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Let me tell you right now, New Jersey Transit with a 10 foot chunk and stick is a real pain in the ass. This guy could not have possibly made me want to eat fish less. Have you ever knowingly sabotaged someone else's rig all of a sudden, you know, you got the Mickey Finn and the Gray Ghost and the half assed woolly bugger on the head raps, which started traveling within 15 minutes of fishing them. Good morning, degenerate anglers, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that calls on Friday looking to book a Saturday charter during peak season and does not understand why you are not available.

I'm Joe Somali. I'm Miles Knowlton. What the hell, man? Are you business or what? I'm telling you, I want to I want to hire you to take me fishing.

And you're telling me you're too busy to take my money, huh?

So you heard this one a few times back in the day, maybe once, maybe twice.

I might have been yelled at like that. One of the many things that fuels the ire of professional fishing guides.

Anyway, listen, we certainly hope that there was no family ire at the Thanksgiving table yesterday, assuming you had real live loved ones around that table, not ten iPads with Zoome faces and a bucket of KFC.

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Yes, we do. We are a thankful bunch, but we're particularly thankful that the podcast is 100 percent fueled by Black Reifel coffee.

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I also think they're the same pie.

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So much stocking. Mm hmm.

Yeah, yeah. We're starting to come.

We're getting in the stocking season anyway, moving on to the fish and stuff, from what I understand, which is limited. But I know people. I talk to you. I hear that Thanksgiving weekend is like kind of a big deal for for the striper crowd. Like, that's not your way. Really, really. Get on that, I'm sure is.

Man, if you're a coastal angler in in New York and New Jersey, stripers kind of go with Thanksgiving like football goes with Thanksgiving.

And it was it was traditional for me from many years of my life to chase them either on the beach or from my old boat every Thanksgiving morning. And my buddies and I look forward to that greatly.

The trade off, though, right? I'd be falling asleep at the table and my mom wasn't happy about that. And then that just kind of transferred over to my wife. And I've been scolded a Thanksgiving or two for basically being completely unengaged at dinner, you know, I mean, just not interested in family chatter or even being in the same room sometimes I saw somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

It was a fun morning, though, but, you know, and then we had a couple of kids and I stopped fishing on Thanksgiving morning. And the children just drain both of us, though.

I do I do have some striper time set aside for this weekend, so that's good.

I'm glad to hear that, man. Yep. And that is something I can totally, like, connect with that.

Not the stripper part, but the changing of Thanksgiving like I've had.

I've had a few different Thanksgiving traditions for a while there. I was spending every single Thanksgiving over on the Big Horn, like I would just skip the whole Thanksgiving thing. I'd go to the Big Horn and catch a ton of brown trout and shoot some pheasants or some geese or whatever. And then there's a while. There's no time where I was always I was floating rivers closer to home and deer hunting and also catching trout at the same time, like.

Yeah, wow, yeah, it was it was great, it was great, but, you know, priorities change, life changes. There's nothing wrong with that. Change is good. And unless, of course, you happen to be one of those people who chooses to forego certain comforts in order to to dodge responsibility for the rest of your life. And if there's one person we know who is a master of not having any responsibilities, it has to be legendary striper Chungking expert Bob the garbage man, you said it.

He is a man beholden to no one but the tides and the stripers and the long darts and the long darts, the lone darts.

And if you've been with us from the beginning here at this legend, provided our first ever regional report.

And you might recall he was in pretty good spirits because he was talking about the spring and the height of covid quarantine was keeping everybody off the water. So he was thrilled.

So all these months later, I'm eager to see how he's fared, calling as usual from the payphone at the corner of Baltic and MLK in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Here's the soothing voice of Bob G.

Hello out there in radio land. This is stripey chunkin expert Bob the Garbage Man. Britain announced a new scheme calling in your weekly East Coast Striper report just to cut to the chase. It's been a real shitty week, frankly. It's been a shitty few months of them being honest ever since this whole covid bullshit blew over. Every place I try to fish looks like the TGT Moogfest Boyata 01, the forerunner of Momos is in full swing. Let me tell you what I mean.

Jesus, I walked out to the drainpipe behind Port Authority the other night. It's 38 degrees blown 30 out of the north and there's three guys in tracksuits from South Philly throwing Robert Trout and catfish tackle. Like before this year. Me and Crazy Terry from the pawn shop was the only two people that fished out there. I'm losing my mind just to scratch out five to six low fifties. I'm taking the train up to Newark to hit some high level sleeper shit in the Meadowlands.

And let me tell you right now, New Jersey Transit with a ten foot chunk and stick is a real pain in the ass. Anyway, I ain't got any more uplifting news from the rest of the coast. My old buddy Joey. The gut in Montauk says the place is overrun with kids from Park Slope dressed like Benetton ads cast in fly rods and taken sunset pictures at JAG Wong phony baloney and Zwingli up in Nauset Beach says these first year dipshits up there throwing darts at and harbor seals because they can't tell the difference between a large hairy mammal and a striped bass.

Dear God, please return this country to full lockdown. I can't take this shit anymore. That's what I got for you is this week. Goodbye. OK, first of all, first of all, based on on this whole uptick in angler participation that we keep talking about so much in the podcast, then that we we support generally nothing, nothing at all about yet heard surprises me think. I think anybody and everybody. We saw that coming.

It was inevitable. It was inevitable. And second.

I have this weird inkling now that you might be you might be hopping on a bus and going over to Newark this weekend, I might be, man, because that wasn't completely uplifting news about the bike.

