Hey, chances are if you're living on this planet and have a television, you've probably been exposed to some Hollywood version of the survival genre that pits man against nature as though nature is some mean bastard that's best avoided.

You guys know what I'm talking about, but fretting about mountain lions while you drink your own pee? Yeah, just like that.

You know, the reality is most that's survival stuff is produced purely for entertainment and that's it. Sometimes fun to watch, but much of it is nothing more than a good way to make a bad situation even worse.

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So there you go, if Elon Musk ever gets to build his creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to thank for it. I actually at one point wondered if he was, like, real or not, like he may have been like a robot. Every time somebody says Lake Minnetonka, I have to say to myself, why don't you purify yourself in the waters? Blakeman. I miss the days when you could moon people and not get in trouble.

Good morning to generate angler's and welcome to the fishing podcast that refused to include any kids that couldn't skate in its roller hockey game.

I'm just normally a miles not. And I was one of those kids. I was not in the game.

But you know what, I, I didn't care because I was at the skate park on a skateboard where we wouldn't let any of you Barnea as bladers anywhere near the ramps or anything else, for that matter.

You weren't allowed.

That's yeah. That look, that's fair. Skateboarder You were always cooler. Right.

And I'm not talking extreme rollerblading.

I'm talking about in a hockey context here.

OK, I will say that I find it fascinating that skateboard has remained cool, but roller blades have disappeared. And I know that makes perfect sense.

Now, let's listen as I see the fad dropping out in terms of extreme roller blading, like like the skate park, the kids that bothered you, but nobody roller blades anymore, period.

Not for fitness, not for anything. Like I don't even know if kids play street hockey anymore. I don't even know if that's the thing. Like like kids, my kids age, what do they roll with on their feet? They don't you know, you don't have roller skates. You don't have, you know, roller blades. I don't understand how that just disappeared. But other than fishing, it was the only sport I was ever into. I played Street Hockey Weekly on blades that looked like ice hockey skates.

I had the CM official roller hockey sticks, and even if I was playing golf, I kept the skates on. Most kids will go and play and go and put my sneakers on.

Now you keep the skates on. I mean, I'm not sure if you're actually asking me what happened to roller blades because.

No, I'm I if that's the case, you're asking the wrong guy because clearly, I don't know. And I don't want to know because I don't care. We could we could call up my cousin. I guess he was he was on the St. Roller hockey championship team, I think. But no, the U.

Was really it was my younger cousin. He was badass. Oh, I'd like to know more. I'd like to know more about that. Yeah.

Could he not ice skate. Is that why it was Hawaii. So ice skating.

Not so much a thing got together. Got to think about what was appropriate.

Got it and got it. And just like close the loop on this man. I think I know what replaced roller blades for the kids and they're called razor scooters and they're equally terrible.

And I, I put roller blades and razor scooters together with tank car rods. All right. Oh yes. That's where I put both of them into that category. Like they're the kind of thing, though, any of those things, the kind of thing you might you might have one hidden, like way in the back of your garage under a bunch of stuff. And like, you might even use it occasionally when you were a hundred percent positive that knowing that you respect is going to see you.

But if one of your buddies were like, hey, what's what are you up, back? You're like, see that in your garage? You're going to lie and you're going to say it belongs to your kid.

Oh, God, the letters we're going to get about that one, we're going to get letters about Tounkara by razor scooters, roller blades altogether. I said it.

Oh man. But you know, we like letters, thank God. So that's OK.

Speaking of places that you you won't find 10 car stuff in plain view.

Let's head over to wait. House was same way you like.

That was really well in the upper Delaware on the upper Delaware River.

And I am very tight with the white tail fly shop crew. So we've got kind of a different smooth move segment for you this week. I actually recorded this in the shop months ago during prime season with shop manager Pat Cook. And let's just say we're all familiar with the kind of nonsense guides on the water have to deal with. But we've yet to venture into the life of the shop guy, which is different.

So here's a little taste.

Don't know why. Why did you do? It might be a little change of pace for smooth moves here this week.

I am actually recording from inside Whitetail Country Fly Shop and Starlite to one of my favorite shops on the planet and one of my favorite destinations.

And, you know, smooth moves thus far has been tailored to captains and guides telling stories of ridiculous shit that their clients have done. But we want to be all inclusive with the fishing industry. So we're going to change it up a little bit today.

And we've got Pat Cook here. How are you doing, Pat? Doing pretty good.

Good, good. Now, the shop guy is the unsung hero. Pat, don't you feel unsung?

Feel just kept in the corner like baby. So I want to I want to give I want to give voice to the unsung here, so I figured similarly to some some lunacy that that guides and captaincy. This can be like Groundhog Day, right?

Just the same questions over and over.

Yeah, I'd say 10 times at least 10 times a day. You get the same question. Normally what fly works, OK, which is an easy one because I just say none of them.

OK, but you've got to you've got to particularly stand out customer interaction that you're going to give us on smooth move today. So. So lay it on me, man. How this what he got.

Well, so I had a guy think I had a guy come in. He's a nice guy, you know. Sure. He was a nice guy, genuinely nice guy. Didn't know that any of this was happening.

Meaning. Meaning you were going to be talking about him later. Not well, no, I didn't.

I don't think he realized the things that he was saying. Oh, OK. Just one of those. That's great. I actually at one point wondered if he was like real or not, like he may have been like a robot.

So so he comes in on his computer around, hey, how are you doing? And he's he's like, oh, great. You know, just passing through, you know, I'm like, oh, OK, you guys fishing is like, well, now I only fish freshwater. I don't fish.

The rivers are like, oh yeah. And also I thought maybe he is maybe he misspoke.

You know, I give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he misspoke.

So then I'm like, oh, OK, where are you guys from? And he's like, oh I live over by Lake Como. As I said, I do only freshwater fishing. This is a real conversation conversation. He said, OK, well, you know, if you ever think about getting out on the rivers, we're here. And he's like, yeah, I like the fresh water.

