Ep. 01 | Matty Garland

[00:00:26] Speaker A: Matty, welcome to the Greg Simione show. And here we go. So Maddie, you have a pretty interesting life. You commercial fish down the Cape. And so I brought you in to ask you a few questions about that. You both know we love fishing. So tell me a little bit about what you did this summer with the commercial fishing. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Happy to be here, Greg. It's gonna be an awesome show. Can't wait to get this going. [00:00:51] Speaker A: Fucking rides. [00:00:52] Speaker B: So back history for me, I've been fishing my whole life. Parents had a boat since I was about 10. I really got into commercial fishing. I was like 14, 15 years old. And fast track to this year, back in June, the striped bass and bluefish were unbelievable in the Cape. I have a boat out of Falmouth in great pond fishing all over from Gay Head off the Vineyard all the way up to Cotuit, sometimes even go all the way down Chatham. [00:01:24] Speaker A: Unreal. [00:01:25] Speaker B: So did a little exploration in June and kind of found where these fish are going to be for the season. And then June 15, the commercial bluefish fishery opened up and went out by myself one night and caught myself about 100 pounds of blue fishing just over here, trolling some deep divers and some umbrella rakes, nice and easy. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Dude, that's sick. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Next week, same, same sort of story went out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Each day I was catching up anywhere from 100, 200 pounds. [00:02:01] Speaker A: And dude, that's sick. Drinking beers, that's sick. Yeah, so yeah, that's what I want. That's what I mostly wanted to ask you about was like how you transition from like just a sport fisherman like me, like recreationally catching stripers, to like going out there this summer and like, no, that was your job. Like, bro, you, you showed up at what, 5am every day and you going out was you getting your paycheck. So like how, how was that different than just your whole life growing up drinking beers and fishing? [00:02:31] Speaker B: Like, I mean, to be honest, dude, I still do a lot of drinking beer. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Let's go. Yeah, you gotta have fun when you're doing. [00:02:39] Speaker B: Definitely, definitely. Especially when you're getting out there at 4:00am, 5:00am and yeah, you got to make a paycheck to be able to pay for those beers and those cigarettes. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Yeah, no, for sure. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Honestly, it started about two years ago. My brother's friend invited me to go out commercial bass fishing in Gloucester and I thought we were just going to go screw around, snag some pogies, do this, that, whatever. And it was not, it was, oh, can I bring a 12 pack on the boat? Nope. You can bring some waters and some Gatorades and we're going to dial in. I'm like, okay, sounds good. So we get. I wake up at literally three in the morning, go to the spot right outside of Gloucester harbor, start netting pogies. Had about 20 of them in the boat and goes, all right, we're gonna go cast right into these rocks. We're like surrounded by these 50, 100 foot boulders all around us. Things that would just rip your unit out. [00:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Like this is sketchy. It's like, no, I do this every season. Easy goes. Throw one to the right of that rock right there. You go tight instantly, you know, pitch out a pogie 10ft away from the boat. Inset tight. 40 pound bass. I'm like, yeah, maybe this guy knows what it's doing. That definitely got me kind of hooked into it first, like real huge fish and then just kind of did my own thing this summer. Parents have a boat that I split with them. So it's been awesome. It's been a dream. [00:04:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:00] Speaker A: How is the process of getting your commercial license first, drivers? [00:04:03] Speaker B: It's honestly super easy. You log into mass.gov, there's a big site, you can buy recreational commercial. My lobster permits. You can buy anything you want there. It just asks for like your Social Security. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Like it was just a monetary thing. You didn't have to go to no class or nothing. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Nothing. Nothing at all. Which is nice. [00:04:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:23] Speaker A: What about for bluefin and shit for. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Bluefin tuna, it's a different story. So if you want to be able to fish the cold weather months, which start October 1st, the opener starts in just about a week from today. [00:04:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:36] Speaker B: You need to have a few different things. First is these things called Gumby suits. It's basically like a ski suit, almost like a. Or like a wetsuit. Almost. Yeah, it's like a bright red, has a whistle, flares, has like food inside of it. You also need to have a life raft on top of your boat. So it goes from having like. [00:04:55] Speaker A: So there's like extra regulations for fishing in the fall. [00:04:58] Speaker B: Big time. Big time. So it helps. It helps kind of weed out a lot of those guys that are like, yeah, I do this for money, but I don't really do for money. So it's. [00:05:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:09] Speaker B: So it goes from just being able to just needing to buy a few thousand dollars in rods, reels, tackle, to having to buy a $10,000 life raft. Thousand dollars each for the Gumby suits. You needed to have at least six for the vessel. So. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Holy shit. [00:05:23] Speaker B: It gets Pretty, pretty expensive, pretty fast. But you know, if you go out and catch one of these 100 pound or 100 inch, 120 inch fish. Yeah, it's all start making a little bit of money. [00:05:33] Speaker A: And when are those regulations start in? In the fall, like. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Yeah, October 1st. [00:05:37] Speaker A: So there's two different. How many different tuna seasons are there too? [00:05:40] Speaker B: So there is techn or. No, there's so June. You can catch three fish a day. You can fish as of two years ago, it's Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, three fish a day, unlimited size. Anything greater than 73 inches is considered a commercial fish. You then bring it to whoever your buyer is. Reds best not talk. There's a bunch of different buyers over Cape Gloucester, all the way down to Rhode island. [00:06:07] Speaker A: And ones under 73 though. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Can you keep under 73 inches? You can keep if you are a char or a headboat. So that means I would need to have my captain's license, which I don't have yet, but I'm working on getting. [00:06:20] Speaker A: So what would you do? Just catch and release them. [00:06:23] Speaker B: So for being commercial I would have to release it? Yes. So if you're a good guy, you get a thing called a swim hook. You put it underneath the jaw, out through its mouth and swim it for 10, 20, 30 minutes, sometimes an hour. I swim all my fish after I catch them. It helps cool them down, gets all the lactic acid out of their blood. In return, you get a little bit better price per pound. [00:06:47] Speaker A: So you swim, you swim a fish even after you harpoon it. So like even if you know you're killing it. [00:06:52] Speaker B: I. So I fight it for 30 minutes, two hours sometimes. This year I had one for seven hours. And so I'll stick the thing in the fish is wherever I can get it. Yeah, I would like to get it in its head. [00:07:04] Speaker A: And then you get the tail rope. [00:07:06] Speaker B: And then tail rope it. And then as soon as I have the tail rope, I'll put this big. It looks like almost like a fish hook through its gills and out through its mouth. And I'll tie that to the more front part of the boat and I'll swim it for like an hour and just like really cool it down. So my last fish I had no ice. I just had cold bud lights. And I was like, oh, I'm in trouble here. So we swam this thing for hour, hour and a half. Bring it on the boat. I was like, all right, we're gonna need to fly in. Cuz literally had no ice. I'm like carving this fish up as we're going like 40 miles an hour through Cape Cod Bay. And I was like, you know, I'm just going to have to do it. So I started stuffing this fish with ice cold bud lights and water bottles. It was, it was hilarious. [00:07:48] Speaker A: That's sick. [00:07:49] Speaker B: But yeah, cooling the fish down is definitely key for getting a good price per pound. And years pass, I was