And he's the man on the ground.

So I kind of with no, I cap off my travel time to catching my low fifty pounds at fifty five minutes any longer, any longer for drive in that I'll just settle for the 30 and 40 pounders that night.

You know. Rough life. Yeah, a rough life. Not Bob Bob. He covers the ground and he knows that I cover water and so do we. Matter of fact, we are loading a new segment into the chamber this week, one that's designed to help you learn as much personal and maybe not so personal information about notable, respected people in the angling community in record time. Because you're busy, you don't have time to sit through a whole interview.

We condensed it for you.

We've got a new and I would say special treat for you today, we are debuting a fully unique segment we're calling Covering Water, because we're going to be all over the place with this one.

And fittingly, I think to to be with us for the inaugural guest is our really good friend Alver now Tupman Oliver.

What's up man.

So boy are you guys sure of the right choice for this. I don't get out very much, 100 percent positive, no question at all. In our minds. Anybody, anybody who has checked in with the Dashboard series knows all of her well and, and knows the kind of fire and heat he is going to bring. And besides, like he's willing to put up with our crazy, stupid ideas like this. So he is the perfect guy really to start this off, in my opinion.

Yes. You're willing to be a guinea pig, and we appreciate that. Absolutely. He has no fear. So the way this is going to work, we are going to put two minutes on the clock and Joe and I are going to rapid fire pepper you with questions. Your job is not to think too much. Just just react. We're going to get through as many questions as we can in two minutes. Once the buzzer strikes the end of those two minutes, then we will give you a full minute to elaborate on something you feel like we all should know better to understand what you were saying, one that you think needs clarification.

Exactly. There's going to be many. So you're going to have to pick one.

Yup. Yup. All right, man. She play? Yeah. Sounds like a terrible game show. I'm down. That's exactly what it is. It is a terrible game show. Are you boys ready? The clock starts now.

All right. Who's the greatest angler of all time? Oh, Eleanor Jordan.

Kobe or LeBron? Kobe.

Have you ever knowingly sabotaged someone else's rig?

All the time. My least favorite fish to target. Oh, billfish.

My mom, my my spring bider fall by spring.

Most revolutionary lur ever invented bass one tenderfeet.

OK, Nas or little nas x. Come on man.

Nasty Nas. Yes.

Most sensitive area you've ever been hooked in.

Oh boy. Back of my head. OK, yeah.

The species you've never caught that's highest on your list. Erythema dumbest way you've ever broken a rod.

Letting my girlfriend take my rod sock off my eight hundred dollar make bass hedgehog destroyer.

That was pretty dumb.

Rank the following fish from from worst to best rock bass croppy perch readier. Oh that's brutal. Rock bass perch. Oh right here that I miss one krabby. No. OK, all right. OK, the magnificent ones. Reebok, Caterpillar, Nike pumps.

Oh Nike's got got out the pumps man. Excellent choice.

Cheetos or kale chips. Cheetos, one piece of tackle. You cannot live without a hook.

That's it. Voser done.

That can be like a family feud related bone. No doubt that survey says so.

OK, man. So of all those, there's got to be one that you want to expand on a little bit.

You have it locked in. Yeah.

Let's go down in there. OK, first question. Your clock's running. You got a minute to explain yourself.

All right. As a youngster from California, I watched this man from a whole nother world catching everything and doing it in a very scientifically minded approach. And you broke things down in a way that I could understand, even though half the time the fish that he was targeting, we didn't even have in L.A.. Yeah, but it was a mindset and an approach that I could take from and adapt to my fishing styles because I was watching this man like doing it.

His body of work spoke for itself in my mind. And that stuff is transcended generations. It's transcended the onset of this social media age where anybody and everybody has a platform and there's no filter for the content that's being put out there anymore. And there is still a guy he was on my boat last year writing these big swells on the LAX like a gangsta and like just smacking big wall and smallmouth. Is a G. So we've got a few more hot Cedar's lined up for covering water going forward, but listen, we want to hear about it from you guys.

Did you like the segment? Did you hate it so much? You've been turned off of fishing for life. Who would you love to see us grill on high heat?

What questions would you ask him or her? Let us know by sending an email to Bent at the meter dotcom.

Yeah. We love giving you things to think about. We want to spark your creativity and your thoughts. Like what is Hank Parker's favorite Beastie Boys song? Or is it possible for Larry Dalberg to make a lure that doesn't catch a shitload of fish? I don't think so, for the record. But now we're going to give you lots more to think about in the realm of current events, because it is time for Fish News. That escalated quickly, so before we get all news on you guys, this is where we like to do a little housekeeping time to time, throw out some fans shout outs, and I just have to throw one out very quickly to at Zach underscore salon life, I, I don't know.

Zach's full name was not provided, but he sent us a joint message on the Instagram's just to let us know that he saw Pantera in a packed house in Atlanta many years ago.

And apparently our very brief Pantera verse Slayer pit debate has resonated with a ton of y'all.

Yeah, it seems like it really it really hit a chord there. Yeah.

Like we should probably do a music podcast instead of fishing because that's like that's like the thing, all the fish stuff. Not that you guys don't write in about that, but like the Pantera Slayer thing.

Anyway, Zach wrote and I'm quoting here, A mosh pit the size of the venue erupts and my skinny ass in parentheses at the time, close parentheses tries to get to the side of the pit and I get literally stabbed in the gut. So, yeah, Pantera is wilder than Slayer and I needed clarification. So I just wrote back stabbed questionmark like with a shiv and he says, yep, shanked with a four inch boot knife. Great show. Until the stabbing.

