The Bente podcast is presented by Black Reifel Coffee Co., which is cool because not only does Black Reifel support the veteran and military community through sales of their totally delicious rose to order coffee, but did you know that founder Evan Hafer also used to be a fishing guide? Therefore, he understands that legit anglers thrive on coffee and subsequently so do people that make podcasts. So if we ever sound jittery now, you know why.

Yeah, I need a cup of coffee before I head out fishing or make a podcast, and I'd rather not get stuck with a cup of whatever's lukewarm at the gas station.

Black rifles, wide variety of roast options gives me lots of good stuff to choose from. Check them out at Black Reifel Coffee Dotcom Backslash Meat Eater and do us and yourself a favor and use the promo code meat eater a checkup. You'll get a 20 percent discount and we'll get to keep making this podcast.

Hey, we know your fishy people here at Bend, but we're betting quite a few of you are also pumped that hunting season is here and so are new episodes of The Meat Eater on Netflix, Meat Eater, season nine. Part one is officially live for your viewing pleasure.

The new season has some bad ass adventures, Steven. The crew had to Colorado, Texas and Wyoming, three states where the possibilities are nearly endless. So check it out and please do let us know what you think of the new season. We always love hearing from you.

Even the fishermen head over to Netflix to check out season nine, Part one. And don't worry, more episodes are coming. So they tell us Season nine, Part two will arrive in early twenty twenty one. And we will fill you in on those launch details as we get closer.

Suffice to say, questionable choices ensued and I've been a little wary of drinking in the mile high state ever since you look at this, but you'll think this boy has nothing to do with mastering bass.

How much of the devil's last minute smoke to get through a day like that? And these are big, juicy, nasty, segmented, black alien, centipede looking suckers. And I'll be honest, they scare the shit out of me. Good morning to generate angler's and welcome to Bend, the fishing podcast, not afraid to tell you that nobody takes you seriously when you show up to fish wearing a t shirt or hat emblazoned with the species of fish you're trying to catch on it.

I'm Joe Somali. I'm Miles Nalty.

And I want to take a minute and let you know what I'm currently drinking.

No, not that it's a steaming mug of freedom roast from Black Reifel Coffee Company.

Correct, sir, the podcast is entirely fueled by Black Reifel coffee, not only with Miles and I'd be utterly incapable of forming a coherent thought or complete sentence without their solidly caffeinated brews. But this show would actually not exist without their support.

So if you dig what we're doing here, Bent, and you like to start your day with an excellent cup of coffee, please go to Black Reifel coffee dotcom backslash meat eater and pick up a bag or eight. You can enter the promo code meat eater at checkout and get 20 percent off your first order.

Sprinkle some on your sinco, man. It'll get them all woak. Yeah, get them go. Joe, I don't know how things are out your way, but I'm sitting here sipping on my mug, gazing out the window and things just do not look right.

You know, with all these fires just raging across this half of the country meant it seriously. It feels like I'm living in Mordor.

It's like dark all the time and ominous.

Did that smoke? That smoke made it all the way to me. We got smoked out here in Pennsylvania. I mean, it's that bad.

It's terrible. And usually usually by mid-September, things are looking up like usually by this time of year, the fires are out, the tourists are gone. All the bow hunters are up in the mountains chasing elk. I kind of got the rivers to myself, but it's still warm enough that I don't have to wear waders or frickin love September most of the time, but this year, not so much. I kind of feel like I kind of feel like September has turned her back on me.

September is my least favorite month out here. If I'm being honest, it's like purgatory, like September is neither here nor there. You know, it's not cold enough for solid salty stripers. Yeah, but all the freshwater patterns from summer start to change. So you have to, like, think more and put more effort in your schedule. Think about it.

Offshore is still good, but the windows get fewer, gets all windy and hurricanes, you know, false Abbe's might start or they might wait till October. Who knows? It's like a month. It just needs to be gotten through.

It's like you're inching closer to Steelheads season, but it's still eighty five degrees out right now.

You know, we hold it. Hold up. Just to clarify, by steelhead, you actually mean lake run rainbows, right? Because according to the metalheads out here in the West, if it doesn't touch saltwater, it's not a real steelhead.

Oh, I know. And hearing that for years, you guys are just bitter because you're steelhead fisheries are dying, but the Great Lakes are still pumping out lots of fish, like literally on demand, sort of especially on the famed Salmon River in New York. It's like y'all ready for salmon and steel opening valves. Boys call them in.

Is y'all is y'all at common? The turn of phrase that you guys use in upstate New York, is that is that part of the terminology?

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I use it personally a lot. I've heard some Yarl's up there.

I've heard some Yarl's in western P.A., you know, but I think it is when we're doing a dam release, steelhead cattle drive just seems to fit. And I don't really give a shit what you call them. Right.

But when I go to the trades, I actually catch steelhead instead of standing around like an asshole casten for days with some misguided sense of self-importance.

You know, I fish that he shoots one time. My wife wasn't impressed.

I'm sorry. Sorry wasn't here.

I spent more time trying to stay on my feet on that greasiest flat rock. They got out there than like paying attention to my swing.

Now that's the man that that is some sketchy, sketchy lederach on the Deschutes. But to be brutal, it's Brooklier. I don't actually have a dog in this whole like steelhead Great Lakes steelhead fight. I just like how pissed off people get about fish semantics. I think that's just the fun. I want to poke that bear. And for those of you out here have no idea, we're talking about steelhead or migratory rainbow trout that people lose their minds over because I mean.

Well, really, because they're just a lot of fun to catch there. Native to the West Coast, but stocked in the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, the Western populations have been declining big time for a while now. But the cult of anglers who live for them, they're a rare breed. As you're about to learn in this week's regional fishing report. We got this coming to you from a legend of that scene and a pioneer of both the slap twirling cast and the quarter turn class skate three technique.

Those are some fancy two-handed fly test that we just made up for those of you who are looking confused.

Saddle up steel hitters, it's time for the Western Steel Head report from your buddy Skagit Johnson. Well, it's late summer, so we're in the depths of the Jones. And man, if you don't have the shakes in the sweats and you're not a real steel hitter to those of us who get it or zombie to our computer screens all night staring at the seven day rolling fish count, try and interpret the data hitting refresh every 15 minutes and praying that those fish counts start to rise.

