He's just like, hold the snake head like it's a pistol is hip, like it's not even a good fish hold. He's got like the khakis on, you know, like Jake from State Farm. And I mean, literally, he might have taken a photo of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber to the Cut and Corral and said, hey, give me one of those. And I just had to burst his bubble and be like that really isn't going to cut the.

AU contraire, Jordan Sohn, your boy Lance is extremely proficient with his Desert Eagle, along with. Good morning, General Angler's, and welcome to Bent, the fishing podcast that counts the number of flies stuck in your baseball cap has its formulating early opinions of you. I'm just smelling. I'm Miles Nulty and we are we are pretty judge of fishing close. But I sense that you have a particular angle you're trying to get to with this this flood in that thing.

Yes.

Because, yes, we are judges and yes, I do. So here's where I got this from. A buddy of mine sent me a meme, and I hate Meems, but this one just said, who is better? And it's a split photo. Right?

And on one side, you've got a tight shot of someone wearing a fishing vest.

And on the other side, you've got a cropped shot of a ball cap on a dude's head. And it is literally covered in flies. The whole thing is just like covered in flies.

And it just got me thinking about how many times I've pretty much seen that. Do they get to fly show? I just walking around in a hat covered in bugs.

And I've known a lot of people that stick special flies, flies that caught some memorable fish in their hat. And I think that's that swell when it's like an atom's or two. I mean, that's that's fine. Absolutely.

But I question what is the message that you're trying to convey with, say, a baker's dozen or more in your hat? I mean, so if we're going to look at this, I think we have to talk about the outsized significance that hats in general play in the social hierarchy of fishing. Right in the package.

Given this more thought than I've given this a lot of thought. Right.

I, I, I actually wrote a whole piece about this for the magazine years ago. And since you keep me up, I'm going to read one of the closing paragraphs that I had in that piece.

Fishermen wear stained lids as badges of pride and evidence of status. The tourist or recent arrival probably has a few pheasant tails and hoppers buried on top of the brim. The industry guy always has a clean one, prominently displaying corporate affiliation. But the best hats feel like oilcloth and look like the extensions of the face, the shade. And that was beautiful, man, I used to get paid to write stuff back in the day and I think, yeah, me too.

And I think that's spot on.

And you don't realize now that you mention how much had to say about you and furthermore, like how much the 30 pieces of flair you add to them says.

Mm hmm. When I see a dude right in like a camo hat at a gas station in Virginia or Ohio, and he's got the you know, the gold hook.

Oh, the the glass of the clip. The fish hook. Yeah. I mean, that's that's why I think we got to we got to move this out from the fly thing. I think it's a bigger conversation. Right. Because all anglers like that matters no matter where you are.

I'm totally I'm not knocking fishing hats. I don't think I own a hat that is not somehow fishing affiliated. Yeah. Yeah. Record.

But but like when I see the dude with the camo and the clip, I'm like, yep, he knows where the catfish are for sure.

I want to I want to hang out with you. Yup.

But when I see the younger and a hat covered with flies, my gut is like sort of like simmer down a little bit tighter, you know what I mean?

Which is arguably it's hypocritical because while I've never worn a hat with fly stuck in it like misfit bugs and wounded soldiers are stuck all over like the passenger side of my truck. It's annoying. Like if you sit in the passenger side, you can't you can't see what's coming because there's rabbit strips and shit in your face.

That's a total. Like, I think that's a good parallel. I think that's a good place to go, Ray, because I think you can learn a lot about someone by looking at the lures or fliers or whatever they got stuck in their hat or their truck roofs.

And look for me personally on this one, it's about functionality, laziness and just pure disorganization because because I might stick a fly or or a small leuer, depending on where I'm at in my hat, to let it dry out before I put away like I'm in the middle of fishing.

I want to change out. You don't want to put the wet lure or fly back in the box.

Right. So I'll just I'll just pop it up there.

I'll throw a laser worm or a small plug on my hat or in the in the visor or the roof of the truck. Right. Like when I'm breaking down at the end of the day, I can see using whatever drying patches are available and hats and truck interiors of trucks both worked that way. Function. Yes, it's all for me.

It's again, functionality and disorganization. I always have the full intention of putting them back where they belong of later. Right. I just don't get around to doing it. The flies on the hat, they always come off because they're going to annoy me. I'll stick myself or I'll catch them somewhere they're not going to stay. Not because I'm worried about what it says just because they're going to irritate me. But the stuff that's in my truck cab, I mean, it's been there for years or I don't know how long a decade maybe.

And simply because I just haven't gotten around to doing something with it. There's no statement that I'm personally trying to make.

But if the if the cab of your truck looks like the pegboard in Larry Dalberg basement or the the free hat you're wearing has three hundred dollars worth of perfectly good flies rotting on it, I do feel like that's an intentional statement. Like you're trying to prove something. Yes.

And you sparked something here because my truck is well over 10 years old now and it looks as you've described. But I'm already saying as soon as I get a new truck, I'm not letting this happen anymore. I'm sticking no flies in the visor.

You say that now, but again, you're going to do it just out of pure laziness.

It's going to happen or I will buy an official thing to put on the visor to stick flies in that route, too. I don't know. I don't know that I agree, though.

Like if you had said so much about you, though, and maybe my my special adviser thing says something, then then you have to ask, like, what does a rival say?

Because I know what I think it says, which prompted me to take mine off my truck.

But I'm going to let you go first.

Oh, I bought a rod bolt when they first came out, whatever that was. OK, that was a night I spent money. I purchased one because, yeah, they are useful when you're guiding every day, which is what I was doing back then. But that same road vault has been sitting in my garage since at least 2012, which is right around the time they turned into a knowing status symbols out here where I live, not to mention billboards announcing to everybody who sees your shirt like there's expensive shit here.

If you want to break in, break into this one point. That's a good point.

Yeah. And I think I think all this comes down to just age and experience and confidence within the cultural pecking order, right? Yeah. Like when you're young and you're trying to prove yourself, you got to you feel like you've got to make noise like you've got a crow and announced like I'm here and I belong. And as you get older, I mean, you know who you are and you don't seek validation to say, like, I don't I don't need everybody around me to know.

Like, as I drive by, I bet that guy fishes.

I don't need that. You could not be more correct. I think we are seeing eye to eye here because when those vaults first came out, I couldn't get my hands on one fast enough and I wasn't guiding for anything. All right. And I actually I started with and I'm not going to name it, but the vault competitor, that was a box, not a tube.

You remember those.

And it it literally rusted off the roof of the truck, like, I could poke my finger through it. And then I switched to a vault. But I didn't actually like it because a lot of my salt water wheels didn't fit.

And in no time I just completely stopped using it. It was more effort to get the rods in the vault than just throw a tube on the back seat. And when you're guiding, I get it. You don't want to break rods down and rebuild them every single day and you're using the same rod every day, so.

Right, exactly. Exactly.

But at some point, and I guess this is the age thing, I realized how impractical this was for a recreational guy because I store my rods in the garage and there are tubes. And then when I'm going fishing, I take them out and build them so I can put them on the roof. And then when I come home, I disassemble them, put them back in their tubes for storage in the garage. And the vault is just creating a very necessary step right in the middle.

Right. But you could not tell this to twenty six year old me plus. And then I started seeing them on the roof of too many cars like at these dinky nothing stockers streams around here.

And I'm like, I need to take this down thrown at me says this is just hurting my gas mileage.

It does. It's creating a resistance and I am not getting the most out of this vehicle that is absolutely affected.

