Steven Rinella talks with Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan, Clay Newcomb, Brent Reaves, Randall Williams, Corinne Schneider, and Phil Taylor.
Topics discussed: The hardest working states; reciprocity; benefits of in-state residents; hypocritical arguments about fair chase; presidential hopefuls trying to establish their hunting and fishing bona fides; squirting milt; how bull redfish are actually females; Randall catching a huge bull redfish; Cal catching an alligator gar on accident; shrimp bait as just feeding fish; alligator gar as living fossils; cooking stingray; low yield creatures; "on the half shell'; and more.
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If this is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast, you can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. Phil's already a little annoyed. Tell everybody about what you're annoyed about. Phil.
Come on in, Phil, Come on, I'll tell you.
Phil's annoyed. Go ahead, Phil, Oh.
Nothing, you know, I just like to set a schedu throughout the day. You know, I know, I understand you have to prep for the show. But we just got done recording Trivia, which was a lot of fun, and we started next film. We started that right on time. I just didn't want to repeat of a few days ago when it took us like six hours to record.
You know why I wanted to talk about this film. Why we're in Louisiana. Yeah, this is the most overworked. This is how this is my lead in. It just came up this is master, this is surprise. This is the most overworked state in the Union.
Oh so you're sympathizing with me, that's what you're getting at here.
Here we are in Louisiana, and most of us are just fishing and messing around, and you're under incredible stress and strain. And it just is surprising to me that here we are in the most overworked state in the Union.
What does that mean?
What it means?
It's like not surprising that this is happening here for phil Yeah, you know how your phone spies on you? Right, Okay, here I am in Louisiana.
That's proven that it doesn't. But go ahead, well I can prove.
It too with this because here we are in Louisiana and I get an email telling you to move to Wyoming because it's one of the least work states, which pronounced me to be who's the worst or the best? In my view of the best, It'd be like if Wyoming is among the top ten of least working people. Who is holding this country up? That's where my so I get. I scroll and scroll and scroll to find who's who's whose shoulders? Is the nation riding upon Louisiana? Hardest working state in the Union, and I brought and I wanted Phil to talk about his work stress experience, his work stress.
I'm currently in an honorary Louisiana employee right now, and I've been working hard.
Yes, as measured by hours work. This is how we're defining that's true. And so yeah, this feel's Phil's scheduling anxiety actually is directly relevant there.
Yeah, it's because he's feeling that wyoming, that Louisiana workiness. And uh, this has I think this has implications. For the reason that you're hearing about this on a on a show that focuses on hunting, fishing, outdoor pursuits is because if you like to hunt fish, there might be some little part of you in the back of your head that wishes you weren't working as much so you'd hunt fish more.
I am the only person here that it has not gone fishing on this fishing trip, So that's another thing I just wanted through out there. But I'm in a much better mood now that we've started rolling, so I want to say thank you.
Yeah, But yeah, Phil and I and crinn Are were headed to a tiki bar in a bit and then.
Bitch, talk's chicking.
You probably only have like eighty four minutes left and he's just gonna shut it down.
Louisiana, Rakes ranks, is the most overwork state in the nation, with each person working in average of one fourteen hours annually. What's that come out to time? Divided that by fifty two? Someone ready for this? So I'm thinking in my head, was the oil fields? Yeah, well not quite. Oh no, no, okay, I'm thinking in my head it's the oil fields. And hear me out Texas North Dakota. Oh so, yeah, but it's hard. It's so thirty six hours a week, but you're not getting like Christmas and you're vaking in your vacation hours. Texas and North Dakota place second and third, working an average of one eight hundred and sixty seven and one eight hundred and fifty six hours annually, respectively. So Krin, can you help me out? That was third? So if you just take Louisiana hardest working state in the Union, they're coming in at thirty six hours a week, but of course you have your your holidays. So I'm already thinking that that suggests me that Americans aren't working hard. Anymore. And when we talk about a nation in decline, this could be an area to pursue. Uh, Texas and North Dakota second and third. So North Dakota. What's eighteen fifty six by.
Fifty two thirty five point nine, So let's say thirty six, but thirty seven was.
Like thirty seven points some Okay, now and now and again oil fields right?
Uh.
The study it's by a personal injury law firm.
Are they honest?
They're the ones that have the billboards put the moak on them, like you know, near like any big city and you get to the edge of the big city or out by the airport, they have all those signs. It's like they'd be like a lawyer on a Harley.
Yeah, someone tough in uh down in Phoenix.
In Phoenix, it's a guy named Rafi put Raffi on calf.
There's a there's a sign outside of Little Rock, Arkansas on the interstate.
And it's like Bill Crockett, attorney at law, and he's wearing a coonskin hat. Yeah, that's my lawyer. You've seen that.
Let's here what these people had to say. Okay, which people the ones that did this?
Yeah? So that's who put it together. But you know they're going by. Okay, sure they sent the thing out, but I received the things saying hey, move to Wyoming because they don't work much, which surprised me because then I started looking at this. I'm thinking oil fields, oil fields, oil fields, But then Wyoming comes in at top ten of not working that much.
Well, I wonder how the oil field. I wonder how they account for farm and ranch labor.
Okay. Looking at weekly hours worked for every state to determine which states work the most throughout the year. Researchers also compared figure to the average hours worked in twenty fourteen to see which states are experiencing the greatest changes in working patterns. You want to know who else works hard? Arcaanns Michigan, Texans. No, Michigan is going to be not working hard state Texans, North Dakotin's, West Virginians Energy, Kentucky, Mississippi, they work hard. Oklahoma works hard, Arkansas works hard, Arizona works hard. Oh no, no, we're not working much. Now. I don't know what's going on. No, No, that's the top two, that's the top ten. But why is Wyoming in the whole thing was that they don't work hard in Wyoming. No, they are number ten for hard. It's working, right. Why would I get a solicitation to move to Wyoming if I didn't want to work that much?
They got it backwards.
Your phone's not smart.
Steve, Hey, you are a hard working dude.
Lost.
You have an hourly assumption in your contract. That's how you get paid.
I don't know.
I haven't seen that in my contract.
You work well, well beyond the fifty hours a week or whatever you are supposed to be working. I guarantee it. Then none of that is trackable.
Steve's phone's tracking.
You apply this to anybody, Yeah, it's going to be true.
Right.
So like if someone's laying in bed thinking about something, how do you how do you count that up?
And when like Randall brought up agriculture, right, it's like.
Yeah, when they go to check cows, that's a great point.
Like have you did you go off to ranchers and be like, well did you count when you had to run back out and drive way the hell out to check if the pump was working at the irrigation thing?
Yeah?
And I mean it's each way right, right, So this is based off like taxes at the end of the year.
It's capturing it's capturing a lot of energy work because it's all you know, a lot of it's hourly clocking and talking. It's capturing probably a lot of service industry work.
You know who's got it gravest? Surprised me. The gravest state is Delaware.
Oh yeah, so small.
Yeah, the.
Work there.
If you work too hard, you blow them the sides out of the state.
Hey, okay, I've been trying to say this. What I saw when I saw that list, aside from Texas, which is kind of an anomaly, is poverty. Like I bet if you put that list up beside the income income you would have those those numbers would be you know, you would have many of those states on the same top ten poverty.