This is legitimately happens. So then he gets over, you know, he's looking around for a while and he gets over by the hats and he wants to buy something. I could see that he wants to support. Yeah. Support small business souveniring, if you will, wants to get something. So he's looking at the hats and.

He's like, well, why is this had 20 dollars more expensive than this hat? And I say, well, one's waterproof, says Oh he says, well what happens to the hat if it gets wet? And I said, the waterproof one or the other one. He said, the other one.

I said, well, generally that's it, where they collect dirt and they maybe lose a little of their form.

Then he says, oh, OK. So then he's trying to balafon. And then he says, well, why does this hat fit differently than this hat does? And he said, Well, I'm not sure it could be the crown in the hat. I didn't know what to say at that point. He ended up not buying waterproof.

Had he ended up buying the powder blue hat that I thought might be for his daughter. But he said, this is going to look great on me.

Was it at least a whitetail country flashback? Now it was something else, big brand, not a small, not a small show.

OK, this is why I'm in favor of us expanding the smooth move concepts this way, I like this because even though even though that story doesn't have like an old damn punch line at the end of it, you know, like where someone takes a dump the Livewell or falls out of the boat, it's yeah.

It's more layered and realistically portrays what it's like to work in the fishing service industry because that's what it is.

Yeah. Guys like guys like Pat deal with with this lunacy multiple times a day, most of the days that they go to work. Yup.

And it's it's it's more subtle, but in some ways it's almost funnier because a guy guided for a lot of different shops over the course of my writing career and I never worked the counter, but I would see these right kids show up every morning when I was waiting to meet my clients.

And they're opening the shop and they just they had this look of resignation in their faces. Like like. Yeah, kind of like Danti in Clerks when they're open in the shop, you know.

Exactly. And just to mix, I'm going to mix 90s comedy references here a bit. But like if past smooth moves were the equivalent of like Jim Carrey or Sinbad, stand up. This one was squarely Steven Wright.

I got up the other day and everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica or maybe Mitch Hedberg.

Right. That's a cynical dude and that's why I like them. And even if it wasn't in a flash shop, have you ever worked in retail ever? You understand why this is comical, especially because you like you're so forced to stick to that customer is always right thing, even if you're just dying to be a total dick and you can't.

And anyway, look, I would love to get a few more shop owners in the mix. We know plenty of them, so that very well could happen. Yeah, we do.

We know a lot of them and hopefully they'll be here soon. In the meantime, let's let's keep up some of that that hot sales action.

We're going to move from buying ugly fishing hats that are not waterproof to selling gently used fishing waders that hopefully are waterproof. In this week's Selborne, why don't you put the head of hair?

You don't know what I'm getting. That what you didn't have to be so hard for with me.

So angry today. We've got a listing I found on offer up. And this is from Philadelphia, P.A. And everything about this listing is so Philly, I can hardly stand it. This is a straight up Philly, Jörn, right here for the people in the area that know what that term means.

Up for grabs today.

We've got some used neoprene boot foot waders, but here's the title of the listing. Fishing waders spelled w h i t e r s as in waiter in a restaurant, which must be like, you know, the poor waitress, National Lampoon's Vacation.

Anyway, fishing waiters, nothing wrong with them. Just got too fat.

I'm still laughing.

Still so quick. I got to jump back for a second though. I think you need to maybe do a weekly word on John because I and many others out there have no idea what you're talking about.

Yeah, j a w n but it's not a fishing term. All right. Well I Filipinas will get it. Yeah. I got nothing on that one. But when you did send me this I, I, I laughed a lot and I'm still kind of laughing because of all the things that you just heard right there, the misspellings. There's, there's everything going on and and just got too fat like straight to the point.

I actually I enjoyed it so much I actually texted back l l and I did.

I hate text shorthand and I never use it. But I did. I did that.

I did it. I know. I know. You wrote to me. I mean let me say I hate Lowell, but I actually am doing that right now. So this listing forced you to briefly embrace text acronyms did. Anyhow, the description mirrors mirrors. The listing title reads phishing.

Waiters spelled the same way. Nine and a half. I just got too fat. But you know what?

I feel like it's at least possible that there's a shred of honesty here like he's doing this.

I think it's totally to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. No, this one reminds me of the guy. It's a little less tragic, but it reminds me of the guy selling a surf gear because he hates his dad.

You know, it's like my dad's selling because my dad's a jerk. Yeah, that guy. Yeah.

That makes me I love this level of honesty in a in a sale post because it it reassures you. It's like saying there's nothing wrong with this gear, like there's nothing wrong with these waiters. They're not leaking and getting all cold.

They just don't fit because I got fat. And I have I believe that because he's willing to be that honest in his text, I think that he's kind of a brilliant strategy, really.

And I also I sympathize with with his dilemma because Lord knows, I've been there like I have friends be like, dude, you give me a practically brand new Sims foul weather suit. Are you sure? And I'm like. Yeah, I you know, I don't really I don't wear gray anymore, you know, and I didn't you just get this a few months ago, but yeah. Yeah I did, you know?

So I feel you, brother. I feel. Oh, man.

I'm not going to touch I'm not going to touch that one job to leave that alone. But I feel like we have to dive into the waders a little bit because as much as I appreciate his presentation, I have a little issue with with this product and pricing. He's asking 50 bucks.

Yeah, but these are fish America pro gear waiters. These are not your Sim's for these people. These are these are like that stock brand.

Do you find it at Wal-Mart or Kmart or whatever you got? And I am not dogging on that kind of waiters. I've worn plenty of them, but. I doubt they cost more than 50 bucks retail, yeah, off the shelf.

Yeah, I agree, because these are the caliber of waiters I bought for years, like, you know, high school and college, and you just buy them. And I would always just expect to buy a new pair the following year. You know, they were what they were.