I love that we we did the exact same thing because I essentially responded to him in precisely the same manner and said like you mean literally stabbed like when you say stabbed Dabi stabbed.

Right. And he's like, oh yeah. Well I got stabbed.

So did you win? Craziest story I've ever heard. And I just wanted to say thanks for that. So that's my my shout out of the week right there.

Yeah. And I got to I got to come in with a little correction. A couple of weeks ago, I did an end of line segment on the switch, which I totally stand by.

But apparently I butchered the name of the town where Frank Stewart came from.

This is an honest mistake, though. I have done the same.

So the town is spelled a n t. I go and I pronounce it Antigo with a hard T, and quite a few of you wrote to tell me how very wrong I was about that.

Apparently the T is silent, which I've never heard of before.

Yeah, it's an ego, an ego. I don't know something like that but. But not in there, even though it looks like those were mine. So people throw us a bone on that one. Like, that's not fair. Obviously that's fair. No, no, no, no, no. But I mean, that's not an obvious.

Like we should have known how to say that no one is the T ever silent.

But I do appreciate you guys keeping me honest and Keeping US Honest, letting us know I hold no ill will toward you. Please continue doing that. Let us know when we screw something up, because we want to know. We want to learn.

Yes, we do. We do. All right. So that concludes housekeeping. We're going to get to to the real news this week. Remember, Miles, and I do not know which news stories the other is bringing to the table. And at the end of this, our audio engineer Phil will weigh in and declare a news Victor. And I'll just go ahead and say right now, you're going to win this week because both of my stories are dumb.

And I aired on the side of humor more than hard news, because you know what? My God, do we all need to laugh right now?

That's absolutely true. You know, I can't even this world and laughter cures all. So I am airing I am erring on the side of humorous this week. I just couldn't help myself. So here we go.

God bless you. Certainly we all thank you.

So anyway, it is largely believed, I would say, that the coronavirus originated in bats over in China. And now some of you are going know how it did. It's a conspiracy. Now, we're not going to go off on all the conspiracy theories, all that noise. For the sake of this news story, we're just going to go with the narrative that because the Chinese kind of eat some weird shit, this whole problem started with an infected bat that someone picked up for brunch.

OK, we also know that the virus went nutty around the wet markets in Wuhan where said Bat was supposedly sold. And all these months later, what you don't see is a Chinese official on live TV pulling in Ozzie Osborne and showing a bat to let the masses know that. See, the bats are OK now in an attempt to reboost bat sales and help all the poor. Bat farmers are hunter gatherers. Whoever these people are that supply the bats.

But the people of Sri Lanka did see this exact thing happened recently, but with a fish and this is from The New York Post, the headline here, ex Sri Lankan official chomps on a raw fish during news conference. OK, now from the story. A former Sri Lankan fisheries minister chomped on a raw fish at a Tuesday press conference as seafood sales in the nation have plummeted over coronavirus concerns.

And here's a quote.

I am making an appeal to the people of this country to eat fish. Don't be a.

Fraid you will not get infected by the coronavirus, Dilip Waitaki, what Arata said before biting into this fish.

Last month, the central fish market outside the nation's capital, Colombo, was the site of a major coronavirus outbreak that led to thousands of county wide infections.

Since then, fish sales and consumption in Sri Lanka have plunged. Tens of thousands of tons of fish have gone unsold because of this. And the final quote here is, are people who are in the fisheries industry cannot sell their fish. People of this country are not eating fish. Whether Ritchie said at the news conference and he also had this to say before eating the fish, and you could tell from this quote, dude's upset, not messing around in Myanmar, unnerved by anybody.

Now, we've both watched this, and this guy could not have possibly made me want to eat fish less.

OK, he throws a plastic shopping bag on the table, pulls out what look like two mackerel and somewhat hesitantly holds one like corn on the cob and just takes a giant bite out of the fish's back right behind the dorsal fin.

And like you hear the spine crunch in his mouth and you can hear the flesh and blood instead of the fish and drips on the paperwork in front of him.

I'm working on it.

Underbool he then holds up the bloodstained paperwork and shows everyone the bite in the fish's back while his hot mic is picking up the sound of him like chewing back whatever mackerel bits are left in his mouth.

Now, you saw the cut version. There's a longer version, though, and I swear there's a point where he gags a little.

OK, but if that was supposed to make me want to run to the fish market, like God help these people.

And I mean, it also goes without saying this whole thing is totally based on unfounded panic. Korona has never been linked to fish. I mean, hell, dude, one of the first segments you and I ever did on this podcast was about how you will not get any sort of Korona type virus from a fish.

But obviously, the people are blaming this outbreak in a crowded market on the fish being sold there. Not the whole shitload of people, not crowded market, not the crowds of people like sneezing and breathing.

I know it must be the fish. It it must be the mackerel. So I just could this video is so worth a watch, you know, good, good effort to that guy. But yeah, it just you didn't help the seafood market with that one.

I feel like we're missing some context because I have no idea what he's saying. Right. Like, I want to know what what point he's making when he holds up the bloody paper and he's like, I want to know if he's like, see, right here, do we should have is totally natural.

We should have it overdub for our social pages. We can have some bad lip reading. It would be so much fun.

Oh God. It would be good. Yeah.

