Musky 360 Podcast Episode 229: Esox Around The World

 

Podcast Transcript

Alright folks, welcome to the Musky 360 podcast.

Jet lag has nothing on what happened to me, J. It was a hot mess.

You're running around doing the freaking piking.

Right?

That's what happens to you.

It was crazy.

I'll talk about it here in a second.

J, what have I missed?

What has shown up at the Musky shop?

It looks like Lake X is back.

What's going on baby?

Yeah, I mean you name it.

It came in the last week.

We got literally semis full of stuff from some manufacturers.

We got a lot of stuff in.

And yeah, Lake X.

Not a huge shipment but good numbers of top water baits.

Yeah.

And those are up on the website.

I think we still have several color choices in all models left.

I don't know how long they're going to last.

These things take a long, long time to get.

So yeah, that was the main thing in terms of new and surprising.

New and surprising.

In a shocking twist.

Yeah.

So very cool.

So, you got your Lake X.

I would, what I've learned on Lake X is to get it when you can get it.

That is the name of that game.

So, stock up while you can.

That is the deal.

So, J anyway.

I just sent you the video footage.

What do you think?

I watched it twice.

I love it.

There's a lot of cool stuff on there.

I love the shots leading into it on, you know, on the local flavor.

Local flavor.

Getting in the boat, leaving the harbor, going out in there in the shipping channels.

Wang.

The rough seas, brackish water for big pike and yeah, it's some cool stuff.

Hey, I learned more in the last week than I've learned probably in the last year, it was very cool.

So got to spend a bunch of time. So obviously my best friend in the world other than J. I got two best friends is J and Tim.

Damn.

I love Tim.

He makes me look like a midget. We went out there. Big boy. So, Tim is six nine his brother six seven.

So, if you see the video, Steve Paul looks really short and stupid.

No, I'm by American standards I'm fit ‘n’ trim.

These boys are living that frickin’ all kind of life, you know, it's ridiculous, Jay, ridiculous. So, we stay in the houseboat in the harbor. It was very funny because they said you stay in the baby's room.

What baby?

Babies room. It's just a little room in the baby room, right? So, it's a half door like you were getting like a really small cupboard with like literally bunk beds in there that are like 30 inches wide. I can't even walk through the thing sideways. I had to like shimmy in on my side and get in the bunk bed like I was in a submarine. They're so big. You can't argue like I'm getting the full bed.

Like the houseboat was 40 feet long, right?

So, there's no argument when they're that much bigger than you like that you don't end up in the baby's room. I slip in a bunk bed. I woke up. I had a bunch of Pepsi's and you know, if you've had too many Pepsi's, there's a moment in the middle of the night, we wake up and there's just like the hard wake up your brain like

oh, all right.

Reality hits. You know what I'm talking about out there with Neverland. You're like, oh, I've been there. You have that weird middle. I sat straight up out of bed and I basically knocked myself back out off the top of the bunk bed. So, sleeping on the bottom and I had a knot on my head for a couple of days because it was in the baby's room. Went out. I'll tell you; they were smacking the Livingston Lures Kraken and it was freaking amazing. You saw the video footage. There's some ridiculous pike. Jay, little big ones came on Kraken, right?

Yep.

Big Kraken. So, we're throwing the paddle tail. There's a paddle tail addition to the Kraken that's coming out. I've sort of hinted at it. We're throwing the prototypes where it turns your Kraken into a swim bait. Well, when you're in that kind of rough water and you saw it, we are bobbing around like a cork in the ocean, right? Low rod angle. Try not to rise it up because you do the up pops that things just get too high. I never realized it. I'll tell you flat out. Just to back it up. Pike in the US, Pike in Canada. We kind of take it for granted. Over there, that is the apex predator and they see a ton of pressure. It was pressure, Jay. Like serious pressure. You had to do something different. You had to be creative to get the bites and you're going; your options are this. And the one thing I'll say is this on the Euro thing, about day two, I went, they treat swim baits like we treat bucktails.

Sure. So, what do you throw?