But I was I was thinking the same thing because let's just say they were 80 bucks. Right. So 30 bucks off isn't bad, but it's too risky of an item. Right.

Waiters are one of those ones, like used waiters. You're taking a risk there. Yeah. You will be very uncomfortable.

So, I mean, I assume that the guy, you know, he's saying I got too fat and he's being honest. Right. But at the same time, it's still a risk.

Like if I needed backup waiters and saw these at a yard sale or something, I'm still taking your word, no matter how nice you come off that they don't leak.

So for, you know, 20 bucks, I might I might take that shot. But 50, I don't know. Yeah, I dropped 20 on it, but I don't think I'd go as high as 50.

But hopefully, hopefully someone does buy these from from this particular individual because I apply as I've already said, I applaud their honesty and their sales technique.

And I hope whoever winds up in them is very happy and stays dry and they fit great.

We both got a very good laugh out of this one. We did. And and all of you out there continue to send us just such good Selborne items and we love it. So if and when you find a listing that you think we should, we should spend some time with, just pass along to bent at the meat eater dotcom.

If you're the kind of person that would be skeptical of buying old hip boots at a garage sale, you might also be skeptical of our ability to deliver the most pertinent and accurate current events in fishing.

But we're going to try and earn your trust anyway.

It's time for Fish News, Bishnu. That escalated quickly. All right, I have kind of a cool shout out this week, I have to thank 15 year old Marin Brusic because she let me borrow her net, OK, and hear me out.

OK, that was great. Yeah, OK. OK, you're going to love this for multiple reasons. Marin is the daughter of my buddy Eric Brusic and Eric.

He runs shuttle for us time to time on a particular river here northeast.

And a few weeks ago I met up with my Budnick Raftis, who is a professional, full time trout fishing guide on Said River. He's been on the show. We've had Nicoleta show. Right. And as as we're dumping his boat in, I'm looking around and I'm like, bro, you bring a net. And now Nick Nick claims his net must have been stolen. So I'll go with that. I'm going to you know, I'll let him have it.

Your neck got stolen, but regardless, we had no net, OK? And suffice it to say, like in this river, especially in the middle of the winter, you ain't hooking a lot of trout. But generally speaking, if you pin one, you're going to want to net. Right.

So, yeah, Eric was with us.

And out of the kindness of his heart, he drove Nick's rig with the with the trailer in tow to his own house and came back with two net options, both of which were extremely short, short handled wooden waiting nets like the standard waiting in your back stand that's on them.

No, there were there are no magnets. So we just went with the one with the with the bigger hoop, which turns out to be the net Eric had made for Marren for Christmas a couple of years ago, custom, complete with a lovely purple lanyard. And while it was awkward to wheel on a drip, but we put a nineteen twenty one and twenty three in it.

So Marrin apparently heard about this later and was so happy her net came through for us. She told her that she should be on fish news. So Marrin, you have been on the fish news. OK, I thank you for the net loan. You had the proper tool, a full time professional trout fishing guide did not.

And I thank you for that. Props to you, Marion. Well done. Saving the day I've got I've got one quick thing to add. Several different listeners forwarded me this, so I'm just going to cover it real quick.

You ever notice how it seems like whenever we get on a roll with particular kinds of stories, something along those same lines just keeps popping up everywhere? Like like the last couple of weeks we've each talked about wells, catfish, eating birds.

Right. And I'm not going to do another full news story on it because two weeks in a row is enough. But just this last week, National Geographic published a feature about Wells Catfish titled Enormous Pigeon Eating Catfish Wreaking Havoc on Europe's Ecosystems.

We can't do it because we also told people duck lures are stupid. So you can't keep talking about all these bird eating fish. You know, we can't.

But I do want to shit like seriously, thanks to everybody said to me, it's a really good read. And and I'll just for those of you aren't going to read it because most of you aren't. The coolest little nugget in there is about how wells catfish in France have adapted to intentionally like, feed on and prey upon the country's significant population of pigeons. And they kind of do it the same way that sharks will grab prey off of beaches. The catfish is like cruising right along the edge where the birds congregate and then they wait for a pigeon to get too close and then they throw themselves up on shore, grab a pigeon and flop back into the water.

It's it's really cool. And and if you do read the article, there's this one photo and it's so good. It's like a drone shot from above of this pack of wells, catfish circling this little island that just covered up. And they're sneaky. They're sneaky like that. Yeah. So that's my shout out. And suggestions for some quick reading.

As always, this is a competition, Joe, and I do not know which stories the other one is bring in. And at the end of it, our illustrious and Muda at very handsome audio engineer Phil will declare a winner. And then after that, we're going to drip the soothing baritone of River Horse right into your ear holes. Joe, you're up first.

Man, that was wonderful. That was way to butter up. Phil that was that was good. Buttery. Very good. OK, so I get to kick here and this is such a relatable story. I can't even believe it. Very excited about this one. And it comes to us from Michigan's live dotcom. And the headline is simply Police solve the mystery of abandoned ice fishing gear.

Now, to tell this story properly, I have to change the chronology and flow around just a little bit because it's going to make it funnier. OK, so here's here's how it breaks down.

On Saturday, January 9th, police were called to Mellencamp Lake because someone reported that there was ice fishing gear on the lake near a sizable hole in the ice that look like a spot where someone fell through. OK, and by the time this was noticed, the hole it actually refrozen over the story said with a little more than an inch of ice.

So definitely scary and something worth calling the cops over.

Like, that's that's freaky, right? Yeah. And enrolled the Jackson County Sheriff's Office dive team, the fire department. And they went all in. They broke through the ice. They checked for a body in the water, but all they recovered from the water was more ice fishing gear. There was just more ice fishing gear down the hole.

Right. So the police there.

Fascinating story. I oh, wait, you have more attention. You're going to love it. You're going to love it.

The police then went door to door asking if anyone had seen anything or if anyone was missing. But but they weren't. There were no missing persons reports in the area.