So yeah, it'd be like a good paradox. It'd be how do you have some of the lowest? How do you have some of the lowest? How like hot low GDPs overlap with not working much. Then they go on to talk about how we work more, we work less than we used to, which is sad, but we work more. This is saying like we Americans work more than Canadians. Americans work more than Brits. Americans work more than Spaniards, Americans work more than crowds. But we could beat all them in the war again. So I just feel like this should be celebrated and not treated like a bad thing. Hardworking semi, you know, we don't America, said the man with his feet on a cooler in Louisiana fishing.
Hey, we do get that Labor Day, we do get that Labor Day holiday.
And I just feel that while I'm here fishing in Louisiana and you know, hanging out, I feel like it needs to be recognized how hard we're working on here in Louisiana. But I do worry about the future of America if we're laying off. But some of our traditional enemies, the British and the Germans.
I don't know if very traditional.
Well, the late Nor McDonald, late Nor McDonald had this bit where he was talking about what countries you talking about the axis of evil? Remember with George W. Bush it was it was uh ran Iraq, North Korea, And at that time Norm MacDonald was talking about what countries Americans' most fear, and he says to the audience, Now, I don't know if you're if there's any history buffs here tonight gets into Germany, Right, So there's that. Uh, Cal, can you explain I've been wanting to talk about this one was funny. It lines up. I have a little thing in my notes function on my phone called podcast fodder, and I will put things that I would like to someday discuss on the podcast. And I had written in my podcast notes the concept of reciprocity when it comes to wildlife management, and it was on my head and I just wrote it. I'll tell why in a little bit, and Cal comes up talking about a reciprocity concern, and I feel that we should explore this, and I'll out let Cal run with it once. I explain that my only familiarity with the concept of reciprocity in terms of hunting rights came from the fur trapping regulations, and at times when fur prices get really high, as a way for a state to protect the economic interests of its own people, they would put in a reciprocity clause because people when fur prices get high, you have this thing called state hopping, where trappers will bounce around the country, going to a bunch of different states and you'd have friction where you'd have a state like traditionally Montana, it just changed. Traditionally Montana would not allow non residents to trap fur bearing animals. So states would get back at them and they would say a state like, let's say I might be wrong. Let's say Wyoming does sell non resident licenses. Wyoming would say, but since our residents aren't able to trap fur bearing animals in Montana, Wyoming is open to any state that would extend the same rights to our residents, but will block them for reciprocity. And I started thinking about if the vote in Colorado, which we're gonna talk about in a minute, what's the prop one, what is it in twenty seven? If Prop one to twenty seven passes in Colorado, would we explore the idea of the reciprocity clause meaning Colorado's should not be able to come to Montana to hunt mountain lions because of Montana and cannot go to Colorado to hunt mountain lions. Take it away, cal Yeah.
And then we had another kind of famous amongst us case of fishing game regulations in the state of North Dakota when we were out ice fishing and we had our friend Jay Siemens down from Canada and where he's from. In Canada, they can't legally or non sorry on residents can't legally spear through the ice. In North Dakota. There's a reciprocity law that pertains to ice fishing.
Which it blew my mind. I was there, and I somehow didn't pick this up.
That's why Jay wasn't spearing through the ice when you smashed that pike, and I was dyinga COVID the So anyway, that.
Was the most just generally uncomfortable experience I've ever had. And then I have to do it where you're almost dead from COVID would be even worse, because I was fine and I was uncomfortable.
So if you're a North Kota resident, sorry in North Dakota, if you want to spear through the ice as a non resident, you have got to allow North Dakotas to spear fish through the ice wherever it is you come from. Yes, so us Montana's I could spear through the ice in North Dakota. Jay could not spear through the ice in North Dakota. That's reciprocity and fishing game loss.
And I had and this really woke me up because I was already wondering if we should go down a path, and this is a slippery slope and it would be very tricky for me in some ways too, because I like to bounce around a fair bit. But I was thinking in my head, would it be an interesting concept to introduce this reciprocity issue in other areas outside of trapping. And then I get to talking to Calbount. Cal's reminding me. Cal's proposing a reciprocity piece which you should get to, and then reminded me of the fishing one. And I was surprised to realize that the reciprocity idea has already been applied elsewhere outside of trapping. Point being the reciprocity piece of spearfishing in North Dakota. And Cal brought up a great reciprocity one which is.
In the state of Wyoming. And I've unfortunately bitched a moan screamed like a mash cat over this uh in raccoon. Yeahats teeth that as a non resident hunter in the state of Wyoming, you cannot hunt in a federally designated wilderness area without a Wyoming guide, and that guide can be another Wyoming resident that signs a paper and says I'm guiding this. You know, I'm their their host in the wilderness area, because that doesn't have to be a paid thing. And uh, I came up with the idea that I'm like, oh, this should be a reciprocity issue where Wyoming residents shouldn't be able to come to Montana and hunt in our wilderness.
Areas without you going with them. Yeah, why is that not Why is that not being Why is that not a reciprocity issue? Why would you be able to live in Wyoming and then be able to go hunt will areas in Idaho and Montana and everywhere else in the country.
Right, And so I floated this out there on on my podcast, The Col's Week in Review podcast. And this is just the subject line in Russ Grisbeck's email to me leave Wyoming and don't come back, asshole. I really sick of you pissing and moaning on my awesome state and advocating for more rules and regulations.
Oh, I don't like it. You're advocating for rules and regulations. They're the ones that have the rules and regulations.
I don't like the Wilderness Band either, But advocating to put restrictions on Wyoming residents because of our Game and Fish having dumb ass rules. F off cal stop being so entitled.
I think he's mixing some things up well.
But it also kind of validates my point. If or Russ here is so fired up about just the thought of not being able to hunt a wilderness area because of, as he puts it, their own dumb ass rules, then maybe we got something.
Maybe he didn't think they're as bad as he leads.
On real Maybe he should.
He should get involved in the process and talk to his Game and Fish and say, hey, you know what I think.
I don't believe it's game and Fish. It's not game and Fish, it's uh Wyoming Outfitter and Guides Association. Well, yeah, so I have I can't say. I'd love to be able to say who told me this, but he would be very pissed if I said I have an un good authority, that that that rule is a legal house of cards. Oh yeah, and that if a rosa parks into type individual I don't mean to in any way e quite being able to hunt wilderness areas with with suffrage and civil rights movement. So let me.
Walk that back civil disobedience.
Okay, if a civil disobedience person can reuse my analogy, because I do kind of like it, but I don't were to go and say, here, I am, I'm hunting in a wilderness area Wyoming without a guide, Come give me a ticket. And then they gave themselves even a half assed bit of legal representation, it would the house of cards would collapse.
Yeah.
Part of the problem is this, I got a bunch of points. Here's here's like one of the wrinkles. Here's where it becomes a little bit arbitrary and capricious. A wolf, Okay, take a wolf in Wyoming in the northwest corner of the state. A wolf whelming is a big game animal. Okay, outside of that area, this this little marked off area, a wolf and whelming is not a big game animal. It's the same as a kyle. It's a non game animal. Meaning you could hunt wolves on wilderness area unguided outside of this line, but you couldn't hunt wolves unguided inside of the line. And there are some other little bits about how it came to be, and he feels that it's completely un It's his review of it is that the rule is completely indefensible, indefensible, and it would be arbitrary and capricious. People like to say why the rule went into place, and they say that it was meant to protect the interests of guides and outfitters, but that they build it as a safety issue. Mm hmm. When he looked into it, he found that, as is usually the case, the reasoning behind a law is not codified, Meaning when you pass a law which has been around for a long time, no one says, hey, let's also record the primary arguments for and against. So it's not real. It was never really marked what the actual primary reason for, but it was seems to be have been promoted by guides and outfitters and build as a safety issue. But you can go into a wilderness area and do free solo climbing, Yeah you can, so is it safety? You can hike in there?