And and I will say it's hard these days anymore.

Is hard to find a vehicle without a rod on it out here. And it's not just trucks and guide rigs anymore. Now they're riding around on Beamers and Outis.

And I'm not I'm not saying it, but but that does remind me now that we're talking about this, like, I'm glad you brought this up because I, I really should sell the Rod Volt that has now been sitting unused in my garage for the better part of a decade.

And I should probably sell to someone who drives a more expensive vehicle than I do.

I was going to say it sounds like you'll flip it quick. Yeah. Get around and put it on Craigslist. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, like maybe I should consider the character in this week's Smooth Moves because it's a strong chance that this particular person wants a rod bolt on the roof of his Audi. Yes.

Join us to tell the story about this is our good friend, Captain Abby Schuster of Kessman Outfitters on Martha's Vineyard, which bear in mind is a small island completely surrounded by saltwater and some of the finest saltwater fishing in the world, meaning the stimulus. The said sedges on your head aren't particularly useful.

So why why did you do? Joining us today for Smooth Moves, we have Captain Abby Schuster of Massachusetts. Abby, how are you? Great, how are you? We're good. We're good.

We're having a good time. Now, you not only are you a captain in Guide of the Salty Variety in Martha's Vineyard, you also own a shop out there, Kessman outfits you.

So, you know, we've had a lot of captains and guides on smooth moves. We've also had some shop managers and things to get sort of the shop bullshit side. But I think you're the first person that could speak to both. Like your smooth move could go from the water to the counter.

Yeah, you see a lot. Yeah, it all it's a really nice way of putting that.

And I know the shop hasn't been open that long, but I'm guessing already in sort of your first season, you've seen plenty. So I'm going to give you the floor for for a smooth move story here. And you can go either way. You can go you can go water or on land. Surprise us. Well, they kind of go hand in hand because a lot of the times we guide people on the look on the shop, then will guide them.

Right. A common question that is very there are two of our visitors, let me clarify that. But yeah, there are. But it's not like a trout fishery. Like you don't go to Martha's Vineyard to trap fish, really like you would a lot of other places.

I'm in. I'm intrigued by this. I had no idea. Yeah. But there there's no moving water on the vineyard and little streets. I mean, just got blown, right?

I should say, out in Martha's Vineyard more often. It's cool.

I mean, they're like pretty hush hush, pretty secret. They're very small. But it's cool to catch, not surprise to get murdered tonight. It's been fun, but a lot of people are super shocked. They come in like, well, where are the rivers and where are the ponds? Like, why would you ever owned a television store on an island? Like, well, actually, there's a whole nother side to fly fishing called salt. And so this one guy in particular who ends up being a great guy, but he came to the shop, a barge, talk to me and my brother asking like tons of questions.

You know, he's new into this great. Probably spent like a total of, like five days of my life talking to him about this trip. And he gets the six thirty in the morning so excited, shows up in waders. It's like I don't usually recommend for the boat is dangerous. Yep. Yeah, right. And it's like rough out.

You don't want to fall in the ribs so you know. Yeah.

So I already knew there was something up but you know, you can't really judge anyone that's guy they guiding.

You should judge everyone all the time. All day. You guys are meaner, you're nicer, you're nicer. And he shows up and he legitimately thought we were trout fishing like he had his trout flies. He had a three way. He had everything all set up. He was so proud. And I just had to burst bubble and be like that really isn't going to cut him. Like it took hours for him to recover from the shock. It was.

I mean, it was like I just don't know how he didn't pick up on it.

So I have so much to say. But I'm going to start with this. The way I have played that had I been the guy would have just been to take him out to the ribs and look at his flies and pick out an Adams or some such and be like, nah, you got to mend it more. Just let him throw the three weight out there.

That's one thing. OK, but so. All right. So we just learned something. I had no idea there were any trout on the vineyard. There are trout. You're telling me that a lot of people on Martha's Vineyard assume that you cater to a trout fishery and like.

Oh, yeah, like we don't get any good. Here's our guiding trout wild. Right. Right, right. Yes. Oh, yeah.

So before before we leave, I go back up to the guy in question. At what point did he realize you weren't shellfish? And like were you already?

Oh, we were leaving the dock. And how did that go? Was he like, wait a minute, are there trout out in the ocean? I just didn't catch fish. I don't get it either.

I mean, he didn't he didn't get teleported to the island. I assume he flew and or took a boat there. It's like all surrounded by saltwater and shit right there, too.

It depends on our ponds and streams. We're sort of like you're on a boat.

Yeah. Second question, did he catch any fish? Yes. And did that blow his mind? Yes. Yeah, it's one fish and they are so mean. Yeah, I could understand, like the teeth aspect.

And, you know, I think he's I think I if he if he couldn't comprehend the teeth, how did he do with the two hundred and fifty grain line.

I'm certain that you probably gave him actually three fifty five better. But you know he got it after a lot of delicate nice ups. You just have to get it out there. No more nice costume. There you go.

Everybody who's now going to clammer to Martha's Vineyard to go trout fishing, they know who to look up. They can look happy.

In spite of all your Martha's Vineyard trout fishing needs, you might catch a strieber, big ass blue fish, but you'll go you'll go trout fishing trout.

You know what's weird, though? I really do want to catch a Martha's Vineyard trout now. And I'm sure I'm sure it's not overly exciting.

It's probably not even good fishing, really. But I'm so in the kitchen, I guess the wrong things in the right places, that makes sense. Like you told me not too long ago that there are smallmouth bass in Hawaii, which I was.

Yeah, I was just validating an email we got from a listener. And yeah, there are. And it's not like you're not talking about a Lake Erie type experience. Yeah. I could take you out to get the smallmouth, a peacock bass and a bonefish all on the same day.

So yeah. And that fascinates me.

And another thing I really enjoy is targeting species kind of like within cultures that view them differently.

Like as an example where Abby and I live, a lot of people believe a false albacore is only cool if you catch it on a fly, you know what I mean? Like, that's a no fly target and you'll keep.

Pull yourself up here to get that shot at one, but some of the most fun I ever had fly fishing for him was in Florida because down there, nobody cares about them.

And the captain was just like, yeah, we'll get them all chummed up. You boys go out and throw whatever you want at him.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we did we've done this together. We were on that that media trip years ago. Yes. The Indian River Lagoon.

I don't remember what man whenever that was. That was like another lifetime ago. But yes, just like that, if I remember correctly, the snake bite was shit and the captains were all bummed.

And I was I was having a blast getting my arms pulled out of my sockets by Abbi's all day long. That was everything I love about Albi fishing minus the pressure.

And I enjoy that pressure. You know, when you're here and you're Montauk in North Jersey like that, it's the pressure is fun of getting on these schools. But sometimes it's just more fun to stop Fronton and just catch a shitload of fish, you know?

I mean, stop frontin stuff. Front, stop front. You're always so much fun. And I actually know someone who would probably agree with you and use that same unfortunate terminology. And I believe while his intentions are probably to help unite the fly in conventional worlds, shit's likely to end up blurrier than ever before.

Who's at your Boylan's we were talking about? Yeah.

Yeah, it it has been a minute since we've heard from him, but I'm going to say give him. I feel like I say this every time we hear from him. Give him a chance though because I, I guess I get such a thrill out of continuing to monitor the love and hate mail we get about Lance.

And I was recently actually struck by a comment from a listener in a Facebook forum that effectively said if you guys would just stop and listen to Lance, he speaks the truth.