I mean, look how fresh the blood drips down the affidavit or whatever he's holding.

There was the look, there's nothing on the paper. It big guy. He's like he's got those fake notes that they bring out at press conferences. Like you shuffle the papers. Like I have important things to say, but there's nothing on the paper. He has no notes.

He didn't he didn't want to bite the mackerel. The poor guy, he didn't want to do that. It was.

Oh, it's just it's just awful. So, oh, I'm going to I'm going to stick with eating parts of the fish that maybe we don't usually bite into. I don't I don't know about you, but I'll go for the fish backs is like my top priority. The with not that particular person did.

But I'll say over the past couple of years, year at least, I've really been trying to figure out how to use more of the fish that I harvest. And so just like whacking off the filets and toss in the rest. Sure. Because, you know, depending on what kind of fish you're talking about, the fleas might only make up a third of the entire body weight. And so that just it just feels it feels wasteful. Right.

And that's absolutely how we've always done it. But I'm trying to get better at it.

And I got started on this kick when I read a book called The Whole Fish Cookbook by Josh Niland, who's an Australian chef. And he's pioneered some some really interesting recipes that utilize parts of the fish that often get discarded. And while Niland definitely inspired me, some of the stuff that he does in his restaurant, it's just it's it's not feasible for a home cook. Right? Like, I have a full time job and a family. I am not going to spend an afternoon making fish chips.

That's not going to happen.

Nor nor do I usually have access to enough fish eyes that like, I could pull that off.

But like that said, I do try to be conscientious about using more of the fish I bring home.

So like with smaller species, you know, pan fish or trout, I've been cooking them whole.

Sure. I've been doing the reverse butterfly technique that I learned from Texas chef Jessie Griffiths, which you guys can find a tutorial about on the Meter website, if you're interested.

Hold on one sec, because in case you don't go back to the fish eyes, what is a fish chip? Do you just fry a fish eyeball until it's like it's such a long, complicated process, man?

It like involves extruding the eyes and the. Like mixing them with batter and frying them into chips like it's a whole thing I could see doing it at a five star restaurant, but I'm not doing that at home, OK? Not going to happen. Gotcha.

But like I said, I like the reverse butterfly technique. And I was saying, if you guys are interested in seeing how I do that, you can find a tutorial on the on the website right now with bigger species.

I always take the cheeks and the colors in the bellies because that's really good meat that often gets wasted. And there's no reason to try to make stocks or stews out of skeletons in other leftovers. Admittedly, sometimes I get lazy and I always do it.

I fail there too, man. I always have that intention. And it's just like you're tired. At the end of the day, you've got a freezer. You got it. You got a vaccine for what you already have to deal with. And it's like, yeah, I do. I fail there miserably.

I'd say I'm batting about 30 percent, but I'd like to get better there. And I'm not much like in general. I'm not an innards guy and I don't have a yard, really.

So like, I can't just bury the fish guts for fertilizer. Yeah, I do. Like next summer I'm going to try and work on some raised beds and see if I can figure out how to use gut fish guts, and that is fertilizer. If I don't know how to do it though, if anybody out there has pointers, please let me know.

I've done it with American Shad. I brought some Schad home, cut it up and like as my wife was putting in tomato plants, just put a chunk of it under dude, we had held it worked. It does. All right. I don't know if I ever did it right.

I just did it half assed, but it worked. The point of all this is that I'm trying to get better about maximizing the fish I keep. And this week I found a really cool story about this organization in New Zealand who's figured out a way to utilize the discarded part of fish, feed hungry people and generate self-sustaining revenue. The organization is called Katika, which I think translates to roughly using aquatic animals or something like that.

And my mouth is not that great anyway.

They take the discarded fish parts and they distribute them through a Maori community hall in South Auckland and a Polynesian culture like Maori, they know how to prepare fish heads and skeletons, right? Like maximising the use. The whole fish is just part of their cultural heritage. And that's true for a lot of Polynesians. I remember that there's this Hawaiian dude I used to fish with grown up and he would always just straight eat the eyeballs out of the fish. We got like, no cooking, just pop him.

And he loved them. And he he would tell me and I think he was just like messing with the white kid. But he would he'd tell me, like, the fish eyes helped me see, like, the fish and I catch more fish. And maybe he was just messing with me. But the dude was legit and he always got more fish than me.

And maybe that was the reason why. I don't know. But getting back to New Zealand, the folks getting these heads and skeletons, they're not viewing them as refugees.

Right. Like fish heads were often reserved for people of of like super high status and Polynesian cultures.

They're a delicacy.

So the fish are going to people who genuinely want them and who know what to do with them. Also, we're talking about families who could use some help. Right now, we're talking to families who are struggling to to make ends meet and and to feed themselves and feed their kids.

So, Katika, this organization started in twenty sixteen when a boating club in Auckland wanted to figure out a solution to a problem. Their members would come in from fishing, they'd clean their fish and then dump pounds and pounds of fish scraps that would pretty quickly start to rot and stink.

And not only was it messy, but there are several club members who thought it was it was wasteful and they wanted to come up with a better system. So they reached out to the manager of this Maori community centre who said that they would, yeah, they'd love to have those fish scraps and that were currently being wasted.

So they got together and they opened a fish cleaning station at the boating club where they charged two dollars to cut up the fish. Right. So the anglers would bring the fish, they'd give them two books. They give them the fish, they get the fleas back. And then everything else got brought to these families.