Like the staple bait for these Euro guys and we got Euro listeners. Swim bait, swim bait, swim bait, swim bait, swim bait, swim bait, right? If you're a Euro listener and I know we got them, when I'm saying put the bucktails down, put the swim bait down. Same thought process. The up and down motion of the Kraken with the tube skirt, they were all over it. Now when we were working the swim bait Kraken they've never seen a paddle tail quite like that, we're doing a sporadically and getting hits on it. But actually, the up and down twitch weird erratic Kraken was, it seemed to be, it was just turning them on. There's nothing for it, fish a bunch of different weather, and the weather changes there on a dime, right? So, it's bright and sunny, it's drizzling, it's this, that, and the other. Something else I learned that I took for granted is that those guys are structure fishermen. If you watch that video that's coming in here shortly, you can't see the shoreline. You're fishing shipping channels and water that used to be completely saltwater before they put a dike up, right? They dike it up over there, Jay.

Got lots of dikes.

Anyway, so you're fishing this water and you're going, this is big water, this is sandy bottom. You couldn't snag a bait on the bottom if you tried. No kidding, you couldn't, like you could let a bait sink down. There's one, Tim gets a really nice fish and I'm actually jigging the bottom. We're jigging sand and we caught a couple small fish, we didn't do anything amazing jigging, but I'm taking a Kraken then just bopping off the bottom and it's kind of like when they say, so you're talking sand weedless too. No, there's a little bit of weed. I will say that. I don't know what, I couldn't tell you what kind of weed it is. You could pull it up on occasion, but the other thing I'll say is this that blew my mind.

Absolutely, like, have me a mess.

It's how hard the pike hit. I can tell you, and Tim was laughing because we were up in Canada when I was constant, I can tell you within a millisecond it is a muskier pike, right?

Based on how they hit.

They hit like muskies there. They hit hard and they hit fast. They don't play around. It's not this old Northern Wisconsin pike and it kind of feels, I don't know, articulate it perfectly, but the best way I can put it when it comes to a pike. It's more of a shake and less of a crush, right?

They grab it and they sort of like shock it.

Yeah, that's pike. Over there, they're hammering it as hard as muskies. And I don't know what that's from.

They've been split up from an evolutionary perspective for eons, right?

Whatever your timeline is, I'm not trying to grow your feathers. These fish have been split up. The prey they’re after is really big. I actually got to see a 41-inch Zander. But if you can imagine seeing a 40-inch pike as Zander is closed, they're kissing cousins, right?

Yeah, it's like a, like a US wall.

I equivalent, right?

Right.

And that's not as big as they get. So, it was big and bad and the water was big and bad. A lot of days we're in legit three-footers. A lot of days you're, you're so far from the shoreline. You follow the boat. You might as well just call her a day. So, a lot of respect to that is those fisheries. A lot of respect in their regards of pressure. And actually, J of all things. I was super excited. I landed in the Netherlands, headed straight to Amsterdam, if you can believe that, Jay.

Right.

There's things going on there. A lot of, a lot of family-friendly things in Amsterdam. No Pepsi there, by the way.

What?

No Pepsi.

And then they only have Heineken.

I get you.

Okay.

Copious amounts.

So sure.

I was very lucky. One of our podcast listeners from the Netherlands came by the hotel. We hung out. We talked. He gave me some Stroop Waffle. And we're gabbing about it. But there's a lot of these guys over there where they're listening to the Muskie 360 podcast because of alternative tactics. And that's what we talked about was like how you dial in. So, what I'll say to this for you, the European listeners, when we're talking structure fishing and we're talking about bait staging and forage staging, it translates to it.

It just does.

Right.

Right.

It's these are not going out and catching some frickin’ dumb pike.

It wasn't.

It was not. With pike, there's a bunch of dinks.

Right.

I mean, we could have made a seven-hour episode of, oh, catching thirties, right?

There's a bunch of them.

There's nothing. Well, maybe in the Netherlands, the thirties of dink, but you know, not in, you know, the upper Midwest.

That's a good pike.

Yeah.

It was.

Did you get into 20 inches?

I mean, no, no, no, they, they, we, we saw one that I think was, you got to realize how big these guys are.

Right.

Like, if you watch the video, if you fish with me, you know, I'm not the shortest guy on planet earth and these guys are monsters compared to me. I mean, like literally I might have alluded to it. We were walking back. We had a steak, by the way, they love American stuff or the, I had my first Denver steak.

Yeah.