See those you don't know? Fisheries biologists are interns. They're called fish chicks. Now, those dudes, they count every single fish that migrates past the dams on the Columbia River and they upload those fish numbers to the federal Fish Passage website in real time. In real time for the past 10 years. Those numbers have been lower than the sperm count. And ever since I got that shooting head wrapped around my sac while we nipple deep during the high flows on the Deschutes.

But for as bad as this real steelhead is, have it feel like we've got a kindred connection with those poor bastards who sit in the bowels of the dams hitting that clicker each time a steelhead, Cohu or Chinook swims up the ladder. What a job, man. Click, click, click, click, click. Hours on end. How much of the devil's last you need smoke to get through a day like that? I don't know. Yeah, right.

Oh right. Right. We're all in this together, man whose sad sack fish counters and those of us sitting on the other end of that Wi-Fi signal praying the numbers will be higher than the techs doing the counting. Even considering the go fund me to pay the fish counters to skew the data, at least we could get some help. And that's really what this is all about, man. How this is the hopeful time, the time before we find out the truth and all our dreams are crushed again.

Fish might come back. Maybe it'll be like 2009. How was a good year? I was looking over my fish and spreadsheets the other night trying to remember exactly which head length and grain weight works best for my Burki 15 five came across my ratio's fish called ours fished in 2009. It was one to eight. Can you imagine catching a fish every eight hours? God, that would be amazing. The truth is, man, the rounds are probably going to suck this year, just like they did last year and the year before that.

Embrace the suck man. It's another season. We now have the trust of Prince Chaffe. We'll sink in. The cream will rise. Will rise. We. I think it might have mixed my old timey metaphors there, but anyway, man, the point is US bona fides will be out there fishing still despite the terrible returns. And that's where I found my ray of sunshine in the dark, moss covered rainforest cabin. That is my life, man.

I can always rely on my own sense of superiority. Matel, a therapist, says I should be more positive. So I'm trying that out. That's that's it for this week's Western Steelhead report. I'll check back in the fall, man. By then, we should know if any fish at all are getting past the Bonneville Dam. If they're all getting trapped in gillnets and hidden by sea lions. God, I'd hate God damn sea lions.

You know, man, Great Lakes steel headers are definitely a little less chill than your buddy Johnson over there, so he's pretty laid back, but they're an interesting crew unto themselves.

And look, stay tuned East Side people for a steel head report from over this way.

Very soon. It'll be more uplifting, I promise. But as much as I as I enjoy the back and forth between East Side, West Side Steel, I am genuinely bummed because I have never caught a true Psalter.

Like, I feel like if you're in the steel head, you should at least catch one of those at some point in your steel heading career.

But then I listen to reports like this and my my pillow is fully Harshad, as Johnson would say, and I decide to use those frequent flyer miles to fish in places that actually still have fish to catch.

You know, I know. I can't I can't actually blame you. The truth is, I haven't fished for steelhead in years partially because I got to go a long way to catch them from here, and partly because it's tough for me to justify messing with the few that are still around. I do feel some level of guilt. That's not a judgment of the people who want to do it. Those fish need advocates, but for me it just kind of feels like, oh, I should probably let those ones.

Yeah, I get that.

Well, yeah, that sucker worked all, you know, for so long to get up through all those dams. Like, just let him do his thing. Now I kind of get that.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you enjoy those Idaho fishermen? They've come a long way and that's that's just to me, you know.

But anyway, we will we will keep all of you up to date on the state of steelhead here bent as far as new shit comes to light, man. The truth, though, is that I've actually never caught a Great Lake steelhead. We could fix that. Well, we probably should.

You know, not that long ago, both of us were actually over in the Midwest working on a little project for four metre fishing. And even though we missed the Steelhead season, we did we did catch some other species. Yeah.

Hopefully some of you out there have heard of Daas boat where we take a beat up old boat, make interesting people accustomed to much nicer boats, take it out in questionable circumstances, film the whole thing and call it a fishing show.

And one of those interesting people is a guy you might be familiar with, our boss, Steven Rinella. Steve's here today to talk a little bit about the history of Doszpot two, also known as Doszpot. In our first installment of Who's on the Boat.

There's a timeline and a time for. Never get out of the broken. Absolutely goddamn right. OK, when you're watching Daas Boat Season two Doce boat, you're going to see Old Green 1973 star Starcraft Bassmaster.

Now, first off, you look at this boat, you'll think this boat has nothing to do with mastering bass. It's not like a contemporary bass boat.

The boat hears a story. The boat. When I grew up, my mom still lives in the house I grew up in. But as I was growing up, if I looked out my bedroom window toward the lake that I grew up fishing on lookers. Right. A couple of houses down is the house is old dude named John Kerry. And John Kerry was our fishing mentor when we were kids, meaning if my dad was gone. But John Kerry is a lot nicer than our dad.

So maybe if our dad was home and your fishing rod got tangled up or you needed a bobber or you had a hook in your finger or whatever, you could run down the beach to John Gary's and you'd be able to find him anywhere from like 10 in the morning on. He'd be fishing and then he'd be home cleaning fish, drinking vodka, whatever.

He's just always there. And he had all kinds of tackle and he'd always get your stuff fixed up and squared away. And he always had this boat. I was born in seventy four and he borrowed his boat in seventy three. The boat still has all the registration stickers on it, going back to the beginning, just lined up in this long line and four year increments.

And John Gary, he also he kept his boat on one of those haul outs and his driveway was a boat launch and he just fished his ass off for everything on the planet, 16 foot boat. He's a troll for salmon out in the Great Lakes or down rigourous. He did everything. He's mostly a pan fish specialist. When he died, this boat came to live outside of my mom's pole barn in a lean to my mom's pole barn and sat there full of garbage, you know, for a lot of years now.

So the story of this season is refurbishing, getting this boat back on the water and getting it back out, fishing around a lot of John Gary's old haunts in the Midwest. So it was pretty touching for me because I loved John so much and have so many fond memories of him and how fussy he was about his boat and growing up thinking how great his boat was. And everybody's like John. Gary got such a nice boat and everybody wanted to fish on John's boat.