So the police put the photos of the recovered girl on social media and it was quickly recognized by a dad. They don't give the dad's name, but by a dad of two local fourteen year old boys. And he said, hey, I recognize that ice fishing gear. And then he confronted his sons who. Had, in fact, gone ice fishing on January 9th. Furthermore, they were very up front about having fallen through the ice while they were ice fishing, OK, but they managed to get out safely the day it happened.

However, they came home wet and empty handed and dad said, well, where's all the ice fishing gear? And the kids told him it all went down the hole.

It's gone.

But it wasn't obviously that wasn't true because there was gear left on the ice which prompted the call to police. So what is the catch here?

Well well, the gear and the hole were found on Mellencamp Lake. And on January 9th, twenty twenty one, the dad had given the boys explicit instructions to not fish on Mellencamp Lake.

The day of the incident, the boys lied and said they were on Little Wolf Lake, which was a dad approved ice fishing venue.

OK, now as a parent, there's certainly the very scary, unfunny aspect of this.

But if you can't appreciate the humor, because in our teenage years, we've we've all like, figuratively been right here and created an inadvertent shitstorm for ourselves that just spirals OK.

And I figure after the scare, after they got out of the water, you know, these two were like, OK, do we cannot tell dad we were on Muhlenkamp Lake and I bet one of them was probably even late, but we left a rod and a chair out there and they're just just leave it.

We'll just tell Dad we lost it. We lost everything. Because 14 year olds like your mind is so obsessed with lying your way out of your immediate problem that I guarantee you they did not have the foresight to say, yeah, but if somebody sees a rod and a giant hole and a chair out there, whatever they might call the cops never crossed.

You know, I was I was here.

I remember like, you know, we had a family boat with a big cabin. And like, my dad left me and a buddy down there overnight. He headed home. And me and my my buddy, we were like 17, stayed down there. And he's like, I don't care what you do tomorrow, just don't rent a boat from the bait shop. Like, what's the first thing you do the next day you go rent a boat from the bait shop, you know, a fish on the dock.

So, yeah, I get it. But to bring closure to this, right. The dad went to the police station when he went to reclaim his gear, he brought the kids with him. And the officer quoted in the story says, if you could have seen the looks on these kids faces when the dad brought them in, they were scared to death. And the kids got to talking, too, about the importance of being truthful. Listen to your parents.

But the cop said he really thinks the dad was hoping that he'd be a lot harder on them, but he just couldn't do it.

He was just happy they were OK. He just couldn't do it. But I understand that. Right.

I would have hoped that to have been like, here's a handout. You cuff him and throw him in a cell, little five thirty or so. Yeah.

I'll come back and get them. You know, I don't I don't want to deal with this ever again. Can you can you help me?

That's what I appreciate. It's like a goofy little thing, but I appreciate lights like that one detail that a fourteen year old you overlooked that just took that like now there are police involved and knocking on doors and calls to action and dive teams just because you couldn't just run back out and pick up the chair in the rod.

I mean, this is one of the most I wish I could I wish I could talk to these kids. But I also wish I could talk to 14 year old me and say, you know, if you start the lies, they're just going to stack up on top of each other. And eventually they're going to be too many lies for you to keep track of and you're going to be screwed. So just don't do that. Don't do it. Just don't stop what happened here.

Kids just, you know, ice safety. Listen to your dad says me, the dad now who didn't listen to my dad. Just forget everything I just said. Yeah, I know.

My kids are going to like fourteen year old me wouldn't listen to four year old Bubenik. Whatever old man. I don't care.

I'll tack on no good on you for going ice fishing for a couple of 14 year olds going out on their own.

Not that doesn't happen enough anymore. Good for you. I had no problem with that at all and good on the dad for allowing that to happen, even though it's dangerous activity. Yes, yes.

I can support that. And we haven't really gotten to it yet, but we will at some point in the show, have a substantive discussion about the massive advances in technology and ice fishing. There's been a lot of coverage about that kicking around lately.

There has, and I haven't picked any of it up. But because there's not been the thing that I'm like I got to bring it to the fish news. But I will say that that I can't wait for us to find the right avenue for that conversation, because I think it's one that people want to want to hear from us about. And though the story in still has nothing to do with ice fishing or ice fishing gear, it does have to do with fish and technology.

And and I'm going to I'm going to go with a story about robot fish and and not the robotic fish lures that that you brought in and we discussed a few weeks back. I still think those are lame.

You take the books off, it's a robot fish.

Just saying these particular robot fish, I think, are far more interesting than than those things. OK, so that's that's my my intro there. Roboticists at Harvard University have come up with what they call blue bots, which are four inch robot fish loosely designed to mimic Indo-Pacific reef fish called blue tangs. These blue bots, they have they have tails, the flap, just like like a fish, and that's how they they propel themselves to the water and they have dorsal fins that can move to control their direction.

They also have 360 degree camera eyes and then blue led lights on their backs, and these fish can be programmed to visually locate one another and mimic some of the complex schooling behaviors of real fish. For example, the blue bloods, they can arrange themselves into that that swirling tornado that baitfish do when they're trying to avoid predators. The spiral around and not run into each other and and keep that tight. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They can go out and locate objects in their environment and then alert the others in the school to where the location is.

So they all they all go there together.

And that might not sound particularly impressive, but but the the ultimate goal of this technology, which is develop based on observations of actual schooling, fish in the wild, it could have some pretty badass implications. For example, they think it might help in eating open water rescue missions, seeking out and destroying harmful invasive species like lionfish, monitoring deep water infrastructure, helping us better understand how and why fish school, improving self-driving cars or even finally allowing us to colonize Mars.

All right, that's a that's a big one there. Yeah, yeah, that's where that's that's the one you didn't go.

