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Muskie Anglers Want This Technology Banned?
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Jul 10, 2025
Thank you to today's sponsors! - The Invasive Species Centre: Protecting Canada’s land and water from invasive species - SAIL: The Ultimate Destination for your Outdoor Adventures - J&B Cycle and Marine: Your Home for all things powersports, boats, and equipment - Freedom Cruise Canada: Rent the boat, own the memories - Anglers Leaderboard: Real-time AI angling platform where everyone is welcome, and every catch counts! On this episode of Outdoor Journal Radio, Ang and Pete regroup between shoots and get into some of the most pressing and controversial conservation topics in Canadian fishing today. The crew dives deep into the push to ban forward-facing sonar on Eagle Lake, debates the government's call for commercial fishers to kill up to 500 striped bass per day, and reflects on the legacy of the Fish’n Canada barbless hook initiative. Also up for discussion: new merch, listener feedback from Alberta, the “grass carp problem,” and why live scope is NOT a cheat code for catching fish. Plus, Pete gets nostalgic about family fishing trips, and Ang shares a personal story about George, the 12-foot boat tournament legend who shocked everyone.
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0:05
[Applause] This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio is brought to you in part by the Invasive
0:12
Species Center. Protecting Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom
0:18
Cruise Canada. Rent the boat, own the memories. And JMBB Cycle and Marine,
0:25
your home for all things powers sports, boats, and equipment. for Journal Radio.
0:33
Thank you. Down, down, down. Thank you. They like you and Wow. I appreciate that. Hell yeah. So, obviously it's not
0:40
for you as you haven't. Nobody wearing a new shirt a new short today. Come on
0:46
now. I haven't seen you wear that one. Oh, yeah. You can tell when the See the
0:52
little crinkles on it there? How many wash got? Yeah. Yeah. More days behind it than I had. You do your own wash?
0:58
Hell no. You don't? Sometimes, but not very often. I wash mine. I know. Sometime. I know. Not too often. My wife
1:05
is very, very good, diligent at that stuff. She's like, she's the ultimate wife. She's just the ultimate wife. For
1:11
a welder, you know, she's not bad. Yeah, you should teach that. Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to teach her how to do some
1:17
electrical. Be good. Little AC/DC going on. We're all right. Good. Uh, welcome
1:22
to the program. Uh he's Peter Bowman, VA, Nick, and Dean. Come on now. As per
1:28
usual, I'm Angela Biola. Uh we're going to talk about a whole bunch of things. We're kind of in between gigs. All
1:35
right. We're in between gigs. We're not We're We're I'm getting confused in this. We got one down, but we got a lot
1:41
more to go. So, we uh Why are you confused? Well, because now I'm trying
1:46
to think. I know we did one of these. The last one we did was on the road. on
1:53
the road again. Two of them. We did two on the road. Cedar Island. Both. Hawk
1:58
Lake and Cedar Island. Now, this one. Now, are they playing in order or how
2:04
does this work? Yeah, the people have seen those. Now, they have seen those. Yeah. We we we're past Hawk Lake and
2:09
Cedar. Yeah. Okay. And now is now. Well, because and next will be Muck probably
2:15
because you see I'm confused because the TV shows that we're doing now are for
2:21
2026, right? The podcasts that we're doing on the TV shows are playing in 2025.
2:30
And then we have this podcast which is 2025. We're pretty diverse,
2:36
Ang. Hey, around here. We uh we can do it all here, bud. man. Yep. Uh so anyway, so we thought we'd kind of take
2:43
this opportunity to kind of group back together and figure everything out. Some great news stories we got to talk to you
2:49
about. One is in particular from the east coast that we need to deal with. Uh that even that one from Eagle Lake,
2:55
they're both kind of important, right? You know what I mean? They're both huge. So it's funny how and we'll get to them
3:00
folks, but how negative news always has that big impact. You know, great positive news is okay, good, that's good. Okay, let's move on. negative to
3:07
some, positive to others because every news story has two sides, right? The side that you were on and the side that
3:14
somebody else is on. So, and and both of these stories have got two sides. Make no mistake about it. It's a bit of a
3:20
slippery slope in both cases and we want to talk to them in detail. You're right.
3:25
Uh but first, uh uh just want to if you haven't noticed the nice black and white. We are black and white. Simple
3:33
black and white today. the black Michael Jackson, right? Michael Jackson that is on black and white. That's right. I
3:39
think that's it. Uh Outdoor Journal Radio uh t-shirts which are very popular
3:46
the podcast for those of you who listen to Outdoor Journal Radio or watch it on YouTube for that matter uh religiously.
3:53
It would sound and feel and probably mean so much more if you were doing it uh outfitted like Mr. Bowman. And you
4:00
probably look a lot better than me in it too, I might say. So yeah. And then for those of you Fishing Canada fans, uh
4:06
this is the retro uh look um logo that was I think it was
4:12
put out the end of 86 if I'm not mistaken. Is that the absolute original? Is that the very first of all? This is
4:18
the No, the very first is the red, white, and blue version of this logo.
4:24
Right. Right. Right. But then shortly after that, he said, "We're not Americans." Exactly. Americans turned it
4:29
and turned it uh red. Trump did that, didn't he? I'm going to try and big train that back to you right now. I think a really big logo as he would say.
4:36
And then we went to the catcher limit and catcher catcher catch your limit but limit your cat.
4:42
It's easy for you to say that's what's on here. So anyways, just thought we would that's all available on fishing.com along with a plethora of
4:49
other goodies, hoodies, uh other t-shirts and just a a variety of other
4:54
things. New products. A variety of new products. There is a new I have it on good authority. There is a new uh
5:01
species hoodie coming out. It was a bit of a setback. In fact, while we were on the road at Eagle Lake, we got a proof
5:07
to look at. It's a long time ago at Eagle Lake. Not Eagle. The Eagle's in the news. Hawk. Hawk. Close though.
5:14
You're rap. Very raptorish lake. Very similar. Yes. Uh and it wasn't quite right, so we had to make some
5:20
adjustments. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I did see that one. The mockup. Yeah. It was a little Yeah. Cartoon. Yeah. We need
5:26
Yeah, we need to keep with this uh keep with this tape. We had to send it back and that's hopefully what we'll end up
5:31
with here at some point. Fishingcanada.com, the gateway, the portal to your next fishing adventure.
5:38
Yeah, indeed. What else is out there? Uh the news is there on fishcan.com. We'll
5:43
talk about that in a moment. Uh but first, uh listener feedback. You can take the poll, too, by the way, and tell us what you want to see. Tell us about
5:49
the poll. I keep missing Well, it'll be Dean to tell us because he knows more about it, but they can take the poll to tell us what what's with the poll. Yeah,
5:55
we have a poll on the store right now to try to figure out what people want to see there. We've been running it for a
6:00
while, but we always want the feedback like especially when we first open the shop, you know, when people go there,
6:06
we're not quite sure what they're expecting. But we still want to know, you know, is the shipping your concern? Is are you
6:12
looking to see other products or we just want to hear from So, if we got a if we got a majority, not a majority, multiple
6:18
choice, multiple choice, let's say 10 people, they had a comment and said, "I want to see a pike hoodie." Would we
6:24
consider that do you think? Sure. But we don't have that as a question. That's why I'm making that comment. You can
6:30
leave a comment. They can leave a comment in there. Oh, you can. Yeah. Yeah. If you type the last box, I think it says other and then it gives you an
6:37
option. And do people do that? Some people do. Some but the vast majority
6:42
just don't. Robots do it and all kinds of stuff into that. There you go, everybody. Beat the bots and put in your
6:48
little thoughts and words. Put your thoughts and beat the bots. There you go. It's a good slogan. Write that down. That's usable. We can make it like
6:54
that's a bunch of Don't we say everything we say we can
7:00
make a t-shirt out of it. Damn right. Got to make a buck somewhere for God's sake. Oh god, I hear you. Uh listener
7:06
feedback. Hurley lock 6460 via YouTube.
7:11
6460. Uh in response to um in response to But
7:17
this is what what like I'm confused. 14. Here we go. I am so confused because it
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says here in my notes that Hurly Lock 6460 via YouTube in response to and then
7:28
you've got his I typed it in white. I typed it in white. That's why you can't see it. Yeah, I had that invisible like
7:33
ink. It's code. Yeah, I picked the wrong for a certain color certain but it's supposed to be in response to our
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announcement that for we are officially going barbless. Thank you. There you go.
7:43
So in response to the fact that we at some point because I don't never know what's now and then and then and past
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and future. Yes. At some point we did say that uh due to
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a chance meeting I had at the Toronto sportsman show
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uh with an audience member. Never got his name. You didn't get his card or anything? I got his card. You But you
8:07
know what the problem with that is? You don't have you don't know where you put the card. And I told what I do remember is that
8:14
when he gave me his card, I said I really appreciate this, but the chances of me finding this card when it's
8:21
meaningful is as good as Pete Bowman would find it too, right? Cuz we won't find that kind of stuff. Now, was he a
8:27
fan also of the podcast? Cuz if so, he's listening right now and he could get in touch with us. It was just a TV. All I
8:34
know is that he said, "Due to buying in to you guys on the Fishing Canada show,
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uh, all my camping equipment is made by Coleman, I wear my life jacket
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religiously on the boat." Like he went through the whole thing. He says, "You guys, when you say you're doing
8:53
something and you mean it and do it, I buy in as does most of the audience were his words." So that being the case, you
9:01
guys are are, you know, are still harping on catch and release, which he said, I bought into. The only thing we
9:07
need to do now is to really facilitate a little better catch and release chance
9:14
of the fish living is to remove the barb from our hooks or to bend them down. And
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he and it just, you know, I mean, we've talked about this for eons. We've we've fished in fisheries that are barless.