Well, I mean that's the fun part, right, is Like you can go camp with a gun during hunting season and you're totally legal to do that. You just can't be hunting with that gun.
Yeah right.
You can fish, you.
Can ski, so there's a hot tip.
I might had to say this for a the what's our little segment in the show where we make make up the laws.
That's a different show.
Yeah, I know I might have to say it for that, but you could do a reciprocity would do the reciprocity for uh, non resident tag costs.
The deer tag costs one thousand dollars and then want to come into your day when I go to Arkansas, me as a Montana resident would have to pay a thousand dollars to hunt deer.
That's Arkansas.
I don't want the reciprocity thing to get carried away.
I don't want to do either. That's kind of.
Like, here's here's a different take on it. I think I see what you're saying. I think states I ought to. I ought to receive incredible benefit as a hunter and sportsman in my state for living there.
Yeah, yes, fantastic, And you probably do. Yeah.
So so you know, if the people where I live were smart enough made it, maybe we'd have had that law too fifty years ago.
I have never had a problem with I mean, well, let me start with saying I have never had a problem with and I totally support a state giving preference to its residents, meaning that if you're fishing in your home state, you should be able to fish for twenty bucks, you know, like of course, and if you're going on a trip out of state. It just makes sense to me that the state should capture more revenue and can have a tiered structure and have preferential treatment on bag limits and preferential treatment on limited opportunities, particularly limited opportunities tag draws and all. That makes total total sense to me, even though I go, like when I'm fishing in Alaska, I'm always like, God, damn it, these guys could do everything. You know, bumps me out. But I understand, you know, I understand it. But I think the reciprocity issue should be pushed heavier. And there's almost like a there's like a symbolic reciprocity where you remember when the guy, like a guy from California Fishing Game went to Utah to do a lion hunt. Oh yeah, after California banned lion hunting and he didn't and he sort of suffered a social reciprocity and lost his position because he went and did a hunt that you can't do in your own state, which I thought at the time was absurd.
Yeah, I mean, think of all the people that go to Alaska like we were talking right.
Yeah, yeah, you go to Alaskan do oh, go to Alaskan do a brown bear hunt? You can't hunt those in lower forty eight. You can't hunt grizzlies in lawer forty eight. Should everybody lose their job? Who's done that? Of course not? But uh, I think that Like I think with the lion thing, if you're from a state that has deemed it unsports been like unethical to hunt lions, I don't know, should you go to should you be able to go to other states the hunt lions? That penalizing.
It's not like the people that are opposing uh, or that are for proposition one twenty seven and want lions band, are going to be like, all right, now let's go to Montana and kill their lines. You'd be penalizing all our people in Colorado.
Under should I'm not looking at it like penalizing.
The proponents of one twenty seven would love.
If we had a Yeah, they would love it. That would be in the hand. But let me think of a different example. Cal's example of the wilderness area. Think, how could you have a state say if you're not from here, you can't hunt our wilderness area of which we have a ton, but our guys can freely go to hunt your wilderness area.
Yeah, now I see that. Well, but the but the impetus of that would be redemption of the law, which would be that would spur Wyhoming people to be like, you know what, this is kind of an antiquated old law.
That's so, you know, let's change it. I mean that would be the point of it.
Yeah, is that it would make people have a taste of their own medicine.
Well, they'll point out the person the law dog that did the analysis is from that state. It's from the state of Wyoming. Yeah, I don't know what I'm saying.
Say that again, he's from the ninth most hard working scene, the ninth most hard You know what Brent does on my pot on the render when when we're doing something he doesn't like, he says.
Bull no, no, no, no, no, no. I think this is no. I think Brent was thinking Arkansas.
No, Arkansas is implemented the same thing with out of state duck hunters reciprocity. Well, they have limited them to specific dates in time periods they can come for like ten days.
Yes, South Dakota does that as well.
But they have to choose, and it's they're trying to control the overcrowding on the public areas for waterfowl and it's me they surely sure they are, but they're getting a lot of pushback from the folks that historically have come and hunted, you know, the whole season.
Yeah, I should point out here that the rub is economic, and it's economic in two ways. The rub is, so why can't a state, Why doesn't a state just go ahead and say it's in the interests of our state residents that there are no non resident hunting and fishing opportunities. So you'd be like, you can see that that's justifiable. The reason that doesn't happen is economics on two fronts. The states need to fund their fishing game agencies, and the fishing game agencies are responsible for everything from like access enhancement, disease research, enforcement of those residents and non residents who are hunting and fishing. And I could go on all day counting animals, biological assessments, a couple of kinds of things. They have to pay for it. It's a lot more lucrative for them to sell non resident opportunities, and it is resident opportunities. Like when you go and you're fishing for twenty bucks and some other guys fishing for two hundred bucks. That guy kicked in one hundred and eighty more dollars than you did into the states. Thing. So the states need to be able to bring in people. I remember a few years ago Alaska flat out across the board doubled non resident tags, just across the board double. If it was two fifty oels five I could do more math for you three fifty seven for financial. The other economic prong to it is bars, hotels, gas stations, fishing lodges. Right, Like, think of the economic collapse that would occur in rural Alaska if you all of a sudden said no more non resident fishing, no more non resident hunting. Yeah, what is it? Were killing it? Were killing industry.
It was historical. It's historically monetarily beneficial to the area around the Stuttgart in that area where the prime all of the the majority of the duck hunt is done, is like a million dollars a day. Said, so sixty million dollars of revenue over a duck season there and then to start limiting the amount of people coming in when they sell more non resident duck Hunt stamps to non residents, and they do residents of Arkansas, and that was that was the big calamity that a lot of the non residents were the argument that they were bringing up. And there's some validity to it, you know. I mean as far as loss of revenue to them, we could just.
Like a PayPal account where they could just donate the money.
Astant if we're closed, I can't come down anymore.
Seems that I can't come down anymore. I'm just going to send all the money.
Because we're arm me out of life and duck habitat, We're just gonna go ahead and give you the sixty mil.
One of the one of the biggest resident non resident rubs. That just that just gets me is uh and I understand it, but uh. In Southeast Alaska, a resident is allowed one in our zone. It's many zones, but in our management zone, a resident angler is allowed one linkt a day any size.
I knew the link cod was gonna come out this because it's a personal passion of mine.
A non resident angler is allowed one a year. Wow, And it's a slot. And if the slots so narrow, I've taken to calling it a crack. You know, slot limits. It's a crack limit thirty to thirty five a five inch if you try hitting that window, I mean it can be done. It ain't easy, they really ham it's fun.
But up there at the last game of fish meetings behind closed doors, they call it the step now Room.
And in meanwhile, my brother and his little boy and they can all just get in a boat and just be like bing bing bing load the boat boys looks good to me, throwing a cool.
Well.
Yeah.
The shrimp regulation up there too, right, is like that's a pretty big most.