And neat, huh? But then the coronavirus locked down it. And when that happened at the time that the lockdown happened, this this fish station was distributing five hundred and fifty pounds of fish to people who needed it every week.

Wow. Wow.

But then the lockdown completely put a halt to recreational fishing and it cut off access to food, you know, particular time when these vulnerable communities were they were like they were experiencing even more need less.

So Katika got to give these guys credit. They quickly pivoted and they started working with commercial fishing companies in the area. And then after they started doing that, they're bringing in nearly 2000 pounds of fish per week. Wow. But without the cleaning station, they didn't have any income to support the program. So so they were relying on donations and things. So fast forward to now. Right. And New Zealand, unlike here, has covered under control.

So they're heading into their summer and their fishing season like full bore and they've reopened this fish cleaning station. So they're getting all the fish from that, plus their partnerships with the commercial fishermen, which means they're bringing in a ton of food.

And they're also hoping that the revenue from that fish clean station. Will will be enough to make this program self-sustaining and even employ several community members full time, huh? I don't actually have a way to, like, adopt this model elsewhere. Like, I haven't figured that out because I think it's kind of uniquely suited to New Zealand. But I have to say that I find this to be such an elegant solution to multiple problems right there. Sure. Maximizing the yield of fish, they're feeding hungry people, the rejuvenating cultural traditions.

They're creating a self-sustaining nonprofit that does not rely on grants or donations, and they're even managing to employ a few people who need jobs. I just love everything about what's going on here.

I think it's fantastic. It is.

But it'd be a very hard thing to replicate here because where do you do it?

Like where where is there a fishery plus enough people that could utilize that in need that, you know, without shipping? You know, though, I will say what comes to mind, and it's a much lesser scale, you know, by a long shot, but it deserves a nod throughout the early part of the pandemic.

I had several buddies in Key West, including my my old buddy, Captain Mike Wayne, for down there that they publicly on social media, they'd go out and fish their charters or even just go fish for fun, burn their own gas, you know, catch King Max, whatever, whatever they were catching and just publicly put on there. Like, if you need fish, like you come to the dock, like, I'll cut this up.

Like if anybody's having a hard time getting food or wants fresh fish, like and there was a little piece of that sort of rally behind that. But this is an amazing idea. It's just where where do you do it? Yeah.

The other wrinkle there is like for for the folks that are getting this, it's it's not like they're getting trash, right. For them. It's genuinely like, oh, sweet.

This is the part of the fish. We like to try to do that in American culture. It would be insulting. Yeah. Because we'd be giving people shit that they didn't want. And and that's not that's not a solution. So I don't have like a way of bringing this here. I don't think I don't think the model necessarily is replicable. But things like this where you can solve multiple problems at once and create something that is not reliant on philanthropy.

Right. Where it's self-sustaining and generates revenue like these are the things that I love. Yes, I did.

It's an awesome idea. But you're absolutely right. It's like the first step would be getting people to appreciate a giant fish head. And we just we just we just don't hear. We just don't tell.

This is a weird transition, but, you know, so here's something that works in another country that does not work here, similar to how football works here, but not in other countries.

So that's that's that's my transition for this story. And again, this is much less touchy feely.

Are you a football fan? You are a football fan to some degree, right? I like football.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not anti at all. I have at different points of my life followed football. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm not like I kind of was when I was a kid. But now to be honest man, like I give not two shits about any professional sports and if I just lost friends over that or something I'm sorry.

Like I, I do enjoy a good Super Bowl party, but if I'm not invited to one, I probably won't even watch the Super Bowl, you know, and I was happy when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, but then quickly had to throw the family in the basement because like it was Armageddon outside the windows, rattled from the explosive for hours.

Anyway, why does this matter? Well, because this little ditty from Mississippi's Clarion Ledger is about Deon Sanders. And I used to collect his sports cards back in the day. But this is about Don getting arrested while fishing. And he talked about this recently in an interview on the pro football show. So there's a video of this out there.

And it happened years ago. But he's just telling the story now.

And as it goes after Don went pro, he says he he did what what all pro sports people do, I guess, and build himself a million dollar home in a beautiful gated community in Florida. And this house was close to the airport. He says, though I'm not sure which airport. But regardless, one day he noticed the lake near the airport that he says could not have been seen from the road. Which makes me wonder if he saw it from the air.

And I get that because let me tell you, there is some incredibly juicy water, like at the Orlando airport and the airport. And every time I fly to Philly, I'm like that swampy shit right there has got to be loaded with snakeheads on both ends.

Whenever I'm on the monorail in Orlando, I'm like, there are ten pound hog Larrys. Albert, you. Oh, yeah, we've both been there. Dude, you're on the show. You're like looking at that like nobody's ever casted anything in there ever, even though that's probably not true. But anyway, I never have the guts to fish any of these places because I don't want to end up like Deon Sanders.

So Don just just drove on over to this lake, right.

Just down some dirt road with a small boat in the back of his pickup, dropped it in and set off a fishing. And in the interview, he says he was so pumped because there was no one else there.

Well, duh. Like, I know why there was no one else there.

And he starts Hammerin Largemouth left and right when the police rolled in and they wave him over.

And I could read you Deon's reaction, but let's have Phil tee it up and let Deon explain how he reacted to the authorities.

Poli's come up. So you need to come in for what, no transparency and nobody cares, nobody cares. What are you talking about?