9:26
we've done it ourselves and and we always say, "Man, this is so much easier without the bar, both on the fish and
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you, the angller and then we just go on our busy lives and and forget about it." Well, he said, "You guys did such a good
9:39
job of boat safety with the life jackets. You did such a good job at catch and release, period, to convince
9:44
us all to put fish back. Why don't you take that final little tiny step and get
9:52
rid of the barbs on your hooks? we'll get rid of the barbs and our hooks and the world will be a better place for the
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fish. And he said that and man, it just resonated with me. I don't know why, but
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something happened. And I said to him, Bill, Frank, Bob, whatever his name was,
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Jimmy, you're on to something and we are going
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to do it. We're going to do it. And uh we didn't I don't think we've succeeded.
10:19
We've tried our hardest, but we haven't succeeded well enough with the life jacket thing. That's for sure. It's it's cuz I think Billy, Bob, Jimmy, there is
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a rare one still to this day. There's not, let's be honest, we have not brought the majority to wearing life
10:32
jackets all the time. No way. I think I'll disagree with you. I think hardcore
10:37
hardcore hardcore anglers wear their life jacket when they drive the boat and then they
10:42
take it off to fish. Not all of them. A lot of them. The hardcores. A lot of them, if they wear it at all. Well, let
10:49
us know. See, he thinks that it's not working. This this gentleman that I met at that show said that it was working
10:57
and he in turn has convinced all of his circle of people. That's what we need that whenever they're on the water
11:04
jacket. Nobody goes on his boat without a life jacket on. That's just because you guys do that. I'm doing it. I think
11:10
that there's more of those than than not. I got lots of ideas I got to talk to that guy about. Well, if you do it
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all, we could have a we could set some good stuff up. Some good. So that's why when he said the the barbless thing, it
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just made sense. It makes sense. So we're going to try it. We've launched it. Uh so far we were batting I think
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about 60%. It's a very difficult thing to do. Um,
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unless unless you get total buy in from the whole group here and we start
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munching down our barbs on all of the baits that we have and just make it
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mandatory, which we should, which we may still to try and do it out in the field while
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you're fishing and pulling out new baits and you know some something just happened.
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It's it's just hard to do. Sometimes you just you go brainless. say go. Exactly. You know, absolutely
12:06
happens. So, I think the only way that it's going to work is the same way that we did with life jackets. We got a whole box of barbless hooks in the uh in the
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boat right now. There you go. Matter of fact, that's a good place. I'm saying it's like having like having life
12:18
jackets life jackets in the bottom of the boat. Well, no. This is this is one step closer to the edge. Okay. I'm about
12:25
to break. Anyways, um did we even read the uh No, not even a word yet. Okay. on
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and on and on and on and on. In response to that, uh Hurley is saying, "I think
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fishing barbless is like everything else. Use your life jacket, for example. If it's not governmentmandated, we will
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have minimal buyin." And I been saying that for years. So, I just said about the life jackets, you have minimal
12:50
buyin. Yeah. I know where my life jacket is at all time, but it took years for full buyin. If fish barbless, I fish
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barb I fish barbless about half the time. And it's one of those things where I think about it. It'll pinch down the
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barbs about half the time he thinks about it. And I don't I I will said that's exactly what you said there.
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Yeah. I will say though that if you have good technique and I would say even more
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importantly good rods and reels. I see I I don't Anyways, um and matched
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to the fish and bait uh for using I think your catch rate is the same. Thank
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you early. Thank you. cuz I that's what I've been saying all along. You mentioned lake trout may be difficult,
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but that's the fish that I use barbless more than any summer and ice fishing and I rarely lose a fish. I can't comment on
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bass because I live in Alberta and never had an opportunity to fish for those. I like your challenge to fish barbless and
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I will you I will also put forward a better effort to fish barbless and I personally would support a mandate for
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barbless but not before a life jacket mandate. Yeah, good point. Get it done, government. LOL. Good point. Wonderful.
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I That's one of the nicest uh best letters we've gotten. One of the bestest
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I agree on everything you said. Yeah. So, God, I wonder if that life jacket thing will ever go in our in yours in my
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lifetime of our voting. Mandating. Mandating is the only way. Well, I said, will it will it be mandated? I don't
14:23
think so. It just it seems to be stalled. It's so ridiculous when you think about it. You can't drive your car
14:29
without seat belts on. Yeah. And that didn't take long to fix up. They did it and it was done and now everybody does
14:34
it automatically. Don't even think about it. I'm kind of surprised cuz it would bring in a lot of money too. Like how many people they would find right off
14:40
the bat for it. Oh yeah. Like I'm surprised they wouldn't like they seem to want to find people for things. Maybe
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that's the I don't know about that, but maybe that's the problem. Maybe maybe you know some bureaucrats are looking at
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it and saying, "Oh my god, are you serious? How are we going to patrol that?" Right? That's what they're
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thinking. However, what they're not thinking is that it would be so much easier to monitor that than it is now.
15:04
Now, in order to find out if you comply, which means you have to have a flotation device in the boat for every one of the
15:11
people in the boat, you have to physically go stop the boat,
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instruct everybody on what they're going to do, have somebody open up all the compartments, pull out all of the
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flotation devices, make sure that they're all coordinated with the people that are in the boat, and then make a
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decision whether this boat or boater complies or not. With the new mandated
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rule that could go into effect, you could have a guy with binoculars scoping a whole lake almost and seeing right
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away who complies and who doesn't. And then dispatching somebody, okay, there's a blue runabout over there. No life
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jackets. Get them done. But now they can't do that. They physically have to stop you. And that is
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a lot of time. What? 15, 20 minutes by time to start to finish. Yeah, for sure.
16:01
For sure. as opposed to just saying, "Hey, he he doesn't have flight jackets on." Okay, boom. You're done. Write them
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up. You don't even have to check the boat. Hell, you could write them up in advance of approaching him.
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Not that I not that I would suggest that, but you know what I mean. It' be so much easier. God. Yeah. Yeah.
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Absolutely. We We've all been pulled over. Well, a lot of us, everybody in this room's been pulled over before for,
16:25
you know, checking the boat safety. I think I don't know if it stopped them pulling over because I get pulled over
16:30
with my life jackets on. You know, you got your lights over. They want to talk to Peter Bowman. I had that one time.
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That was cool. That's the only reason. That was awesome. The copper pulled me over and he says, "I know you're good. I got life jacket." Romance for you out
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there. Is that is that Peter Bowman? No way. On the fish is I've seen him on TV.
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That's why they pull you over. Yeah, that's why they pull me over. Especially the good-looking female cops. Yeah. That's you know. Oh my. Exactly. Uh
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interesting in his comment in uh in that comment too he mentioned he's from Alberta. Yeah. Alberta bound. And
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Alberta has a lot of uh I think they're they're far ahead of
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some of the other provinces in terms of conservation and catch and release and you know management fisheries
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management. I'm surprised there there aren't more barbless lakes in Alberta. There may Obviously there not because he
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says he does it about half the time. If he was if he was a law-abiding citizen doing this he'd be doing it all the time, right? So, it must be certain
17:24
lakes that don't have it. I I would assume you're right. The remember all the walleye stuff they were lake by lake
17:30
doing different limits and watching. Remember the they were checking every boat coming out of the at the boat ramp
17:35
there checking all the boats. Were they not barbless those lakes we were at? I don't think so because you caught one
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without any bait on a hook. No. Yeah. I don't know if there was I don't
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know if I I think they're a barb because we were using those u preserved minnows and they would never stay on without a
17:53
barb, right? Remember, right? Those chunks of meat that would just be they'd fly right off. Uh food for thought.
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We're certainly going to attempt uh the the 40th anniversary uh season
18:05
which will start uh January, early January of 2026. We will start uh attempting. We're not
18:12
going to hit 100%. I don't think. Well, I know I know we're not going to hit 100% right now. We're certainly going to
18:19
talk about it more and we're going to strive towards eventually hitting 100% on um the barblessness of our baits.
18:26
Barblessness. Barblessness. Five times as fast as you can. So, thank you. Barblessness. Barblessness.
18:32
Barblessness. Faster. Faster. Uh Hurley Lock 6460 via YouTube. Dean, does he get
18:38
anything for that wonderful question? No, there's no question mark on any of Oh, hurly. You're not too burly. He'd
18:44
have won that. He'd have won that for sure. All right. Wasn't really a question really. It was just a good
18:50
comment. It's a very lengthy good. Oh my. Here we go. Conservation Corner brought to you by the good folks at
18:57
Invasive Species Center. Why are you guys laughing? I'm very serious. Your presentation just the way you know your
19:03
presentation. We're going to talk about uh one of my favorite uh species to hate
19:09
and that is the grass carp. Yeah. It has completely occupied uh my life over the
19:15
last couple of years cuz has it? Uh totally, totally. I am so concerned about this. I'll tell you why. Because I
19:22
think now we're getting close to having more angr encounters with these things.