The key is developing robots that utilize collective intelligence to dictate their actions, just like schooling fish to instead of individual intelligence. It's a collective intelligence. And here's a kind of a long quote that I think sums it up pretty well from Wired magazine. This is the power of the crowd, a team of blue bots in constant communication and an exceedingly simple form of communication at that can work together to accomplish a mission. This is more fantasy than reality for now.

But think about going to Mars. If Elon Musk and all the other rich guys want to pull that off before humans can inhabit the planet, they'll need shelters. So you would have to send robot teams beforehand. And on Mars, there's no way to control the robots because there's too much latency for a signal to go from here to Mars. So they really need a high degree of autonomy. Without humans around to fix the mistakes, they'll have to cooperate perfectly to pull off complex construction tasks, all while navigating the rough Martian terrain that's so heavy and scary.

So there you go. If Elon Musk ever gets to build his creepy Martian utopia, we will have fish to thank for it.

Yeah. And then we'll get there and be like, oh, thanks for building all this welcome.

And they'll kill us because now they live there. Right.

But we didn't have you having these people seen the Terminator man like this is this is exactly how this shit begins.

I'm not I'm not actually all that that excited about the colonizing Mars thing, but the other ways that they're thinking about using this technology I think is really cool, like like tracking down lionfish, like sending these things out to sea and destroy robots to kill lionfish. Supercool monitoring infrastructure, super cool, keeping an eye on on ecosystems without having to send people out. All very useful. My only concern is like if we send out deploy too many of these, it feels like we're sending a lot of potential trash out of the oceans.

But I see how the the the benefits could outweigh the risks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And on one hand, there's a part of me that's like, this is too much. This has gone too far. I don't, I don't, I don't want this.

But of all the things you rattled off, these could do like little lionfish sniper bots.

That's cool. That's really cool. Like that's I want in on that like like that program just like second I and it just like secant.

I mean that's, that's badass. Also I have to imagine that the animated lure people are knocking on the door because this right here is the next iteration of the rig, just a whole school of them.

Why have one animated board when you have a show and you could just make your own baseball.

They've all got a hook in them. They all speak to each other. See what you've done. See the ideas we're giving people now? Yeah, we're going to ruin fishing, OK? Good transition here, though, because because my next story sort of ties that futuristic technology and where it's going with like, is that good or bad?

And there's kind of some good things I don't know anyway.

This is local to me, but the the overriding subject can and is affecting a lot more people in a lot more places. OK, so this is from AP dot com headline. You can fish our turbine's.

OK, so there's a there's a big proposal that seems to be moving to the next phase is to build a giant wind farm off the Jersey coast.

OK, now the whole field of those massive turbines that have soared millions of acres and ruined what were stunning views in some places, in my opinion. Anyway, this would be a new thing for Jersey, but these turbines already exist off many other coasts, including Rhode Island. Yeah, apparently there's a form of Rhode Island. The proposal for jurors put the turbines 10 to 20 miles offshore, a little southeast of Barnegat Inlet. So this from the story.

There are many details to be worked out regarding the Atlantic Shores offshore wind lease site.

But the wind energy developer has a message to fishermen. They are welcome to try their luck there. And to that I say thanks, Atlantic shore, offshore wind.

But let me tell you something. We planned on it already, like we were kind of already going to do that no matter what you said, OK?

And the developer said it will it will not exclude anglers from the roughly one hundred and eighty three thousand acre windfarm. They just asked that we please not tie off our boats to them. And I mean, that's a fine rule. Best of luck with that.

To suffice it to say, New Jersey Transit has a hard enough time policing anglers that trespass on the railroad tracks to catch strippers at the bridges on land.

And I mean, there's even a real guy sitting in a little railroad house there, and that's a problem. So don't be shocked if some folks tie off to your turbines.

Just a heads up. Anyway, the turbines off Rhode Island are already a fishing hotspot. Part of the story. I don't know that much about them. That's just from the story. And then it says, and I find this caveat interesting, just how well turbines attract fish is still under much study.

It says that NOAA actually conducted a study on this and found that Black Sea bass, which are a really important species here, commercially and recreationally, are sensitive to the sound created by wind turbines. So they don't like them.

In fact, many anglers, both on the commercial and recreational side, have raised a concern that the electromagnetic field that that these turbines and a whole field of them will create will actually scare fish away.

And the developers say that because the cables will be they're going to be buried at least six feet below the ocean floor. This won't be a problem.

So here's what I say, man. I'm all for other sources of energy, but I got I hate looking at those things. And I'm sure I've been to so many places where it's just miles of them in every direction. So at least they're not an eyesore offshore. Like at least they're they're way out there. So they're not, you know. But that said, I'm excited and I don't I don't give a damn about Black Sea bass, really.

But I mean, there's going to be mahi and cobia.

And it to me, it creates sort of one of those who knows kinds of areas where all kinds of oddball shit will show up.

You know, like we we live in that area where sort of the southern species and fisheries kind of cross over here in the summer like Kingfish King Max, as an example, they're caught off Jersey all summer long, but it's pretty random.

Like you just catch one out there in the great wide open while you're targeting something else. Right now, you put a bunch of of of turbines out there.

You're providing exactly the kind of structure that they cling to down south where there's oil rigs. So, I mean, I find it from a fishing standpoint very exciting.

We've never had anything like this here. And rig fishing in the Gulf has always been one of my favorite things. So it's going to be a few years out before this is established, I think.

And we can go fish them. But I don't know, man, it's something different. I don't know.

I don't know where you are on the wind farms, probably, I'd say about wind. Yeah, I do have a lot of I can say about wind farms. I'm not opposed. Let me let me start there. And I'm in favor of finding alternative sources of energy that we can make work and that are viable and actually productive. I think the that technology has potential. It also has potential drawbacks.

What I'm what I you teed up the the oil rig thing, which is exactly. That's where I went to. Right. Because those are such important spots for for for anglers in the Gulf of Mexico. Target so many fish, everything.