I don't know. They're just glom onto anything. Like, let's make it ours. So, somebody's gone to Denver at some point and decided that a Denver steak is just a very small, certainly serve with one jalapeno, apparently.

Okay.

We had my Denver steak. I had nine or 10 Pepsis at the restaurant and Tim had probably the same, right? And Tim's a big boy. Push, pushing way bigger than I am. I shoved him. Worst thing I've ever done. He checks me, Jay, into one of the, like the, the, if you've ever been in a marina where it's like the buildings are aluminum, right? He playfully kind of hip checks me. I dented the building, Jay.

Okay.

And crumpled on the ground like a, a wet sock.

So, but, Just like messing with Ronald, messing with Ronald. That was hilarious because I like gave him a shove. Just kind of show me, like, just like a rag doll. He's like, he picked me up.

Sorry, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Like I'm fine. But we had a hoot, but I just, just, when you, those, those Midwest Pike, the Canadian Pike is a different ballgame. It really is.

I don't know what the difference is.

Yeah. I figured out why the Pike here act differently. Maybe they're used to being second fiddle. These things are apex over there, Jay.

Sure.

Absolutely apex. It's probably a set to do with it.

Yeah.

You look at, you got a boss, you've got a roach and, and, and all these different forage fish that are big and you have an open water bite. Now one thing I'll tell you, Pike, perennially on the show, like it's a big Pike end run deeper. It was nothing for us to be in, you know, 12 meters of water. You could. You know, and you're out there like, whoa, you got to get it deep, which is counting baits down. There's some of the video of the raw video where I'm throwing a Kraken with the 28-gram roll weight in it, right? Counting it down 10 seconds and then working the bait in it.

It's a different ballgame.

It's very interesting. You better the opportunity. It will kind of make your head go crazy where you go. This is the easiest fish there is. You throw out a green bucktail you catch 30 of them and they're annoying to. Oh, if we want to get a 30 inch or above, we've actually got a fish. You know, in 45, 46, 47-inch Pike, come on. They're there. We saw one legit 50-inch Pike came in on a bait, followed in. The other thing I want to tell you, Jay is this and it's you saw in the video, right?

You saw the raw stuff.

Figure eight Pike.

You get it.

I did it. We were doing them like I can't not do a figure eight. There’s something about it where Ronald, Ronald, Tim’s brother, he's flown over and fished with me in Tennessee. I love Ronald and I loved him. And I'm always telling him figure eight. You know, they just don't want to do it because it's not intrinsically just beating their head.

Sure.

I've just got it down where if you took me crappie fishing, I want to figure eight. You know what I'm saying? I would have to break the habit. Couldn't do it.

Absolutely understand.

Yeah. It's first thing in the morning. We have the night before we spent the night in contemplation and behave, Jay. We were silently, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like, we didn't do anything bad the night before, Jay. Not in Amsterdam. No, we ate cookies and we read each other children's stories.

Right.

You can get anything you want. In Amsterdam. And we went to bed at eight o'clock.

Right?

Sure.

Totally.

Yeah.

Why would you stay up there?

No.

So, first thing in the morning, my brain's going, well, here I am. I got to stand up. That's the hard part. And I go in and I just do a freaking Jay and here he comes. And I want to say four turns, I think, in the video. I'm like, damn, we're laughing. I actually pointed the camera guy.

You're kidding me?

Figure eighting, pike and all this stuff. And we laughed about it forever. We got a couple more dinks in the eight and it could pop up on more boat side fish.

I don't know what to make of that.

What I will tell you, the Euro guys, add it to your game. I did it. In the video, email me, I'll tell you what was doing differently. I wasn't floating the corner, Jay.

Right?

Okay.

It was speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, even in cold water. We were fishing water those upper 30s. But it was interesting in the capacity of no one's doing it over there. And guess what happened? It worked. It worked. I don't know why it worked. I don't know. I have a, the one that's in the video you'll see here shortly, the suns at our back, right? But my rods in the water, it's not like the classic thing. If you go into a corner and a pike might hit, but they won't stay with it.

It stays with it.

It's not a first turn fish, Jay.

It's not.

So more on that later in Ronald that lived over there full time and is a freaking great dude. They’re saying, well, we don't do it. So how do we know if it works? I went, well, it just worked and we, like, he gets one. We're not using it in this video, but he gets one on Livingston Lures Viper, about halfway through a figure eight after I got that first fish.