19:29
I believe. Wow. You're close. It's going to happen. It's going to happen uh this
19:35
year. I think this year before the end of this fishing season, we're going to have like one or two or lots, do you
19:41
think? Uh what's your feeling on this deal? My feeling is that some
19:46
would describe it. Less than five for the year 2025. Less than 10. Less than
19:51
10. Yeah. Which which is very significant. It's huge. It's massive. They had eight or nine. That'd be huge.
19:58
And the reason being for those of you who may not know obviously the grass carp is an invasive species that is threatening our natural species such as
20:06
pike and walleye and bass both species of bass uh even pan fish for that
20:11
matter. trout, trout, everything, you know, everything is affected by them for the simple reason that they will consume
20:16
their body weight each and every day in vegetation, which is essential to those
20:22
other species for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is for foraging, of course, reproduction,
20:29
um, protecting itself from other predators. Well, when that vegetation is gone, as we've seen, for example, on
20:35
Lake of the Woods with the rusty crayfish, another beast, right? Another beast. And what what have they done?
20:40
They've mowed down the vegetation so that they could better see their prey. Get rid of that. They forested the whole
20:46
area. That's it. Deforested the whole area. Isn't that bizarre? It's crazy. Wonder what would survive more. If you
20:52
had grass carp, grass carp, zebra muscles, and rusty crayfish. Those are the only three
20:59
species in a lake. Who's going to last the longest? Well, let's look at that. So, grass carp consume vegetation to
21:06
survive. Do they? But they also consume don't they take zup plankton a bit too and all that stuff a bit de I don'tation
21:13
I don't think intentionally I think they just kill their feet when it goes in their main source of food is from
21:18
vegetation that's why zebra muscles are zup plankton exactly and the little crayfish vegetation and crayfish he said
21:26
the cray he doesn't eat vegetation but he gets kills it though he he kills it so he can see crayfish consume the food
21:31
of the grass carp exactly so let's look at that this is like that contest you know you put a gorilla against the
21:38
rhinoceros. So I saw a water buffalo, Cape Buffalo against the rhinoceros the other day. Yeah, Cape Buffalo was
21:44
pushing him around. Then all of a sudden the rhino says, "Okay, piss on this." Just flipped them over like a pancake. I
21:49
think in this case that the rusty crayfish, wow, would be the eventual
21:55
winner. My opinion, he would benefit from everything else going on. Think about it. By mowing down vegetation,
22:01
he's starting to affect the grass carp, right? Eventually, he would affect the grass carp because the grass carp's he's
22:08
outsourcing the work, right? So, he can do whatever he wants while the grass carp does its thing and
22:14
then it moves in and and eats the other crayfishing area. There you go. So, rusty crayfish would win that battle.
22:20
Win that battle and then what about the zebras? Funny we're talking about three invasive species. That's bizarre. Yeah.
22:27
Uh, zebras probably would hang in there because there's got to be They probably be the longest of them all probably cuz
22:34
there's got to be some phytolanton, zoo plankton, whatever that will survive a poor Exactly. vegetation uh world. Going
22:41
to be algae blooms. There's going to still be something like that, I would think. Maybe. I don't know. There's a movie there. There's a movie to be made
22:46
there just waiting to happen. But anyways, in the meantime, uh we as anglers can do our part. Very simple. Uh
22:53
just arm yourself with all the knowledge that you can about grass carp. Uh understand uh where they would live,
22:59
what they prefer, how they feed, uh most importantly what they look like cuz a
23:06
lot of us probably would have a hard time identifying them out in the field, right? Yep. Go to Asiancarp.ca. I'm on
23:13
there right now. You they got all kinds of pictures and there's all kinds of Andrew just talking about habitat this side of that, the other size. You can
23:19
learn a whole lot about grass carp on that site. That'll it for that. This episode is
23:25
brought to you by Sale. Sale is proudly Canadian and stocked with over a 100 Canadian brands you know and love. From
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outdoor supertore. JB and Cycle Marine, Ontario's largest Princecraft Mercury,
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uh dealer in I'm saying in the land. I know that there are some discussions
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going to mention them. Isn't that awful for me? Ontario's largest. Everybody know what's Ontario's largest. That's we know that for a fact. uh JNB Cycle and
25:09
Marine. Now, if you're looking for them on the internet, because they do have some great value and packages on the internet that you can uh either purchase
25:16
or at least get all the information prior to making your purchase. Uh the URL is JNB
25:24
JB, sorry, there's no and right Dean? Yeah, there's no and there's no and so. So, it's JB Cycle.com.
25:31
Is it JB Cycle and Marine? No. No. See, they completely changed their name for the URL. It's got to be easy, right?
25:38
Just like you made it sound there. Just like I what? Like you made it sound there. Really? See, they're going to
25:44
redo their whole website now. God. And she's got it in front of him and he can't get it right. Holy JB
25:50
cycle.com. You got her, buddy. No. N and no. Uh Marine. No. Lot dropped a lot of stuff
25:56
out of there. Should be just JB. They probably had that tried for that, but it was uh taken. JB.com. JB. I don't know.
26:03
Anyways, this segment is brought to you by JNB folks uh at JB. All right. Uh and
26:08
the story is led by Eagle Lake Conservation Group. Eagle Lake Resorts. Oh boy. I didn't even know there was an
26:14
Eagle Lake uh conservation group called Eagle Lake Resorts. Lo, they're local businesses and angller Steve Herbeck and
26:22
Cal Richie. I believe they've been on the Ugly Pike podcast. Steve Herbeck is is is major major in the legendary world
26:29
for sure. Legendary major league. So, and from up in that area, right? Obviously, musky capital of probably of
26:36
the world, too, up in that area, right? Northwest Ontario for sure, but Eagle Lake is right prime right in there. So,
26:41
anyways, they posted a slogan uh that goes uh protect the tradition, preserve
26:46
the challenge on E Lake, although I'm sure starting
26:52
there, it will spread out in other areas. And um it's all about
27:00
either eliminating or controlling the use of forward- facing sonar. Correct.
27:05
And we've gone down this road before in the last year. Time and time again, buddy. We're on it all the time, right?
27:10
We're always we're defending it because we use it, but some people are totally against it. And this is especially for
27:16
open water deep muskies. That's the big concern, right? Because they're these are fish that normally if you caught
27:22
them, you would do just random trolling. You get them on your side, too. You can see them on. Nobody ever complains about that though. And you can see them very
27:28
well on your side. Or even on traditional. Exactly. How many musky anglers to this day are just on
27:33
traditional and they can pinpoint a musky anywhere in the in the water? Absolutely. Mark a waypoint, come back
27:38
to him five times through the day and eventually catch them. We know who does it on a regular. He's made a living out
27:44
of it. I talked to him today as a matter of fact. So yeah, and about that too about the the fact of traditional for
27:51
muskies. So, um, but you don't ever hear complaint about that, do you? So, it's kind of So, what's up with this? What is
27:57
up with this? Well, I think maybe for the maybe the not the
28:02
the Herbex of the world because these guys are so good and all that, but for this person that just wants to go out and catch musky and for the first time
28:09
in their life, they don't know how to handle the fish maybe or or they're somewhat amateur and they're going to go out there and start picking them off
28:15
like pros is what they're thinking. I don't know, you know. And then, do they handle the fish right? Okay. But that
28:20
that's post catching the fish, right? This is all taking place pre. Do you
28:25
honestly believe that a good musky angler
28:30
armed with either traditional or side finding equipment on his boat is any
28:36
less apt to make contact with that musky than the angller who's got forward
28:42
facing. Well, to be honest, yes, you do. Well, tell me tell me about your Give me your
28:47
feelings. Open up. Open up. Give me your feelings. It's like it's like pulling teeth out. It's not pull It's not my feelings. Give me my experience. What's
28:53
your experience? My experience with forward facing is is the the simple fact that you are looking for fish and you
29:00
are looking for them in a big vast area compared to the sideinder. Yeah, it's a big vast area. It's all behind you. It's
29:07
all this is anywhere you want. In front of you, beside you, behind you, the whole nine yards suspended close to the
29:13
bottom, close to the surface. It's very easy to see fish on forward facing sonar. So, so that's the difference
29:18
between traditional is history. That's the problem with it. Side finding is that it's not in front of you. See,
29:24
traditional is not history. It's history. Not. See, we used it on lake trout last week and it worked great on
29:30
lake trout. But that's only because we were able to stop. That's right. And deploy our forward facing in this case
29:36
facing downward our life scope. I I myself thought by looking at both screens that the traditional was
29:42
actually better and more effective than the life scope was on those on those stationary lakers cuz those ones that
29:48
are high up that come around the boat you can see them when it comes under the boat while there's other ones that you're looking at down the bottom come
29:53
up that 30-footer and you pop them like that. So I think there is still a good place for traditional and of course
29:59
traditional is great for driving your boat and finding structure and safety and everything else. You know what I
30:05
mean? Preserve for that. I I think from a fish catching standpoint, yeah, uh it it's history only in in the sense that
30:12
your information is coming from back here sometime both in time and position,
30:17
right? Whereas forward facing is anticipating what's about to come. So
30:23
that would be the only. But my question is this, do you honestly believe that a
30:28
proficient musky angler is less apt to catch that? Because first of all, you
30:33
have to have a fish in that environment. You have to there is a fish there. Correct. If if a musky angller who knows
30:41
his stuff, his or her stuff is using traditional sonar,
30:47
do you think they are less apt to catch that fish which is in that environment? Both both scenarios has the fish within
30:54
that environment. Do you think that that musky angler without forward facing is
31:00
at a disadvantage versus the one who has forward facing or live scope? You're
31:05
saying in that area? I can't I don't that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about these open water rors. They're talking about this big
31:11
area of 500 yards. If you got an area of 500 yards, you're going to you're going to be able to do a better job with
31:16
forward facing. You are you know that. Well, you've used it a thousand times. Yes and no. Yes and no. My point is that
31:24
in order to get that fish in the boat, it ain't going to get done with forward
31:30
facing sonar. It ain't going to get done with traditional. It ain't going to get done with any of the above. My point is
31:36
you got to have the parts first, of course. Right. We're talking musky, right? Right. We're talking locating
31:42
fish. Of all fish, I think personally of all fish, I think this is the one that
31:49
we really need to think this out before we just start throwing. We need to ban
31:54
it. Absolutely. Because there are other species as you and I know where I think it's going to become an issue at some
32:02
point like smallmouth bass and like walleye because I think forward facing
32:08
sonar is a huge freaking walley quick very quick story on that. We were
32:14
fishing on uh pipe uh is it pipe stone? Pipe stone. Pipe stone lake last week last week and uh and I were in the boat
32:21
and there was a pod of about seven or eight walleye sitting on live scope and this is going to prove the fact they
32:27
were sitting there an hour of fishing these fish and we couldn't catch one. It was like a oh let me throw I told Dean
32:33
we threw a slip float over top of their heads with a nice little le and we could see them. They were there. They sat
32:39
there and do nothing. Okay, how you doing there Bowman and Viola? have a good day there while you're here. So that's the point I'm trying to make. I
32:45
know you see you could locate locate them but you can't catch them maybe. Exactly. You still have to put them in the boat. Yeah. And by the way they were
32:53
using that picture. That guy that's Captain Mike a musky expert and that's some Lugan that's obviously using forward facing. So that's our picture.