And now you look at John's boat and it's like just looks like this little teeny old aluminum boat.

But my God, he catch a lot of fish out of a boat like that. So that's what you're going to see when you tune in.

You'll be elbow deep, armpit deep, neck deep in nostalgia as we track around the Midwest and John Gary's boat.

Check out Steve Yoni's Callejo, me and a whole cast of other miscreants on the new season of Downspout available at the Meat Eater dot com. And while you're there, catch up on season one. It's good. It's worth your time. All right.

That's probably enough self promotion for one episode. Let's talk about a business we have absolutely no stake in whatsoever. It's time for That's My Bar, where we read a plug from one of you degenerates about your favorite fishing bar.

You guys have been really we've been impressed. You've been sending us tons of good stuff. So it's good you keep your bar nominations coming. And this week's Shout Out comes from our very good friend and regular guest, Angler, not only on dad's boat, but also here on Banner already, Frank Smethurst, best God damn bartender from Timbuctoo to Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon.

And for that matter. Colorado is a great fishing state, lots of people say so because I live in Montana. I'd be kind of an idiot to make a full day's drive to fish for Rocky Mountain Trout when I can do that in my backyard. But I realize the state John Denver serenaded about is trout famous for a reason, though I haven't fished there much. I actually have done a pretty good bit of drinking during my limited time in Colorado, a trip through Boulder when I was like 21, a friend introduced me to the Red Bob.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to have no idea what I'm talking about, a red bomb is a shot of Yeager nestled into a four ounce pour of Red Bull. Nothing and I mean nothing encourages mature and responsible behavior like a group of barely legal drinkers combining hard alcohol with lots of sugar and caffeine. Suffice to say, questionable choices ensued. And I've been a little wary of drinking in the mile high state ever since. My good friend Frank Smethurst has been trying to convince me to reconsider his home state's fishing and drinking opportunity for years to that end.

He recently wrote this recommendation for his favorite Colorado fishing bar. Though it has been renamed the Riverside Bar and Grill, everybody calls the place the Rainbow back in the 70s, the Rainbow was founded in Basalt, Colorado. It's right next to the flower shop, also known as Taylor Creek, and its outdoor deck hangs over the frying pan river. You can even feed the fish and they like fries.

The place is wall to wall anglers, guides, clients and colorful folks fresh off a trip to Japan, likely warming back up with a toddy and fish tacos even on the snowy day of winter. Thank you, Frank, for your submission. We will add the rainbow to our list of top tier fishing bars. My only question is, have you tried feeding fish tacos to the pet trout? Because I know I would. Thanks to all of you who have written to tell us about your favorite drinking establishments with a fishing problem.

We have many, many, many more to come. But if you have a bar that you think we should shout out, let us know.

Absolutely. Send an email to Bente at the Meat Eater dot com and try to give us like a compelling paragraph that really sells the place. You know, if you were you know, it's been like I like I like mix like, OK, sounds cool.

But you have got a few of those, like, you know, you go to bills is good. You got it.

You got to kind of tell us why it's so good, you know, just just a little bit, you know, don't need to write a novel, you know, and we're not really sure what we're going to do with all these. Maybe we'll make like an interactive heat map like they do for the wrona outbreaks, you know what I mean?

Like how much Wrona is in your county, how many cool fishing bars are in your county? Swipe right.

But like, we'll keep you up to date on all happenings in the fishing bar scene here at BET.

Yes, we will.

That is one of our favorite scenes to stay abreast of. And, you know, considering the part of our job is keeping you up to date, it's time for Fish News.

That escalated quickly, quick reminder, it's a competition, Miles, and I have no idea which news stories the other dude is bringing to the table, that's kind of how this game goes. And if you've been following along, we now have our masterful engineer, Phil, at the end of every news segment to weigh in on who won news this week. And I have been doing well. And that is because I send Phil RadioShack gift cards.

I was wondering what it was. I knew there was some kind of deal you guys had going in the back end. He's a podcast engineer. I figure he must spend a lot of time in Radio Shack, so those will come in handy.

I've got to I've got to I got to figure out my bribery game. And my bribery game apparently sucks, but.

But this could be your week to shine. You get to lead off. And that's always that's always a good spot. I got the leadoff spot in case we both found the same thing. Maybe I can leave you high and dry. We'll see.

Bring it on, man. All right. Here we go.

For those of you out there who have been paying attention to fish news, not just, you know, sleeping through it, but like you do class, you'll know that we love shark stories because, I mean, sharks love shark stories.

We're also partial to fish science and evolution. And any chance that we can find to make fun of Shark Week? Well, I have a story that combines all three of those topics. I'm definitely pandering here.

OK, because last week, research was published about the largest shark ever to swim on this planet, at least as far as we know, the Megalodon or MEGG as the kids seem to be calling it, and or as that movie that nobody went to see was called, oh, don't worry, we'll get to that movie.

Oh, we're going to throw some mag in there. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And be patient, OK?

All right. All right. Megalodon has been the subject of significant attention and debate both in paleontology and pop culture. Researchers are pretty confident that Megalodon lived from about 20 million years ago until about three and a half million years ago, and that it was the biggest, baddest Marine predator around Megalodon evolved alongside whales, which were probably its primary food source. So picture a whale like a humpback whale. And now think about it, yeah. Now think about a shark that would hunt whales and potentially be capable of biting one in half, and that's Megalodon.

All right. That's a that's a great image.

Oh, I've personally visited that famous Megalodon jaw set hanging in the Smithsonian. I believe it is. It is a child.

I saw lots of pictures. Yeah.

And even though researchers have been able to figure out that much, they have not been able to agree on how big Megalodon actually was. Because the problem is that sharks, unlike dinosaurs or other large extinct land animals, have cartilaginous skeletons, meaning they're not made of solid bones. They don't fossilize very well. The only evidence of Megalodon found intact have been a few scattered vertebrae and more importantly, their teeth, which are more than seven inches long.

So scientists have been comparing those teeth with other living sharks and trying to extrapolate from there. But it's been kind of a problem. Size estimates have ranged from twenty five to 80 feet. And, you know, that's a pretty big difference. Like they're they're not even close.

That's a swing there. Yeah, exactly.