just killing it. [00:07:56] Speaker A: And so when you kill it, what do you whack its head with? A bat? [00:08:01] Speaker B: No, you just. You stick out the harpoon. In theory, it should. [00:08:05] Speaker A: It bleeds out, relax a little bit. [00:08:07] Speaker B: After it knows it's kind of. And then you, you get a gaff and it's. You get a gaff anywhere to start? [00:08:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:14] Speaker B: Try not to get it in the stomach because that's the toro. That's like the prize meat for the Japanese. That's where they like, they really get a good core sample out of that and they can tell, oh, this fish is very fatty. [00:08:25] Speaker A: There's no specific spot that you aim for when you gaffe. You just whatever you can see, that's not the stomach. [00:08:30] Speaker B: When I initially gaff it, I'm trying to, in theory, I'm trying to gaff once in the head and I'm trying to get the other gaff on its tail or close to the tail that has like a big nub down there. I forget the actual term, but you get a gaff in there. You get a tail rope around its tail. And then before I would just troll it or I'd put it in gear and I'd flood it so it's its head instead of its heads going into the water. It's like gills are getting basically forced water the wrong way. So it kills the fish very fast. And then I would take my harpoon or a gaff and I this thing called breaking the gills. Basically I'm just like dragging a knife over its gills and it just bleeds out nice and fast. Yeah, well, little cut on against its pectoral fin and that's like. [00:09:12] Speaker A: It's aa, right? [00:09:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Dude, I seen these things at this bait store yesterday and they were like. It looked like a self defense knife. It was like two holes like this with a spike on the end. So you fucking punch the tuna? [00:09:27] Speaker B: GMA Yeah. [00:09:28] Speaker A: I was like, what the fuck is this? And he like, yo, it's for stabbing tunas in the top of the head. And I'm like, yo, that's crazy. [00:09:35] Speaker B: I just have like a, like a K bar knife, like a marine knife. I go like this right on Top of it, and I just smack it down. It's like, oh, it'll give like a bunch of twitches. And then I'll take my, my chainsaw, cut a, like, cut a chunk out of its head, and then I have this real thick line. It's like 400 pound mono. And I'll shove it down its spinal cord and it'll dispatch it, like, basically kill it. And all its nerves already there. It's dead, but it's like nerves and all. It's like. I forget the other term. It's basically, its nerves are still alive. So that. Yeah, so it's, it's still like heating up its organ. Dude, I'll kill a fish an hour later. It's hard, still pumping. It makes no sense at all. There'll be no blood in it. I'll take it out. So pump and get a nice. [00:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to do that wicked badly. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Definitely, dude. We'll get you out here. [00:10:31] Speaker A: For the listeners who don't know when you catch your first tuna, what do you bite? Its living heart. You bite its beating heart? [00:10:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:39] Speaker A: Pull it out and bite it. [00:10:40] Speaker B: You. [00:10:40] Speaker A: That's sick. [00:10:42] Speaker B: You cut it open, you check out its stomach, see what it has in there. And then you reach into. Right, right around its neck area and you take it. Take its heart out and get a nice big bite out of it. People say it, you do it for the first fish you ever catch. I do it for every single one I catch. [00:10:57] Speaker A: Just because that's unreal. Yeah. My boy Shayna caught a fish with you and, and did that. And I've just been, like, jealous of him the whole summer every time he says that story. But, yeah, that sounds wicked fun. Another question I wanted to ask you is, like, so obviously you're a commercial fisherman. You're out there killing the fish and selling them this and that. But I know you as my boy, as a recreational fisherman, like, you love the fish more than anyone. So speak to, like, the crazy people who kind of think that all commercial fishermen are fucking evil. They're crazy. They kill the fish, they this and that. Whereas, like, if I know anyone that loves these fish and cares about the fishery more, it's no one cares about it more than you, you know what I'm saying? Like, you fucking really love this shit. You do it recreationally just as much as commercially. So, like, if you could just touch on fucking what the difference is, you. [00:11:50] Speaker B: Know what I mean? [00:11:50] Speaker A: Because I think you have to give a real fuck about the fish. [00:11:54] Speaker B: I mean, if this fishery dies, I don't make any money. Yeah, I honestly, I don't care about the money more than I actually do about the fishery. I want this fisher to be alive for my kids, my grandkids. [00:12:05] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [00:12:06] Speaker B: And unfortunately, if these regulations don't get fixed, the next like five years, the bluefin fishery, I think will go right down the drain. Following that, striped bass, bluefish, everything will go down the drain unless there's a big fix. So fortunately this year we had a nice little regulation change from instead of 28 to 35, 20 to 31. It's a very small window. But at the same time, a lot of those wreck guys that were going out and catching those fish that were 31 or whatever, or 32, 33, instead of just taking 30 seconds to a minute to kind of revive it, I like to just put my boat in gear and just troll it very slow, just like until it really gives me a good kick or bites out of my hand. A lot of these guys are just, oh, it's too big. I'm just going to throw it back and just belly up almost instantly. When I'm out there and I catch a fish that's too small, I'm 100% taking my time. Those smaller fish, those like 12 inch to 15 inch, 16 inch fish, they are so hardy. You take them, you throw them just like a false albacore and they just, they're so. They take off. [00:13:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:12] Speaker B: So these bigger ones you get definitely have to take your time with them. [00:13:14] Speaker A: That's, that's fucking dope that you do that. I wanted to talk about that a lot too because for people who don't know, the recreational fishermen, like he was saying, if they're, if they're too big, then the slot. So you can only kill a 28 to 30 and 31 inch fish, but if they're too big, you have to release it. But a lot of the commercial guys and a lot of people that really love this fishing like, and care about it like I do, environmentalists, conservationists, they are starting to notice that a lot of recreational fishermen are not taking the proper measures to release the fish back healthy. So it's like even though they're not killing it for food, they're releasing it like an asshole when we all know how we should do it properly. But they're just throwing it away and like the mortality rate of the fish is, is skyrocketing because these people are just fucking catching them. These things are wasting all their energy on the fight and then they're just throwing them Back out. And when people throw these fish back out, you know, most of the time they're, they're not fucking well and they're just sitting on the top of the surface, belly up. And a shark can get them, a seal can get them this and that. [00:14:21] Speaker B: So that's why the worst, it turns into fucking crab food. [00:14:23] Speaker A: Yes, that's. [00:14:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:14:26] Speaker B: On the similar note, the charter guys also get a huge bad rap because they're going out and they're just trying to catch as many fish as they can a day. But those guys, if, if I, if I don't care the most, then the charter guys definitely do. Those guys actually will take multiple minutes just to revive one little fish. Oh yeah, And I'll do like a little 30 second to a minute just until I really feel like they're gonna do okay. And if not, if they're not gonna do okay, I'll call one of my buddies over and say, hey, do you want to fish? This thing's gonna die on me. And I really would rather have it go to someone to eat versus for. [00:14:59] Speaker A: A seal or a shark or whatever it is. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, dude. [00:15:04] Speaker A: I only caught five, six stripers so far this year and I'm, I was so happy that I got to healthily, healthily release and revive every single. I swam them each for about a minute, minute and a half, two minutes, but they all kicked off healthy and fucking. Everyone's killed fish on accident fishing recreationally. It's a shitty fucking feeling, you know? So once when you do fucking, when you do do it, you're like, fuck, I, I love this fish, you know, it's treble, treble hook is down the throat. It sucks. So when you can get to release a bunch of them, and not only release a bunch of them, but tell your friends who were just starting this or spread the word that this is how we gotta do it to save the fishery for sure. That's, that's what's a good feeling. So how can you speak on that? I just want you to speak more on that, like how safely releasing fish and maybe some other tips and tricks that I don't know about catching fish, recreate recreationally. [00:15:59] Speaker B: So when I, I don't do charters, but when I'm taking buddies out and I know we're not gonna go out for a commercial day, it's not, if it's not a commercial day, I'll just say, hey, let's go out and let's just try to catch as many as we can instead of having the treble Hook on like a lot of hoagie things I use like hoagie epoxy jigs, hoagie slider jigs, or I'll troll like sometimes umbrella rigs if I'm feeling really lazy. Instead of having the treble hook on it, I'll take all those out and I'll put a small inline circle hook. [00:16:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:30] Speaker B: VMC hook. 60, 99 of the time it's right in its jaw or it's right in the top of its mouth. Yeah, like one, literally one, maybe 2% of the time it's down its throat and that sucks. But even so, to be able to get a circle lookout, you take a D hooker, slide it down its throat, you pop it up and then you swim it. [00:16:49] Speaker A: It's money. [00:16:50] Speaker B: But a treble hook, those things are meant to kill. So yeah, when I'm doing commercial, I'm definitely using a treble hook other than the flat bait. I'd love to use a treble hook for striped bass. But you can't. You have to use the inline off. Yeah, inline circle. But yeah, that's pretty much the best way to do it. Other than that, I don't know, don't fish. But yeah, we all have an itch for these things. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's like one of my, one of the double edged sword for fishing for me because I love recreational fishing, obviously, but I don't eat fish. I don't like fish. I think it's gross. I've tried it. I'll kill a fish and eat it. Out of respect for the fish. [00:17:31] Speaker B: Sure. [00:17:32] Speaker A: But it's not my taste. So when I see guys, if, if I, when I think about the fishery not being able to be available for guys like me because kill all them, especially irresponsibly, that pisses me off. And that's why I take pride in like learning how to do it the right way and so that it does continue to be electric. [00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely frustrates me when I go out and sometimes I'll fish the canal or right down the end of my street in Falmouth, I'll see these guys that will have buckets and buckets and trash bags. And trash bags. [00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:08] Speaker B: One time I even saw a luggage, luggage suitcase full of striped bass that's like, hey guys, you know, it's a one fish per guy. They go, oh well, my family's on my way. I go, no, no, you're fishing. They're not fishing. It's one fish. One fish will feed you for a week. Yeah, you get one. You're not having a five pound fillet for dinner. There's no way. So the other way you can kind of help save the fisheries. Like be a rat, report these guys. I do it. [00:18:39] Speaker A: But police your own. Police your own. [00:18:41] Speaker B: No, but you have to though, because these guys will go and kill 20, 30 fish. [00:18:46] Speaker A: And I'm like, yeah, all right. [00:18:47] Speaker B: Though there used to be a million fish in this little back pond that I fish. And after a month of these guys being there, there's nothing left. It's just like, come on, you. [00:18:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:18:58] Speaker A: So what was another thing I wanted to ask along those lines? Oh. Not only do the guys in the Cape Cod do that, but a lot of guys in, in Boston are doing that. And it's not necessarily guys like you and me who grew up doing this. It's what like guys who just started fishing, maybe they're not from this country, maybe they're not from the city and quite frankly they don't give a fuck because there's really no one around to get them in trouble. Like, you know, they're just going to the park. [00:19:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:25] Speaker A: Next to the guy doing heroin at the park. Next to the 16 year old drinking a beer at the park. And they know neither of them two are going to fudgeing shit on them for taking a trash bag. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Just going on with their day because nobody's a fucking this world. [00:19:38] Speaker A: That's another thing I wanted to talk about not only with you, but in this pod. Bring it up. Just on my platform in general is like how recreationally, because I don't give a about spending the $10 on my recreational fishing license. [00:19:52] Speaker B: I. [00:19:52] Speaker A: That's straight with me. If anyone wants to check it, come and check it. I'll, I'll play by the rules. 10 bucks a year for a recreational fishing license. So it's like, what do you think we can do? Like you said, police ourselves and like call out the scumbags who are our fisheries over. But what else could we do to get people to take the regulations more seriously? Because you know just as well as me, you said it earlier, you're like, if they want to be a good guy because we it unfortunately a lot of these fucking guys aren't good guys. So what can we do to, to change that? [00:20:29] Speaker B: I think the best thing you do is probably like literally write your local politician say, you know what? I'm fucking sick and tired of these regulations and no one's really backing it up. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Yeah, you're sick and tired of following the rules when no one else Does. [00:20:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:44] Speaker B: No one else does. I think there needs to probably be more policing of that in that aspect. Like more EPA guys. I've gone out fishing for the past three years. I've had or my whole life. Never seen an EPA guy. [00:20:56] Speaker A: Really? [00:20:57] Speaker B: Never. [00:20:57] Speaker A: He ran up on me checking lobster pots. He checked me and Shane's permits. We were like, yeah, yeah, good job, bro. [00:21:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:03] Speaker A: He asked us if we had any on board. We were like, no. He shot the with us for 30 seconds. Smooth as we were like, all right, bro, have it. He said, have a nice day. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah, no, they're good guys. [00:21:13] Speaker A: They genuinely do your job. Like, I, I don't. Me and Shannon said the same thing. We were like, hey, you're out here doing your job. You didn't with us. You asked us our permits number. We didn't even have the physical permit. We pulled it up on our phone. He took down the numbers. But all that is smooth. And then, bro, again this year, we saw this case in like somewhere in the North Shore where this dude had like 900 lobsters on board. Like a hundred females go like 100 shorts and like fucking like literally like all the categories of lobsters you can't take. This dude was scraping off the heads, doing everything, bro. And he fucking. The EPA tried to. It's like not even funny because he ended up getting away like scot free, like a year later. Like the EPA fucking dropped the case. And it's like that stories like that are just huge kicking the balls to guys like us who do this recreationally and love this and really want to pass it down. And then also to guys like me. Like, I just did my first recreational lobster season this year. I had a blast doing it. And again, I don't like the lobster. I just the actual like pulling up all the cars. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like gambling the old sticky. [00:22:32] Speaker A: You have no clue what you're getting. Like, bro, that was mad fun. I had a blast doing it. I learned so much and I can't wait. Like that's another thing that we talk about is like, we want to be able to pass these traits on. Pass this fishery on. Exactly. The last thing you would want to do would be go to a fishery from 15, 20 years ago and be telling stories about how you caught these fish. Like, you want to show your kids how to do it, you want to show your friends how to do it. [00:22:59] Speaker B: And fortunately, I think in the end the big brother is going to have to step in. Just like how tune efficient originally, you all kill as many as you Wanted any size. You sell it, you get fucking pennies on the dollar. But it doesn't matter. You're getting thousands of fucking pounds a day. You're going to make some money. I think probably within the next five years we're going to have striped bass fishing completely shut off. [00:23:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:25] Speaker B: No one's going to be able to go out there and fish. And then people are going to lie and say, oh no, I'm targeting bluefish, or I'm targeting scupper, whatever. By catching out there that we catch when we're trying to catch strike bass. We're seeing it now that they just took a few inches off the regulation size. I mean, 2015, when they shut it. [00:23:46] Speaker A: Down completely, the whole fishery, they shut down. [00:23:48] Speaker B: Sorry, they didn't shut it down. They made it 35 inches and up that you had that you had to keep or whatever. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:55] Speaker B: Those fish, they taste like shit. The best tasting ones are cookie cutter, 28 inches. Nice skinny fish. [00:24:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker B: This beautiful, beautiful flesh from that. But I think, I think, yeah, within five years we'll have it completely shut off. Probably. Probably the same thing with 202. We're gonna see. All right. Everyone has to take one season off from fishing. [00:24:16] Speaker A: They're gonna have to suck. [00:24:18] Speaker B: I mean, dude, what am I gonna do? A golfer? I suck. I suck. [00:24:22] Speaker A: I mean, dude, I, I would get behind that if, if that was actually, you know, the thing. Like, if it was gonna totally rebound, which I do think it would be amazing if they shut it the down for a year and the numbers that we got back out of it were exponentially greater than what we had, I would be all for it. But I don't know, like I was saying earlier, maybe I'm just being a fucking pessimist, but I don't know if motherfuckers will follow the rules. I don't know if they're gonna, if it's gonna just be the kids that fish recreationally and really have a passion for it that's following it. And then the hundreds of thousands of people in this country who can't even afford their groceries, they're going down the park and getting a striper and eating it. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Trying to eat something. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah, like it's, it's, there's, there's a double edged sword again with it because it's like you want the guy to feed his family, but he's, he can't survive off the one fish because he's feeding the whole village. [00:25:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:14] Speaker A: And I'm just talking about New York because New York. [00:25:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:17] Speaker A: You know what I'm talking about, bro. They're killing the stripers. Like, oh yeah. We've seen hundreds of videos on Instagram and this guy even got called out the other day. It was like, his name is like Danger Zone Fishing Club. This dude has a whole Instagram like 40 posts of like 7 inch stripers, massive stripers, fucking just foul snagging them in the gut. Just scumbag shit. I don't know how we got into such a dark topic. [00:25:49] Speaker B: Now let's circle back. So we did striped bass, bluefish. What do you want me to talk a little about? About tuna fishing? [00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah, no, tuna fishing definitely is wicked cool for me. I went out this year with my boy Tristan and like I said, we are just like the average weekend fisherman. Like he had all the gear and I was just a body on board. But man, that shit's fun, you know? [00:26:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:13] Speaker A: So. And, and one thing I did notice when we were out there, there was 50 other boats around us. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [00:26:19] Speaker A: So it's like a half a mile. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you right. [00:26:22] Speaker B: On top of each other, it's like a real deal. [00:26:24] Speaker A: Commercial guy, how the do you get away from all, all us goons? [00:26:29] Speaker B: Honestly, I, I try to get out there as early as I can. Like October 1st, Sunday, this Sunday, I'm leaving the dock at midnight and I'm going to pick up pogies from this guy Poggy John in Plymouth. I'm gonna go sit in Cape Cod Bay because Stellwagen bank is going to be fucking loaded with people. Because everyone this past week, oh, I'm catching fucking hundred inches. I'm catching this. Oh, I got a million wreck fish. I caught a million commercial fish. So everyone's like fucking itching to get back out there for the opening for October. [00:27:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they know the fish. Fucking crazy right now. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Both are. One of my fish this year that I caught two weeks ago was on Stallion Bank. Thank God I was in a place there's only 10 other boats and we're all doing the same thing. We're all drifting over each other. But most of the time, 99 of the time, guys are on snow wagon, they're on an anchor setup and the next boat down is 100 yards down and then it's 100 yards down. And once in a while you'll get a. That'll want to split and right in between you. And that happened to me in the early part of July this year. I was fishing right next to tuna.com and I was fishing right next to hot tuna guys that are like the best fisherman in Wikatuna and probably in the northeast. And this guy slid in between us. I'm getting on the radio. You. I hope your wife cheats on you. Another guy runs by, he's throwing weights at the guy's boat. No, dude, it gets. It gets crazy out there. And that guy, of course, hooked up. And like, we're both like, let's just drive over this guy's line. Let's just cut it off. [00:28:07] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. It's pretty tough out there. It's now wagon being like right on top of each other. But unfortunately, there's just that weird shelf I was talking about a little earlier that you just sit right on this contour line. And for whatever reason, these fish will just go up and down, up and down. Depending on the time of the day, they'll go east or they go west. Like in the morning they're gonna chase the sun. [00:28:31] Speaker A: That's. That's crazy. Before the pod, Maddie was telling me that, like, under the Cape, you show me on them depth charts that there's like ass plateau under the Cape, right? And it goes from 300ft all the way up to 90 and shoots at like a big ass plateau where the tuna hang, hang around. So one thing I didn't know before this year with depth and everything just being on the water was how, like, I didn't know how much fish kind of congregated and hung out around structure and like that. So, like, what can you tell me and tell our listeners about. About that, about structure and depth and what it really means when you're looking at those shirts charts. [00:29:13] Speaker B: So the only reason that these fish are actually running up that contour line is the only reason, because of bait. If there's bait there, there's going to be tuna there, there's earth. If there's bait there, there's going to be whales, there's whales, is going to be birds. If there's all that shit in the same place, there's probably going to be tuna hanging around there. So the bait will sit on that shallow part, that 90ft, 80ft. That's where you go catch your mackere. Then you go sit right on the edge. I like to sit like, I don't know, I shouldn't probably say give it away, but whatever I said, like, usually 1:50 to 1:30 in the morning, and then in the afternoon I'll go sit in the high grounds. I go sit in like 80ft. So that's what I did a couple weeks ago. Went up there, didn't spot any bait. Drove around for an hour looking for bait. Fucking first lights up, usually one lines in the water, like half hour before the first light. So first lights usually an hour before the sunrise. So it's just like kind of can see all the washer pots and all that shit. So I get my bait. Finally. It's 605. I'm like, God damn it. I wish I had baits in the water an hour ago. Whatever. Go, Go to set up, and I see my buddy Tuna Taxes kid Sean Sullivan I fish with all the time. He's tight. Everyone around him's like, is this guy tight as this guy? I'm like, oh, yeah, that's my buddy. He's definitely tight. And so I go set up on this, like, weird part of the edge. No one else is around me. And as soon as I go set up, 10 other books follow me up to the same part. I'm like, dude, I don't know what I'm doing. [00:30:35] Speaker A: I'm just. [00:30:36] Speaker B: I'm just guessing at this point. So I set up, I put my two floaters out, put a downline down. All of a sudden, mark hammers on the bottom, hammer after hammer. Like these deep, dark red marks are like, those are the. Those are the ones you're looking for. Not those little squiggles across the screen. When you see a bass, there are these like quarter inch, half inch thick marks that you see on the screen. You're like, oh, okay, boys. Like, be ready. We're going to get one here. [00:31:01] Speaker