33:00
Yeah. In in the news story. In the news story. Wow. Dean found that today. And what are they saying? They credited uh
33:06
Ontario Ontario Travel. Yeah. So they must have had that in their brochure or something like that. So look at that.
33:12
The point I'm trying to make is uh by the way, it looks like I'm ready to set the hook here or I've just set the hook.
33:18
Are you farting? Somebody needs to like let me know when that's about to happen. Or you had a couple of wobbly pops maybe
33:26
tied into that maple whiskey or whatever that is. You drink blueberry blueberry pie or whatever that is. Um,
33:34
so yeah, so we're we're everybody seems to be jumping on this forward- facing
33:39
sonar and I would like to ask if
33:44
possible. Are these people familiar with what this is? I think a lot of them
33:50
don't use it. I That's That's what I'm trying to say. I hear more criticism from it of people who don't have it than
33:56
do. I I feel like the issue with the musky guys with this is that they're
34:01
hearing about people who are getting into musky fishing who don't need to like really cut their teeth on getting
34:08
skunked 100 times and then finally figuring a lake out. Like they're kind of skipping a little bit of the learning
34:14
process. And I think that makes like some old school musky guys kind of mad. Like these guys are these guys learned a
34:21
lot of these fish bass. They didn't have to go out and get skunked a million times. That's part of m That's part of
34:26
musky fishing, right? That whole effort that I always said they're the hardest core anglers in the world. Those guys are in fresh water. Let's just say the
34:32
those guys and girls nowadays um they go out in November, December, freezing,
34:39
busting ice to get out there throwing those baits or trolling or what just freezing their butts off all day to get
34:45
a follow and say and then say, "Oh, that was a good day. Maybe tomorrow will be a little better, too." You know, there that's a hardcore angler to do that
34:51
right there. So, here's the points. Some of the quickly the points in this thing is that don't sharpshoot deep water
34:56
fish. Avoid targeting fish with force over in deep or open water. These fish are at risk to more stress and injury
35:04
such as barat traa. I guess depends on how deep it is, right? Don't road hunt
35:09
using a gas motor while scanning with forward facing sonar. Respect. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop there for a minute.
35:15
Stop there for a minute. So, this guy makes it sound like like forward- facing
35:21
sonar gave birth to the notion of using your gas motor to find a fish. Exactly.
35:26
Like before then, what did we do? We walked around on the surface of the lake. Like we didn't use our motor to to
35:31
find them. Moses, we parted the water. Watch them down. There they are down there. I know. I know. I know. I get it.
35:37
It's all part of learning how to use the equipment, right? You just use it. So, respect depth limits. Do not target
35:43
muskies deeper than 25 ft. Limit all fish, by the way. Shouldn't just be muskies. Handling, reduce time out of
35:49
the water. Of course, that's all fish. Again, uh keep them wet. Unhook your fish in the net. That's sonar. Sonar
35:55
didn't have anything to do with that. Be prepared. We uh have the proper tools, blah blah blah blah blah. So, that's
36:01
their little pamphlet says. Yeah, I think especially reading that, I think they're more talking to new anglers who
36:06
maybe buy scope and they spot like a big mark out 25 ft. Wait a minute. Wait a
36:12
minute. Are you telling me that in your world you see a place where a brand new
36:18
angler who's never fished before is going to run out and invest 5 to 10 15 $20,000 in forward facing sonar
36:25
equipment on his boat? Not necessarily a new angler, but a new musky angler. Like even someone like me, I don't musky fish
36:31
ever, but if I turned my sonar and saw a huge mark out in 30 ft, I'm going to be like, whoa, how can I catch that thing?
36:37
Not and if I'm not But even you, let's take you for an example. Sure. Let's use you. You're a great example. Sure. We're
36:44
not. You are a great example. Would you spend 10 $12,000 to equip your
36:50
boat with the latest technology for forward viewing sonar? Seriously. Now,
36:57
don't make anything up because of who you are and and what you are represent to the fishing community. I would deck
37:03
out a super cheap johnboat with Liv Scope. I wouldn't invest in a boat
37:10
because I can't afford that. But I would make a little boat as efficient as possible with live scope. I think that's
37:16
what I would do. Okay. All right. And that guy who like me, if I'm have no
37:23
idea about musky fishing, don't know how sensitive they are, like obviously I know that stuff, but someone in my shoes
37:29
who just points their sonar out to deep water and sees a huge mark and then I all of a sudden I'm hooking musky and
37:35
don't know what to do with them. I think that that I think that's what they're scared of. I I I think that Mr. Bowman
37:43
and I have spent as much time on the water since this
37:49
technology was introduced as the next guy. I I'm going to go out on a limb and say that with this technology I'm
37:56
talking about, we have spent as much time on the water hunting for fish as the next guy. And I got to tell you, if
38:01
you think that forward- facing sonar or live scope in that case, all you have to do is just put it on
38:08
your boat and the boat automatically goes through these fish. There's apparently fish everywhere that you Oh,
38:13
they're there. Just get that one, Pety. Let's go over and get that one, Pety. It hasn't changed anything for us. The only
38:19
thing that's changed is that we can now see them. We still have to go find them. Some of them. Some of them we can't see.
38:25
The rest The rest we can't see. we see a very tiny little sliver of what's going
38:31
on out there. And as Pete just alluded to, that does not mean those fish are
38:37
caught. In fact, most of the time they're not caught. So,
38:44
and and now let's equate that to musky. Probably the most cunning of all
38:49
predators in terms of being able to coax into a boat. I think that's amplified by
38:55
a hundred. So, I got to disagree with this, man. I And it's not because I love this
39:02
technology. It's not because we use it religiously. It's not
39:08
because we're fortunate enough to have it. It's because I really don't think it's any different than the graphite rod
39:14
or the electric trolling motor. It's it's the evolution of fishing really. It's just the evolution of the sport. I
39:20
do wonder also um I'm kind of surprised musky are taking like the first initiatives towards it because it's
39:25
almost 100% catch and release. So if any fish could s like, you know, I understand uh if you're worried about
39:31
like depleting a walleye fish, meat hunters. Yeah, you're worried about meat hunters. The meat the meat guys aren't coming in and eating. The musky guys
39:37
aren't meat hunters. Like I said, they're hardcore at their game and they're very hardcore at catch and release and putting back their every
39:43
fish they've ever caught. Right. I wonder how many serious big- time musky
39:50
hunters that are listening to this program right now would agree with the notion that it is a tool that should be
39:57
banned from that activity or is this as you alluded to earlier Dean is this you
40:04
know most people that don't have it read about all these stories and of course the big tournament
40:10
pros in the US with their their forward facing sonar are during bass tournaments
40:16
looking for bedding fish and all that. I wonder how how many of those are being influenced into thinking, yeah, I think
40:22
we should just ban I haven't got one, but I think we should ban it. There is something to be said too that saying
40:28
publicly that it should be banned gets you a lot of attention. Exactly. Like it's it is a very attractive thing to
40:35
put online, cottage associations, etc. that of course it definitely sparks you know
40:40
what I mean some views. So, Eagle Lake Resorts. Yeah. Local businesses. Mhm.