Yeah. There's so much stuff. And there's there's sort of like I don't I don't mean to be crass or cynical, but there's already sort of this like cultural cage match between petroleum and and alternative energies. And I feel like we just extend this out into fishing and be like, all right, who's got the best fish habitat, oil rigs, wind farms. And like, you know, find another way for us to fight over what kind of energy sources we put up.

Not that that's a good thing, but I am curious to see how it goes. Yeah, I would say rigs are going to win because looking at sounds like offshore turbines, you know, it's not like a straight telephone pole going into the ocean. There is a base and legs, but there's just not as much metal and hidey holes and things down there as an oil rig. But I don't know, man.

I think over time it would actually have the potential to create, you know, consistent fisheries here that are not consistent, Sheepshead King, Max, stuff like that.

And that kind of pitter patter around here, few and far between.

But and you put some some metal out there like that. I'm I'm excited.

Here's what I'll say. I think I think if there are any offshore wind farm developers, listen to the show, fat chance. But if you are, here's your opportunity to get a large chunk of people on board with you. If you want to get local support, tell them we're going to redesign the basis of those things to have more structure and hidey holes and intentionally create fish gathering habitat. And you get a whole lot more fishermen on board, put a bent logo on every single blade.

What does that say? It's the best. I guess you look, I think if that happens, it will create a potentially great fishery for a very localized group of folks. And as we do, sometimes we focus on very localized stories. And this this next one I've got is one of those super localized stories. But I think it's pretty interesting. The final story of the day comes to us from the local Minneapolis ABC affiliate with the headline Lake Minnetonka Anglers rush to Save Thousands of game fish.

And like, if you go check this out, it's a totally standard local evening news segment. Like, it's just it's a lot of really bad B roll of like scenery and dead fish in this frozen creek cut together with just one interview of an older gentleman who's hanging out around the creek. I think after the story had already kind of ended. And I'm not I'm actually not ragging. I want to be clear. I'm not ragging on local news reporters because those folks get like five bucks, one camera and twenty minutes to go and shoot and edit a ten minute piece.

And yeah, it sucks for them, but I'm just I'm just trying to set the scene here.

But here's this is the crux of the story. Minnehaha Creek runs through Minneapolis and it's the centerpiece for a series of urban parks around the city.

The the creek connects Lake Minnetonka, which is like the aquatic playground of the Twin Cities to the Mississippi River. A few days ago, residents and anglers around Minnehaha Creek started noticing these huge numbers of fish congregating in the pool just below Gray's Bay Dam. And a significant proportion of those fish were dead or dying. Gray's Bay Dam separates Lake Minnetonka from Minnehaha Creek, and it was built in 1979 to control seasonal flooding from May through October, the watershed district opens the head gates and monitors the flow to roughly mimic natural seasonal patterns while holding back any catastrophic floodwaters.

But from December through April, those gates get completely shut. And when that happens, the creek loses most of its influence and it doesn't run dry. But it loses most of that flow out of the out of the lake and it ices over and then oxygen levels start to drop. And when that happens, all the fish that are there hanging on that creek start looking for a more suitable habitat, but they're kind of screwed. Downstream passage gets blocked by Minnehaha Falls.

And then if they try and go upstream, back in the lake, they run of the dam. Right. So the result is exactly what you see captured in this local news story is that it's this big creek, like a big pool right at the head of the creek, and it's just full of fish and they're all slowly running out of oxygen.

They got nowhere to go. Not surprisingly, a group of locals, many of whom seem to be anglers, decide they're going to step in and try and save the fish, or at least the specific fish that they hope they could catch in the future. And they're definitely selectively being like, oh, there's a nice. Exactly.

And all these all these folks have been like shown up.

They're gearing up with waders and nets and like some just have treble hooks and snagging lines and they're just gathering fish, piling them into wheelbarrows and then ferrying them over the dam and and drilling holes in the lake and dropping the fish through the holes in the ice back into the lake. OK, so Ken Martinsen, the angler who was interviewed for a local news story, estimated that they had saved about 2000 fish, specifically looking at bass, northerns and big muskies.

Mm hmm.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources told the local news station that the annual fish kills are, quote, a natural process every year and that some fish will die as oxygen levels go down with the ice cover. The DNR added that winter fish rescues are not generally done as nature take its course.

So I am all for allowing nature to take its course, and sometimes that does mean win or kill, whether we're talking about terrestrial wildlife, how animals die in winter, that happens and we can't and we shouldn't try and save them all. But calling this particular situation a natural process, just it doesn't. Yeah, doesn't work for me because it's a direct result of closing the dam. And that's not natural. Right. Like, I want to be clear.

I'm not saying Minnesota DNR is wrong. It's there. It's their logic. It's it's the justification that they use there. Yeah.

They must learn from the new natural. The natural as we've made it. Kind of I'm if so if they were if they had said if they had just said something like that.

Watershed has healthy game fish numbers and the winner kill Minnehaha Creek doesn't pose enough of a threat to the overall populations to justify the resources it would take for a fish rescue. I would be totally fine with that.

Right. I'd be like, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a bummer. But I get it so. So, like, I wish that I get that. That may have not sounded as good in a in a press release statement, but I feel like that's the more honest answer. And I wish that that what they'd gone with. And despite all that, if I were one of those local anglers and I walked up on all that, I'm pretty sure I'd be wagering up and grabbing my net net and being like, oh, there's there's a good way.

I'm getting that. I do the same thing that these folks are doing. I think I would like even if even if I knew that the outcome didn't really matter in the grand scheme of. Yeah, fishery, like even if I knew that saving that one Muskie was completely symbolic because the chances of me ever catching that Muskie in the future are zero. I think I'd still do it. I'd do it.

I mean, yeah, I it'd be hard to see big muskies and Northern's just just flop in there, but just dying. Sadly, if you and I walked up on this and it was like a bunch of suckers or something, I, I probably wouldn't. Exactly.