Of crab shrimp's the same. Well, no, no, no, you're right, Yeah, shrimp is way bad. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's like astronomical, right, three non resident three courts of This is one of the more confusing pieces of regulation. Three courts of shrimp headed or not. So you can choose to have your limit be three courts of head on shrimp, or you can choose to have your limit be three quarts of tails.
Some people guess how most people some people like to eat shrimp pads.
I know, but guess how most people measure them, especially one on a spot it's like three quarters head. Uh, that's just an interesting little wrinkle. Not resident, no limit right, unlimited dungeon has crab non resident? What's wrong?
Randall and I have a little inside joke going. It's not good for air, it's about seafood.
Yeah, something tells me it's not about seafood.
Okay, moving on, we can share with you after the crab hits the button.
I don't want to know ever. Crab non resident, crab three dungeis resident, crab twenty dungeons resident, you can handline an unlimited number of quillback rockfish resident can't touch one, or non resident can't even look at them?
Did did you look at that fish?
Son?
So yeah, guys, you know what I think?
I remember when uh, I think it was George W.
Bush.
He stated like how he didn't like broccoli, and one of the comedians said he really appreciated the passion of it, Like the passion of his is you know this doctrine. I appreciate Alaska's the passion behind their doctrine.
Oh yeah, you know what I mean.
It's like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna award the residence.
We will believe we will happily take your money and then you will suffer because fish.
Uh what else?
So on talking about on a recent it krint, will the trivia show come out before this? Okay, on a recent if you've listened to the trivia show, you heard me make a is it a quip when you kind of bitch for a minute, equip like a bitchy little statement. No, no, no, no, I didn't rant equipped equipped about former head of US Fish and Wildlife Service Dan Ash writing a bunch of or you know, writing op eds and whatnot coming out in support of Proposition one twenty seven in Colorado, which would ban any kind of hunting or trapping for mountain lions, bobcats, and oddly links, even though links enjoy and danger Species Act protections in Colorado, dan Ash making a sort of salad, a sort of mixed salad of criticisms of lion hunting, one saying it disrupts their family dynamics. Okay, like the Ash family dynamics. No that by hunting mountain lions you disrupt their family structures. Okay, we'll get to that, because I could think of that being applicable to any number of pursuits, including when you catch a bluegill off of its bed, I feel like you've sort of stirred up its family dynamic, him saying it's unethical and doesn't you know, him saying it's unethical and doesn't follow the principles of fair chase he was raised with him saying that that lions are somehow going to help us in the battle with chronic wasting disease ODD and that there's zero evidence that that's true, and holding that in Colorado. Colorado is where CWD was first identified in the late seventies and has had a sizable, stable population of mountain lions since then. So the most obvious case in point would be we have a lot of lions in Colorado and we don't have CWD. But it's like, we have a lot of lions in Colorado and we're the first state to have CWD, but if we stop hunting them, it'll somehow help HM dan Ash saying, have I covered all of his little points? Well, you mentioned that he was a peasant hunter. Oh and the reason everybody's getting all that, the reason they's so the reason the animal rights community is so excited about they now love dan Ash you know, the animal rights community would have probably not liked dan Ash historically because he identified as a hunter. But now he's like everybody's favorite, like with the left, like if if someone walks away, when someone would walk away from the Trump administration, so you could be like in the Trump administration and the media hates you, despises you. Then you walk away from the Trump administration and criticize the Trump administration, and that night you're on Colbert like they adore you now because you've ident You've like joined, You haven't fundamentally changed. You just like start arguing the thing that they wanted to argue. So now the animal rights community is.
Like, oh, dan Ash is so wonderful.
He's a hunter. He and he doesn't like hunting lines. His fair chase thing is is absurd. I don't really know he knows. I don't really know. But I guarantee that that guy in the circles, that guy run and has done penn raised pheasant hunting. I guarantee it. I guarantee it that he has hunted pen birds. I guarantee he's hunted. He's done some big game hunting. I bet you anything he has done some big game hunting around cropfields. In terms of it being not fair chase, I would have to be. He must be speaking to some aspect of its level of difficulty. Okay, my ten year olds can kill deer with rifles. If I told my ten year old to right now go catch a mountain lion with dogs and get it, they would probably come back to me in twenty years and say that they're done. They got it. It would be I wouldn't hear for them for twenty years. If I said to them, you can't come home until you kill a deer, they would be back later that day. It's like, I don't understand what the guy is talking about in his argument that like family dynastic, that it disrupts family dynasts. Like, dude, what is happening when you hunt waterfowl? When you hunt Canada geese? Canada eese? You have Canada geese. They might not be monogamous, but they pair together and nest together. She's out doing it with other dudes. He's out doing it with other girls, but they're going to share the nest nesting responsibilities. When you kill a goose, what do you think has happened anything? If you kill a white tailed deer past the first week in November, You've disrupted its family dynamics because it was probably pregnant. If you've killed a female deer after the first week of November, you just go aborted its fetus, You've disrupted its family dynamics. What is he even talking about?
What does he think of the lion family dynamics? When a male comes across a female with kittens, and then the male attacks and eats the kittens and then stays on the female until she comes in to estrus again, which they will as soon as they aren't nursing anymore, and then rapes the female. Does that fall into like proper reliance.
Analytical buzzwords here? Boy?
I know, but but here's the guy.
It's just it's frustrating to me because here's a person that's dedicated their career and I mean, he's in the zoo business now, he runs like a zoom aquarium group of zoos and aquariums. Sure, I mean, here's an individual that's served in the very Here's an individual that's served in it like one of the highest level wildlife conservation things, and devoted his career to the wildlife conservation. I just cannot picture how I just cannot picture like the level of betrayal that that represents, and also the very mixed messaging that it represents, where you're by by saying the things he's saying, he's attacking all forms of hunting that he's declaring it. He's declaring something not hard enough, which he's completely wrong about and has no idea that the level of difficulty that goes into training dogs.
Never been on a lion hunt.
No problem, no idea about the level difficulty. So he's like, if it's not hard enough, you shouldn't be able to do it. It's like, Dan, buddy, I want you to review some of your pheasant hunts and ask yourself, was it really Was it always really that hard? So that's an attack on it all together. The family dynamic thing is an attack on it all together. It's just I don't understand how someone could come out of this career and then make a big show and fall into the lap of of this. It's it's very frustrating, But he's not trying to convince you.
They say everybody can be bought, you know, so.
I don't think he was bought. You don't think he someone gave him money to say that.
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities.
But he don't have to convince us sitting here. He's not trying to convince you of that. No, I'm not saying who he's trying to convince. I just don't understand how someone could I agree, how someone could.
Understand have that shallow of how someone could be in the position, how they could be in the position they've been and represent the individuals they've represented, and then come and arrive at this like this, this like sort of woven fabric of complaints about something that you could apply to virtually most pursuits that he engages in. I don't get it.
Well, it also shows that you don't have to be an expert to be appointed to a high position. That might be it might be it money money.
Well, in all fairness, you know, I think there's no chance that that high dollar campaign that has Bookoo dollars billion.
Yeah, they didn't. They didn't trying to find they didn't pay down money making a big donation to the Zoo and Aquarium Fund.
You think so it's possible, It's possible. Only two people know neither of them's gonna say it. I'm just saying if I had to take a while.
Stan and Carol Baskin.
If I had if I had to take a wild stab and I had to be like, do I deep down? Do I deep deep down? I think they bought that endorsement from him? Do I think the animal rights movement bought his endorsement? And I had like get it right or else I had to die. I would say no.