40:48
Wow. I'm really I'm really perplexed over this. And maybe it's just me. Maybe
40:53
it's just this us because we do happen to be big believers in this technology
41:00
just like I was a big believer in all. I fell for every single one of them by the way throughout.
41:06
Oh my god. Dr. Hill with the color selector. Give me a break. I have I I
41:11
won't even tell you how much I've invested in that through the years. Okay. Uh but that's because that's the
41:18
angller in me, right? We always want to experiment with something new. You know, fishing is is what it is today
41:26
because we haven't figured it out because we don't have all the pieces in
41:32
the puzzle. And therefore, every day if we're given an opportunity to find one more little piece that we can put into
41:40
the equation that will help us better understand because honestly, yeah, we may sound like we understand it
41:46
and we know exactly what there is to fishing. But that would be so false. And
41:52
the reason that we're still at it 40 years later, by the way, is because we don't understand it. Exactly. Because every day we're push we're compelled to
41:59
learn more about them. And I think forward- facing sonar is just another
42:04
one. In 10 year, five years from now, forget 10 because the technology will be so old, antiquated. In five years from
42:10
now, we won't be talking about this. There will be five other things. Oh god. That we'll be talking about banning because uh somebody says it's an unfair
42:18
advantage. There is nothing in the fishing community right now, as far as I'm concerned, short of electroshocking
42:27
that I think is unfair in terms of a tool. I can't think of anything. Is our
42:34
300 Mercury on the back of our boat unfair because we can get to places that other people guy with a 99 can't. Can't.
42:41
It's unfair to the guy with the 99. Maybe if if it's a contest, but it's not a contest. We use it because we can fish
42:47
more water. we can eliminate more of the areas that don't have fish and therefore hopefully put ourselves in the areas
42:54
that do have fish and therefore hopefully maybe with a little bit of luck from above we can catch a fish or
43:00
two. And that guy with the 99 he might catch more than us cuz they might be all right there. We just traveled 200 miles
43:06
down the lake. He's going to get them all right there. Do you remember fishing a tournament on Skooog a 100 years ago
43:14
and the guy who won it was fishing out of a 12T tin boat with a cooler and one
43:21
of those pumps in the cooler to make it a live well? Do you don't remember? No, but I do remember the Hartman brothers
43:27
started out like that, didn't they? Didn't they have aluminum? This was far more antiquated than that. Oh, really? Oh, like this was and I I I want to say
43:36
George I want to say his name was George. Yeah, I do remember Big George.
43:41
We call him Big George, I think. Yeah. Remember little Coleman cooler in the middle of his 12 foot old beat up tin
43:47
boat with a little 99 on it. Well, guess what? Guess what we had? We all had the
43:52
big fancy glass boats with the V6s at that time on them. And we had all the electronics that God would allow us to
43:59
have back then. And every fishing rod and tackle known to mankind. This guy whooped our ass.
44:06
You remember that? Yeah, I do remember George. Do you remember what he did? No. Slop or something. He went through the
44:12
causeway. Oh, because at that time there was no out of bounds. So he went all the way down the the the blastoff was at
44:19
Cesaria. So you can imagine what it took him to come all the way down to Port 99.
44:24
You know that big man in the boat. He went through the causeway and caught a limit of 4 lb bass in the first hour.
44:31
the only hour he had to fish cuz that's all he had time for was an hour and then he had to head back cuz it was three hours back. Oh my god. And he won the
44:38
tournament. There you go. I had all the technology that that money would buy.
44:44
So George kicked her ass. Hey. I don't I remember him. Great guy. Yeah, I do
44:50
remember about him. The name. She said George. I remember. I'll never forget when that weigh-in time came because
44:55
we're all, you know, with our big fancy and our shirts and our logos and all cover and used to have coverall overall,
45:00
you know, we got to get the limelight and all that and we're weighing in and George was kind of hovering at the in
45:06
front of the weighin and everybody's what the hell's he waiting for out there and we're all weighing in and then the
45:11
rumors started spreading saying, you know, that he's got a load of fish. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, get him over here.
45:16
I'll never forget when he opened up the lid of the cooler, you couldn't see the bottom. It was all green.
45:24
Talk about embarrassment. My god. Good for George. Hey, all that to say, you
45:30
still have to put him in the boat. Yeah, for sure. I will tell you for keen
45:35
anglers out there listening in, what this technology does do, it changes the game a little bit. And for those of us
45:42
who maybe have been at this way too long, it added a kind of an exciting new
45:47
element to the sport. It it really did add a lot for Ang and I and if it's just
45:53
us two, but we know it's not just us two. We know it's everybody, right? Yeah. Even for me, like I have a lake
45:58
I've been going to my whole life. And I took Liv Scope up two years ago for the first time. And it changed the way I saw
46:04
the whole lake. Like there were there were fish in places I didn't know they existed. They were moving in places I
46:10
didn't know they went. And it was there's weeds, there's trees, there's rocks, there's cover structure,
46:16
everything. Everything. Bait. Now you're starting to see what bait looks like. It just it's it adds a fun element, too.
46:23
Not just a learning thing, but it has a fun element to it, too. You're kind of looking away. Why is that this and that
46:28
and the other? Every once in a while, not often enough, but every once in a while, it all comes together. Y and what
46:36
I mean by that is that now you can attribute that particular fish to being caught because of this new technology
46:43
every once in a while. Not often enough. Yeah. But Pete just alluded to a case in
46:49
point that we were confronted with last week or the week after where we knew there were eight walleye. We knew
46:55
specifically the species cuz this technology allows you to kind of to
47:01
understand it once then you know it's a patternish. We knew that they were walleye
47:07
and we knew exactly where they were and for two hours we worked like nobody's
47:15
ever worked before to try and get them and then boom finally got one. Got one. The first
47:22
one we got first one we got was 50 ft away from the school of fish too. Remember that big one. He's like where
47:28
did he come from? So at that moment, the satisfaction that we got
47:34
from putting it all together, being able to put them all together, we finally hit
47:40
it, right? That probably would not have happened had we not had forward facing
47:46
been gone. We'd have been gone a long time ago. Gone for sure. No matter how good that structure looked, we'd have
47:52
been gone. So in that case, yeah, it made a huge difference. What harm did it do to the fish
47:58
population? I would ask. I don't think any because we were we could have kept them and and ate them if we wanted to. We don't do
48:04
that. We did we let them all go. So if the fear is that maybe meat hunters
48:12
shouldn't be allowed, but but that's not a musky angler. No, that is not furthest
48:18
thing from a musky. Exact furthest thing. Exact. So I, you know, full circle, I go back to this whole notion
48:24
of uh eliminating that type of technology on that lake on Eagle.
48:33
Yeah, I got to shake my head, man. Yeah, me too. I honestly have to shake my head. Unfortunately, I know some of you
48:38
don't want to hear that because you might be involved in all this and that's all well and good. Hey, this is not about, you know, I hate you, you hate
48:44
me, or he he doesn't like this. No, we're all anglers, right? We have opinions. No shortage of opinions here.
48:51
Exactly. We have so many another story coming up later here about the the stripers and we all have opinions.
48:58
There's so sides to each one. So yeah, it's kind of a Yeah. I I I just I when
49:04
you're when you're going to the golf town now to buy a new driver. It ain't that old wooden driver that you pimmen
49:10
driver that you used to have 35 years ago. You got the latest greatest titanium thousand
49:15
unit. Go ahead. Did you look? Yeah. I happened to be in a store the other day with Nick. Nick and I were and he said,
49:22
"Oh, wow. There's that new XWZ driver." Yeah. What about it? Oh, this
49:28
baby. Even if you've never played golf before, you pick this club up and it's 300 yards right down the middle of the
49:35
fairway. And I said, "N, come on. No, no, no. Honestly, that
49:41
that's this driver is that good." That would be like now some golfers saying, "Oh, ho ho ho no, no, no. You got to ban
49:48
that driver. You can't put that on the PGA or whatever they're called, right?" Yep. And we know that's bogus because in
49:55
order for that driver to work, a lot of things have to happen. Mostly you have to be able to control that baby. No
50:02
kidding. So, you know, it's funny because at a professional level, that is where they're like there are drivers
50:08
that are banned from PGA. in certain drivers. But then again, there's forward facing sonar is banned from BASS in
50:14
certain days or MLF certain days and BASS, you're only allowed one unit compared to a bunch of them. So why
50:21
would they ban and MFL is banned completely? Okay. Why would they ban that driver from the professional golf
50:30
association? I know Dean, you're a golfer, but is there a What reason would they have? Because it's not for the shortage of being able to afford I'm
50:35
sure they could all afford that driver. Oh god. I think it's kind of like the corkked bats thing in baseball. It just
50:41
adds an element where more people are going to be able to do extraordinary things. Um, where you want like only the
50:49
super talented to have to work harder for it. I think like it's like why do you ban steroids in baseball? I'm sure
50:55
hockey sticks got some kind of regulations on it, don't they? They used to have severe curve and everything.