And that's that's that's kind of my point. Right. It's totally a symbolic act that makes those those folks feel good. And I'm not dogging on either the DNR or those people because I get where both of them are coming from. I wish to be a little more honest about it, but I also think if I were one of those anglers, even if I knew it was a pointless thing to do, I'd probably be down there scooping with them. And one one final point I have to add here.

There there's a literary angle for me in this story. Minnehaha Creek is named for a fictional character in the epic Longfellow poem Song of Hiawatha. In that poem, the protagonist's great love, Minnehaha, meets an untimely and tragic but unavoidable end when she dies in the midst of a severe winter.

Oh, man.

So if you if you had a poetic flair, you might say that the game fish in that creek, they get trapped every winter, just kind of adhering to a fate inherent in the name of the creek where they are.

You know, uh, there's also a musical tie. And didn't didn't Prince say, why don't you purify yourselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?

Was it that or was that Chapell? I think that was Chapell. That was just Chapell. Every time some I appreciate every time somebody says Lake Minnetonka, I have to say to myself, well, why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka?

So thank you. Yeah. So that's that's where I'm ending on. That one is with was Longfellow.

Well, Phil can take over now. Phil, I'm quickly trying to remember what we talked about, the minnehaha scooping muskies and picking wheelbarrows.

What did I talk about today?

Lying, dirty, lying teenagers, scared, scared their parents to death.

It's a smorgasbord of opportunities of fish news here for you, Phil.. Pick the morsel that seems most delectable. Joe Somali, you're the winner this week. And guys, before you find all my fishing gear on the ice and unravel this for yourselves, I have something to tell you.

A few weeks ago, I made this joke about how I couldn't find a five in stores. And you guys very graciously wished that I found my five for Christmas and I got to come clean.

I've had UPS five since November. In fact, I play so many video games that Sony invited me to a private preorder waiting room to get it directly from them.

So there you have it. I'm a pasty indoor kid. And if I ever turn in this podcast late, it was probably because I spent the entire day playing Demon's Souls like a middle schooler during summer vacation.

And now this is a river horse coming to you from the Deep South with some sagely wisdom. Today we're going to take a little trip to the country club. What's that you ask? River Horse. Are you a member of a country club? Well, yes, the whole earth is our country club, but as far as this particular country club goes, I know that there is golf there, too. I play golf. Oh, that's a good one.

If I did, my driver would be an eight weight and my golf ball at deer hair frog. But, you know, is there that I do find quite interesting a bunch of bass ponds along the course. So let's go check it out. Come along. The country club with an initial membership fee of 50000 bucks and another grand a month for dues, sits along a few bonds that, based on satellite images, are dark, greasy, weedy and sublime.

I try to imagine paying 50 grand for something, but that doesn't really register even my flat skiff. I sold a guitar to get it. One of the secrets of fancy country clubs is that the Greens are shut down for maintenance one day a week here. That is Monday. That's what I like to stop and buy. According to the groundskeeper, the bass from a first start in the nineteen forties. They're absolute slabs, he tells me. Oh, that's interesting, I reply from the truck, feigning boredom.

The first couple trips I went there, the place was empty. As with any set of gates with the guard, it's best to act like you belong there. I rode through it a respectful but confident twenty miles an hour and hold a pair of fingers out the door. Hey, hey. So good to see you and keep right on rolling into the back parking lot. I've never really understood the concept of golf, although I've always known a life without obsession is worthless.

So I can relate on some level. Still, do they realize how many stellar flat rides you could buy instead of a set of clubs and a way versus a five iron? Oh, are you kidding me? Behold the shooting head with the clothes or frog attached and watch this 90 foot drive. Unfortunately for me, this time when I show up to fish golf as one, there's a tournament going on from far away. It looks like the crowd has congregated against the distant side of the course, leaving the city backwater ponds open.

Well, that's where I went to fish. Anyway, I quickly lined to fly right and go for it. There's something about casting a fly rod. We all unconsciously know a simple rhythm that puts the rest of the world in the rearview mirror. It doesn't even seem real to me. I'm already lost gliding a step frog the size of a hard boiled egg deep into the recesses of the cove. When I realize that the peregrine above me is filled with hundreds of golf fans, some of them are looking down at me.

I see telephoto lenses, film cameras, polo shirts with the collars up and even the guy holding the flag. And then I see the wicket take a seven pounder crushing the frog and I that hard. While the throngs of a crowd stop the golf tournament to Goke, the bass finally comes alongside the manicured grass bank of the Baron Green. Or we can all get a good look at him broadside just for good measure. He tells Gravity to kiss his ass and take walks with gills flared and heaving the last few feet of water.

I can't breathe for a second. It's so beautiful. Thousands of the fans scream and applaud, and some Dakar's gives a long keko whistle. Then I see golf carts coming my way. A lot of them. Oh Lordy. This is about to get exciting. You obviously aren't a member here. Do you know who is that up there, fellows. The course official at. Her moves and that cigar from his mouth going for levity, I say whoever it is just saw stick a sweet pass.

The Country Club Cop proves to be a tough audience and yells That's Bleep insert name. A famous veteran pro golfer here. He's trying to qualify for the U.S. Open. Get in that car now. Thus begins the golf cart. Slow and bizarre ride of shame, a slide into the seat next to him or what's left of it. We crawl past the onlookers with their frowns, smirks and disgusted glares. I miss the days when you could moon people and not get in trouble.

These guys could have used a good rowdy press ham. They all hug back Growler and I'm pushing the limits pretty hard already and I'm still not sure if there'll be a trespassing ticket. So I behave and break down the road one to three. I count five other golf carts following at the parking lot. I refrain from any more jokes as I show them the taillights of the truck and reach for a beer from the cooler. I recently found yet another country club down the road from my former president lives.

The membership is more than a hundred thousand bucks a year. Sweet Jesus, what do they have in their tapin. Oh, I'll let you know next Monday. And that's our sagely wisdom for today. And what have we learned? Let the world be your country club. Now get out there and stick them.