A: That's nasty. [00:31:02] Speaker B: Marked him for two hours, didn't get shit. I'm like getting pretty discouraged. [00:31:06] Speaker A: Marking the same fish for two hours. [00:31:08] Speaker B: Kept run over the spot. Once I got to like 70ft, 75ft, 80ft. It's like too fucking shallow. I'm gonna go right back over. So pulling the dates, go back on the shelf, drift over again. Usually you sit right on that shelf. [00:31:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:31:23] Speaker B: To like, tuna will go up and down that shelf. I didn't bring my anchor set up. And I was like, I'm not gonna fuck around. Like, go back home, pick it up, go back out. So I was like, I'm just gonna keep drifting over it. My cousin the week before caught one drifting in between lobster pots. He's like, you just like, stay in this lobster pot line and you'll get them. So I was like, kept going right in these officer pots. Kept marking these huge fish on the bottom. Kept getting dogfish. These dogfish are. They just Sharks. Sand sharks, yeah. And when you get them, dude, they inhale the hook. I'm like, cutting these. I'm literally taking scissors, cutting these things up. I'm like, that's my hood. Throwing it back in the water. The smelliest thing in the world. They, like, leak this, like, brown yellow oil. Dude gets on your boat, smells like, stained your boat. It's disgusting. So after about nine dog fish, I was like, all right, I'm not fishing a downland anymore because all these dog fish are right on the bottom. And that's. Dude, that's where I kept seeing the tuna. [00:32:20] Speaker A: I'm like, what were they eating? Your live Mac? [00:32:22] Speaker B: My live Mac? Yeah, dude. My mackerel was this big and the dogfish is this big. I'm like, how do you eat that thing? So, yeah, just got pretty discouraged. Usually the bite at Stellwagen is anywhere between 6am and 10am Usually once it comes to 11 o', clock, you're toast. So it's 9 o'. Clock. I'm like, dude, like, I need to do something different. So I'm like, boys, keep your eyes peeled for any life. So I'm like, I kind of see birds a little bit more north, like on middle bank. I'm at southwest corner, just going back and forth. I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna fish the two floors the rest of the day. Maybe if anything, I'll fish a third floater. So floaters, like, usually a weightless mackerel. So 40ft away from the balloon, 20ft away from balloon. Whatever you want to do. Yeah, I fished one at 40ft on a weight, one at 50ft, weightless. So the fish can go anywhere from zero feet down to 50ft. And that's. That's all it does. All of a sudden, my buddy is like, what is that? I look, I'm like looking over in the distance. Get out the by. And I was looking over. I'm like, that kind of looks like a whale spout. All of a sudden they see two whale spots. I'm like, oh, we're maybe 200, 300 yards away. We're drifting right in that direction. I go, this is probably going to get real good. I'm like, should I fucking take these things and go right on top of these whales? I'm like, no, I shouldn't. Or one of the kids like, no, dude, we're going to go right over. I'll be there in 20 minutes. And I was like, yeah, you probably right. Looking at my other body goes, let's go. So I'm like, fucking suck these things in, boys. Suck them in. Have literally didn't even take the bait off the hooks. Just left them dangling in the air. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Still alive. [00:33:55] Speaker B: Buzzing around, fly over these whales. Another big sporty, like a 60 foot sport. He's doing the same thing, flies over the whales. This guy hits a whale. Boats rocking back and forth. He sets up right behind the whale. So I'm like, no, I want to be right in front of these whales. Like, I'm like, wait, boys, like, we're gonna find these whales again. Minute later, see two whale spouts 20 yards off the bow. Drive 30ft in front of these things, set the bait out, put a weight on the mackerel. Setting it up, put a balloon. Like, I pass it off to my buddy Matt. Call me. I'm like, maddie, send this thing out. I'm gonna get the pogi out. Put the pogi on, send it like 60ft down. Tying the balloon on. My buddy Matt goes, ah, I got what? He goes, the line just got ripped out of my hands. I got. I was like, what? [00:34:38] Speaker A: Turn around. [00:34:38] Speaker B: The balloon just gets sucked under. I was like, oh boys, we're tight. [00:34:42] Speaker A: It hit it as he's throwing it. [00:34:44] Speaker B: As he said, dude, it must be 15ft away from the boat. Like the balloon's 15ft away from the boat. And then the baits like 40ft down just got inhaled. [00:34:52] Speaker A: Dude, that's wild. [00:34:53] Speaker B: Dude, it. I've never heard of my 130 scream like this ever before. My buddy Matt barely put the drag up and I was fishing these tiny little six 0J hooks. Like, dude, I sometimes for bass I use eight hours. And I was like, dude, jam it up. So it jams it up and then it, it stops and then it dumps. Dude, it dumps like 400 yards into my backing. I literally only have 200 yards of backing left. And I was like, boys, like, we're gonna have to chase this fish down. So I'm reeling in the other one. Get the pogey up just like dangling in the air. The only reason I do that is because this kid, Sean Sullivan Tuna Taxi, one time he was fishing in a big tournament off of Nantucket and his hook was like just dangling around the air. And the fish, his fish on the other side of the boat ran over. Dude, the hook wrapped along around the line and cut it right off. So every time now I'm reeling the pogi literally into the rod tip. The fish, the pogey was dangling around the whole fight. Dude, it was hilar Comedy. But anyways, we start running after this fish and. And then it starts running at us. So I'm like, matt, real, real, real, dude. He is reeling it a million miles an hour. No tension in the line. I'm like, we lost his fish, boys. Like, all right, let's. I was like, just bring that in. We'll go set up. Matt's so convinced. He's like, dude, I swear to God, this fish still on. So I'm like, all right, let me get on real, real nothing. I'm like, dude, fish is gone. Like, whatever, we'll get another. The whale's right over here. It's going to be easy. All of a sudden, match is slowly bringing in. Goes. He goes. Why is the line running, dude? All of a sudden, the line just starts flying by the boat. I was like, oh, my God, we are still tight. This is only like six, seven minutes into the fight. I was like, holy. I was like, all right, get back on the rod. So, dude, he's picking up 300 yards of, like, extra line that's just, like, cutting through the water. So we got Dec a ton of line after that first initial run. So I'm like, all right, boys. Like, Matt, you get on the rod. This kid Mike, you stay on the sticks, like, the driving the boat. I'm gonna get the harpoon and all the ready. Getting the harpoon ready. Open up the harpoon bag. Get the things twisted in together. Like, where's my dart? Like, looking in the bag. Look in my Shimano bag. Like, dude, I don't have a dart. Rip apart my entire boat, dude, the seats ripped off. I'm like, so. [00:37:14] Speaker A: Couldn't find a harpoon. [00:37:15] Speaker B: Couldn't find a harpoon. So, dude, there's a little hole in the bottom of the knife. I go, dude, I'm just gonn line into the knife and just jab it as deep as I can. Thankfully, my cousins are fishing half a mile away. Go like, all in. All in. Like, terry, can you please bring me a harpoon? He goes, what do you mean? He goes, dude, I forgot to bring a dart this morning. This kid flies over going like 40 miles an hour. There's a sick video on my Instagram. The kid throws a harpoon dart on on my boat and tie it on electrical tape on the line. I put it up on the gunnel and I'm like, all right, we're good. Like, now let's actually fight the fish, kid. Matt is on the rod. He goes, dude, I think the fish is here. And I go, what? Do you mean? He goes, well, there's a shark right there, and it keeps circling, like, 50ft off the boat. And I was like, there's a shark because. [00:38:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:07] Speaker B: I'm like, oh. He goes, I'm just gonna shoot it with my gun. I was like, no, you can't shoot with your gun. I think that's allowed out here. Quality. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna get on the sticks. I'm just gonna slowly bump this fish away. Dude, it was acting super erratic, like, diving and then coming up, diving, coming up. Going in these, like, weird circles, like a. I've never fought a fish like this. Usually, like, after, like, an hour, they'll go on this thing called a pinwheel. It'll slowly make these big circles and tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter, and it'll come up. And then you stick with the harpoon. Anyways, I'm driving it away, shark. Thankfully, I'm like, throwing pogies in the water, so it, like, just chases after dead ones. [00:38:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:38:47] Speaker B: And I'm like, just get away from the shark. Get away from the shark. So I drive for, like, four minutes. All of a sudden, take it out of gear, put in neutral. Comments like, dude, this fish is just coming in. It's like, there's no way this was just coming in, dude. I look out 100ft off the boat. The fish is just, like, bobbing on the surface. Like, its head's coming up, head coming up. And I was like, holy. So I was like, mike, get back on the sticks, you know, he's like, dude, we're slowly backing down. Slowly backing down. Eventually, the fish is, like, 30ft off the boat, and I didn't see the hook in its corner. I was like, dude, maybe this thing's, like, gut hooked. These J hooks, they're, like, known for gut hooking tuna. And I love for, like, a circle hook. When you get tight, it has this, like, weird offset. It'll, like, slide up its throat and then stick right in the hinge. Yeah, these J hooks, dude, they will just grab onto anything, like, in the stomach. Oh, dude. Most fish I catch that stomach is literally getting pulled out of its throat. [00:39:41] Speaker A: Oh, that's brutal. [00:39:43] Speaker B: That's why my fish come up within, like, 20 minutes. Most guys will fight them for, like, two hours, three hours. [00:39:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:48] Speaker B: But anyways, the fish comes up, it's like, 10ft away from the boat. Throw the harpoon, miss it, wait like, another second, and just drill it right in its skill plate. I was like, dude, this is a real one. Biggest one today it was a 99 dressed out at 406. So pretty happy. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Nasty. Yeah, it's wicked exciting. I love. That's one of the things, big things I love about fishing is how electric that moment can be. Like me and my boys all experienced it this summer. We were out on the water for from end of May till and my boy's boat's still not even in. And we've caught about five fish, five stripers the whole time, you know. So that's like 90 days with five fish. And it's because the 20 minutes when we caught that fish was so electric. That's why I kept. That's why we keep chasing after this 100. [00:40:41] Speaker B: Agree. [00:40:42] Speaker A: One of my questions leading into that like talking about that theme would be what type of fishing are you interested in going? And is there anything you have on your bucket list that you're chasing that you're like, like I want to reel in one of these. Could be anywhere. It doesn't have to be around Mass. [00:40:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:00] Speaker B: I mean I've caught marlin in the past. Only white marlin. I haven't got a blue marlin yet. [00:41:05] Speaker A: Where's white marlin out of? [00:41:06] Speaker B: Like can you catch them in canyons? So around that you go behind the vineyard and then you go 60 miles south. [00:41:14] Speaker A: Damn. [00:41:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:15] Speaker B: So dude, it's far. It's like 100 miles total to go. [00:41:18] Speaker A: And what, there's white marlin and black marlin and blue marlin. [00:41:21] Speaker B: So here we just have white and blue. White marlin are like 100 pounds, sometimes up to 200 pounds. Dude. Some of these blue marlin are like like thousand pounders. 1200. [00:41:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:30] Speaker A: The blues are the crazy one. [00:41:32] Speaker B: Crazy, dude. They like jump out of the water, do these crazy dances. Dude, they're sick, sick, sick fighting fish. But I mean there's no better run than a bluefin tuna in that aspect. But I'd love to catch blue marlin. Love to go down to Australia. Get to Giant Valley. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah, like some spinning rod. [00:41:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:41:51] Speaker A: A popper off the shore, bro. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. [00:41:53] Speaker A: It'd be crazy. [00:41:55] Speaker B: I finally caught a tarpon over the last winter down in Florida. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Yeah, sick. [00:42:00] Speaker B: Me and my brother went on this guy Russell Fish Russ on Instagram, he has a charter. Dude, you go out at like 11 o' clock at night. So me and Mike like went out before, like no way. Had a couple drinks on us and we go up. Dude, you use these like tiny little 5k 6k reels with like 15, 20 pound leader, dude. And you put on a little Live shrimp with a weight on the hook. You throw in with a dude with the bobber. Right where the bridge in the, like, the water meet, there's this, like, shadow, you guys, you cast it right on the Shadow. You wait 30 seconds. You don't get to fish. You reel it in, cast it to another spot, dude. Literally first cast, dish it out. The bobber gets sucked under. And I, like, set the hook. He's like, no, you don't set the hook. You just like, kind of real. And then you set it. So I was like, all right, I missed the first one. Send out another dude. Same thing. Instantly tight, like real. And then I said it, dude. This fish is jumping, dude, like five. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Feet out of the water. [00:42:55] Speaker B: Runs for probably 20 minutes getting next to the boat. It's like 100 pounds tarpon. It was a. Wow, dude. [00:43:01] Speaker A: A big one's nasty. [00:43:02] Speaker B: Me and my brother caught seven that night. The lat, dude, the last one of the night, we fought for two hours going all over downtown Miami, dude. We're like in front of the heat stadium. See, like, live in the back. I'm like, oh, my God. [00:43:17] Speaker A: You're hooked up to a tarpon. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Hooked up to a tarpon, dude. [00:43:19] Speaker A: People are cheering you on these bridges. [00:43:21] Speaker B: It's sick. Went around like six pilings. Like, the tarpon are probably the smartest fish in the ocean. It's insane. Other than that. A rooster fish. Rooster fish on a fly. That's. That's on my. [00:43:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be fun too. [00:43:33] Speaker B: Bluefin tuna on a fly. That's what I'm trying to do. Next summer, I bought myself a huge fly reel. [00:43:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:38] Speaker B: Oh, dude, it's like $1,200 for this. [00:43:41] Speaker A: Have you ever fly fish, like, any trout or anything? [00:43:44] Speaker B: I've got. I got a couple striped bass this year on a fly. I caught one trout in March or April this year, right when it got stopped down in Plymouth. Just like, no idea what. [00:43:56] Speaker A: John has been trying to get me into fly fishing forever. I just. I don't think I have the patience for it. But it's. [00:44:02] Speaker B: It's definitely takes a while to, like, really get it, dude. It's like you're. Dude, you're going like this for four hours to catch one a tiny 7, 8 inch trout. You're like, dude, what am I doing? And the guys are really good. They press the barb down on the fly so that, like, it has more of a chance to get off and that, like, it has a better chance. Like, dude, I just want to catch one of these stupid Things. I'm about to throw a treble hook into it. No, dude, not even close. [00:44:30] Speaker A: You're just getting it out there. But, bro, some fly fishermen, like my boy Justin and his dad and his brother Gino, they catch steelheads that are like 50 inches, like that massive ones. I'm always like, how the do you reel that thing in? Like, this thing's bigger than them. It's massive. Like 40, 50 pound, dude. Tiny fly. I'm like, how does this make sense? [00:44:50] Speaker B: Literally no sense. That's the other thing I want to catch is salmon up in Alaska. [00:44:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:44:55] Speaker B: Like my brother, my dad. You can join. [00:44:59] Speaker C: Yeah, dude. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Like, these guys will like, have these, like, flat boats, like down in Florida. And you just like, drift up and down, like there. And then they'll be like, all right, we're gonna get off. We're gonna walk up here so we don't spook these fish. And then you, like, throw flies or lures or whatever. These things, dude, and they're these 20, 30 pound sand. [00:45:17] Speaker A: They're just monsters, I think. What's that called? Spot fishing? Or like. Yeah, spot. Like spot fishing, I would say, is one of the coolest types of fishing. Like when you are actively hunting for fish, looking at where they are and you see them and are throwing lures, presenting lures around them. That shit's sick. [00:45:36] Speaker B: It's a whole different lifestyle because you're. [00:45:39] Speaker A: Actively hunting, looking for the fish. You're not just dropping a bait in and. No, I'm just. [00:45:45] Speaker B: I'm just putting one down. I'm like, all right. Not gonna enjoy a couple Sam Adams and hang out. But doing that's a whole different ball game. A bunch of my buddies, the feet do charters for tuna, for casting and popping. Dude, like, they're going 30 miles an hour. Like, oh, I see breaking fish a mile up. Like, dude, I can't even see 500ft in front of me. What are you talking about? [00:46:05] Speaker A: It's crazy. [00:46:06] Speaker B: We'll just like, go Cassie's like, like huge epoxy jigs or these like, siren lures that are showing you earlier. Like, 150 bucks. 