51:01
Now, I don't think there is anything. You can use a Aren't they supposed to You're supposed to be able to fit a tuni
51:07
or you're not supposed to be able to fit a tuni under it or something. Wasn't that a thing at one point? When it's on the ice, you can't fit a tuni standing
51:13
up or something. I know. It was a Pandora's box when they opened that up in the 80s and and early 90s because
51:19
then they soon discovered, "Holy crap, we can't we can't patrol this enough to
51:24
be able to because now everybody was doing all kinds of weird things with their sticks that every game was being
51:31
delayed by, you know, 10, 15 minutes because the first thing they they would do is if that player either assisted or
51:37
scored a goal, boom, the whole game gets shut down because the because the coach from the opposition says Oh, I want you
51:44
to check that guy's stick. So, they had to go find the stick. Now, sometimes the guy would get rid of that stick. So,
51:50
they had to find it somewhere else other than on his body and then they would bring it and then it's got to go in for
51:55
measurement. Meanwhile, the audience is saying, "Guys, guys, play the game." So,
52:01
that's why I don't think that uh is around anymore. I haven't seen one infraction that involves an illegal
52:06
stick for I don't know how many years. Another thing in fishing uh tournament fishing is the uh the umbrella rig, the
52:12
Alabama rig. They've done that in a lot of tournaments too now in the US. That one I can almost understand, but believe
52:18
it or not, a lot of hooks. A lot of hooks. Yeah. And you know, when there's a lot of hooks involved, there's a lot
52:24
of things that can go wrong, including in that particular case, catching more than one fish at a time. Absolutely.
52:29
Yeah. And I think that one, if there was one that I would justify, it should have
52:34
been that one. I really do. That one I think makes it easier for
52:40
anglers who don't have the skills to catch fish. I am the total opposite of
52:46
that. I've tried two years in a row I've been trying on an A- rig and I still have not caught a single bass on an
52:52
Alabama rig. Single. So I suck I suck at an A- rig. So you can allow 30 hooks on
52:59
my bait and I'll still be okay. The fish will be good and they're safe cuz I suck at it. Uh I don't use it enough but
53:04
still I should have got one by now. Uh I guess bottom line is if you have an opinion on this particular subject uh I
53:12
think you need to express it and not necessarily just with us but but to uh
53:18
where where do they go for this Dean? Uh we'll have the story on the site so they'll be able to find these people. Fishingcanada.com will have the whole uh
53:24
deal and and if you have an opinion on it let them know. Obviously, we'd like to know, too, because uh we're always
53:31
interested in what you're thinking. Absolutely. For or against it, doesn't matter. Just let us know, please. How do
53:36
they get a hold of us, Dean? How would they do that? Info at fishingcanada.com. On YouTube, if you make it a question,
53:42
you could win a prize or Instagram, anywhere you can find us on there. Perfect. Y love it. All right. Love it.
53:49
Uh so, wow, that was a long answer. We better we better move along here. Smokes. What's next? Uh, so we can
53:55
either cover the news story from the east coast that we had come in or we can head to the family. We could quickly
54:01
talk. We should quickly talk about that, guys. I mean, this it almost this is nasty. It almost uh deserves a whole
54:08
show. A whole show, right? But little tidbits of it. All right, carry on. Title 2025-
54:14
Fisheries Management Order requiring Gasparo fishers in eastern New Brunswick
54:19
to retain stripe bass caught incidentally. So these Gasparo are alewives basically. That's a Yeah, it's
54:26
I guess same family. Is it? It's an alw wife. Yeah, it's the same thing. So I fished for them. I told you that fly fished. Yeah. Yeah.
54:34
That's a big Gasparo. There it is. Gasparo. Um, so ba basically, and the
54:41
way I'm reading this, we're not going to read it all out because we'll we'll get a whole show on this, but if you're fishing gaspero, and the way I read this
54:48
today, an is that if you catch a striper, you have to keep it.
54:54
You have to keep that fish and kill it. And you can keep 499 more up to 500
55:00
stripers on this to and they call the stripers to address the threat. They're
55:05
calling the stripers a threat. Okay, so here's my issue with that. As I told Dean when I first saw this thing is I've
55:12
seen the Gaspro fishery. I've been there when they run when the run is on and I've been there when the fishing happens
55:18
for them and I've seen how they're caught. Rod and reel rod and reel all net. You remember the nets on the mirror
55:23
machine for we didn't know what they were for the nets along the shoreline. They just sort of come out and there's a little big box necks, right? Put
55:30
whatever there. Right. same concept except many more of them and a little bit smaller in the area that they took
55:37
off. My concern is that these are net these are net fish, right? These fish
55:43
get trapped in a net and then periodically whatever and I'm sure that the frequency changes depending on the
55:50
run. But you know, let's say it's every 10 hours, 4 hours, a day, two days, whatever, the fisherman goes and draws
55:56
these nets in. And because they're gil nets, the gas bro in this particular case are dead and they pull them out of
56:04
the net, throw them in the boat, and off they go. My concern is that any bass that's caught in there anyways, the
56:11
chances of it being alive are zero. That is only if it's you if gil nets are
56:18
used. And if that's the case, yes, those openings are only going to be that big. Exactly. As per
56:24
they'll get fins. They'll get they'll get caught up in that stuff. You've seen those nets at work. I think there's a
56:30
certain amount of discretion with the uh size of the openings that will maybe eliminate some fish, but not all. I I
56:38
have and if they go the other way, if they're live nets, trap nets or whatever, even more so that they'll
56:44
catch stripers in it for sure. Now, they could be released obviously. You know what I mean? Those are the ones that could be released. But they're telling
56:50
you if they're live nets, bring it on. 500 5001 you're going to get charged. But if you have 500 or less, you're
56:56
good. on the Wolf River. That's horrible. That's horrible. Or whatever the river is called. It was at just
57:02
outside of Wolfville, Nova Scotia at the time. If every one of those nets were to
57:08
have were to catch 500 stripers, cuz I'm not kidding you, there were literally
57:14
hundreds of them. There wasn't 10 ft of river that didn't have a net somewhere.
57:20
So those Gaspro like they don't stand a chance, right? And I don't even know how
57:25
they still have gasp pro in that part of the world because well anyways obviously they're heavy heavily regulated or at
57:31
least I hope they are. But if those are the areas that these stripe bass now which now have a bounty on their head to
57:38
the tune of 500 fish per per occasion I guess it is right. Mhm.
57:44
Yep. I I I mean you could destroy an entire gene pool of a river in a matter
57:50
of a couple of days. Did you have um did you have to have a license to fish for
57:55
Gasparrow when you were there with Rod and Rail? Do you remember? Gez, I don't remember. Because it says here, holders
58:00
of a license to fish for Gasparo must report to the DFO. So, I'm wondering if you or that might be the commercial guys
58:06
versus the Oh, that's probably commercial cuz I don't imagine too many people recreate,
58:12
especially not on fly rods. And the limit right now, I believe, is 10 or 20 at most. It's not If it's 20, that's the
58:19
max. It's either 10 or 20. You're not allowed a whole lot when you're out, you know, if you're rod and reel fishing. So, that makes no sense if you're allowed 10 gasp bro and 500 stripers,
58:27
which I don't think I don't think you could go out and catch 500. That's not what they're saying. No, I'm just saying. But they're not saying it
58:33
either, though. They're They're not They're just saying gas fisherman. They're not They didn't even say commercial on this thing. So, I never
58:39
even thought of that. Wow. That That's a whole other There's no way you could
58:45
because they they have a limit of two out there, right? So for from normally like when we were out with Jeff I think it was two fish at a certain uh slot
58:52
limit of size. It did go up this year I believe though for English as well went up a lot of if it goes to 500. Yeah.
58:59
Anyway that's obviously it's commercial. You know what I mean? But still, you know, the the objection here is that the
59:05
reason they're doing this, obviously, first of all, it's motivated by somebody, some group
59:11
that is targeting stripe bass and saying we need to get rid of stripe
59:18
bass because they're doing something against my belief. That's the first
59:23
problem I have with that, which we happen to know that's the case, by the way, as we all know.
59:30
Um, and secondly, it's so indis like it's indiscriminate
59:36
eradication of a gene pool. Never mind stripe bass as a whole, but each one of these rivers is a very distinct
59:44
gene pool of fish. And you could literally with these kind of uh very
59:50
generous limits of 500 per, you could destroy an entire gene pool in a season
59:56
or two. Yep. Depending. Yeah, for sure. The problem that I have with that is that and it's not it's not like a it's
1:00:03
your choice either. Any person fishing for gas bar in the certain areas here
1:00:08
who catches stripe bass incidentally is required to retain the incidentally caught is required is required. And then
1:00:16
it says the maximum quantity of incidentally caught stripe bass in a day that must be retained is 500. That's the
1:00:24
way they worded it. And this how are they going to police that? The DFO rating in this. So, how are they going
1:00:29
to police that one? Yeah, that's an extraordinary number.