Yeah, it's not not the path you'd take.
But I don't know.
Hey, this this came out just I think in the last two days. But the the Harris.
Waltz campaign had a big hunter pow Wow. Yeah, I got invited to go pheasant hunting over there? Did you really? Okay? Now, do you know much about it? I? No, I didn't go pan raised pheasant Minnesota.
I don't know if they're seasons open yet.
No, he's got his he's doing a little hunting thing. Yeah, I just I don't know.
I don't know.
If I've had an article, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Did you want to go that?
Mark Kanyon did? He went, so he wanted to.
He didn't get invited.
Oh he did, and Mark got inbouted and they didn't invite me and Brent.
So when I said no, Mark got invited and Mark wanted to go but didn't. Well talked Hi about it? Oh are they hunting pen raised birds? Is? Dan Ash? Can go criticize him? Dan ashkan be there be like that didn't look like that heart of a shot? Yeah? Oh you know? You know what else dan Ash doesn't like. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like that a lot of the lion hunting is done with outfitters, So apparently outfitting is bad if applied to lion hunting. Dan have you ever been on an outfitted trip fishing? Was it really that hard to catch that fish with that guy? Come on? Come on, I would have been impressed.
If the if that campaign would have took those guys on like a like a bear hunt with dogs or something.
Now, that would have been impressive, classical. I would have gone that.
I would have been like, I'll go, this is walking in and being like man that bear he was up in that tree.
He'd tell her he'd later tell you a hunt and lie.
Yeah, I feel like he was like I was at the tree. The shotgun, right, is like the most neutral of hunting firearms when it comes to campaign season red, doesn't that feel right? Like if you see a candidate or somebody, Yeah, it's gonna be with the shotgun on a rifle.
I think that it would be a good article. I don't know why we haven't done this at our website. We should hear him do this because it would be a good article to go through time and and talk about the way candidates have historically tried to establish their hunting and fishing.
That that's you're talking about the first ten pages of my dissertation.
Every governor in the state of Arkansas that I can remember over the last in my lifetime has had a duck hunting photo.
Oh yeah, both both parties. That's part of the Randall. Do you say, can you help me with this? Do you say, like, do you go high flute and say bona fides or do you say you're bona fides? I can bonafides? Okay, Yeah, they try to establish their hunting and fishing bonafides. I remember some years ago Hillary Clinton had to really stretch and she established he had a uncle who'd like to hunt. And John Carrey, who here's like a Vietnam veteran, you know, he was like in the a Navy seal in Vietnam, and John Carrey did a water fowl hunt during his presidential bid and took some advice from his advisors, which was this very poor advice to not carry the shotgun. Yeah, so to hunt geese with it, I believe they're goosehan to hunt with it, but not carry it. So then the images that come out when they're near the press, because the press wasn't invited to the hunt. So they're coming back from the hunt and someone says, don't carry the gun. So he then here he is, he's walking along and he's got like a gun bearer, and so it backfired.
We've all been there that backfired.
And then Mitt Romney had got humiliated. Yeah. Mitt Romney said, oh, I'm a hunter, but he's from Utah, so pilot, No, he was a swift.
Swift boat, swift boat, very brownwater Navy there.
Yeah, Mitt Romney has a humiliating thing where he So his family had long had a political history in Michigan. But Mitt Romney was from Utah himself. Is Mitt Romney's father was the governor of Michigan. Mitt Romney claimed, like, oh, I'm a hunter, I'm a hunter, and someone digs through the state records. If I remember this cracked.
They went to every state.
He never bought a hunting license. Yeah, so then someone presents them in this kind of wallsyan scenario. He's presented with, well, if you did hunt, you didn't have a license, And then he said, well I did, but it was varmints.
He said varments if you don't need arms. It was varments if you will, and things like that of that nature.
Very embarrassing.
Yeah, and then and then I think that's same. Yeah, it was Ryan was his running mate, right, and then.
He's a hardcore oh yeah.
But then he posed He posed for like Men's Fitness magazine, like lifting, because he did a bunch of CrossFit and he posed for Men's Fitness magazine doing bicep curls in his office and one of them is him and workout gear pulling his bow back like aiming at the camera.
So Oul Ryan.
Yeah, his his secret service code name during the campaign was Bowhunter.
Not dear slayer.
I just want to put it out there to any politicians listening. You don't have to be a hunter for me to be okay with you and vote for you.
Hey, thank you. It's sweet.
You can just be yourself do things.
I do not feel that. Uh yeah, neither Trump nor Harris has ever sought that I'm aware of, has ever sought to establish their hunting and fishing bona fides. But Kamala Harris Krim's pulling up an article where she's talking about her glock. That's very surprising. Yeah, I heard, I heard that.
Yeah, they say the there's equip from a New York Times article. Equip I think of that two thousand and four election season of columnists for the New York Times wrote that the worst time to be a bird in America's election season.
Ah, that is a quip.
That's a quip, Randald. You care to tell us about catching a thirty four inch red fish thirty five?
Don't? I don't have any good thirty four in shredfish stories. I got a thirty five in shredfish story.
Yeah, tell me about it. What's exceptional? What stands out in your mind as being exceptional about that? I find that to be.
Now, Randall, I was on the boat with you, okay, so just yeah.
Sure, honestly, there's nothing's going to be The truth will not be bent here. This is going to be okay telling all right, I mean, we've had a great week and we the first day we fished, I was fishing with two guests. In the first day we fished with Mark Kenyon, we caught a pile of redfish, but we didn't really get any big ones. I don't think we had to release any. But we were catching them consistently all day. And then the next morning we went out with a different guide and he took us to a spot where we were sort of nosed up to a little gap in the in the grass in the marsh, and so we were fishing.
You're better explain the whole damn deal. Now have we even told people what we're doing. This is the Meat Eater Experiences.
Yeah, we're down here media.
So we so he basically we went mean he's fishing. Oh yeah, so we're fishing.
So we're fishing, walking all the way back be like you know, when the Earth's crossed first solidified, Sure, at some point there was life, at some point there was land and water. Sometime later we hosted media experience.
So we I mean, so I've just fished three days. The first day we you know, we're dividing up into boat groups, and then there's kind of crew members rotating through the boat groups.
And so the first day went out with one guide.
And we were pretty much everybody's popping shrimp under a float, live shrimp. And we fished, I mean, we fished all different types of scenarios. Right like yesterday, we were out next to an oil rig, casting up against sort of a band of rock.
Dude. That was fun. That was cool.
And there's a big, you know, flare behind us just on the on the rig. I mean it was. It was a very Gulf coast.
Those fish were so stacked yea, and you just dropped.
Never seen anything like that, well except for the second place we went where you dropped it, you dropped. If you dropped it within six inches of the grass, the bobber would go straight under before before the barber could even stand explain the rig yet. I mean, it's a it's a it's a foam float of popping cork. And you got I don't know, eighteen inch leader down to.
Call them strike indicators. It's not it's not within the bobber family.
It's within the barber family. And it's a styrofoam.
It's a styrofoam float about four inches tall, and it's got a cup.
The top of it is cup.
The side going up the line to the rod tip has a cup on it.
Below that there's an eighteen inch lead.
Uh.
And some guys will run a jighead at the bottom. Some guys will run a weight sitting on a hook.
The jighead is lazy. You I have come to de turn.