But just this last week, new research from the University of Bristol claims to have figured this problem out. And they came up with an estimated length of about 50 feet, which would make Megalodon more than double the size of a great white shark with a dorsal fin more than five feet high. That's a big shark and it's frightening.

And there's you know, there's people on this planet right now that still believe there are some out there.

Oh, I know. You know that, right? Oh, yeah. Just just just hang with me here. OK, I'll stop talking now. I appreciate your your mind works the same way mine does, and I appreciate that. So so these are these were some big sharks. And that is like that's some interesting research.

But really, like we wouldn't care about this if we were talking about a giant seal or a giant sloth or really any other extinct creature. This is only a story because we have this cultural obsession with sharks and particularly with big sharks. And it kind of pisses me off. It kind of annoys me how pop culture has just glommed on to the Megalodon, right. Because after after the Jaws franchise ran out of steam and Sharknado turned the whole genre into a punch line, shark horror film makers had to get pretty creative.

So that led to just as you were thinking, the the movie The Megg in twenty eighteen. And for those of you who are not up on your terrible B movies, here's a quick rundown. Jason Street. Them is a rescue diver who threw an overcomplicated plot, releases a few Megalodon that were somehow trapped in the Mariana Trench for the past couple of million years, I don't really know. But one of them then goes on a killing spree at a crowded beach in China before Streatham.

Save the day. There you go. I just saved you a few hours. You're welcome.

And that is that movie was. And then Dwight Schrute is his side. Yes. Dwight Schrute is the sidekick.

Yeah. So I just will go on record and say when the previews dropped, just for the hell of it, because I was such a Jaws fan, I had every intention of seeing it in IMAX just because, like, I have to because I'm a shark movie guy. Yeah. And then I never got around to it. I have still never seen the Megg from what I can do.

I haven't either, but I had to research it for this and I think you're glad you didn't. And I just gave you the whole plot. So you're done. It's fine. And as bad as that movie sounds like it was and according to the reviews, it was really bad. That plot, it actually mirrors.

And this is getting to your your belief, like the fact that some people still believe they're around. That plot mirrors a fake documentary that aired several years ago on Shark Week. Mm hmm.

And notice, I did not say mockumentary. This isn't like an intentional we're making a joke fake. I said fake documentary, as in a totally bogus film that tried to pass itself off as legitimate.

So, yeah, they kind of got in trouble not trying to say trouble, but they caught a lot of flack because there's a famous image from that documentary. It's like a a Coast Guard extraction because it do hanging off a ladder, off a chopper and like under the water, you see this shadow.

And this was they did this after they did the same thing with the Killer Mermaids documentary. Yep.

Remember that one. Yep. And then they did. I also found this that it wasn't in what I wrote up, but they did one another fake documentary of what might have happened if the mermaids and the Megalodon fought.

Yes. That's the one if you're going to pick one.

But in the one that we're referencing, just for everybody knows it's called Megalodon Monster Shark Lives. And the creator of Shark Week Brain Trust claimed they had evidence that Megalodon might not be extinct after all. We just. Noticed a giant shark ever, and they paraded through a series of, quote unquote, scientists, but all the scientists in that film show actors reading a.

Yeah, totally B.S. And none of it is the same thing, you know, with the mermaids. And I you know, people love to cling to the coelacanth like they're always like, well, there is an example of a fish that we thought was extinct and it wasn't. Yep, fine. I get that. But I mean, for how many generations was the oarfish a sea monster of mythology, the giant squid? Does that really exist? Well, we've found all that stuff since.

And even though they say the ocean is, we know more about outer space in the ocean. Dude, if there was a MEGG or several out there, one would have washed up in Fiji or wherever this shit washes up by now. I don't I don't believe it's out there.

It's definitely not. It's I mean, it's just it's not it's not a thing. OK, we agree. I'd like to point to the megamall shark, too. But one of the major differences here is that those fish actually or shark excuse me, did live in very, very, very deep water where we can't go.

All the evidence of Megalodon is that it was actually a shallow water predator. Right. So we would have found it.

We would have found it. And and fun little fact that I hadn't put in there. The the state fossil of North Carolina is the Megalodon tooth. OK, three things.

They're the mega mouth shark was always included in my shark coloring books as a young kid. And I never colored it because I'm like, that's a lame shark. It looks it looks like a beluga whale. It has no teeth. So I was never into the mag mouth.

But it's funny you say that about North Carolina state fossil being the Megalodon tooth. That is a dream of mine. And I know a handful of people that live, some in Florida, some in the Carolinas, specifically, if you know where to look, it's not that uncommon to find Megalodon acquaintances who that's what they do. Yeah.

And in fact, one of the old editors at one of the old magazines I worked for when he was younger, he was a mate on a party boat, I think it was in Georgia. And there was a spot out there that was known for him. And like people would snag a bunch of seaweed on the party boat and bring it up and there'd be a friggin full mag tooth, like glued to the seaweed that he had one of. My God, I want that.

And that's like that's my dream.

Yeah. No, like I said, I know folks who do it and we're getting way off off script here.

But I, I have also want to do it. But the guy who I know who's serious about it, like his mentor who taught him how to do it, died diving for those teeth. So it comes with some risk. Yeah. I'll just say that it's not like, oh, you just dive down and grab some some giant shark teeth. Here we go.

But to get back to my initial point, like I'm annoyed about the fake documentary and people just kind of like trying to play up this this Megalodon thing because we're just selling people on the fear of a creature that A has not existed in millions of years. And be it a whale's right.

Not people, not you. This is not a thing that's like hunting you idiot whales. You were not even a Gedo.

Yeah, I was gonna say you're not even like a poppyseed know in the damn thing's teeth.

But having said that, if you are one of those folks who just loves the shark horror genre, you know, maybe you Joe, I've got good news. The rumor the rumor mill has it that Meg to the trench is in development. So there's another comment I'll have to get caught up.

That's yeah. I'll get caught up. All right. I'm trying to think of a good Segway here.

We'll go from the from sharks that don't exist to getting in trouble on Instagram.

There's a shit set real if there still is factoring Segway in. I just lost today because that was total brain Brainfeeder.

