't do the Rockefeller. You just did a recipe called grilled We did charge girl CHARGI Yeah. And then there was like a blue crab studio.
It was wonderful. That was a fresh crab and trips. But when you so knowing that he's an amazing chef, and then when he talks about cooking other food, he showed me he has these cookers that are made to do boils, is what they call him down there, and maybe explain what that is. Well, I'm very decided to participate in that. See how it's done, come home, replicate it.
And Charlotte Rene's partners like, well, you know, it's kind of like everyday food for us, but if you really want it, you know, we'll cook it for it.
And it sounds we're talking about are you Charlotte married or not married?
We're not married.
Okay, no judgment, but we've.
Been together for a long time and we love each other Dealer and that's it. We don't want to go anyplace else. We're happy. I was married three times before and it didn't quite work, and so I figured maybe that's the problem. Well, I thought maybe I might beat a problem. I'm not real sure yet. I'm not going to admit to it yet. But no, we've been together a while. She understands the way I take that's for sure. But uh, but.
It explained you your big seafood boil.
Well, the ball and systems that we have there when we do balls, we can we want the capability to do a lot of seafood at one time. And we built the balls in and my barbecue pit built it right there with my my welders. That worked for me twenty four to seven. But we have two pots. One we can do five hundred pounds at a time, and I think I could probably get six hundred in it, but five hundred is plenty. And then I have a smaller pot that I can do two hundred and fifty pounds at one time.
Yeah, well that's just the shrimp.
Yeah, well that's or whatever whatever. Then the ball and it could be it could be crawl fish. Yeah, it could be crawl fish. It could be shrimp, it could be whatever. Uh. The sad part about is crawfish is not gonna be really in season that time. As later into the summer, the crawfish started getting hard shelled, and so it's not usually served any past June and July.
Oysters.
Oysters are twenty four to seven, and you always got that. You know, we're gonna we're gonna eat well, you're gonna you're gonna have different varieties of things on different days, but we will be doing chargrilled oysters there. That's gonna be one of it. You're gonna have fried oysches or broiled oyschers as well. We're also gonna do you're gonna have a crab and shrimps to one of the ninth We're gonna do it. I'll do it, and I'm gonna cook it and put it out there. But we're going
to try to serve the foods that we're noted for. Right, You're not gonna have a not that it's not a good meal, but you're not going there and getting chicken fried's steak all right with cream bravy. That's not gonna happen. That might be a very good meal, but that's not what we're going to be a service. Now, you know, we might have prime rib one night, we might have tendalon on a grill. That's a definite. That's something that
we do. I do for all of the tournaments. We make sure that we have everything from prime rib or tendalon on down to the seafood. And for Cajun canyons. When after the captain's meeting, when they're walking out, they're given a five gallon bucket full of ball craw fish. It's these huge sports fishes are going down the channel and you see the crawfish going flying out on the back of the boat.
But it's true.
It's what we do. It's what we're known for, and we want to try to give that experience to all of these people that are coming down. You guys are bringing you all experience for what you do down there and meshing it up with what we do to make a great experience. And we hope it's gonna be nothing but the best to where this works for y'all and you can say, all right, let's book the dates for next year. That's what my goal is. I don't want y'all ever go anyplace.
UF hit them with how to find It, Yannie First t RCP Swepstakes go to t RCP dot org for sure, get your sleep steaks ticket win win, win a hunt. Like all funds, everything, every everything, goes to t RCP and then hit them with mediater experiences.
Yeah, just medeater dot com uh forward slash meat Eater Experiences. But like I said, you can just go to the main page. If you just go to the mediator dot com and in the drop down tabs up top, you'll see experiences. You can click on those and get all the details. I just want to say, we're gonna have Chester. It's gonna be down there. Seth's gonna be down there. Uh Maggie who runs uh huddle Maggie Huddler, who runs the internet content. She's gonna be down there. Who else
cal is gonna be down there? Chili yep? Who am I missing? We're bringing down a lot of folks. I mean there's it's gonna.
Be a fun man.
Yeah, the meat Eater crew.
He slams the mayonnaise.
Isn't Danielle cre gonna be there, She's gonna come down.
Danielle is not coming Danielle yes as uh her her family is gonna get bigger right about that time. It's just a little tim is a little tight's.
Gonna it's gonna get one bigger.
Uh.
All right, man, Renee, thanks for coming out, dude. I appreciate you coming to help us explain it all a job.
I'll tell you what. It's a beautiful city, no two ways about it. I love Bozeman.
That's my rest here talking about your city, your town, Marina.
I'm talking about your town. Now.
One more thing to add about his Marina. You've been there, isn't it nice? How I didn't know what to expect. But when you're there, you can like park the car and never and don't have to get back in it for three days. Everything's just like hotel to the dock, to the restaurant, back to the hotel, and that will take you a minute.
It's all right there, stop chop.
Yeah, that's great. That's a cool place.
Are y'all gonna have a blast. Everybody that comes is gonna have a blaff. We're gonna make sure we could do our damn just to give to.
Everybody soon in Venice, Louisiana. Take care