Yeah, we missed a lot of fish on jigheads. This big red I caught on a jighead. So you cast out against the grass.
I had to stop you because an important part of the whole system of the popping cork is the fact that the cork slides on a section of basically between two swivels that is longer than the cork, so it can move back and forth, and it has little beads that are set on the line above and below the cork. So when the cork or the flow is on top of the water, it's one end of that piece of slack, and then below that you have what man will describe the leader down to your bait. So when you pull, the line actually goes through the cork and then it hits the next beads and it causes the sound of this crack and this pop, and that sound is meant to imitate. Some people say that imitates shrimp, shrimp swimming and cracking as they swim. Some people say just imitates fish feeding. But it's a it's a big time attracting.
Yeah, those reds will come up and try to smoke the bobbers.
And when when the bobber is sitting static, it's it's oriented vertically in the water like perpendicular. It's personally vertical anyway, as when you pop it, it tips forward towards you and that cup pops on the surface and it makes a big.
Splash like a hula popper.
There you go precisely.
Okay, you're get You're getting there now.
So should we go to the fish a fish pole, Yes, spinning.
Rod which is attached to Randall, doctor Randall.
Most of the time.
Yes, you cast it out, You cast it out, he says, the doctor is in and they uh so, anyway, there we were.
It was a wonderful morning, honest is. On the boat.
We had two of our guests there and we were with the guy Bone and we started catching some bigger reds. Janni's caught two. I mean this one spot there are basically two big points of grass coming together, and so the boat was pointing towards this gap in the grass and we're catching We're casting up towards points on either side of the boat, right, So if you can imagine like an hour glass, we're kind of sitting right in the neck of the hourglass, if and and we're casting up on these points. We're catching some bigger fish. And then I hook into one and it goes through the neck where the two grassy points come together, and just goes straight. I mean, it's just running like it's like it's trying to get out, trying to run down to Mexico, and it it takes it. It strips out one hundred yards of line pretty quickly.
And the drag was not yea, oh it was out. It was I haven't.
Really had a fish that far out that then made it back to the boat, especially when they're up on the surface like that, because there's just so much line, it's so easy for it to come slack. And this thing just tore out and then went around the corner. So all of a sudden, my line is running through the grass as if I've hooked something up on shore and I'm trying to point and I'm trying to pull it out of the grass.
Randall says, the doctor is on.
I said, I said, hang on, boys, we might have to chase this one down.
We're going to need a bigger boat.
I actually I.
Was wondering if the guide, because that's what when like, when we hook a big king in the current. I mean, oftentimes you'll unclip your anchor and go follow that fish and chase it down to try to pick up line on it. I almost wondered if we were going to do that because he got so far out. I was like, there's no way this fish.
Is going to stay on.
Sure enough. Just a lot of hard work, you know, pumping in, real hard work, and just a character.
And I think that fish determined.
I think I think he's in the hardest state, you know.
I think after a few minutes that fish realized what he had on the other end of the line there, and he turned around.
Uh, we fought him up.
He knew it was like, it's inevitable. Yeah, I'm as good as beat.
Said, my god, just look at that red haired man. He said, this works on everybody else, but this guy. Something's different about him. I want to get a look at this fella. So then he came to the boat and he went around the bow the boat a couple of times, went under the boat, and uh yeah, we got him in the net. And it was a big thirty five pounds mail or sorry, thirty five inch male.
I know it's probably twenty.
It wasn't a male.
How did you know it was a male?
It wasn't a male, It wasn't it's a female.
How do you know the female?
Because males don't get that big squirted, but they call him bull bull red, But it's females.
It squirted the white milt milt.
I have a I have a photo with about a I think those are all females.
I have a photo. Could be way wrong.
I have a photo of it squired about twenty four twenty four inch string of milt down the front of my body and onto the boat.
Wow. Uh man, now I gotta do a bunch of internet work.
Said yeah, suction yep.
I sat down to Steve there.
My understanding is those are all females. I'm pretty sure that's a typeworm. There's no internet, so damn it. Wow, come on.
Wow, Yeah that that screams male to me.
Man, dude, I think that. I think it's a parent. You used the word paradox earlier. I got it. I think it's a I think it's like a paradox calling them bulls. I think the bull is not true. The bull is not referencing its maleness. Sure, it's it's referencing its size and strength. And my understanding is those are all females. Those are all breeding age females. Yeah, who has enough connection everybody else? We have the Leon Muss system running in here and it's just not working well.
Show surprise because I know his system at our house works great.
Spaceship Mars and all that come on.
But yeah, we had.
Uh leah, I don't know. My favorite thing of the world. I read that. I tell you the story already.
Talked on is gonna talk.
This is another.
Did you find it?
This is from Louisiana Sportsman dot com.
Yeah, I'm not buying it, tolf of all.
Bull reds are in actuality females? Well, so then what's the definition?
And a half of the backhand male.
The inside? So I know, But I had a guy tell me the man genuine louis hard work in Louisiana and told me that once they that the males can't even get that size.
Male redfish typically average under thirty six inches and away twenty two pound, while females averaged thirty six inches and twenty two pounds at age fifteen, So they females are generally larger. Male redfish can get big, but females are generally larger.
That's what I was wrong, but right, So he got a real unicorn.
Yeah, so that makes it even more impressive.
I does you're judging by it's ejaculate?
Yes, yes, okay, yeah, which which the guide a lot of big words today, which the.
Guide, uh, don't google any of them. Did?
He confirmed our impression that that was indeed milt.
Okay, So I was wrong.
That's fine, that would be the equivalent when when but I was, I was miss So there I was misleft.
So there we.
Were, and I had this big red fish in the boat, a large male, and we uh obviously well over the slot. So we released it and I ate a sandwich and I savored that moment for a little bit, and then we caught.
Some more fish.
The sandwich of the fish sandwich roast beef, not a fish sandwich, not a fish sandwich.
The two were unrelated.
Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, and then we caught a couple of big bull reads yesterday, females doubled those. I felt I felt like there was there was an absence. There was an absence of ejaculate yesterday.
You know, when you get a new piece of information, you get a new piece of information and it hasn't really become woven into your personal fabric yet, but you might start telling everybody about it. Are you wrong or did you get mislet? I mean I heard the same mm hmm.
Yeah, do you need to see the photo again?
It hasn't I haven't like made it part of me yet. Yeah.
No, I've been in I've been in that. I've been in your shoes.
A time. Uh, Cal, We're gonna we're gonna talk about Cal's alligator guar, but first I need to share it. WHOA. I've often said I got a lot of favorite quotes. My actual favorite quote vote I can't share on the podcast. My second favorite quote is skepticism, which I did not apply when I was told the falsehood. My favorite quote has always been skepticism is the chastity of the intellect. Now here. Someone wrote in, was it Dirk, Yeah, Dirk, who is in trouble right now about his CWD reporting. Pat wrote in, here's a quote Carl Sagan. At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes, an openness to new ideas and the most ruthless, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed for deep nonsense. I don't get that tattooed on me. That's a good one Chinese lettering, Carl.
Yeah, and certainly you'll verify that that's actually what it says.
I was out with that guy when I turned on Carl. Yeah.
Turn turned on PBS one time and Nova was fixing to come on, and the first statement of his show was our cousins the trees.
I thought, I'm not kidding to a tree. Oh, he's going a little deeper, and you he was Cosmos. Yeah, he was going.