So when the police insisted that they would, in fact, be taking him to jail for trespassing, after that exchange, Deon decided, and I quote, I may as well enjoy myself. And he stayed out for another hour and caught a bunch of bars before coming in and going to jail.

Now, the funny twist on this story is that Don was in his hometown at the time of the arrest and he was there to play a charity basketball game with his celebrity friends against the local media and police department.

And also and this is my favorite part, right?

Once word of his arrest got out for this matter. Don says he got millions of offers to fish private water all over the country in every state. And this that's the part of this. While it's a funny story that grinds my gears, because I'm betting that quite a few people listening to this and perhaps maybe even the guys hosting it, I don't know at some point may have trespassed a bit to fish younger days we're talking about here.

But what drives me nuts is like now that we're a fishing industry professionals, if you are, I got nailed for trespassing to fish, like we'd be done, we'd be ruined and say, hey, sorry that happened. Come fish my private stretch of this Atlantic salmon stream in Quebec. No, that's not the way that's going to go down. But Deon Sanders gets pinched at the airport are not Deon Sanders and he's the man. And that's so unfair.

I think it is. And and I actually so this resonates with me in a lot of ways. And, you know, except for the fact that I'm not Deon Sanders, nor do I have anything like his life.

But there are some really good Bonefish flats not far from the airport on the island where I grew up.

What is it with airports, dude? There's like a good fishing around the airport.

There always is. Right. And most of them are totally legit. It's no problem. But there's this one flat that borders on one of the runways and it is not legal to fish that flat because it's not that all the other ones get all this pressure and that one doesn't.

So we call that flat Helen Keller flat because like, it's not appropriate.

But you get the joke there. And I have been chased off of that by the airport police boat more than once because, like, it's just so juicy and you're getting your teeth kicked in by these fish. You're like, all I got to do is go 50 yards over there. I know I can catch one. And then you end up go in there and you end up doing it. Most of the time it's fine. But then 10 percent of the time the cops get called and they come chasing in their police boat.

You got it? Yep. Yep.

This is it. This is a huge thing here. I mean, one of the biggest places where this is a constant infraction, Jamaica Bay in Long Island. I mean, Jamaica Bay is an incredible strieber fishery. It's not that big and for a million different reasons. Giant schools of blue fish and stripers every year. Pyle in the Jamaica Bay and literally the end of the runway at JFK is like right there.

And there's boys all over the place saying, you can't get any closer than this. And every time I'm there, there's like the blitz of the century going off right on the other side of the buses. And and dudes, dudes risk it all the time, the kayakers at night. It's a big thing here, but true story, man. Like if it's near a runway, it's good.

Yeah, inevitably, inevitably true.

And like we're telling these stories about flats fishing in Florida, fishing and all this warm stuff. And I'm going to close out news with the opposite kind of fishing. Right, because we're moving into ice season. We are at least four for those of us who live in places that have ice fishing seasons. And and we're right in the middle of the Ferhat Ice tour, which is the Beteta ice fishing series that we produced earlier this year.

And and if you haven't already, you should definitely check that out.

Yeah, you need to be watching that. We say so. It's worth it. So I feel like it'd be appropriate to bring a ice fishing story to kick off this season.

And there are quite a few folks for good reason who feel like, I don't know, they feel like there's an impact of technology on ice fishing is a sport that they don't really like. Like some one of the digs I hear about ice fishing.

Right. Some people cameras. Yeah.

I mean, you got the new flashers and the cameras and the battery powered joggers and the track side by sides and the like. Super pimped out ice palaces with couches and big screen TV's and full kitchens. Right. And some people think that ice fishing has lost some of its soul.

I guess that's an argument that I hope we used to have on the show at some point. But that's not where I'm going with this. This is a story where technology played a very different role for a particular ICE handler.

OK, last January, Jordan and Turkey was fishing. The Black River near Watertown, New York is a Watertown. Owner Waterton, Watertown, Watertown. OK, so he's fish the Black River near Watertown when he caught just this absolute pig of a sunfish and he brought it up and he figured, man, this thing is the biggest one I've ever caught. He figured he should probably enter it into the New York State Winter Classic fishing tournament, see if he could see if he gets the money.

Are you familiar with this tournament?

I'm not familiar with the tournament, but I have heard whispers of this of this story. So I'm glad that I'm glad that we're doing this one.

Yeah. I mean, it just seems like a fun kind of community fishing tournament. Folks come together and sponsored it. It seems like the kind of thing that I would enjoy anyway.

Jordan took the fish to a local hardware store where they had an official scale and it weighed in at one pound nine ounces, which is the biggest sunfish ever recorded in the Winter Classic tournament, which is great for Jordan.

It's a pumpkin seed. Let let me finish the story. Suchiate.

Sorry, but that's where this gets interesting because the fish had the physical characteristics of both a pumpkin seed and a bluegill are OK now. If it were to be classified as a bluegill it'd be a hell of a fish, but that's all.

If it were classified as a pumpkin seed, it would tie the New York State record so I can't tell which one it is.

Jordan then brought the fish to the regional office of the Department of Environmental Conservation to give it to some biologists figured they'd be able to tell. Nope, the biologists, they take a look like, I don't know, maybe it's blue Yule, maybe it's poppyseed. Might be a hybrid. We can't tell. And I think this is where I'd be like, all right, I don't care enough.

Cool. All entered in the terminal. I'll get some money. I'm done. But not Jordan. No, no, no. He was not going to be deterred from from like getting to some his name in the record books. You're not going to be stopped. So he then drove to Albany to get Albany, Albany excuse me, then drove to Albany to the New York State Museum, where he they would help him do like get get hooked up with a DNA analysis of the fish.