Anyway, look, here's a classic tale about how the inability of many fishermen to simply keep their mouths shut and photos to themselves can swing around and bite you in the ass. And this comes from the Miami Herald headline. He caught a big fish near Key West, but he went to jail after bragging about it.

And this is a story and this is the story of Joshua, David and Zemsky, 18 years old, and he was jailed after state Fish and Wildlife officers said he removed a Goliath grouper from the water so he could pose for a photo with it. He was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of possession of a Goliath grouper booked into the Stock Island detention center and released the same day after posting a 7500 dollar bond. Now to catch you guys up. In case you are not familiar, Goliath Grouper have been protected in the U.S. since 1990, which means.

Harvest in possession of these species, it's completely outlawed. This also explains, I'm sure you guys have seen this. When you see somebody posing with a Goliath grouper, the fish is usually boat side, right? It's still in the water. Or the even cooler thing to do now is jump in the water with your Goliath grouper as it catches your breath.

Yep. And then you get splashed as it kicks away and then you get a ton of comments when you post that video on your Instagram account. And all of that is perfectly OK. All right. Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission says it's OK to snap some pics with your Goliath as long as it doesn't get in the way of a fast, healthy release. But young Mr. and Zemsky just made so many wrong turns.

He just he strayed so far. And I kind of don't feel bad for him. So if you're out there thinking like, oh, come on, man, you know, give the kid a break. He was proud of his fish. All right, listen. And I read on and Eskies said he caught the 20 pound juvenile in the lagoon on the campus of the College of the Florida Keys on Stock Island.

According to the arrest report by FWC, the lagoon where the Goliath came from is the college's dive training lagoon.

And there are signs posted there that indicate fishing is prohibited. The lagoon is a classroom space where we teach diving and marine science classes, said Amber Ernst Lenar, the college's spokeswoman. It is filled with wildlife that we value and respect. So I read that is kind of like aquarium, which means they move around.

That's like that's strike two. All right, that's. Yeah, that's lame. OK, yeah. And the story goes on to say, and as he said, he caught the fish, took it out of the water and was, quote, messing around with it.

FWC said, you know, and it's such a teenager thing, like, you know, you get to mess with it. We're just messing around, messing around in this mess.

And he removed the hook from its mouth for taking the photo. And the police said it's a problem, that Anasazi took the fish from the water and traveled at least 100 feet from where he where did he go?

The photo, I don't know. I saw the picture online. It's just like a dorm room building behind it.

It's totally OK. I know what I was like, bro. I got to show my roommate this. Yes.

Do you believe what I just got out of the aquarium out front?

You you can't really tell what's behind him, but it's like it's like the building that would be at a community pool or something like the locker room building.

Yeah. You know, but now here's the funny thing, right. You might assume he got pinched because he posted his catch on social. Nope. He was smart enough, I guess, to not do that. But he did send the shot in a group text to a bunch of buddies to brag about it. And one of them clearly was a person, Josh, pissed off because they snitched.

They Radim one person on that group text sent that shot to FWC And you know, a few thoughts on this. First, what's jail like on Stock Island in the Keys? You know, the keys are like such a happy, carefree, relaxing environment. Are there poorly done fish murals in the cells, like on every other building down there?

Leaping Mahi's and smiling sea turtles I made is probably not that different from Duvall Street after bar closed time.

Like I would assume it's the same cast of characters. They're just a little bit more penned in, shall we say.

Yeah, it's probably pretty rowdy. You're right. I've seen some rowdy stuff down there. I just always wondered, like, what's jail like in paradise?

You know, maybe a bit. It's hot. That's what I'm about. I bet it's really hot and sticky.

Probably. Probably so. You know, I will say bad move. OK, even before he caught the grouper just fishing in the training lagoon, however, I have to admit I did something similar one time, but completely unknowingly. And this was a truly innocent mistake.

But I went to Aruba for spring break one year, which is a terrible island.

So if you're an angler, considering Aruba for a fishing destination, stop considering it.

And anyway, this resort we were at had this private island with these little boats that would run guests out to the island to lay on the beach and they had their tennis courts and all that junk out there. But they left one in the island, wild and scenic, so you could do nature walks and junk. So one morning I catch the first boat at six a.m. super. That's like super hot Danish girls on the boat or whoever whatever country owns Aruba.

And like me, the dork with like the rods in the flats booties. And I'm making my way to the end of the island. I spot this monster barracuda in a little lagoon and I cast Adam. He bites, he cuts me off. So I'm like, I'll fix your ass, dude. And I put wire on and metal and I'm just about to cast it. Around the corner comes the first nature tour group of the morning, which I did not know they had.

And the tour guide is like, over here you'll see Charlie, our resident barracuda.

And there I am standing there with a rod on a little bridge.

And thank God I didn't catch because Charlie was hanging. Read at morning.

Forty five seconds later, I have had Charlie shaken on a Bougere if they would have got a real good look at Charlie, but I just ran away and didn't bother fishing any more than the rest of the time.

Do you got lucky? They're very smart. I mean, there are so many different stories that we could go through of people getting pinched, particularly in our media space, for just not being able to to to keep themselves from casting at that fish. Yet they know they shouldn't.

It happens all the time. So hopefully lesson learned, their kid, you know, take your lumps, but like, you know, fish in the dive pool, you know, there's a million bridges down there.

Like you could fish at the bridge, dude, to any any other place, any other place.

And I'm going to I'm going to move us away from illicit fish toward fish that we should really embrace cash that we should should should celebrate really for for reasons that that have nothing to do with their sport.

And on this one, I've really just I've got great news for you. I picked the story because I care about you, Joe. That's really what I chose.

Yeah. I'm listening a little harder now. I'm just a little I'm hoping I'm hoping that, like what I do this you'll feel just a little bit better about your own life choices.

All right. Wow.

OK, so you're I know you have a you eat fish like me. We're fish eaters and and your regular fish consumption habit might just be helping to counteract the fact that where you live is killing your brain. That's right. Yeah.

Consuming fish flesh may help prevent the brain shrinkage that can come from living on the edge of a city and huffing air pollution.

It means, dude, you can you can stay in Philly, you can move to Tritton if you want. And as long as you eat fish or shellfish at least three times a week, all that airborne toxicity might not dissolve your white matter and hippocampus.