1:00:36
They don't have to police it because they don't want to police it with numbers like this with these stupid ridiculous numbers. They don't want to police it. They just want to get rid of
1:00:42
these fish. They did have an interesting comment too by the Maritime Fisherman's Union, which is like the commercial
1:00:47
fishing union out there. They were saying that um stripe bass and nets have
1:00:53
surged over the years from as many as 5,000 to 25,000 making it impossible to
1:01:00
like sort their nets. So what do you mean? What do you understand from that? So essentially the number of accidental
1:01:08
catches is going up but right now they're required to sort through to throw them back to yeah to take out the
1:01:14
stripers and everything. So that means they are alive obviously. must be throw in a garbage can. Where now they're
1:01:20
saying it's going to be much easier for them because they can keep them all. So they don't need to sort the nets. They can just Yeah. Good one. And you know
1:01:27
what the shame of this is, folks? The shame is that we cannot find
1:01:35
anywhere in now this is the province of New Brunswick I'm talking. In all fairness, we haven't really invested the
1:01:42
time in Nova Scotia, but in New Brunswick, they got their own problems there. We cannot find a place where we
1:01:48
can pull over to a restaurant or a little, you know, cafe or some kind of an ery and just go in there and order
1:01:56
stripers a meal of stripers. Yep. They're non-existent. Yeah. So, my question is, what are they going to do
1:02:02
with these 500 per stripe bass? Are they going to like throw them out? Is there a contingency
1:02:10
plan? In other words, is there going to be a market for them? Are they going to feed these guys that Dean's talking
1:02:15
about? They would have they would somehow now they're going to find a use for it. Right now they're going to
1:02:20
they're saying, "Okay, now it's worth us sorting them out. So they must be trying to make some money out of it, I would think. Otherwise, they just still fire
1:02:26
them back, right? Say get out of my nets. Get the get the hell out of my boat." Sort of thing. But these guys, I'm sure they're going to find some
1:02:33
Where does it go, though? You're right. Where does it go? How long before somebody wakes up and says, "Wait a
1:02:38
minute. I smell something nefarious going on." So, first of all, you changed
1:02:44
the regulations on the mirror machine not that long ago that allowed for what
1:02:50
was the number, guys? Do you remember? Was it 75,000 pounds or some ridiculous quota with the
1:02:57
Aboriginal thing? Yeah, I can't remember. Says it here. Increase an increase uh from 175,000 or from 50,000
1:03:06
to 175,000. That's it. So they increased that on stripe bass on the mirror
1:03:13
machine. All of a sudden, just like that, boom. And there are only, by the way, around 345,000
1:03:20
returning fish. They figure that's the population that's in the river. So 300, let's call it 400,000 for the sake of
1:03:26
argument. Let's say they missed a few. Yeah. 400,000. But yet they're allocating
1:03:32
175,000 in quota to
1:03:37
now we don't know how many anglers there are. Not anglers uh fishermen commercial fisher what what the size of the
1:03:43
commercial fishery but we've been there. It doesn't matter when they they can make 175,000. We know there's enough up
1:03:49
there to get 175,000 fish. That's half the population. Yeah. So they've done that there
1:03:56
sort of you know that's one body. matter of fact and one body. And now if that's
1:04:01
not enough, they're now challenging another fishery and ordering them to
1:04:08
destroy a further 500 fish per Eastern New Brunswick. I would assume that Miramashi is in there. Yeah, of course.
1:04:14
Of course. So they said they've added that to the to the pot of 175,000. They
1:04:19
wanted to Well, whoever is behind this does not like stripers. And I don't want to say DFO directly because that would
1:04:28
not be no a good thing to do. It's too easy to jump there. There is somebody
1:04:33
behind them who is controlling DFO's decision-m
1:04:38
influencing better than controlling DFO's decision-m on this because there's
1:04:44
a hidden agenda that most of us either don't care. We have apathy or not
1:04:50
apathy. We don't really care. So what? It's not going to affect you. You don't even go striper fishing. Let's be honest
1:04:56
about it. And chances are you won't even get out of this province. But you know, uh it doesn't matter if there's an
1:05:03
injustice to uh a piece of wildlife
1:05:08
that is controlled by humans that is wrong. We need to jump on board. We need
1:05:15
to talk about this fishery on the east coast even though most of us might never sample it because that will give could
1:05:22
give birth to ideas that will affect us personally because somebody might use this as a means of saying you know I
1:05:30
think that smallmouth bass should they're getting a little frisky out there. You know there's just too damn
1:05:36
many of them and we saw what happened down in New Brunswick. I mean they got rid of that whole bass problem they had.
1:05:42
You know, maybe maybe I'll give them a call and see how they did that. Well, you know, I know it sounds ridiculous.
1:05:47
No, it sounds No, I'm laughing because there's a reality element to it. There is always that radical reality to it,
1:05:53
right? Yeah. If it can be done there, hell, I can do it here. And it just might be a cottager who's just sick and
1:05:58
tired of him going up and fishing, you know, bass in his bay. He might just
1:06:03
say, "I don't like him. Throw rocks at me." Anyways, we spent way more time on this than we should have. We do need to
1:06:09
devote a whole show on this, Dean. If we could get some players that have got skin in the game. I know one guy for
1:06:16
sure. Well, okay. I know Jeff Wilson and I agree. Jeff would love to come on and and God love him. I love I love him to
1:06:22
death. I But you know what? We need somebody from the other side of this story. We need maybe a commercial
1:06:29
fisherman. Yeah, that'd be good. Who who is in the gas bro?
1:06:35
Great because right now we're speculating how how it's throwing out of our mouths and we have no idea what we're talking about. We do that
1:06:41
well by the way. Oh, thank you. I have reached out to some people from the Atlantic Salmon Federation stuff before.
1:06:47
They won't come up. They'll never come up. Not as much interest. See, that's we got to get rid of that thinking. I've
1:06:53
tried. Well, he's tried and they don't want to come up. Okay, so you tried. That's like you know when your wife catches anyways. I don't want to How
1:07:00
many times that happen? I don't want to get this. Sorry. You'd think you'd learn after once. Angelo,
1:07:07
I did not. Uh, let me just kind of suck that one. Catches you fishing for a small mouth.
1:07:13
Right. Catches you fishing for small. I got you. I got you covered, buddy. Don't you worry, man.
1:07:20
Uh, the point, where was I going with that point before I put my foot squarely?
1:07:26
Um, that's awesome. No, the point I'm trying to make is that we have to get information from all all parties
1:07:32
involved. You know, anybody who's got skin in this game has got a piece of the
1:07:37
answer for us, right? Yeah. And if they don't want to get involved, then shame on them. We'll get everybody else
1:07:42
involved, right? That's the problem. They they have a chance to speak right here. So, we know we can attract a a a
1:07:48
lot of people who are like thinking to us because otherwise they wouldn't be listening to this program. Therefore, if
1:07:54
we put the call out to people who have got something to say that are involved in the uh stripe bass fishery on the
1:08:00
east coast and are against opposed to these new uh very very weird strange
1:08:06
regulation changes, we could have 10 people right now, but I think we need to
1:08:12
work a little harder than that to see if we can get people from the other side of the fence because that's the only way we're going to learn right now. It's
1:08:19
just speculation. I have no idea. Like 500 seems a lot to me. A lot of
1:08:24
fish to call incidental catch. First of all, if you're setting your nets or putting them where you're going to get
1:08:31
500 extra incidental fish every time you lift, there's something wrong with the positioning of your nets. I do know
1:08:38
that. Yes. Right. Pretty good striper spot. You got to move them over here a
1:08:43
little bit. Give us the coordinates for that sucker. We can take that. We'll go do some fishing for him. Anyways, Dean,
1:08:48
I will challenge you uh before we have another uh show of
1:08:54
of this uh ilk. I I I'd like you to see if we can get somebody on. Yeah, for
1:09:00
sure. Maybe DFO. Yeah, be nice. Right. Maybe DFO. How about the u the minister
1:09:06
of their minister of natural resources in New Brunswick? Would that Do we know him? Do we still know him or her? We don't know him or her anymore. We used
1:09:15
it. Used to be Mike Holland. Used to be Mike Holland. Yeah. I wonder if we get How about Mike Holland? Would he come on? He'd probably come on even he's not
1:09:22
there there anymore, but he might he has some good information and he doesn't have to worry about getting fired. True.
1:09:27
You know what I mean? Did he get fired or did he just quit? No, I don't know. He's doing something else now. He just moved on. Yep. Yeah. He he he said from
1:09:35
the outside he didn't want to be a politician, so he did his time, got out. Yeah. Maybe that's the perfect guy for
1:09:40
us then. Yeah. Or maybe we can reach out to the Ontario
1:09:46
um Minister of Natural Resources. Mhm. Who might be able to help us? Yep. U
1:09:52
that's uh Harris Jr., right? Mike Harris Jr. I believe I think you're right.
1:09:57
Yeah, it is Mike Harris Jr. So, what would he know about the stripe striper situation though? Would he be able to
1:10:03
dig into But he would probably uh help us. We're good people. No, we're all
1:10:08
right. We're good people. We're all right. We can teach them all about forward facing. Get them on our side with that. Well, before somebody else
1:10:14
gets to them. Yeah, exactly. All right, that's enough of this nonsense. That's enough of that Thank you.