The land to the boats, to the lake, to the sea, filling up the net with your boy. What's up, pot lickers? It's me, the Internet's most winning his fishing influence, their celebrity Linfa. The other day when I was rip face boy Brandon P and contemplating how awesome I am, I realize it's been a while since I checked in with those losers over at the Meet Beater fishing podcast. Turns out I've been getting a lot of questions.

Unfortunately, most of them are pretty stupid. And we better answer your high school guidance counselor who now serves tacos at Sonic Hashad Tots and life lessons but have no fear, eternally devoted fans. I got you. I've somehow managed to fish one decent question out of the biker bar toilet buffet that Joe and Myles handed me.

This comes from Jordan C. who writes, I've known four different guys by the name of Lance in my life.

Each one more of a douche than the last. I thought my current supervisor, Lance, was the king of all douches until I listened to the Google squad fangirl. That is Lance B, yet I'm still interested to know what does this all knowing fish gods, sparkly boat driving insta fella think about flipping monster largemouth on the fly. Great question, Jordan. First off, a clarification. The only thing sparkly about me is my eyes, at least according to your girlfriend.

My freight nitro Z 17, however, doesn't sparkle at all, that's because Monster Energy and big while his furniture store paid more Benjamins than you make it a month to wrap my shit and Matt Blackfire to ensure that statement is accurate. I confirm your wages with your supervisor Linge, who is so tax sharp and visionary. I'm considering hiring him as my junior merchandizing assistant hashtag corporate ladder.

Anyhow, you might assume I think fly-Fishing is only for a computer drinking youngsters who waste their trust funds on pointless crap like hiking boots and books. AU contraire, Jordan Serigne. Your boy Lance is extremely proficient with his Desert Eagle long whip. I consider it the ultimate tool for asserting dominance. I like to walk right into a gaggle of snooze sucking flat bremner's with avocado Yolly in their beers while they're trying to get their meat tugged.

I'll fish right behind them with a Megabus vision one ten on a destroyer P five just when they think their loops can't get any more flaccid as a result of the free clinic I'm putting on just one Jasper code is about to throw one of his sauced doctor squatch hands and my ax body wash face. I switch over to the fly rod, give them the advanced clinic hashtag. Oh, you didn't want this one.

You see, Jordan fly fishing was invented so dipshits could act like they're better, smarter and more skillful anglers than anyone who doesn't fly fish.

I'm simply using fly fishing for its intended purpose, but I go the extra mile so people understand catching one nice fish on the fly is actually a super weak victory because there are 40 other fish in that hole that didn't eat your map fly.

It's like what I think I heard Mother Teresa or maybe Lady Jay say on a cartoon once. It's not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts.

Yeah, the truth is, I can't stand Lance, whoever whoever upped his contract for twenty twenty one needs to be beat with an ugly stick. And I'm looking at you, Somaly Mam. I think I think you were probably responsible for that. And I'm also hoping to metaphorically beat you with an ugly stick in this week's Vishnu's. That escalated quickly. OK, so we need to kick off here real quick with a shout out to Mr. Wyatt Carol, the winner of our first ever best contest.

Phil, how about a little celebratory sound effects? Surprise us.

It does get crazy. Sorry about your dad. Thank you, Phil.. Anyway, you guys may recall that we ran a contest that ended last Friday and all we asked was that you guys tag photos on the Instagram with degenerate angler and bent podcast's. And normally, if something with those tags catches our attention, it would just earn you stickers. But for one week, your use of that tag offered a shot at some sick, sick bro hand poured soft plastic swim baits and a hard swim bait painted up.

However you wanted it from our Bud Brant Hashimoto of Hashimoto Concepts and why it took while but why it came through man that was used for. And, you know, he had some pretty stiff competition, I will admit. Yes.

But I think there's a lesson here for anybody who's following along and maybe thinking about future contests. And that is that you and I are storytellers. That's what we are. That's what we do that we care about.

And we are like we're suckers for a good yarn, far more than we are for the straight hero shots.

That's just that's not going to get it done with us. For sure.

For sure. And that's not to say that, like, the right photo can't take it. But why it's photo at first glance might not have grabbed you. But you have to combine it with the story.

That's that's what got us here.

There's there's some subtlety there. I mean, it caught your attention first because it's like, what does that dude wearing a clearly we like to make fun of people's apparel.

So there's that. We do.

But yeah. And, you know, to that end, this this totally could have been in our awkward moments in angling, say, 100 percent.

100 percent. Yeah.

You see why he's just like holding this naked like it's pistol is hip, like it's not even a good fishbowls.

Yeah. But he's he's he's got like the khakis on, you know, like Jake from State Farm and he's got this fully pressed aloha shirt.

And it turns out the show was taken after one of White's first days when he was student teaching.

I'm going to give I'm going to give props to all the teachers out there and say that you deserve time to unwind on the water after dealing with all that you deal with with the American children. Yeah, yeah. And there's one thing about this we didn't even notice when we picked Wyatt's photo. The shirt is actually a Pokémon print. So, like, I didn't see it right away. Yeah.

Why didn't the older man, like, he was appealing to you with the snakehead? He hit me with the teacher angle. And then he was also courting Phil with the Pokémon love nailed the trifecta.

He did. And furthermore, he said he had no Playaz or Multitool that day so he couldn't get the hook out of the fish. If you catch snakeheads, they got a real hard mouth, so when you hit him good like it's in there. So he didn't know what to do. So he just threw the fish on the floor of his car with it still attached to his line to the end of the ride and just took care of it at home.

And I'm going to assume there was some fish tacos happening that evening anyway.

You could see why it's photo on my or Miles Instagram pages. We posted him up last week. They are still there. Thanks again to Brant for supplying the goods for this contest. That's to Wyatt, who tells me why it says he's leaning towards a pumpkin seed pattern on his lawyer and may even incorporate the bent logo.

So how about that? I'm sure we can license it to him for a small fortune.

I mean, for a small fee or just do it. It's OK. Do it. Yeah, I got one more quick, but very important update before we get to news this week are really good. Friend and colleague Ryan Callahan has just launched season two of his show, Cal in the Field.

If you don't already know Cal, you should. He's the director of conservation here at Media.

He hosts our hunting and fishing conservation podcast, Kal's We Can Review, which were both big fans of. He's also one of the best outdoorsman I know. And just he's genuinely an all around good dude. Good. Lots of fun.

It's not an act. Yeah, it really is. No. So anyway, season two of Cal's video series just launched on the media YouTube channel. Go watch it. For the first episode this week, he's trapping grizzly bears with Idaho Fish and Game. And next week you can watch him roping invasive rainbow trout on the South Fork in the Snake River. It's good stuff. Check it out.

Anyway, without further ado, it is time for news. And quick reminder, this is a competition.

Neither Joe or I know what the other is bringing to the table and at the end of it are well, well coifed and smart, smart engineer Phil is going to hop in and declare who is the winner and who is the saddest of sad losers. Speaking of sad losers, I'm still a little bit bummed about last week, Phil. I mean, really, he won with Pokemon.

I was going to say. We don't know what the other guy's bringing to the table, but we I know how to win. Phil now you throw a Pikachu in there, you got it. I will find a way to bring Pokemon's in every news.

Joe gets the lead off this week, and I'm just hoping it does not involve Japanese cartoon characters. Joe, take it away. No, it does not.

And I'm starting out this week with the story from for the win dotcom, which I love. You take the science journals I will take for the win. But this is pretty cool. And we are heading off to the Gulf Coast for this one headline.