Nine months later, just last week, the results came in.

The fish turned out to be pure pumpkin seed, meaning Jordan officially tied the state record that was set back in 1994.

Good for him.

Sticking to his guns on that one just wouldn't let it go.

Just just I got to do I have to agree good on him. But, you know, like, I can't think of any other than, I don't know, striped bass, maybe, like, it was just such an important record that so many people cared about. I don't know if I would have gone through all that either.

Nope. Nope. That's not that's this is I'm not throwing shade, Jordan. I love the store. I'm glad I did it, but I definitely would have stopped, like, I probably would have gone to the lake to check it with the biology, like, hey, man, you know, this is and maybe like I don't know, but they are cool. I'm going to go eat it then.

That would be the end of it for me. I'm going to get a big gulp. Thanks.

Well, there you go.

New York, you got well, I mean, you don't really have a new record to beat. You have an old record to beat because this one just tied it tied.

It's like that's a little that's a little disappointing. Like after all that like dude couldn't get it by an extra little engine and tied like the world record largemouth.

Oh man. After all that time anyway.

OK, so Phil you've got a lot to work with. Some, some real interesting science based news stories here from Miles and just my total bullshit.

So have fun picking, OK? Don't make it awkward. We're going to make it awkward when Phil is done though with awkward moments in angling, presenting our first fan photo. Like Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield stands, Joe Smellie calling his own mediocrity Miles, an all day. You're the winner this week.

Joe, I think you'll be all right just to make yourself a boilermaker, channel your inner Smiggle and take a bite out of a big covid free raw fish just just right out of the middle.

So juicy. Sweet. Well, to take a picture of a blogger on. Well, the time has finally come. Many of you have sent in awful awkward and just generally hilarious fishing photos. And, you know, I just got to say, Joe, that this segment idea is already a success.

If you ask me, because I have been thoroughly entertained, I it is just kind of I've actually shirked more important work because I get lost looking at these photos and just a few things I just want to throw out there like Zubaz, OK, got a lot of zubaz, but I currently own the zubaz scene.

Right. Like I'm not ready to give up the zubaz crown yet, so we might bank those for later.

But we do appreciate all the zubaz. But we've also gotten some great ones that we just don't seem to know how to spin outside like a personal attack, like we love you guys and we're not trying to be mean.

No, you know what I'm saying. But but when all we've got is like, you know, your haircut and look of hopeless depression, like, where do we go with that? So we're being very picky and choosy, trying to find the right ones.

But, God, are we having a good time looking at all of them? Yes.

Yes. Just please keep flooding them in, because it is the highlight of my day, a lot of time. And and now we're going to share some of this joy and weirdness with all of you. Our first fan submission for awkward moments and fishing comes from Zach Contos. I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Zach.

And in this photo, we see young Zach sitting in a boat anchored in the middle of a placid river behind him.

The fall colors are just starting to paint the tips of the deciduous backdrop in yellow, orange, a bit of amber, perhaps. And in the center of this picturesque scene, Zach is holding his very first king salmon.

Well, he's he's attempting to hold it anyway. All we can really see is the salmon's belly as it's in the middle of a valiant attempt to escape his grasp and return to the river so that it can complete its mission of egg fertilization before its biological shot clock expires.

And judging by the putrid green to Alabama mud black of this fish's body color, there's not much time left.

And the thing is there, for his part, Zach doesn't look like a man who's in the process of dropping a half rotted mud shark, as I call him, onto the deck of a johnboat.

In fact, if one were to Photoshop out the fish and replace it with a red Telecaster, he looks like a guy in a dive bar, you know, like covering the stones, like living his Keith Richards pipe dream.

Like it looks like Zach's trying to whale out the solo from Sympathy for the Devil on that fish and not hold it up for a hero shot.

And, you know, an observation, even even his fingers are splayed as they would be on a fretboard, as if you were trying to make a really hard cord.

It's it's so perfect. But the look on his face fits the image, too. Right. So picture your your favorite guitarists, perhaps. Inve Malmsteen.

I know there's a bunch of inve fans listening right now, like hitting the peak of their most iconic riff on stage completely in the moment, borderline like just sheer bliss, possibly edging towards orgasmic.

And that seems appropriate when you consider the stream of white liquid spewing from the king's vent on the Zachs like really expensive high dollar hunting vest. And it seems just both of them were in the midst of an off face. Man.

Oh, it's so true. And the photo the photo would be good enough on its own. Yes. But actually, my favorite part about this one was the the messages that Zach and I exchanged.

Listen, um, because this is going to make it this is going to make it so. So here's the here's the message exchange between Zach and me. Zach, here's an embarrassing photo for the new segment. This fish smacked me before we got a good picture. Me. Thanks, Zach. Looks like that fish did more than smack you. I hope you washed that vest, Zach. It took my head clean off and I left the Lake Ontario slime on it for a few extra days to savor the experience.

Me, I was actually referring to the stream of melt spewing into your lap sack. The real embarrassment is that I've never noticed that in two years.

A priceless love we could educate you about your own awkward photo, like the best part of that was that he had no idea that that was in the photo when he sent it in, like we we found that gem for him. So, Zach, I hope you enjoyed those extra few days of savoring the experience, as you say. And man, thanks so much for sending in your awkward, fishy photo and letting us have some fun with it. We got a little gift coming your way in the near future.