I think you fell into a trap that a lot of people fall in, probably like eighty percent of people, is that you're out with a Louisianna fishing guy that catches red fish every day of his life.
You assume that he really is an expert.
I know.
I mean, we all know that sometimes the people that are closest to a resource, that have grown up with it, come with all kind of preconceived biases, stuff they've been told their whole lot. And so you know, sometimes the guys that you think should know are too and they're not out nothing against Lousianna red fishing guys.
Well, yeah, I was raised by a squirrel hunter to be a squirrel hunter, and I was raised to know that this pine squirrels bit the testicles from other from fox squirrels, and I knew that, like like I knew my own name. And then you talk to a squirrel researcher and he says, I, I don't know what you're talking about. And then he gets back to you a couple of weeks later and says, I've really looked, and I just don't think that's true. The house of cards comes crumbling down.
Yeah, I've maybe not where you're from.
I've no doubt spread that around. You know, calb did one of my life's goals. But he did it on accident, so does that counts. He's got the photo. It's pretty cool, we know he did it. On accident though I did. It's like there will always be an asterisk next to cals right at it. No, it wasn't an egg. Okay, No I did not.
Yeah, we see a picture we were so it got a big, huge alligator guard, says a small person and we it was the first spot that we hit in the morning and being dadded by doctor Randall, we.
Just want to hear the don't want story.
You might need to trim down that side of the mustache to accommodate the anyway the travel podcast.
Yeah, first first spot in the morning. I have like a hang up with live bait when I'm just like donating bait right like there's something about uh, just waist or something.
Like using dozens of shrimp per hour.
Yeah, and I'm like this, this is not sustainable. I don't like it. What else you got type of thing? So we had one rod rigged up with a little paddle tale like exactly like you'd use for walleye and probably like a quarter around's jighead. And I said said to the guide, I was like, hey, can I throw that thing for a while? And He's like, yeah, you can see if you can get something on that. So I put one, rode away, picked up that thing, cast once, worked the bottom, cast again, work the bottom. There's kind of bait popping on the surface a little bit, so I went for a faster retrieve on you know, a little bit like mid column, and sure enough, like get whacked, like oh, and it just starts dragging, like pulling drag, And I'm like, oh, this has to be a big black drum because it's not like going crazy. It's just like pulling like a truck, you know, and uh, not a heavy duty rod reel set up by any means. And it's like really going and kind of have to work around the engine and then back over the other side of the boat. And finally it's like I'm gaining ground on it, and I'm not. I'm horsing it pretty good.
How's the guide treating this scenario?
Not with too much attention.
He's like, oh, yeah, let's see what you got there. And somebody did say gar because there were gar rolling on the surface, but I immediately was like, no, if I would have hooked a gar unless I foul hooked it, which is hard to do because they're so hard, so armor plated. I'm like, this thing would have popped off, broke the line a long time ago. But then probably less than a minute after that comment, fish comes up to the surface and here's this, you know, giant alligator gar And then.
How long do you think it was? Over five foot?
Probably right at five foot right in there in October. Yeah, that was this dude I fished with yesterday who's great, like you know, grew up out here.
Uh used to be commercial fisherman, super knowledgeable. He was complaining to me, so here you got all these redfish, trout, sheep said, offshore fish everything. He's complaining to me that he had just set a jug for alligator gar and his jug was gone, and I said, well what, And I'm thinking he's for whatever. I don't know why he's an alligator gar. So I'm like, what did you need an alligator gar for? Eat him? That's awesome, But then he tells me he don't, and he's picky because he don't eat speckled trout, which a lot of people come here. He's fishing all day for all these famous eating fish, and then he's after work trying to go get an alligator guar because that's like on the first that's what he wanted.
On the first day that I fished with him, with Mark, we went and looked for that jug we like.
On the way back.
On the way back to the marina, he was like, I gotta check this jug spot to see if it show back up. He's like, I set it out two days ago. JUG's missing. But he's got to be in here somewhere.
Yeah. I asked him if he thought someone horked it, and he thinks he thinks something got it.
I can tell you from where that thing was where we looked for it, no one came across it because we were just ripping through. We were ripping through channels that were narrower than the gunnals of the boat and all the way back in there. And I'd asked him earlier when we ran up a similar little channel. I said, I said, so, if another boat's coming down here, would you guys just stick it up in the grass or how do you how do you signal who's going to yield to who? And he goes, there's only two other people that drive these these channels. He's like, and I know both of them. But he didn't actually answer the question because he didn't clarify if he knew where they were at that moment.
At least we know somebody.
Odds, the odds are good, But you haven't quite satisfied my anxiety about this.
That dude told us the story that I'll just go tellics we're not we're not. We did our last camp, our last close calls thing. But check this out. So he used to have a buddy named Nam who was from Vietnam, and he was a refugee that came to the US after the end of Vietnam War, and they lived in the same what he called it. He showed me the village, which is not there anymore, but where he was brought up. And Nom was in his village. And when Katrina came, they had gone and checked on Noam multiple times to make sure they're on the same page that Nam is in fact leaving. He's going to evacuate, And everyone was understood that Nam was evacuating, and they had a plan put together. But then he doesn't evacuate. As the water's coming up, he first thing is gets and sits on his kitchen table as the water's coming up. Then he goes in into his attic. The water keeps coming up to the point where he swims, he gets a breath hold and goes back down and out his kitchen window. When he pops up, he realizes that his house isn't even where it was before he was unaware and all the turmoil that the house was drifting. So it's not that the water came up, it's that the house had left its foundation. He eventually grabs down. You know those glass balls on foam poles. He eventually gets hold of one of those, and there's so much junk coming by that he's a phrasingna get picked up in the debris. A tire comes by, He grabs the tire, holds on to the tire, and three miles later hits a fire station roof that's dry, and that's where he winds up.
And I think at one point he was at it up, hanging on to the top of a phone pole.
Yeah. Yeah, that insulator. Yeah, and on that truck tire eventually hit a roof and got out of the water.
Wow.
And he got played out on that and moved yea. And the guy told me, I don't want to divulge who he was because this is a personal story, but he tells you, we're talking about we're doing that whole you got kids, all that you married, and all that he's married. But he's telling me about a past relationship she didn't work out, and he says she was rough. And then someone hooks a fish. One of our guests hooks a fish. So then I'm spending hours hoping he comes back around, but I didn't want to prompt and eventually he came back around with more of an explanation. That was the most stressful period of my trip. I would compare it to the stress that Phil fields in the hardest working state in the Union, when people just aren't getting going on, when he's the only one what he needs to have happened done.
Yeah, that guy when he drove past, he showed us the village and it's just two gravel like aprons, and he's like, that used to be that road.
That used to be that road.
We're like, what did it look like when you get back and he's like, just like this and it's just grass. I mean, there's nothing there. And we said, did you ever find anything that you left there? They said, yeah, my work truck, or like, what's the story there? He goes it's over there and points out the water and he's like, it's still there, really, and that was it. He's like, he's like, my work truck ended up two hundred yards out in the water there and it's still on the bottom. It was just he he was incredible.
He said. He told me, I said, what was the name of the village.
He just called the village and they were called the village people like, not joking, And then he says it all the people that the marina has called him.