Angler makes a rare catch of prehistoric fish while surf fishing. OK, and I read a fishing guide from Michigan with surf fishing on an Alabama beach when he hooked something big that puzzled onlookers about its identity.

Even the angler was baffled, thinking a shark was at the end of his line. Instead, when David A.. Rose finally pulled the fish close to shore at Orange Beach after a 40 minute battle, he and others discovered it was a Gulf Sturgeon.

It was a rare catch of the prehistoric fish, which is listed as threatened, says, Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined landing such a rare species ever, Rose told for the win. While I knew there were an agreement sturgeon along the northwest coast, it never even crossed my mind that there were this species swimming about the Gulf of Mexico.

So couple of things here. Thing one, the range of the Gulf Sturgeon has has shrunk immensely.

Considerably. Yeah.

Yes, it's crazy. Historically, these sturgeon ran all the rivers that dumped into the Gulf from Florida across the Texas.

But everything from dams to contaminants to overfishing has reduced their range to just a couple river systems, basically between the Florida Panhandle and the east side of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana.

So very rare to just see one, let alone catch one thing, too. I've known Dave Rose for years, really.

And when I read this, I was like David a Rose.

Holy shit, man. I know that guy. I know him.

Dave is a writer that I worked with for a very, very long time.

And we even ended up on a few media trips together back in the day. In fact, he helped me spill some reels on an Arkansas trout trip we were on and that was like two thousand nine. And it turns out he caught the sturgeon on some of the freebie line we acquired on that trip.

Oh, man. So I did see, I have to admit, I saw this story. I'm glad I didn't pick it up because you clearly have the end with it. But you know, the dude that's I know the dude.

So I heard him. I saw the headline, but I didn't dove into it till it was closer to news time. And I read David Rose. What? So I called him up. Right. So what this for the win story doesn't tell you is that Dave is admittedly not salty. Right? He's a northern Michigan guy. He's an ace in Sweetwater and on Frozen Sweetwater. But when I spoke to him, he was like, yeah, man.

Like, you know, I don't do salt, right?

I'm an idiot in salt water. Right. So that's makes it more fun.

So the real thing Dave said when he first saw this fish was, what the fuck is that? And then this is the story.

Dave says, an onlooker and I both glanced at each other with a puzzled look and said out loud in unison, a sturgeon.

But Dave told me, the onlooker said, What the hell is that thing? Followed by a sturgeon.

So those are the real quotes that that did not make for the win. That rings more true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's Orange Beach. I love it down there, but I come on as Orange Beach like, you know, vacation land.

So Dave caught this thing on a freakin pompano rig related with shrimp. Yes.

And if you don't know anything about pompano, they're small and relatively small mouth. Right. So we're not we're not talking about big hooks here, but seeing how rare Gulf Sturgeon are and how very, very federally protected they are.

What I wanted to know was if Dave was worried and yes, he was. And he says even though he knew nothing about this, he knew the rarity of it. He figured that out. And he's like, my priority was keeping that things head in the water, you know what I mean? Like, he did not want to make a big scene out of it.

And of course, they got I mean, just a couple, two, three quick snaps and they sent the fish off and he was worried about the well-being of the fish so much that he didn't even really properly measure it, which he says in hindsight he should have, even if it was just like, you know, cutting a piece of mono and measuring that at home.

Later, he didn't have a tape or anything. He wasn't expecting this. But later he looked up the record. And according to Dave, the record on the books for Gulf Sturgeon weighed eighty four pounds. And he and others estimate his fish measured over six feet and weighed in the neighborhood of 120 130 pounds.

Now, I don't know, nor does he if, like an GFA release record is even feasible because you're not supposed to knowingly target and mess with these sturgeon. But I mean, just like for posterity sake, an official measurement, you know, would have been cool. Theoretically, Dave might have caught the biggest hook in line, golf sturgeon ever.

I mean, yeah, but Dave strikes me as the type of guy, one who wouldn't care that much about it and two would understand that the only reason there isn't a record for that is because by the time I GFA was doing records, those fish were decimated like, oh yeah, yeah, it's a hollow record.

If he were to go totally. Totally. No, Dave, no, he's absolutely not chasing that. In fact. And this is why I love Dave. He told me his favorite thing about this because, I mean, remember, is it dude from northern Michigan down there on vacation down there? And he's sure it's catching it's catching some rays right. Where he says putting him on aloha shirt.

No, no, no, no Pokemon's. But he said his favorite thing about this and all this attention is that and he's right. It's like the quintessential fishing story. Like you just totally put bait on a hook and you cast it out and you just absolutely never know what's going to eat even when you think you do. So, I mean, he's down there on vacation, doesn't do much saltwater fishing. And he's like all I wanted was to catch a pompano and I still haven't caught one.

So, like, he still has never caught it. Parmeno Oh, so that's gross.

I was so blown away. Yeah. I was like floored when I saw it was Dave. So cool story that is beyond once in a lifetime, you know, it really is.

And clearly Dave is our kind of people. And and my next story is also about our kind of people doing a very different way. And before you do the actual story I want to talk about, I must start out with a shout out to to a listener of ours. Jared Lee Prevost, I believe, is his name. A few weeks back, Jared sent an email titled Phishing and Fluid Mechanics, which made sense because he was responding to a Philistine segment I did about wild thoughts from wild places.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And in that book, David Quammen, I talked about David Goldman's ability to make even fluid mechanics interesting because he's such a great writer.

Well, that resonated with Jared, who sent who sent the email. And on that email, he attached a paper he'd written in his junior year of college for a fluid mechanics course.

And that paper studied drag force on Krank Bates. And wag your hand, yeah, in the abstract, in the abstract to it, he wrote, Although drag force isn't as common as the force of gravity, it is still very present in everyday life, especially when you are an angler. Fisherman experience drag forces not only when they drive their boats, but every time they cast their rod. And I'm just given props right now to Jared for turning an engineering assignment into an excuse to go fishing.

Yeah, right. Because that's what that was. And it was he did a great job. I hope you got a good grade on the paper, but I can see through what he's doing there.

He's like, how do I totally how do I turn this into an excuse to go fishing for credit?

I did a report once on a dude who owned a fly shop, which meant like to do all the research. I just went and sat in the fly shop, shot the shit with the guy, like, come on.

And I guess I had to give props to you on this, too. But I want to call out Jared because he's he figured out much earlier in life than than myself that science and math are applicable to really cool shit. Right. If I had been if I've been smart enough to approach science classes as opportunities to better understand principles of fishing, you know, I might have tried to calculate something other than the minimum quantity of work necessary to achieve a passing grade.

You know, I mean, like that that was really the only equation I was working on by the time I figured out science was not just applicable, but central to the things I love to do, like fishing. I was I was way too old to start a new career path like that. That ship has sailed. Yeah.

But yeah, the actual subject of my first story is not the story comes from the fun black reporter, but it has nothing to do a sturgeon. Just saying that because we've been find Alaskan sturgeon really hard.

Jared Ott is an 18 year old senior at faunal STEM Academy. Now Jared's from Wisconsin. So, you know, he's dunked a few worms in his day couple once, once or twice. And in fact, that's exactly what he was doing while brainstorming his senior project. The assignment was to come up with a solution to a real world problem. So Jared went to local lake to fish crawlers, wild like noodling on on the big assignment, because what else you can do, that's where you do your best thinking.