I practically live almost equidistant between Trenton and Philly and I actually live directly under the power lines that connect them both. You see, they run right over the home. So this is good information.

This is good news for you. I did. I really did pick this for you. A study from the American Academy of Neurology, which seems very legit, collected information on fish consumption habits of people who live in areas with air pollution, then scanned their brains and found that regular fish eaters have an advantage over those who skip the watery meats.

And we've known for a long time that that omega three fatty acids in fish are good for brain health and they fight inflammation. We've known that that's not new, but this study specifically looked at one of the known impacts of air pollution, which I didn't know. This is an actual shrinking of certain parts of the brain associated with memory and neural response. So while eating fish won't actually make you smarter, it might keep you from getting dumber. And that's something we could all use, really.

I mean, I feel my own shrinkage coming on and I would like to fight it in any way I can. But before we get too excited, I got to say the study has a few limitations. All the participants were older white women, so it may or may not translate to you and me. Joe, also, since this research only looked at exposure later in life, we can't say for sure that feeding your kids fish will protect them from air pollution.

But my main gripe with this study, and this is just a personal thing, the main thing that kind of pisses me off is that they completely discounted fried fish. All sources of fried fish did not count. Oh, so if you yeah, so let me guess if you could drop it in the deep. Yeah I would count.

It may or may not be protecting my brain. We don't know because they they like eliminated that as a variable from the study.

And I'm saying go back, redo this study but keep the fried fish in because I want to know if the fried fish helps or not.

What was it all steamed like? What do you got to do? It was all it was baked, broiled or. Yeah, or boiled. I assume so.

No pickles, no onions, no fun or pan fried like I think it was only deep fried. Like pan fried. Cool, deep fried. You're out of the way.

I pan fry fish the amount of butter that would be cool.

Well that's kind of that's kind of a bummer. It's like this people who are like well potatoes are a great source of iron or whatever. Yeah.

The skin, but like the middle will just make you fatter. The middle is just so so just deep potato skins then. Yeah. If they're not fried covid and cheese. Sure. But who potato skins that aren't fried and covered in cheese. Yeah.

And I hate to admit it, but I don't think I'm in the minority here. Like literally just just last week I came home with huge bags of mahimahi filets. So we were going to eat some fresh the night after the trip. And it's like I spent all day, like coming up with like what interesting new things can I do with this? And then, like, the kids get crazy and like, dinner's got to get made. And I'm like, just fry the shit because that's really what I want anyway.

It's going to be the ones I want Lemon and Albay and deep fried and maybe a dash of tartar sauce.

So that's actually what I want. American Academy neurology, please redo the study, maybe expand your sample size and look at the fried fish just for us. Like, just just let us know how that goes.

So. All right, this is great. This is a good Segway. Speaking of fried fish, I'm going to help you guys get more of those yourself in the digital realm. So follow with me here, because this next story. Oh, gosh darn it, I still can't decide how I feel about it. It's either the worst idea or it has the potential to be the next big thing. I don't know. But this comes from CBC Canada.

And the headline of this story is Video game developer from Norway Hopes to lure players with fishing simulation set in Nova Scotia. OK, now, here we go. So when a Norwegian company needed help testing its new video simulation game fishing North Atlantic, one of the people it turned to was 16 year old honor student from a tiny fishing port in eastern Nova Scotia because Dakota O'Keefe knows video games, but he also spent two months on the back of a lobster boat this season, fishing with his father and grandfather out of little Dover near Cancio on the province's Eastern Shore.

Keith helped identify bugs in the game while it was in development earlier this year. Now he's one of the first to play the latest version weeks ahead of the official release. And Keefe says you could play the game and you could learn a lot about all the different ports and how we fish here, he said from the gaming desk in his bedroom. Now, I'm going to skip ahead just what everybody wants out of a fishing game.

I want to know. Pausa. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So just a quick note here that it took Keith six hours to download the latest version of this game in the rural town in which he lives. And I looked up Cancio to confirm that, yes, in fact, there is nothing there. So it does not surprise me that when Dakota is lobstering, he's gaming because per Google Maps, other options include walking the Chappell Gully Trail, driving down Marine Drive or visiting one of three lighthouses.

Could not find the Dave and Busters on the map in Kansas. All right. So I'll continue on here in the game.

Players start with a small boat harpooning swordfish in three hundred kilometers of water off of southern Nova Scotia as they land and sell their catch at any one of five area ports.

They work their way up to progressively larger vessels, including lobster boats.

And finally, a factory freezer trawler for Nova Scotia audiences. It features realistic waterfronts and familiar landmarks in Lunenburg, Lakeport, Yarmouth and Digby and to a lesser degree, Dennis point in lower Publico.

Although the wharf side Dennis Pointe Cafe is identifiable, DeCota says, Since I was a kid playing games, I always wanted something that we do.

It's the only thing that has anything to do with fishing on a commercial scale anyway.

It's great to be recognized as the province in a game doing what we do here, and I guess I sympathize with that growing up in Japan.

So I would imagine Tony Hawkes, pro skater, doesn't really speak to you, right?

Paper boy, they probably don't have one of those yet.

Even to that end, like the Rappel of Fish and Game on PlayStation. I mean, this kid didn't grow up with Shawal Grigsby and he used Bass Tracker. He had a doree, a South-Western corncob pipe. You know, I hear you.

But like, did you grow up in some, like, creepy world full of magic mushrooms and giant green ogres named Cuppers? Like, no, part of the fun of gaming is that you get out of the real experience and into a world you write this like exist in.

This would be like playing a video game called editing fishing stories.

There's a reason why people commercial fish for work, not for fun. Like I know a lot of commercial fishermen and another are like men. You know what I wish I could be doing when I'm not out on the boat hauling in thousand pound net, playing out on the boat, hauling a thousand pound nets and never sleeping.

But wait, here's the clincher, right? The maker of this game, Hammack crew, totally sees this going worldwide and plans to expand fishing locations within the game to the U.S. and Japan. And the way I look at it, Japan has to be like the last level, right, because there's just nothing left. Yeah. So, like, once you've sold the final tuna you need to catch in the US to the Japanese, the digital Japanese buyer gives you the code to get to Japan where you have to catch exactly one fish of any size to be crowned.

Great.