We do.

And you deserve it because now everybody can see your lap full of salmon splurge. Don't forget, we post these on our Instagram accounts. That's Jadot, Somali one three eight and water miles on the gram. If you have an all crawfishing photo you'd like us to heckle on this podcast, send it to Brent at the mediator Dotcom. We appreciate all the submissions we've gotten so far. Keep them coming.

So this week, seeing that it is, in fact, Black Friday, the day we all know is set aside to remember the 13 people that perished during the Tickle Me Elmo trampling at the Bentonville, Arkansas Wal-Mart in 1996. Hashtag Never forget.

We've decided it's only appropriate to push our end of the line segment off this week in favor of the sale bill. Yes, yes.

It's it's the respectful thing to do. And you know what? You're probably not fishing this week in any way. You're shopping at least on your computer, because you don't have the proper people to visit Target. You don't know what's going on in there. Have been to a target in the last six months. I don't recommend it.

But long before Target, there was Kmart. And this sale bin harkens back to the days of the blue light special.

Why did you put the head of hair? You know what I'm getting that. What you you didn't have to be so hurtful with me. So angry.

So this week we've got a real gem from the Facebook group, Fly Fishing Classifieds. And this was sent to me by Chris Raas. Chris Budiman, man. And I appreciate it.

OK, up for grabs was not, I said was a hand tied streamer assortment, nine streamers total in the original packaging with the original Kmart price tag, four dollars and ninety seven cents.

And I will date this item from the mid 90's ish maybe. I don't know, but here's the description.

Kmart Fish America Foundation members box rare collector's item and he originally started out with these for 200 dollars and then slashed that price down to fifty dollars. What a steal.

But there were comments on the post where you can say, I feel like this is one of those cases where the original packaging is not helping you, particularly that Kmart price tag sticker of four dollars and ninety seven cents.

Just I don't think that keeping it the original intact is actually helping to boost your argument for why this is valuable. Just just my yeah.

My take the rare where that just you shouldn't have gone there. But they were comments on this post, the first of which read, You are kidding, right?

And another guy says the guy says, I'll give you one dollar and fifteen cents and then another dude jumps in and goes, would you take four hundred.

So stupid prices aside. Right. This is not a Basbug tied by lefty quray. No Kmart flies, but I just got a kick out of it because these, these were like my first flies man.

These little starter packs from Kmart, you know, you got the Mickey Finn and the Gray Ghost and the half assed woolly bugger and the head wraps would start unraveling within 15 minutes of fishing them.

But I got my first fly outfit for Christmas when I was ten or so, and these were the flies that came with it. And we grew up in different places. So maybe like your first flies were not the bubble pack.

Honestly, like my first flies, I actually think were the the fifty cent foam spiders that used to catch bluegill with another bluegill in Hawaii. But I did use them to catch tilapia in Hawaii because they did anything but.

Yeah, that's what I started out with. But I'm pretty sure I had one of these at one point. But I think my terrible casting because I didn't anybody teach me, just broke them all immediately. I think they just came unraveled while I was trying to learn to cast well, there were multiple sets, right?

So you had the streamers set and then you have like like you were talking about you had the pan fish. Popper said every kid had the even before you had a fly rod, you wanted a little pan fish pie.

Oh yeah.

I don't know why, but they also had a dry fly assortment and there would always be one fly that just looked like a moth.

Do you remember that? Just a big white morpho butterfly looking jobber. I didn't see this that. No, I don't know what you were supposed to do with that.

I do it. Anybody how big is it?

How big are we talking first, before I answer my question, like, big enough that if it flew in through the screen door at night, you'd be like, oh, shit is a big ass mofo.

I don't I don't have it, though.

Did just a big white wing like Brown Wing Feather Moth and I don't know anybody who used it. Did anyone ever catch anything with that? I don't know. But I remember having those as a kid and there was always the moth in the set.

But anyway, the set is now sold, though I have no idea how much it was paid for the set.

I want to know what this went for.

So there is a lucky angler out there either buying a shadowbox for it right now. That's that's one possibility. Or just swinging a poorly tied Mickey Finn over at the rock bass hole.

But it was there for the taking and we lost out on the rare collector's Kmart set in the America Foundation members box.

I don't even know what that means, but it sure sounds good.

It's not even a real fly box. They're like the little the only the only thing I can think of that has a similar box is like he put baseball cards in there like a small stack of baseball cards and the clear thing. But Chris, Chris, thank you for that one. We loved that one. You guys have been sending a ton of sailboard items. Keep those coming too bent at the meat eater dotcom and you just might hear yours.

Read here. So that's all the time we have this week, if you're making lists of what to buy Joe and me for Christmas, we like close free of Samin Seamon, hand tied mayflies and smart people willing to answer lots of stupid questions in very short time periods. Very well said.

Listen, next week we're going to throw down that's a little Easter egg for some of you with a smooth moves. That's a bloody good time. And get back to our drinking days with a fresh installment of That's My Bar. Until then, keep all those Selborne finds awkward photos, bar nominations and general love, hate and love. Hate mail coming to bent at the immediate outcome. We love hearing from you.

And you know what? Take a few leftover turkey sandwiches out on the water with you there filling the stick to your ribs. I personally like mine with mayo and cranberry sauce together.

I will skip the cranberry sauce. But listen, no matter what you do, don't put the mayo and the jelly on the sandwiches the night before Damascus. They'll be soggy shit the next day.