And he started getting frustrated because the fish were short, striking and stealing was bait and boom. That right then is when inspiration hit. Jared decided that he was going to design a fishhook that would make it more difficult for fish to remove the worm without getting pinned. When his school got shut down due to covid, Jared had time to solder together a bunch of different designs and beta test them.

In other words, Jared spent much of the covid lockdown telling his parents he was working on a school project while going fishing. So again, good for him. Well done, Jared. Yeah, super smart kid. The final design that he came up with looks like a miniature J hook attached about halfway up the shank of a standard hook. So picture your standard bait worm jig had hook and then about halfway up the shank, there's a little mini J hook soldered right there.

And according to according to Gerard, the design, quote, secures the worm better so the fish can't take it as easily and have to fight harder, which means getting more of a tug on the line.

And I got to admit, I don't actually understand that quote very well. Like, yeah, the issue that we're trying to solve is not feeling the strike, but keeping the worm on the hook. And and then I look at the photos. I'll be straight.

I'm not totally sold on this product, but just I have fished them. I've just looked at the pictures and Jared seems like a pretty smart guy.

And he claims that the worm keeper Hook has performed very well and extensive testing both for him and a bunch of his fishing buddies who he gave them to.

In fact, he's so confident in this design, he has already patented it. Kids 18. He's already got his own fishing. That's smart, of course, like, dude, you got to patent everything just in case nowadays, right? Like, I get that. I have I have some questions here. OK, we'll go.

I'll OK, I'll be done. Secondly, not surprisingly, Jerry got himself a scholarship to Michigan Tech where he plans to study mechanical engineering.

He also told the Fun Tilak reporter that he hopes to license his hook to tackle manufacturers in the near future. But so far, none have ponied up for the rights. If anybody listening wants to reach out to Jerry and see about buying some of these direct, you can find him. You can shoot him an email at at that's OTTI fishing hooks at Gmail dot com.

And if you do and you buy some, let us know how they work because again, I'm skeptical. Look at the photo. But I'm curious. Add the promo code bent for zero percent.

So OK. Did he get the scholarship because of these hooks? No, no, no, it's not crazy smart engineering smart. So.

All right.

So I'm picturing like a AJ style bait holder hook. Just standard bait holder hook. Yeah.

And then up the shank Söder. Now is it back to back or are the points on the same side of the other volly lined up.

The points are fully lined up. Yep. OK, and that's like a little egg hook kind of solder to the shank of a bigger J hook.

But it's not an egg hook, it's a it looks like a mini J hook attached to the main J hook. OK, that's fine.

It doesn't have to be an egg. Yeah I get it. I'm picturing this in my head. I was wondering if they were opposing like no one on the back. The point went no way because here's the thing, right.

And again, I think there's pieces that I'm missing, but I feel like we're talking about two separate things here. This hook, I'm certain, keeps a worm on the hook better. Yes. That's just like there's two points.

There's two hooks. You're pinning it on two hooks.

Yeah, but short striking, at least in my experience, whether it's a bluegill or whatever happens because the fish are smart enough or wary enough to only pick at whatever part of the worm is wiggling and overhanging the hook.

Agreed. So while this this may stop them from pulling it off if it can't make them commit to just Hoover in the whole worm down.

So I'm a little unsure of how it equates to more fish pend worm on the hooks more securely. Hundred percent. But if the little some bitches are just nibbling at the end of the worm and they're not vacuuming it. What, what I that's, that's where I'm a little I'm with you.

And maybe maybe that is the genius of this is just it's a little, little tougher to steal the bait. But that doesn't mean like if you got those those little Dinkas or the wehre fish that aren't taking it in, I don't think this is solving that problem.

Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I mean, look, I wish him the best. I also think it's one of those things. There are so many fishing products like Lord knows we see and we just saw one that was sent to us.

We won't go into it, but it comes out and it seems like this thing that is going to be embraced by all fishermen. But really, if you're not dunking nightcrawlers and and whole nightcrawlers at that. Right. Not breaking off little pieces like you normally do like this is not serving that many people.

Yeah, OK. But again, if this were I will say this, if this if some fishing tackle company were sending me a press release about this, I wouldn't look twice. The reason this is a cool story is because Jered is an eighteen year old kid who was on sabbatical and came up with this as his senior project. And that is why I like this story. I don't think it's going to set the fishing world on fire. No.

And you know what? You inadvertently you just you just brought up a sort of a roundabout point that is or can be a big problem with fishing tackle in general. This could be the smartest thing in the world. Right. And this kid put a lot of time into it. And bravo to that. If you can get a PVM Sea or a gum Akutsu to go in on this, you're made. But this is also the kind of thing that can be picked up by the as seen on TV.

And then right away, all your hard work is now skewed into this is a gimmick like it matters.

So there are so many fishing products I've seen and I'm sure you've seen where you're like, if that was Rappa Lascelle, then that to me and not this company, it'd be the greatest thing in the world. I think that's fair, are they? I think you're exactly right and there there are cautionary tales littered along the roadside of fishing history that we could point to.

Yeah, I mean, I always think of it like, you know, the banjo man on the flying lawn. Yeah. Like, we like to make fun of them because there are these as seen on TV products. If striking dropped the flying lure, it would it would have just been a whole different connotation.

So if I wish him the best man and I hope that if he licenses this owl like he does it with the right company, who will Will Will will make it work for him.

But I mean, I hope it works. Yeah. Yeah I do too. I do too. I'll go from making better connections with worms to making love connections about that. I like it. They go. And this is not a weighty story, though. It is going to help. I don't know. Maybe some of our young single listeners, maybe.

And frankly, the information here is also it's stuff that I think you and I could have given just from personal, hard earned experience.

But everything these days has to be picked apart as it relates to social media. Right.

So this story is from the TAB Dotcom, which is a UK based site that describes itself as a site covering youth, culture and student culture run by journalists who like being first OK.

And the journalists that wrote the story of covering the journalists that wrote the story I'm covering here is Katie Thacker. And Katie is apparently extremely perplexed by why men feel using fishing pictures as their profile photo on Tinder is a smart thing to do. Right. And she knows she writes right. I have many, many, many questions for the men of our world. Why must you leave the toilet seat up now? Remember this from the UK, so I love this one, though.

It made me laugh. Why do you insist on spreading your legs as far open as possible on public transport?

And then I started thinking about it and I'm like, dude, yeah, like dudes riding the subway. Why are you always like, dude, that's a third pizza's on the subway.

About that. When I was when I was in New York, they're like banners above the subway ceiling that said, like, dude, stop the spread those before covid. So it didn't have the same connotation of like, you know, full on spread eagle. Oh, yeah. I never thought about it.

I never thought about it. So I read this. And so she goes on, why do you feel the need to mansplaining? My literal degree to me, but honestly, not a single one of these is more pressing than why on earth men feel the need to include pictures of them holding a fish in their Tinder profile picture. Could you really not have just gone for that picture of you in a bar or in your mates garden? God, even a Snapchat filter at this point, right?

So she says, fueled by confusion, Semih disgust and a desire to answer the pressing questions of twenty twenty one, I swiped right for every boy with a fish pic I could possibly find and ask them why.

Here's what they had to say for themselves. And spoiler alert in true male fashion, these are like the shittiest answers ever. They are pretty much the shittiest, most unsatisfying answer. So there's a ton of them because like she really went for it and like interviewed a ton of these dudes. So I break down just a couple.

She started out with Joe, who looks like the lead singer of Blair circa 94, holding a car. Right.