But let's be honest. You could spend you're just you're just hunting whales at that point. Like, yes, that's that's the final level of that game is like you're hunting whales and you're trying to dodge the Sea Shepherd that's coming to kill you.

OK, all right. That's that's my blood. Yeah, right. And in the beginning, I said I might be wrong. Right. Because I don't know, dude. Maybe like it's like Battleship or Stratego, maybe commercial fishing works. People still play minesweeper. Remember, roller coaster tycoon was the bomb, the Sims. And these are games that a lot of people like me, you know, scoffed at, but people got sucked into. So maybe it works somehow more as a game of strategy because obviously it can't be riveting gameplay, kind of like how people like flight simulators.

But I will say to the game developer, look, when you when you come up with the US level. Well, basing it off wicked tuna might work, but swordfish life on the line, Pacific crabbers and that Maine lobstermen show all tanked, all those shows bombed. We didn't like those. So you got to go.

Deadliest catch and catch. I imagine like a twisted grand theft auto, you make it a game of choice. You know, it's like the winch is jammed when you climb out and free it or swing it into the boat for repair and lose the next part. You know, you pick one, oh, you suffered a skull fracture. You know what I.

Did did did you used to play Blue Marlin on Nintendo by any chance?

Black Bass was my jam on Nintendo. I never got the marlin. I still have a working Nintendo and I have Blue Marlin and black bass. But the Blue Marlin, it was always like the fish is taking a hard run. Will you wet the real or put the boat in reverse and wetting the real never worked. So yeah. Kids, this Christmas, I hope you're ready for fishing North Atlantic.

Oh man, that's. Yeah, I honestly don't know where to go with that. Other than that, I hope it's better than it sounds.

Something that I know is going to be very, very enjoyable whoever is coming right at you. We have one of our favorite people coming up in one of our favorite segments. It's time for smooth moves.

Hold on. Preordering my copy of fishing North Atlantic there.

Can't wait. Despite pandering to my hashtag gamer instincts. Watch the throne. Miles Nulty is the winner this week.

Miles, congrats on your first win.

Shout out to the state from Hive out there.

And Miles, thank you for showing such concern for your friend Joe, for breathing in all that horrible toxic East Coast Air.

What a gentleman. I don't know why. Why did you do it? Oh, my God.

This is where we reach out to a guide or a charter captain or an outfitter, basically anybody who pays their bills or part of their bills by taking other people fishing. So today we're talking with Mandy Yurick, one of my absolute favorite people to fish with, even though I've only got to do it on the ice and not in open water, which is I know where you really do most of your getting ready.

How long have you been guiding? I don't think I even know how long you got it. Oh, about 15 years plus right on.

So, you know, done it a couple of times. I just a few times.

And I'm sure you've seen some ridiculous shit happen on the water in 15 years.

God, you couldn't have said it much better, bud. So. All right. I know you a set up for us today. What do you got? Give us your smooth move.

I do a lot of guests guiding, like, volunteer trips that I'll donate for non-profits or celebrities. Well, this lead into that.

So we won't name names, but we're old in and we're on a bigger body of water in the bitts.

Really good.

And this clients like I have to use the restroom and I'm like, hey, all right, I like we can pack up and and I can run you back to the landing. That's no problem.

Oh, no, no, no. I'll be fine. So. All right. Like not a problem. Like I'm on the front deck, got my back turned or whatever it is, kind of turn the music up on the radio kind of a deal. And so we're finding out he's like yells at me like, hey, we're good. You know what I'm like. Yeah. All right. So, you know, we go back to fishing or whatever, and it's not even a few minutes later we're walleye fishing and I set the hook and it's a good one.

And, you know, I don't keep fish myself personally, but, you know, I'm like, hey, do you want do you want this one, too? And he's like, yeah, no problems. I unhook the fish and I turn around to go throw it in the life. Well, and you can't make this up the dude shit my life. Well, we all know Fish and Blytheville. He just oh that wasn't the first one you already had was like well I absolutely destroyed well with these fish in it.

Had no idea what to say. I'm like having this meltdown and I literally just dropped the fish back over the side of the boat.

It was like trying to be cool about it.

Right. Like not to embarrass them, but I'm like, what do you think is bad? Like, we've got fish. You know, the worst part is some like we were close to, like, filling out our limit. Right. Being done for the day. And I'm like for the rest of the day I'm like, I didn't. I'm like, oh yeah.

This one's not big enough to keep throwing fish back for you for playing that game, because I would have been like, dude, like they're all the walleyes are now shit.

I'm eating them. I'm actually I couldn't have played that up and I. Oh man.

Good for you. I don't know how to respond to that other than to hand him like a net and be like you need to clean that out right now.

There isn't anything you could scoop, but. Oh no. No. Oh, that's so much so that's getting so much worse. OK, so it wasn't solidness, she was getting right into the meat, like the fish were doing it.

I was going running through their circulatory system, just mainlining poop basically with those fish. It's like it's like, it's like shit sofija right there.

We get to we get to hear it gets better. So we keep landing and we have these invasive species, people like, you know, check your boats or whatever. So you got to pull the plug and you got to pull the the livewell plug. Right. Let the water right now, Gagin, don't have a glove or anything in there.

I pull in.

They have to pull the plug in the lives of the poor species like monitor that monitors the access is standing behind my bow to water, like running on his feet.

And I'm like, dude, back up like, oh, I didn't have the heart to tell.

So what did you do with the water?

Normally I do like, you know, I clean the fish for my package. You mop. It depends on how long they're going to be in town and sometimes a freezer, freezer or whatever.

So I like we get done with inspection the like. I like gets in the truck and I have to, like, go drop them back off at a resort.

And I was like, so what do you want to do with these fish? You want to clean them or do you want me to clean up. It is like, well he's like, could you just clean them right at the cabin? He's like, we're going to do a big fish fry tonight.

So I did clean these.

Oh, you're a much nicer person than either of or why would you put your fish in a garbage bag, take them if, you know, you deal with your own poop fish. Thank you.

The worst part is also they have like this big dinner and they asked me to stay and I was like, they started eating the fish. Looks like I got to go, guys, like early morning tomorrow.

So they ate. They beat the shit fish. The thing he didn't he didn't tell them.