200 for a single. Or I'm like, dude, yeah. How do you even try to throw that thing? I'd be sweating my ass off. [00:46:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one thing about fishing that I didn't know that much until I started, like, actually on the water saltwater fishing this year is how much you guys rely on the other wildlife to tell you what the is going on. Like, you mentioned it. The whales, the birds, the bait, everything. Structure, structure. It all indicates where it's going to be a good spot to fish, where the fish are at and what the fish are doing. [00:46:46] Speaker B: Moon cycle current. Yeah. Temperature. Dude, there's so many different things that go into this that like four years ago when me and my brother were getting into this thing fishing on a 22 foot hydro Sport, we're just like, all right, we're just gonna go sit in Cape Cod Bay. Because I know some guys get them in Cape Cod Bay. [00:47:03] Speaker C: Yeah, dude. [00:47:03] Speaker B: Like, like, well, you know, like we got lucky that day. We like had a thousand pound fish boats on. We didn't have a commercial license, so we couldn't harvest it, but it was like, holy. That's why these guys do it. Now I'm getting into like, all right, there's a temp break off of Chatham that's like right around the sword. I'm gonna go a little bit north of it and I'm gonna hopefully drip south right over that line. For whatever reason, the tuna like to be in different temperature breaks or ran along structures or following different baits. Like, dude, like different spots. I'll use different baits. Like Cape Cod Bay. I'm only using bluefish and I'm only using pogies. Stellwagen. I'm only using mackerel and herring. It's like, that's so weird. [00:47:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Like, I fished Block island for the first time this year. Sick area. I was four miles south of Block island catching these things called chubb mackerel, dude. They're like, they're huge force mackerel, they're ginormous. And you're putting these things out and you're like, no chance I'm gonna get a bite. Like, what am I doing? I'm like, shore. There's no way there's anything here. Well, you know, like 20 minutes later, we're tight to like a fish tr for four hours and Jesus killed it. [00:48:11] Speaker A: Unreal, bro. It was sick. [00:48:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Longest fish, longest fight this year was seven hours. [00:48:17] Speaker A: Seven hour battle. Yeah, that's unreal. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Fished Regal Sword. It was like the only time the sword was good this year. For whatever reason, few fish were caught that day. Put out a couple of mackerel. Caught a bunch of shorts, like 50, 60 inch fish. And then all of a sudden we put it on our downline. Dude, I'm like, I'm marking the beta like 80ft. I see a tuna at 90, I'm like, all right, set it down, dude. Like literally instabite. Like, these guys like Mass Bay Guy, tuna.com. like, they'll change their baits. [00:48:49] Speaker A: Like, what levels are at. [00:48:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, all, dude, throughout the day, they're like, all right, it's. The sun's coming out. I'm gonna put my base a little higher so that the fish can look up and see through the water and, like, really be aggressive for these fish. That's all you're trying to do is just make these fish be more aggressive than they usually are. Because most of the time, dude, they're just milling around right on the bottom, crushing sand eels, crushing mackerel all day long. [00:49:13] Speaker A: They're eating all the time because they're so big, they have to eat half. [00:49:16] Speaker B: Their body weight every two days. That's. It's crazy, dude. A thousand pound fish eating 500 pounds. [00:49:21] Speaker A: Of bait every day or every other day. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Nuts. Definitely grown a lot of respect for these fish over the years. Like. Like, I feel like every year I learn one. One new thing. [00:49:31] Speaker A: Like, dude, that was just my question. Is that it seems like as a fisherman, you exponentially gain knowledge every year. [00:49:38] Speaker B: Every. Every year. Sometimes every trip. Like, before this year, all I used was 180 blue label. And then I was fishing with a couple younger kids last year. They're like, use blue label. Like, you're an idiot. I'm like, what? Like, you gotta use this stuff Premiere. I'm like, that's the cheaper fishing line. They're like, like, well, it's clearer. It gets more bites. You're not. You're gonna break a lot of fish off, but you're gonna get way more bites. I'm like, all right. We try out this premiere, dude. Literally, you know, it works. I'm like, God damn it. I've been doing anything wrong. But every other guy that I talked to, like, blue label or nothing. One guy uses pink label. Literally. Pink. It's like, pink line. That's great. Dude, what the am I doing? [00:50:18] Speaker A: That is nuts. [00:50:19] Speaker B: But in the end, they are just fishing. [00:50:22] Speaker C: They're not. [00:50:22] Speaker B: They're not humans. They're not that smart. No, but you gotta foolish. [00:50:25] Speaker A: It's all about present presentation in right place, right time. [00:50:29] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:50:30] Speaker B: Like, I know guys that are bridling, so they put like a needle through a fish. They take an elastic band. You put your hook around the elastic band so you have more hook exposure. [00:50:40] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:50:41] Speaker A: On top of it. [00:50:41] Speaker B: Yeah. I like putting my hook in the fish so that the hook's barely seen. So that, like, fit. Like a tunis comes by. They're like, I'll just engulf that, that apparently you get a. Gonna get a lot more misbites there than if you just bridled it. But I don't know, I'm just kind of getting to the bridling and all that. But the. Dude, there's so many different parts of water that I have yet to fish. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Is there anything other than parts of water around here you have in fish? Is there any type of species? I know you said the swordfish, but like any other interest that you have recreationally? What about Quincy? Like, you know you're gonna be home in Quincy during this winter. Any interest in the flounder or any of that? [00:51:20] Speaker B: I did flounder growing up off of the. [00:51:25] Speaker A: Is it called Nut Island? [00:51:26] Speaker B: Yeah, off Nut Island. Used can of corn on the side of the boat. The corn's like your chump slick and you're like clams and stuff like that. Those are awesome. I'd love to catch a halibut off of Regal Sword. I know guys will go out there and catch them. [00:51:42] Speaker A: Big ones, right? [00:51:43] Speaker B: Huge ones. Some kid got a dude as a party boat that leaves out of Chatham and they just go after like, like little flounder and ground fish. Like not talk the. Is it cod and all this other. That's the word I was looking for. And all of a sudden this guy's like, whoa, like, what the going on? Brings up 120 pound halibut, dude. It's like size of this table right here. That's insane to think that there's fish like that just like milling around. Catching a shark from shore, definitely on the bucket list. [00:52:16] Speaker A: So yeah, that's also what that was probably one of the biggest things why I wanted to have you on here. We haven't even talked about it yet. Would be it the fact that about two years ago I saw this thing on Instagram. It's called a citizen science project and it was ran by Noah, the people who regulate the fishing fishery in. In the Cape. And they're like, we're giving out free shark tags to any fisherman who wants them. We'll give you the tags, the info, the whole nine yards. They gave me this whole packet, three tags. And I was so fucking excited to tag some sharks. And. And you tag the shark, you write the information about it, you get the ship back and you get more tags. And I didn't get to as you know, because life got in the way. But you and me are planning to eventually. But you did something wicked cool this year, which was you reported the striper numbers and bluefish numbers to Noah. [00:53:10] Speaker B: Yes. [00:53:10] Speaker A: So tell