And remember, Katie is just kicking off the messaging with the same question. Why did you choose that photo for your profile?

And this guy starts out what an interesting question then follows up with, because I like to fish and I think it's a decent photo.

And then when she pressed him further, asking if he thinks he's the star of the photo or the fish he comes back with, I think the fish gives the photo an agenda.

Like, what the hell does that mean? What does that even mean? What's the agenda like? I don't know if we're trying to be, like, smart there. OK, then then I don't know. Then we have another Joe. And apparently there's a lot of guys named Joe on Tinder that I use Phish photos.

That's just a side note.

So this shows mean mugging with wells catfish and he looks like he's in in-sync in the 90s with the spiky hair.

And Katie says pretty much all his photos included fish. And he just said, well, I'm always fishing and I don't have a lot of photos without fish.

I believe I can relate. I can relate.

Most pictures to me have fish in them.

But B, I'm also not trying to date people on Tinder so I can see how this would not work on Tinder, because if you're always fishing and have no photos without fish, like the ladies might assume, you have no time for them and or no friends.

That's like another knock against too many fishing pictures, 19 year old Ewin posing with the carp. And this is so sweet and personally relatable. He explained to her that fishing is just a hobby for him right now. But he took a fisheries management course in school and is hoping to turn fishing into a career. And boy, this takes me back because like my first nationally published article happened when I was still in college and I remember bringing that magazine to class and I was like, I was so proud.

I was like a story I wrote about straight back worry sportsman guys look. And like all the girls in my journalism classes were like, wow, cool.

So you and good on you for the career goals, but like don't play up. Your future in fishing is a selling point for your date ability.

You can trust me on that.

And finally, my personal favorite dude named Ashley is posing with a big carp, tells Katie, Well, I recently lost a lot of weight and the only recent pictures I have of myself are fish photos, but then comes back to her and he's like, how come all your pictures, your posing with wine?

And she's like, you know what? He's got a good point. Maybe I need a new hobby. So just a little exposed like we've always joked about, like this has come up elsewhere. But I feel like she actually took the journalistic deep dove and is like, I'm going to swipe right and I am going to ask all these dudes. And none of them had a particularly satisfying answer. I mean, I disagree.

I think I think that honest answer of, well, I don't really take pictures of myself except when I have when I catch a fish. I think that's totally legit and I can relate to that.

So it may not be satisfying. It may not answer some, like, deep existential questions she wants to understand about dating particular men. But it is honest.

No, no, no. And it is honest. I just have to look at it like like, you know, we're not out there looking. We're not on Tinder. Right.

So I have to look at it in perspective, like if you're on Tinder trying to meet girls and I guess I don't know about you, but I've also had some friends who at some point since I've known them, were like, dude, I met this girl. She fishes her ass off. This is awesome.

And then it never works out like they think that they want that, but then, like, it doesn't work out. So it's like if you're going for somebody to fish with maybe. But if that's not your M.O., I don't know man. Like nothing but fish pictures on Tinder.

I look, I'm not an expert on this. I'm not gonna pretend to be. But I'll say one thing like this. And I'm dating myself because I didn't ever do much online dating. I was like a half a second. I was on Match.com and it resulted in the worst dates of my entire life. So I quickly got off of it.

But I had a friend who who did something similar, but it was very thoughtful and very intentional. Every picture he put up was of him with a fish or with something he'd hunted.

And I was like, dude, is that really like smart strategy? And he was very honest. He's like, look, this is a huge part of my life. I love to hunt fish. I want to be honest about this. And I want to find I don't I don't care if whoever I end up dating. I don't care if that woman wants to participate in these with me or not. But I want I don't want a false advertising.

This is who I am and this is what I do. And it just kind of cuts through some of the B.S. and weeds out folks who are going to be annoyed by that.

There I get your fair. That is the strategy to that strategy, too.

So I my last story, here's the only connection I can find.

We both we both went with some maybe some low hanging fruit this week. And and I've been I've been getting pretty serious for a while.

And I'll get back to serious stories, I'm sure, next week. But I felt like everybody needed a break from all the bummers that I keep talking about.

So this one this one this one is kind of a side story. But don't don't don't have high hopes. So a while back, we we talked about longfin damselfish and how they develop relationships with certain shrimp to help their algae gardens.

I remember that one. And and that that particular case works out well for all the parties involved.

The shrimp get protection, the fish get gardens that are well fertilized by the shrimp poop. That's called a symbiotic relationship. And sometime after we ran that story, I was looking up other symbiotic aquatic relationships and I stumbled on a. Story about sea cucumbers and star pearl fish, which claimed that these two different organisms have a symbiotic relationship as well. But the details struck me as odd. I do not have a delicate way of putting this, I'll just be blunt, star parrotfish seek out crevices in which to live and they are known to favor the anuses of sea cucumbers.

According according to National Geographic, a purple fish will find a sea cucumber bum by smell and then dove in headfirst, quote, propelling itself by violent strokes of the tail. Now, the sea cucumber does have the musculature to close down its anus, but only for so long because sea cucumbers breathe through their butts. So the parrotfish, if it gets thwarted, just has to wait it out and then wriggle on in. And and despite how that sounds to us, anthropomorphizing biologist once believed this relationship to be mutually agreeable.

And they had a couple of reasons for thinking that. First, it seems like pearl fish may have evolved to coexist with cucumber's, the inside of a sea cucumber, maybe like a safe, protected hole to hide in, but it's not hospitable. Sea cucumbers produce Sappington, a toxin that kills most aquatic creatures, which is why other fish don't exploit the same gap, shall we say.

In fact, sea cucumbers would succumb to their own internal poisons if they didn't also produce a kind of antivenom. Pearl fish, on the other hand, just produce mucus, lots and lots of mucus, six to 10 times more mucus through their skin than the average fish. And this mucosal membrane acts as a barrier against the sapien in.

And also provides a natural lubricant. Another reason biologists once thought that Cucumber's must be benefiting from hosting the parrotfish is that they have the capacity to expel them. Sea cucumbers can spit out the respiratory trees, a.k.a. their lungs, a.k.a. the crevices where prophesied when they're threatened and then grow new ones like they're capable of coughing up their lungs and grow new ones if they have to. But they don't do this when infiltrated by parrotfish. Right.

So for those reasons, it seems like there's got to be something in this for the sea cucumbers. Relatively new research, however, has found this is not a mutually agreed upon relationship. And in many cases, it's it's what's known as a commensal relationship, meaning that just the pearl fish is getting something out of this. But, you know, at least the sea cucumber kind of puts up with it. Professor, get something out of it.

But then I feel really so you're making me feel really sad. It gets worse. It gets worse. One specific type of parrotfish goes full on, parasitic and actually has been known to consume the sea cucumbers gonads from within. Moreover, in certain circumstances, the cucumber innards can get pretty crowded.

Purlie fish are generally territorial and solitary, so in most cases just one parrotfish will reside in a sea cucumber at any given time.

But in rare cases, perhaps when sea cucumbers are scarce or for spawning reasons, multiple Purlie fish will cohabitate inside a single cucumber.

One researcher found 15 Purlie Fish Inside a cucumber and was quoted as saying If indeed the 15 fish entered for sexual reasons, one cannot help but think of the orgy that must have taken place inside the sea cucumber and biologist quote. And that, my friend, concludes today's segment on things you never wanted to know about sea cucumbers.

Yeah, I can't. I mean, I have so many jokes, but they're also inappropriate and so inappropriate. I can't. I can't.