No. I still wake up dry heaving in the middle of the night.

Ever since Mandy told this story, we had to cut that interview down because otherwise we'd all still be dry heaving into our Cheerios.

But what you don't necessarily get is that the dude who befouled her life was an experienced angler.

Right. Like, this isn't like just a random random dude, someone who works in the fishing industry.

No. And he should know better. There's no I mean, anyone should know better, but especially him.

But the part of that story that sticks with me, it's not even the act. Right. Because sometimes when you got to go, you got to go like we've all been there.

But choose your targets, man.

Well, she's your dog just opened the bomb doors anywhere. You got to know where you're dropping your payload.

That's all I'm going to say. Don't you feel like if you did that and even if as you were doing it, you were like, I shouldn't have done this, you'd at least be mad enough to be like, I'm really sorry, we have to throw out all those walleyes.

I wouldn't have pretended nothing friggin happened and then wanted them cleaned for the family. But can you imagine that dinner like you're sitting there? First of all, is that dude eating? Is he like shoveling it down or is he, like pushing them around the plate and watching his his family and friends eat the shit?

Walli Yeah.

I think he was eating it. I think he was diving in with gusto. I think he just like, scrubbed it from his mind. And he's like, well, you know, it's all part of the cycle that came from me.

And it is going back to me so vile. It's vile.

It's the most vile story we've had on smooth moves yet. Mendi you're winning right now. Yes. Cheers for that. Yeah.

So I honor just consider this whole thing a public service announcement from us. Your friends here at meant never poop in the live. Well, all right. We're almost out of time, but I feel like we need a little little cleansing flush after that story.

We wouldn't want to leave that particular taste in your mouth. So for this week's end of the line, Joe is going to school you up on a super secret beat. That's damn near impossible to find these days.

It's not loud enough. But this week, let's talk about Hellgren.

Gromit's all right. How Gromit's are. Dobson flies in their larval stage and in that larval stage, they live in water.

And these are big, juicy, nasty, segmented, black alien centipede looking suckers with these mean pinchers at their mouth.

Right now, some of you are probably familiar with the Dobson fly. All right. And I'll be honest, they scare the shit out of me. An adult, Dobson, flies so big when you're on the river at night like you think like a bat just came whizzing past your head. And by the time they reach that adulthood, those pinchers are now like five times longer than they were when they were held.

Right. I swear they will bite you. And one time this is no joke. Dobson Fly ended up in my truck, chomped on my buddy's neck while I was driving, and there was swerving and screeching brakes and pandemonium. Allah, the deer scene in Tommy Boy.

Anyway, I wish I had somehow Gromit's to put on the end of my line.

There's some reminiscing involved in this segment today. Truth be told, I haven't fished alive once since I was a teenager because back in the day you could actually buy live hell. Gromit's in a few bait shops around here. Now, not only are all of those bait shops gone, which I'm sure many of you can relate to, the art of Hellgren collection, at least where I live, is sort of a thing of the past. It's a lost art.

And the signing of how Gromit's. That's easy, right? Get a piece of screen.

You stretch it between two wooden dowels, wedge that downstream of a rock, lift the rock and let the contents, which hopefully includes Helga meIt's flush into the screen. But the real art for the guys that used to collect for the shops wasn't the actual seining. It was knowing exactly where to go and most importantly, when based on intimate knowledge of when they'd score the most Harlemites, you know, based on everything from the season to temperatures to probably the moon phase, who knows?

But if you factor in all that went into getting enough help Gromit's to sell it made a dozen pretty pricey for a teenager. So we only bought them is kind of a special treat or in some cases as an insurance policy.

If you've ever fished live, Helga meIt's, you can attest to the fact that no matter how goddamn lockjaw or hunker down, the small mouths are, no matter how convinced you are that you're not catching a single one of them that day you put down the Rampolla and send out a live Hallgrim right under a float. It gets eight, pure and simple. A live Harumi can suddenly make a bronze back appear in a puddle of rainwater in the parking lot at Walgreen's.

And as I've been told, that's all because of smell.

The aroma emitted by a live Helga might under water is so intoxicating, so inviting and so deliciously pungent that regardless of conditions, small mouths can't not eat one if they have the opportunity.

And despite all the soft plastic Harlemites there are out there, I've even seen some some Hellgren might hard Krank Bates'.

None of them will even be a fraction as potent as the real thing until science figures out how to bottle that real deal.

Helga, might be.

Oh, you know, I've seen a few Helga mites in my day, but any success I had was was all by pure luck. Right? If I found two in five hours on a full Millstream, I was like, thrilled.

It's really like panning for gold. So if you do get your hands on some live Helga Gromit's treat them like gold because I promise they are. And, you know, a few years ago I was driving through the northwestern hamlet of Busfield, New Jersey, and there's this old post office that's been converted into a home. And on the porch was a cooler on a folding table next to a handwritten sign that just read Helga Mights. And I was so curious that I had to stop.

And the homeowner, a guy named Paul, who kind of looks like Jimmy Houston, and he came out in these jean shorts and this old white T-shirt and he just said, ain't got any today.

Gone out tonight. And I asked him if I could come back up some time to go with him, thinking maybe I'd pen a story about the last Hellgren might harvester in Jersey, and his response to that was simply, oh, hell, no.

OK, so just a quick recap here, western Steelheads are depressive, self-righteous stoners, Docx boat has a strong fishing pedigree and you should never eat fish out of Mandy Dirac's live well, ever forever unclean.

That about sums it up.

Please drop us a line at Bent at the Meat Eater Dotcom.

Let us know what's going on in your local fishery. Tell us what we got right, what we screwed up, what you wish we would do more of and what you wish we would just stop doing all together.

We can take it. Yeah. And while you're at it, if you're digging the show, please do us a favor and give us some stars in those Apple podcasts. Maybe leave us a review really matters. Or best of all, introduce the show to your fishing buddies. Play it on the on the ride to the water, the river, the the ocean.

Wherever you go in the lake, we don't care. Play it for him. Even those buddies that are not allowed in your house ever again.

I think I'm going to call up a couple of those buddies and see if they can get out on the water this weekend. Oh, nice. I'll be waiting for your call, Joe, and I'll talk to the rest of you next week.