Well, that was my favorite sagely wisdom, yet rivalrous, mind you, you nailed it, man, mindset, man.

You absolutely nailed it. But I mean, truth is, I am in reverse nose's. I'm a sucker for anything that pokes fun of golf or golf culture. I actually worked for for a short time as a server at a country club for a few months.

And it was so many things. Security guard, country club. I've had a lot of shitty jobs, man. And and but that one was like my own personal hell. Right. And I've so many, you know, time sometime in another context, I will maybe write a book about it.

But there weren't even any bass ponds on the course that I could go sneak away and fish and get fired. It's a bummer.

Well, see, this actually makes me realize how jealous I am of River Horse and guys like him in general. And I'll tell you why. I'm not saying that never in my life have I fish somewhere I wasn't supposed to be right.

But on those rare, rare, very, very rare occasions, super rare, I wasn't exactly relaxed while I was doing it.

You know what I mean is the rule breaker. Yeah, not now. But then you have dudes like River Horse that not only do they pull it off, but they're just totally chill about it and they're not sweating the consequences.

And I admire I admire that confidence. I admire that attitude of like, it's all good.

And so what if we get caught, man, nothing bad is going to happen. Where I'm like, oh, fine, let's we'll just get in and make a couple of cars and get the hell out of here. OK, just get in real quick and Carson will go because I'm not I want to go to jail. OK, he remorse for tell me like I like you let the man bring you down.

It's probably Satan me. No no no.

River would would never like judge like that. I don't I think I can confidently say that. I think his response would be something like that's your journey home to find your own way of sticking it to him.

Maybe he'll call it and tell me I was wrong. But but that's how you would respond, and I hope not. All right. So so moving on, speaking to the man, we're going to we're going to skip end the line this week for once, not forever. It's coming back soon, but just this week. And instead, we're going to slot in a tackle axe because we've got a really good one from the Big Bash man himself, also known as our buddy all Ranni.

This is this is a great tip for for people like River Horse who sneak in a golf course ponds because you got to maximize your efficiency. But security gets you. And if you're only going to get in ten casts, this tip is going to help you make them count.

I'm getting cards coming from inside the city I picked up right at.

Joining us today on Tago, a very good friend of the program, best fisherman, among all other fisheries extraordinaire, Oliver Nye of Big Bass Dreams.

What's going on, man? Let's go, boys. Appreciate you being here.

I think I think it's fair to say that we can all learn something from you and your skills. You certainly get around and fish for all kinds of different species, even though you are most associated with bass.

So I'm very curious because of your repertoire and all the different things you fish for, what you got for us for a tackle HACC today, what is the simple trick that is stuck with you that you lean on often that can help us all perhaps achieve our own big bass dreams?

Well, a common law style amongst multiple species is a jug head and a soft plastic. Sure, I've heard of this inshore heard. I heard somewhere.

That's the thing that kind of makes me cringe when I look at guys that post these heaping piles of Yusoff plastics like, man, I had an incredible day. I've got a hundred dollars worth of sulphates that I just burned through when I grew up. Man, I was really poor, so I would literally take every soft plastic I was catching fish on that would rip off my Texas worms, off my Carolina rigs, off my little daughter head and grub setup's.

And I would go home and I'd take a lighter and I would melt them all back together so I could keep using them and keep Catledge. And that still can be a thing. But one one Tappahannock that I figure it out, especially when you're working with a big head and a soft bait, is to secure that plastic body with half a drop of superglue. So all you want to do is take your jacket, throw the head of your plastic up to the shank, and then apply that glue to that shake here right on that curve and push that bit into place in one single swoop.

Clean motion. And that little dab of superglue is going to achieve a couple of things. It's going to lock that plastic body onto that jacket. So when you're getting short strike, you're not getting its pants pulled down and now deemed inoperable. That's the most important component, the feature for me is it keeps you actually fishing all of the time. I'm sure. All right, and then, of course, the cheap side of me, I mean, the frugal side of me really likes the fact that I can catch, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 fish on a Sunday body like this.

If, you know, Lady Luck is on my side instead of one fish per day.

So I'm a huge fan of superglue in general. I use it for way too many things, you know what I mean? Even imply tying like I mean, sometimes I'm just lazy and, like, just put a drop superglue on there. But what I'm curious about, because I've heard about putting superglue on the collar of, say, a jug head sort of slapping on the jamming it on. But you're talking about this one drip down the the sort of the slick shank of the hook.

Right. So I'm curious, does it hold it in place securely enough to do all those things, but also make it so you don't destroy your bait if you have to say change colors?

Oh, see, at that point, I'm just going to cut the head off, OK, and grab another bit because. Yeah, it's not worth it.

Gotcha. OK, I understand.

OK, so let's go change out the whole head and sort of have all your colors lined up, but then those are all secure and they stay on there.

Yeah. Typically, you know, you can figure out whatever color combo or jug head wait combo is working in a particular scenario. So hopefully you'll have it narrowed down by then and you're not having to continually switch. I love it, man.

And particularly people spend a lot of money on hand. Pause. I mean, the Hampton stuff is such a big deal now and I use a lot of it, but I just I mean, it is softer, generally speaking, than a lot of the molded stuff. So I have that problem with hand a lot. And I use a lot of Handford swim baits like for dolphin and stripers out here.

So there you go. Glue on the shank.

So that's it for this week, and I'd say we've completely outfitted you for a mash up of sports.

You're now fully prepared to rollerblade over to the golf course with your 10 car ride while wearing questionable waders and an overpriced powder blue hat.

Please send selfies of you doing these things.

Well, that was that was well done. And send those pleas. If they had those exist, send them also send bar nominations, Selborne items, thoughts, comments and concerns to Brent at the Meat Eater Dotcom. We really do love hearing from you.

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We really do hope you're all getting out on the water this weekend. Whether that be liquid or solid, however you find it, go enjoy it.

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