There's children listening to this show. What is a pearl fish? I don't know what that is.

It's like looks like a little mini eel. Kendzior like the candy uru catfish.

I like the Carpinteria, so if you got those two together, you'd have a terrible time right from just all all at all orifices.

Yeah, I look, I don't I again, like there's so many things that come to mind that I cannot. I can't. I will not.

But I will say despite how awkward and icky that is and and how truly like I just I while you were saying it, I was thinking about like a poor sea cucumber and hearing that that Arms of an Angel song, they play over the sad dogs commercial, you know what I mean? Like when they're trying to make.

No, it's just I feel bad about this. It already doesn't have much going on, like it's already a sea cucumber, you know what I mean? It's already like a pretty kind of miserable existence, you know what I mean? It's like, man really pilots.

That's that's terrible. That is terrible.

So we'll see, we'll see. Phil, feel free to if you want to add to the sea cucumber, but whole relationship, maybe your jokes would be more appropriate.

I don't know. But we'll end up feeling terrible for sea cucumbers. We'll hear from Phil and then we'll we'll make you guys feel terrible for one of our listeners in awkward moments and angling. Miles, you seemed almost ashamed to be sharing that last story, but you shouldn't be because you are the winner this week.

And as someone who used to sling tacos at Sonic for a living, I have a message for Lance. Hey, Lance, go. Cherry limeade with your. Fry sauce and put it in. Earle Fish Mucus. That felt good. Whether it's a bigger picture and a lot of. All right, on the block, in awkward moments, we've got Mr. Pavel McGlade. And before we even get into this stellar photo, I've got two notes right off the bat here.

One, I'm calling it the most awkward photo that we've had yet.

The most had, I'm calling it the most. And we have had some very funny, very awkward photos. But in my opinion, this one transcends them because in no way do you need to be an angler to find this shot.

Awkward, right? Like any human being on the planet would look at this and go, oh, that's awkward as hell.

Doesn't matter if you fish or not, which is ironic because it's also the first photo we've ever used that does not contain a fish, nor was it even taken on the water.

Yeah, it's not a grip and grin.

Right. Like the whole idea of the segment was to make fun of grip and grins which which might leave you. And kind of leaves me wondering how the hell this photo even qualifies.

But let's just say that this photo proves beyond any shadow of a doubt, 100 percent.

Hubble's passion for angling has been a defining characteristic since he was very, very young.

Then he was willing to publicly assert his love of fishing, no matter the social repercussions that might come. Who cares?

Because you see bubbles send us his 5th grade school photo.

You remember fifth grade because I. Yeah, yes. Those were some heady years.

They were just you were just starting to figure out that social pecking order.

And, you know, we were all starting to learn like who who was a bully and who was getting bullied. Right. And what I'm doing with this photo, I'm pretty sure I know that Pavel was intimately familiar, shall we say, with bullying.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd have to agree. And I know this because I would have been the asshole that bullied him, OK? However, in fairness, I got mine later because here's a fun tip, kids.

When you go to high school in suburban New Jersey and it's time for archery and gym, do not bring your own bow. Just use the garbage bows provided by the gym teacher, because nobody and I do mean nobody will be talking about how cool you and your Mathew's are at lunch.

OK, so in fifth grade, I probably would have bullied Pavel a little bit, but I got mine later by sharing my outdoor enthusiasm.

And I would have I would have liked had solidarity with Pavel, but I wouldn't have said it out loud because I wouldn't want you to beat me up there.

OK, anyway, let's get into this photo and we're going to start with the background here, because it's very niños. And in fact, it harkens me back to my kindergarten class photo in which I'm sitting on a carousel horse.

Right, with a pastel colored drop cloth behind me.

And I'm crying. It's a classic family photo. I'm very upset. And then I remember I don't know if you if you did this right. But in my elementary school, while every kid was shot on a plane background, you had to specify what the background would look like in the hard copies and you could get like prisms and geometric patterns in junk. But my my mom, my mom was always like, hell, no, you will get the soft blue right now.

We did. We didn't have any of that where I went to school. No, it was no choice of blue. And that was it. Yeah.

No, OK, we had we had we had choices, OK, but the backdrop and of public school photo, it's it's like nothing I've ever seen.

Oh no man. I think it's, I think it's loosely based on Jurassic Park. That's what I see when I look at this, like the actual the actual background has a jungle theme going on.

There is dense ferns and some purple flowers.

And I hope that it's what you described. Right. I hope this is one of many shitty digital background options that the kids can pick from because it's bad. I hope everybody didn't have to have that one.

Yeah, it's like, you know, you know, it looks like it looks like the predator's body when he has his cloaking device activated, like the jungle is about to come alive and take Pavle. That's what I think of totally know poor Pavel's about to get taken by by the Predator for sure. Yeah.

And there he is. Right. Little little Paval. And he's leaning against an extremely fake boulder with some some fake flora scattered on it and makes me think that's what I think when I look at this, that all the kids had to be shot in the same background.

Right. Because because those props seem so specific to that background. And I guess that, like, you know, if mom and dad hated the jungle theme, then it was kind of like tough shit. But that seems weird.

Well, yeah, no, but in some cases, like like like the unicorn in kindergarten, I had no choice.

You were sitting on a unicorn. So if your parents hated you want a unicorn, tough shit like you.

And that's what I think it was, whatever it was.

But but see, that's what I thought. But Pable he says no, because I followed up and he told me at his school you could choose your background.

So this was his choice, which makes it cooler.

Right. So he chose the background. And also, is the background correct, because I guess they sort of had like a little movie set options for your photo.

And as you just noted, they also had prop choices, which explains why Povo has a spinning rod slung over his shoulder.

Right. So, again, we're the jungle with some boulders and ferns and a fishing rod. And I got word points simply for the fact that a fishing rod was even offered is absolutely prop there.

But I also got I got to deduct a few of those points because there's no line on the real, you know.

No, it's clear.

Yeah. Yeah, but it's still great. OK, it does leave me wondering two things. First, what were the other prop options like?

I'd imagine there was a baseball bat and a football and maybe like a super cheesy skateboard. But what did Paval decide against in order to land on the line like fishing rod? And the second thing I'm wondering, did any other kids at all pick the fishing rod or was Paval the only one?

I would love to know that I wondered that, too. That's a bold and possibly stupid choice.

Again, think back to 5th grade.

Fifth graders aren't the innocent angels that their parents want to imagine.

Them being fifth graders are assholes 100 percent. That's why South Park is brilliant.

Like that's the whole point of that show. Even money I'm putting up, even money that says he earned himself at least one new nickname and a black guy over this photo. But Publ didn't care.

Like, look at that dude. He didn't care. No, no, he's owning it. He's like, this is who I am. This is what I'm about. And if I'm being honest, he was going to catch a beating with or without the fishing Rod Brohm. It was going to hurt and so go ahead.

He might have defended himself with the fishing rod after the photo was released. Yeah. So beyond the fishing rod, he's wearing corduroy overalls with a white polo shirt. And that's there's not much to rip on there.

OK, fine. But his haircut is straight up, Lloyd Christmas. And I mean, literally, he might have taken a photo of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber to the Cut and Corral and said, hey, give me one of those.

I mean, it's fun, but it's even worse.

It's not just is the Lloyd it haircut. It's like that, but worse because it looks like he just got back from a family vacation in Mexico or Panama or something because he's got the two pieces of braided hair capped off with Rosta beads.

Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, really?