Yeah. And we get to this rushy corner and he says that was a beach that used to be a beach, and he says, a big alligator lay right there. Any points right across from the beach. He said, the alligator would always be there. It lived at sunned in that spot. And all the kids from the village swim in this spot. And he goes, I don't understand why they let us swim. And he even said it one day that alligator went up and ate one of the neighbors dogs. Yea, and they still didn't stop the kids from swimming in that spot. Oh, I love it.
We had nothing to land the alligator.
Guar with with the guard.
Isn't that funny?
Yeah?
No, those are worthwhile stories right in if you disagree, no.
Those are a great swim.
So that that was like, honestly, like the one of the more fun parts about the whole thing, because the whole time you're like, there's no way this fish is coming on. I was like, just feel fortunate that we got to confirm what it was and watching come out of the murk was so cool.
Could you tell where you had it hooked?
Yeah, right in the corner of the jaw, Like, no, that would have gotten to the Yeah. So that that mono leader that we all just heard the description of it was well outside of the tooth, the area and the scales, you know, the scales are so hard that it'll cut cut mono too. But so we took the bow line from the boat, right, so it's got a loop in it kind of made a lariat.
Uh the guy.
Uh, We put the loop over the end of the rod, fed it all the way down the rod, down the line to the gar.
I got I got confused, right, because what's the objective is to lasso the gar because we.
Get the jig back right, he put the net out there, Yeah.
Right, I understand. Now, so he passes the loop over the rod down the line and then lastles it.
Yeah, do a little hand, understand to get the rope down there. We're like, okay, we kind of did that.
That's good.
And he's like, now lift his nose up. It's like, well that we can't do that. It's not the rod's not stiff enough to get this prehistoric fish out of the water. But so he kind of got his hand in there and got the loop over the guard's nose. And then the gar kicked and I'm kind of like waiting for the rope to go top. Well, he never grabbed it and gave it a jerk, so the fish just swam straight through it.
It was.
So then it's like and then we go to throw it all over again. This time he sinches up, kicks a little bit. We haul him in the boat. Got a couple of pictures and yeah, I mean it was it was just so laughable like that, you know, you're like, look at this thing, and and it was actually pretty darn docile in the in the boat.
And uh, I'm guessing he was fine when you turn him loose, they don't seem like you face him too bad.
No, I gave him like the big shocking plunge, you know, and that thing just kicked like it was swimming all day. Yeah, but yeah, super super cool fish and ye had we were we were talking to uh about this study that came out just this year on evolution, right, and it was like, so a gar is a living fossil, as is like, and this is on fish as is like a seila cant as is uh. I guess you could say have Alina is too sand hill crane, but this study was on fish. So it was like tarping a couple other things to kind of see how they have changed. And they demonstrated that the long nose gar and the alligator gar have changed the least in and even so little. They're so genetically different or not different. Rather that even though the long nose gar came along like one hundred million years after the alligator gar, they can still have successful successful hybrid offspring. Really yeah, so it's like is it perfect evolution, right? It just got to a place of ultimate survivability that is just like no changes needed.
M Yeah.
The little windows update circle is like still spinning or not spinning.
Whatever.
Yeah yeah yeah, so yeah, no, that was that was super super cool.
All right, man. Well, thanks guys, stingray wrapping her up best for last, Krin, share your sting rays story, Krin, she was looking for mister Wright.
It's not really my stingray story. It was just that we were on a boat with two guests, Mark and Joe, and uh, Joe hooked onto something that you know, just gave him a It was a tussle and he ended up pulling in a really huge stingray. I don't in diameter. I don't know how big. Okay, Steve is whispering. It wasn't that big in the.
Way of stingrays. It was a pretty normal southern stingray.
I guess all day we had caught like a couple.
Do you know what the other what the more common stingray is here?
I don't know what this one is.
Now, be easy to find out. He caught a He caught a very normal southern stingray.
Okay, So then the one side caught were just tiny.
There were different species.
Oh, I see, Okay, but anyway, uh, I guess a lot of people don't know. You can eat him. And Steve has definitely cleaned his fair share, as you were telling me, And you call him a low yield, low yield critter. But I just really wanted to taste what they tasted like. I loved it.
It didn't get mopped up as quick as all the other fish that get served here.
Oh no, I mean we we yeah, we we ate that. So I guess you you cut him off. How would you describe it? It's like you cut into it's yeah, the side wings off.
Yeah, the wing, each of the wings has two flats on top of a cartilaginous collection of rays, I guess one would say.
And then on the you had like kind of thinner.
Yeah, low yield on top, low yield on bottom, better yield on top.
There was a lot of meat that came out of that fish, like yeah, for four people didn't even finish it.
And I will say the only reason it didn't get mopped up faster. I thought it was very good, but uh, there was a liberal because it would be the nice way of putting it food blackened, seasoning on the top.
That's what That's what I was struggling with. I quite liked it, but it was he had just Our chef has been phenomenal and very hard working and has done just a NonStop array of amazing food, but he got something got a little I think that he wasn't enthusiastic. He was he was very receptive to the Yeah, he was like, sure, I'll do anything, but I think that he might have been like, I'm going to put a little extra. He was skeptical, and I think he might have thought one going to.
He did tell a little extra season last night too, that that black seasoning that they had is not his, is not what he typically does because when that stuff like really chars, he thinks it gets even saltier. So you know, commony, classic chef's deal. Right, It's like, well, it's not what I usually am.
But there are certain and this is one of there are certain things where the yield is so low I want to feeling bad about it. Like have you ever cleaned a shovel nose uh sturge shovel nose sturgeon. It's like you get this big old cool fish and you clean You're like, geez, man, I feel like, yeah, I got like I'm here's like fifteen percent of the fish is in my hand.
Yeah, a spoon bill or paddlefish. You know, like if you're getting rid of the red meat man, you really feel bad about and raised.
Always you feel like you're done and it looks like there's still a ray lay in there. Never bothered me, but you're right bother me frog legs, Yeah, that hasn't bothered me. But yeah, yeah, frog is a low yield creature. But it doesn't bother me. But no, maybe it will. Yeah, it's just good. It's just intestines.
I know, are you guys going to fight over whether it tastes like scallop or not.
I'm going to do a bunch of research and I get a minute, and I'm gonna do a presentation.
An explanation of where it maybe came from. The table they were sitting with.
His grandfather had a special two that he had made twelve inches for real. I'm just trusting a nice gentleman that spent a week with us or three days with us, and it was sharpened on one end and he would punch the little scallop shapes out of the wings. But what I didn't know is that I would have thought they would have filayed it first and then done it, but they didn't. So maybe that's where that comes from, is because as a way to more easily process such a pain in the butt and able to process. They just punched little scallops out of it, and then they would just quickly cut cut their two pieces and then just cook them.
So maybe that's where that came from.
I know that little tool they're talking about because I had a biopsy taken with one of those, that little scallop one. But yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. That's a good idea, could be, could be it's a yeah they call it, you know how everybody down here, like everybody in the whole world started some years ago referring to a fish with its skin on is on the half shell, which is coming from oyster, like the whole world adopted that. Maybe calling it a scallop was because you're just cutting a little circle out and it looks it.
Has nothing to do with scallop.
Like they're trying to sell me fake scallops.
And they really weren't. They're just trying to eat raise.
That could be. Thanks for listening, everybody, Thank you, Phil, Thanks.
Bill, Bill, enjoy your afternoon in New Orleans.
I wish you around Boston. Phil rum Drink ever hardest working man in the hard working state