1:10:20
There's a bunch of Thank you very much. Uh, can we save the rest for another rainy day? Cuz we've gone way
1:10:27
over time again. I How long we been here today? Oh, a minute. An hour and nine on
1:10:32
just us yapping. I know. I know. We're terrible. I apologize on behalf of Mr.
1:10:38
Bowman. Well, he does. I do ramble on. We did have a good fan question, but it's gonna be a long one. Is it? It's a
1:10:44
good It's a very good question. Can we make it short? Can we use it another time? No. Do we have to have it today?
1:10:50
Like, I mean, you know, my mommy taught me never uh put on to tomorrow what you can do
1:10:56
today. It's not that long. It's not that bad. Okay. All right. Go for it. This episode is brought to you by Angller's
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1:11:26
Okay, this is from sponsored by fishfindermounts.com.
1:11:32
Who's who are they? Who are they? They are ones that help us use our forward facing sonar amongst any other
1:11:38
transducers and all the other stuff that we use on our boats. All good garment stuff and any other companies that you
1:11:43
use. Uh very good equipment uh machine. Look at this. Look at Oh my god. I
1:11:49
remember that day. Very very those two. By the way, this is uh Nikki V and young
1:11:56
Mr. Hunter uh Bowman. And we were shooting a commercial not far from here.
1:12:01
Rocket fishing rod. That's right. Yeah. And so we brought them up with us and
1:12:06
and at a point where everybody was occupied during this commercial, these
1:12:12
two rascals disappeared. Oh yeah. And and and we
1:12:18
wondered where the hell were they? And then we could hear we could hear something in the background. We couldn't see.
1:12:23
They faking stole this little remote like a big you know the remote cars that they the kids sit in and drive. All we
1:12:29
then get the back here. Hey dad. Hey grandpa.
1:12:35
Oh my god. We laugh so freaking We wanted to give them but we couldn't do it. Same as Fernly Lodge with the with the golf carts. Oh my god.
1:12:43
They had a panset for uh stealing uh borrowing. Let's borrow borrowing
1:12:48
vehicles from others. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So um this question again sponsored by
1:12:53
shannermounts.com is from scottmarie128 via YouTube. So he is is he qualified
1:12:59
now? He's qualified. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Hello. So we're going to judge this, right? We give him a thumbs up or thumbs
1:13:05
down. I'll read that. You guys judge it. Okay. Hello, gentlemen. Get a prize right there. If he calls us gentlemen,
1:13:10
you should be Scott Murray. Um, like many of the viewers/ listeners, I have
1:13:16
been a fan since the 80s and I've grown up like Nikki V alongside the Fishing
1:13:21
Canada show. I really appreciate the focus on Canadian waters, but also on Ontario. I just randomly found myself
1:13:27
watching this episode, Al Walleye at Lodge 88 with I'm I'm assuming you and Nick, that episode, and it reminded me
1:13:34
of all the great times I've had fishing with my own grandfather and dad getting to explore Ontario while learning to
1:13:40
love both fishing and spending time with my family. Would any of you be willing to speak to the unique ways that fishing
1:13:46
trips like this can help people, young and old, grow as people a and come
1:13:51
closer together? Thank you for everything you have done for the entire Ontario fishing community. Wow. Thanks,
1:13:57
buddy. What a great No wonder you you said this. And And that's a thumbs up, by the way. Whatever we're giving away. Yeah. Give him
1:14:04
Scott Marie gets it. Gets it. Uh well, I mean I I've been uh very fortunate to
1:14:13
obviously have being the benefactor of being able to bring my grandson out on
1:14:18
shoots for the last I don't know how many years. quite a few now. It's been pre pre- pandemic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:14:25
Yeah. Yeah. Pre pandemic. So, whatever that was, whatever that means. Sure. And then he went did his university stuff. We got He took a pause, but then he came
1:14:31
back. He's back with us now. So, and I don't know whether you can replicate
1:14:38
I don't know whether you can replicate that experience with
1:14:44
anything else in fishing that certainly that that I know of. um because it's
1:14:49
kind of beyond where there is no there is no first of all there's no set result. In other words, you can't
1:14:55
measure it and say, "Hey, that was a really great experience or really bad experience because there's nothing else you can measure it to." Even if you're
1:15:02
pissed off, even if you get pissed off, which I did, by the way, quite a bit. It was a challenge. No, it was a challenge.
1:15:09
Um you had a heart attack on one of those. Jesus. Even even if you you you
1:15:14
do there's a certain amount of joy that Oh, God. Yeah. friends, relatives,
1:15:21
spouses, um acquaintances, total strangers. Yeah.
1:15:26
There's a certain experience that I believe can only be
1:15:32
had in that environment. And I'm talking the outdoors slashfishing environment
1:15:39
because right because it it it's it's twofold. First of all, you're
1:15:45
experiencing the persontoperson interaction, but then you're experiencing it in this
1:15:51
incredible, you know, theater that that is constantly moving and evolving and and
1:15:58
and injecting you with feelings and smells and sounds and emotions that you just don't get sitting in a living room
1:16:05
watching TV with somebody. Yeah. Yeah. And you got to remember too, people listening and watching here, the level
1:16:10
that we're doing it at isn't even what get what you get to do it at. you're at a better level than us cuz we're working out there. We're actually we're bringing
1:16:16
Nick and Hunter and and these guys are out working with us and that and it's although it's nice and it's a the ultimate job and blah blah blah. It's
1:16:22
still kind of work element to it and there's still some structure to it. You take your kids, your grandkids up to a fishing camp. Oh my god. And just go
1:16:29
fishing. It'd be the best of the best for sure. And we see it a lot in these camps that we go to. this to the last
1:16:35
trip, the two trips. We had the 80 the 90 year old, there was three generations
1:16:40
there on the last trip at Pipstone, and then the one before that, the kids were in the at Hawk Lake. There was uh some
1:16:45
kids in that dining room, too. So, and they've been doing it for years. Yeah. And husbands and wives, too. Stuff like that. So, you know what the best thing I
1:16:52
can equated to and compare it to, and it's a conundrum as well, that is shore lunch. I've always said that if you
1:16:59
could bottle the essence of a Canadian shore lunch and put it in a bottle and
1:17:07
put a label on it and put it on the shelf and sell it, man, you would make a fortune because people would be coming
1:17:12
back every day to get more of it. Well, an experience with
1:17:18
another person in the outdoors like a relative, friend, uh, etc. is kind of
1:17:25
like that. It's hard to put a name or express a feeling for it, but it is
1:17:30
totally different. Y than spending time with your buddy in Costa Rica or in Vegas or whatever the case may be,
1:17:37
right? Exactly. It's totally Your mind is just at a different place. It's totally You leave a lot behind too in
1:17:43
that world, right? Oh my god. You don't really think about a whole lot back in the hustle and bustle, etc., etc. That
1:17:48
moment right there. Oh my god. Hey, that moment right there is perfect example. Perfect picture. Speaking of shorelines,
1:17:54
Dino coming up pretty soon. Hey, buddy. Sorry. Yeah, you guys. Sorry about that,
1:18:01
buddy. Well, we'll fix you up before the end of the season, but you worry. She's a long road to temporary, as they say. I
1:18:08
can't wait. Honest to God. My first shore lunch this year, though. That will be nice. Anyways, uh that's a great
1:18:14
question. Uh Scott Murray, Scott Murray 128 via YouTube. Thank you, Scott. Well done. Uh so he gets something. Is that
1:18:20
the deal? 50 bucks from the store manager's pocket. No way. I want to see
1:18:26
him pull that right out of that wallet of his. I love transfer. I just saw somebody redeem one just before we went
1:18:31
to the show. I just got they got a uh two UV garments. A long sleeve buttonup
1:18:40
V UV shirt and then the other one that reddish colored one. Yeah. One of those.
1:18:47
Yeah. And uh I think three or four um
1:18:52
one of each hat. Shooter McGavin. Well, he did. He did good. Thank you. Good. Awesome. So, there you go. Uh thank you
1:18:59
very much. That's it, Dean. We covered it all, buddy. Now, we've got it down. Now, we're over time. All right, we're
1:19:04
out of here. I want to thank you for uh spending a bit of time with us. Think about some of the stuff we said. If you've got opinions on um some of these
1:19:12
stories, please don't. This is just our opinion, too. You guys bring it on. No problem hearing it. So, please on
1:19:19
behalf of the entire team, uh, Bova over there, uh, Nick who's over, he's offline here doing No, he's he's logging logging
1:19:26
as we speak. Well, he he does a lot of logging in this case. Nick's like the ultimate logger of this place. Uh, Dean
1:19:33
over here. Lot of time in the logging camp for that boy. Uh, he's Peter Bowman. I met Andrew Wild. Thanks for
1:19:39
joining us. Catch you next time. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]
1:19:48
This episode of Outdoor Journal Radio has been brought to you in part by the Invasive Species Center, protecting
1:19:54
Canada's land and water from invasive species. Freedom Cruise Canada. Rent the
1:20:00
boat, own the memories. And JMBB Cycle and Marine, your home for all things
1:20:07
powersports, boats, and equipment. [Music]