The the air visas so glorious. There's so glorious. Right. And he did he told us he just came back from Mexico and, you know, he came back to class like this making it out like I was just in May. I got Rosta beads.

My you don't have that, OK? And they're so fantastic.

It's barely worth mentioning the friendship bracelet with a tag that's way too long. So like on his wrist, on the fake rock that you'd see in the aquarium store, it's like a normal friendship bracelet with a whole other friendship bracelet dangling from it.

Anyway, he's like friends, I swear. I yeah. And this is classic and we cannot tell you how happy we are that you sent it. But this is my take away.

OK, I think it's so rock star that you opted for the jungle motif and grab the fishing rod and your mom or dad let this fly. OK, bravo. Because if I had been in this situation just like left to my own 5th grade devices to choose my own school photo adventure, as soon as my mom got these, she'd have been like, are you serious?

I can't put this shit in Grammy's Christmas card whenever she takes. You're signing up for retakes. That's what would happen.

Now, when you ball up like Paval, there are no retakes.

Remember, if you'd like to be voluntarily tortured on this show, like Pable Sentir, awkward photos to ban intermediator Dotcom because these are kind of the highlights of our existence. OK, true.

You know it's true. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing gives us more joy than being handed a photo and given license to essentially craft our own version of the story behind it.

Yes, because we are all about giving you the back story, which is what we do every week in our end of the line segment where we profile a particular lure, bait or fly. This week, Miles is going to tell you about one that blends two of those categories together and in doing so makes the old new again.

It's not loud enough, but. If you mentioned the pistol, Pete, in the flash up, good chance no one will know what you're talking about. If someone does, they'll either pretend they don't or shoot. You look reminiscent of that time you ripped a loud fart in church. The widely available pistol pits are strangely absent in the fly scene. They're ignored or ridiculed. A joke at best. At worst, a defamation of an art form, an insult to delicate sensibilities.

Calling the pistol Pete a fly pattern isn't exactly accurate. They're more of a style, a product line of classic wet whiteflies, like wooly buggers, wooly worms and renegades with small propeller blades added right behind the eye of the hook. The flies themselves are totally unremarkable. They're cheap, crappy third world country time flies, but the added hardware sets them apart.

Pistol pits are distributed by a company called High Country Flies out of southern Colorado.

Story goes that Chris Veria was a fisheye kid who liked to tie flies. He discovered that putting propeller blades turned his mediocre flies into fish catching machines. Being an entrepreneurial lad, he started his own little cottage industry, selling them around his hometown of Trinidad, Colorado. He kept that up as a way to make some extra cash all the way through college. In 1990, High Country Flies Inc. began large scale production of various pistol beats in Mexico and established national distribution.

Though I've never once seen a pistol, Pete, in a fly-Fishing shop anywhere in the country, you can find their Trought kits and bass pro shops, Dick's Sporting Goods, Wal-Mart and just about every big tackle store in the country. Most of those kits include a half dozen different propeller flies and three clear plastic casting bubbles so that they can be effectively used with a spinning spinneret. That pretty well explains what happened to this fly seat, purists love to argue about what counts as a fly.

Some people only use flies made of natural materials. Others will only use floating flies. They tied themselves. The parameters of purity are blurry and subjective, but a large segment of the fly-Fishing scene claim anything with a propeller or a spinning blade or a diving lip isn't a fly.

It's a lure. And those same folks will point to the pistol. Pete is a relatively new and disgraceful bastardization of the glorious history of American fly-fishing.

But here's the thing. They're wrong because if you actually look into the early days of American fly-fishing, the 1920s through the 1950s, fly lures were common. Back then, fly rods weren't the floppy graphite levers of judgment and division. We know today fly rods were tools for delivering small, lightly weighted presentations. Up until the late 50s, many of the major tobacco companies made miniature spinners, plugs, crank baits, poppers, jugglers and wigglers, all expressly designed for use on fly tackle.

Sometime around 1960, these lures disappeared. I'm speculating here, but my best guess for why that happened has to do with fishing rod technology. Conventional rods in the early 20th century were far different than what we have today. Most were made of steel and topped with level wind reels. They weren't capable of accurately and effectively casting the small light lures that are sometimes necessary for fooling spooky river trout. In those days, fly rods were the only practical option for fishing, small and delicate after World War Two, fiberglass rods and spinning reels emerged as the dominant gear of choice for medium to light fishing situations.

Fiberglass rods are far lighter and more sensitive than steel and have infinitely more flex, which allows them to cast lighter lures. I theorized that the market for fly lures died around the same time because fly rods became unnecessary for everything.

But the latest insect imitations right around the same time fly-Fishing started splintering off into its own subculture.

Once fly rods weren't strictly necessary, a situationally effective fishing tools using one became a statement which then led into them becoming identifiers of a sort of weirdo counterculture in the 70s and 80s. And then, after a river runs through, it came out symbols of elitism, purity and status in the 90s and early 2000s. And that brings us back to the pistol, Pete, which hit the national market right around the time Brad Pitt's hat went floating across movie theater screens.

It was a bad time to try and market fly lures to the fly industry, which was asserting itself as totally separate from an morally superior to conventional tackle. The thousands of independent flower shops popping up around the country refuse to carry anything as lowbrow as bait or lures in order to serve their rapidly growing, self-important, high dollar niche. Pistol pins cut the hell out of fish, but no way hardcore Flagler's were going to publicly endorse or use their products at that time.

So high country flies made a smart pivot and started marketing their wares to spin fishermen who continue to catch the hell out of fish on their crappy flies with bow propellers. They're probably the only fly company on the planet willing to suggest tipping their wares with corn if you're getting short strikes. But 21st century fly culture has moved up. Fly design has gone away from natural materials and delicate patterns. The contemporary fly seen is younger and less beholden to the norms and mores of the previous generation.

Modern flat tires are racing each other to make flies that act more and more like lures. Most of the major fly companies now have at least one fly. With the spinner blade, you can get flies that swim like joint. A jerk bites, flies the gurgle like jitterbugs.

The fact is that fly lures are hot again, even though no one's calling them that. Pistol Pete, however, are not part of that new wave of cool flies, and I think there are two reasons. First, as I've mentioned, pistol beats are not particularly interesting from a fly tying perspective, their low quality old patterns that just have some hardware attached. They work, but they're just not that interesting. Second, high country flies through their lot in with the conventional crowd 30 years ago, and even though modern flag design is getting closer and closer to gear fishing, the flag still clings to some sense of differentiation from and superiority to the U.S..

Don't cry for high country, though, considering their distribution in every major sporting goods chain in America, I think they made the better business choice.

So that's it for this week, if your mission was to glean nothing but style tips from this episode, you've learned that under no circumstances should young boys put Rosta beads in their hair on family vacation. Your skills make you look cooler than how you transport your fly rods.

And if you've got enough dry flies on your hat to get you through an entire season, maybe you should use them and try accessorizing by, I don't know, clipping memos to your shirt every time you leave the house instead.

You heard the fashion tips here. First, remember to keep those Selborne items, bar nominations, Meems, that you have no idea would ever become theme of entire episode and whatever else you want us to see or hear coming to bent at the media or dotcom.

Yes, we love hearing from each and every one of you, and we love seeing those that generate anger and bent podcast hashtags on the Instagram. Using them, remember, is the fastest way to get yourself a little sticker selection from us.

It is. And if you're looking for a rod bolt, stick them on.

I might have one that I'd be willing to trade for a vintage beanbag chair, a copy of young Einstein on LaserDisc and also Elizabeth Blair.