me more about that because that's fucking so sick. [00:53:14] Speaker B: It was actually to the mass of no federal sort of one, but the Massachusetts government came out in, say, April. They said, okay, we're looking for, I think 50 or 100 fishermen that are been doing this shit and that use laws. No. No tackle or no bait. They just wanted to know things that guys that lords how they're catching them. They want to know a bunch of different things. So I think I started in middle of May or so, and it went out and I was like, all right, you need to. First thing you need to do, you check the water temperature. I'm like, all right, it's 62 degrees. It's the air temperature, 65 degrees, whatever. And then they wanted to know the fight time. The lore used if you were able to revive a fish, how long you revived it for? They. The weight of the fish, they give you a little scale. They want to know the inches. Yeah, dude, like, I. I try to keep that fish in the water for as long as possible. So I didn't do a lot of the weights, but I quickly. I have a brainless on my gum, on my boat. Pull it up. Okay, this one's 16 inches. Let's get back in the water, revive it for a couple, like, whatever, 30 seconds to a minute. [00:54:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Back in the water. And dude, they gave you like a chart with like 30 slots. And I was done with that chart within like, two hours. My first day I went out there, I was like, all right, that was good. [00:54:38] Speaker A: That's sick. [00:54:39] Speaker B: So then they gave you like a bunch of free lures and they gave me another chart. And I haven't filled out the second chart yet, but. [00:54:46] Speaker A: So the first chart, you caught 30 fish and recorded 30 data observations. [00:54:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:54:50] Speaker A: That's sick. [00:54:51] Speaker B: Yeah, No, I mean, I'm not sure what they really do with that sort of information. I imagine they wanted people to start it in early May and do it to July and. Yeah, August, September, October, or however late in the season. So I'll probably use that secondary chart for when I catch fall stripers down with. Yeah, as of last week, they're starting to move in again real good. Oh, yeah, the false albacore bites kind of slowing down. So those are a ton of fun. I also want to get you on those at some point. [00:55:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:26] Speaker B: Dude, it's. It's insane. Like, you casting it, you're reeling as fast as you can across the water. It's literally skipping on the surface. All of a sudden. You'll see a Albie, come out of the water and slam it. [00:55:36] Speaker A: That slam it, dude. [00:55:38] Speaker B: And you're. Dude, it's not like a striper where you're fighting it for like, like 30 seconds to a minute, dude. Like some of these fish are like five minutes, ten minutes. Like, dude, it's like peeling out your drag. You have it like you drag all the way jammed up. I like using these like little 3K reel. So it's like basically like a little kid rod real. Then it's like, feels like a legit like bluefin tune on the end of it. It's a blast. But yeah, I'm gonna do a lot of data observation. October, November. I did a few holdover fishing trips last year. I. I was not holdover fishing trip. So I fish in December and January and February, March, and I went fishing all around the Cape in these little back rivers where the water's a lot warmer than the actual ocean. They can't survive in the ocean just because there's no bait. And. But a lot of these back rivers, you'll sometimes get lucky and you'll catch one. [00:56:29] Speaker A: Were you catching bass in the winter last year? Yeah, it's sick. [00:56:32] Speaker B: I. I lost one. My buddy caught, I think four or five. But dude, it's like months. Like every week you're going out two or three days and you're doing these four hour, five hour trips and you just to get one bite, you're like, am I insane? [00:56:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:47] Speaker B: Probably losing my mind. [00:56:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker B: But there's this place in Charles Sound guys hammer them all winter long. [00:56:53] Speaker A: Dude. Huge. That's crazy. [00:56:55] Speaker B: 30 pounders, 40 pound. Like. Yeah, it's just like not gonna give away the spot. But dude, it's like you sit on top of this little thing, you drop your like little jig down, you jig, jig, jig. Don't get them like that. Then you'll throw like a piece of pogi out and like, dude, they usually crush live bait or they'll crust these like swim baits. Like the NLPN ones that you bought the other day. [00:57:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:15] Speaker A: So for people who don't know the striped bass is or I'm not even totally sure are. They definitely are a migratory species. They breed in Maryland and they migrate up here for the summer. But what you're saying, some, some stay forever. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Some, some of these fish, they just like, they're like, you know what? I have plenty of bait here. I don't really need to chase the bait all the way down to New York and New Jersey. [00:57:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:57:41] Speaker A: Maryland. [00:57:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. They Hang out in Chesapeake Bay all winter long and then start in April, we'll start to make that migratory, sorry journey up here. But yeah, no, there's definitely guys that will catch fish year round and that. Dude, they're usually big fish. Like they're fish that can go like. [00:58:01] Speaker A: Pigs that are living under the docks. [00:58:03] Speaker B: And oh, Boston harbor by the. By the fish pier there. Guys will like throw out like pieces of bread. Dude, you'll see striped bass there year round. Guarantee it. That's if you sit there for an hour, I guarantee you see one fish or two fish. Yeah, like that's really Christmas day. It's pretty crazy to think about, but yeah, probably 99.9 of the fish, they come out of the bays and then they go in the ocean, they go back into the bays and right around this time eating up all the little peanut bunker. Right now it's a lot of peanut bunker early season. [00:58:33] Speaker A: What is peanut bunker? They're just like smaller pogies. [00:58:36] Speaker B: They're basically smaller pogies. They're completely different species. [00:58:39] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:58:39] Speaker B: And they're. Dude, they're like the size of like a half dollar up to like. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Can you snag them? [00:58:46] Speaker B: You can cast net them if you have a real thin cast net. I've caught. I caught a peanut bunker last week when I was trying to catch albies in off the vineyard and I was like, really? All of a sudden I felt like a tiny balls. Like that's definitely not a hobby. Well, you know, it's like a tiny little peanut butter. [00:59:01] Speaker A: I was like, dude, do they hit bait like max? Like you could fish with them for the sabiki or you gotta snag them under cast. [00:59:08] Speaker B: I mean, dude, if you were able to bring out like 100 pounds of peanut bunker, that's a Stellwagen. And you were able to live like liveline one of those things on a tiny hook and then just chum like 100 of those things every 20 minutes. You would get hammered by bluefin just because there's none of that out there. And that's like their. I bet you that would be their favorite thing to eat anything. [00:59:29] Speaker A: I don't know if I've ever even seen them yet. I've definitely seen the pogies around Quincy for sure. Those are huge though. They're like 12, 13 inches and I see millions of them. So I'm like thinking about what the. Are the schools as big as the other pokey schools are just smaller fish. [00:59:45] Speaker B: Fish bigger. [00:59:45] Speaker A: Bigger school, smaller fish. [00:59:47] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, that'll be like 10, 000 peanut bunker in school and all of a sudden you'll see striped bass or bluefish just crashing about. You'll see these like little tiny little chubs basically getting knocked out of the water because it's electric when you see. [01:00:00] Speaker A: A feed all these things and. [01:00:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:02] Speaker A: So I'm pumped you came on here and I'm definitely looking forward to getting into it. [01:00:07] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [01:00:07] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [01:00:08] Speaker C: Oh yeah. [01:00:09] Speaker B: See you next time, Pod. Hopefully me and Greg have a thousand pound fish on the boat. [01:00:14] Speaker C: Hell yeah. [01:00:15] Speaker A: And that's, that's all I got. Later, boys. [01:00:18] Speaker B: Peace. [01:00:19] Speaker A: Thank you, Justin.