So, is there demeanor different? Are they so apex?

They're not afraid of boats. You know, is it a matter of the body of water? Where we were, there's ocean freighters going through, dude.

You saw that?

Yep. I mean, all day long, you know, two footers, three footers. I don't know, but if I'm a European pike guy, I am a least doing a lazy J from now on out. The rest of the trip, I did lazy J's. I picked up a couple of dinks. I didn't pick up a monster. You know, Tim was cleaning house in the front of the boat. I got some good fish. Nothing crazy. Pulled my back. That was exciting. When you're in four-foot waves and you pointed the shoreline, guess what happens?

As you get old and you move the wrong way, right?

So just the interesting takeaway, the other thing, like I said, the swim bait thing with the pike ordeal transpose from now on out. If we talk about bucktails and when not to use them, the same thing with swim baits.  What I've noticed with swim baits is, you know, they're running deeper shallow. All this stuff just like we do with our bucktails. The sort of our staple, our core bait, right? The one thing that every piker does is they throw a swim bait over there.

What is every musky fisherman does J?

Throw a bucktail.

Throw a bucktail. And you go, okay, well, Spanky Baits are running slightly deeper and they pick up more fish, right? Well, it's the game of waiting your swim baits, sort of alluding to, you know, the prototyping we did with the Magnus, the new swim bait we've got coming out from Livingston, hopefully in the next year, who we'll see working on it. But it's one of these ordeals where like, that's a staple bait, but versatility might be the most important thing you can do. And it's one of these things you can't rely on because it seemed like every boat we went by; you just saw paddle tails flying out of it.

Paddle tails, paddle tails, right?

Bunch of stuff I've never seen in my life. Brands I've never seen. They were not throwing swimming dogs nor Poseidon's. They were throwing like, you know, pig shad, which is I've seen those, but they're throwing a bunch of “shad” baits and paddle tails I've never seen.

But are they going with a deeper cut type shad type bodies versus the more slender stuff like a Poseidon or something?

No, they call them shad bodies, but they're just long. They all look like a Poseidon or swimming dog, but they're variations in their head. I talk about it in Next Level Musky Fishing in the book, right?

Yeah.

There's a little section in there where I talk about like what we've done in Europe before about the different waiting and the rigging. So, when we headed out in the morning, you know, even with the Magnus, we were playing with different weighting all the time. The traditional way to do it is they have a bait body. It's rigged. It's not pre rigged.

The harness is on the outside, right?

And you play with bell sinkers on this stuff. Now what we found out was or I found out when we were playing with those, we got some fish on some stuff that wasn't my stuff and we're not saying, you know, we might use it later for swim bait video or something. Nothing crazy, but I was sitting here going, it's like throwing a swim bait with crap hanging off of it.

All right.

It would foul the leader and foul the hook. There's just too much going on. What I like about the Magnus is it's screwed in, screwed out like the Titan. We tore them up on that because you had less hook fouling. You missed less fish, which I think is better from a musky perspective. The Pike would come back, you know, two times was if you missed him the first time you could probably get him again where a musky is like one and done a lot of times, you know, you might get one hot enough to come back and hit again. But the rigging of swim baits was kind of like fascinating where it turned into this, this ordeal. But yeah, I learned a lot. I'll just tell you that at a certain point I'm going to delve into structure fishing again. It's about time for structure masterclass three, Jay, you know, and what I learned about this more so than anything. And I would say, let me back it up and say this. The Netherlands, the closest place I've fished to the Netherlands was Minnesota, Jay.

Okay.

In terms of the whole experience.

Yep.

In terms of like a, a water caliber of water.

Yep.

Off way off the shore. Structure orientation, right? For what we've done together and what I've typically done, right? Which is a matter of you're not throwing the shoreline per se. You're throwing the break. So, you've got to be confident that fish use brake lines of structure fishing one on one. Now you have to do your boat control. Something we did and you saw it in the video. I actually texted you if we do any drift socks.

We've lost that thread.

I don't know.

Everyone was running drift socks over there. And it made the presentations far more natural than spot walking.

It's interesting.

Okay. So, if you're, you know, you know, Jace, our good friend up in the decoders, right? Deals with big wind all the time.

Right now.

I'm going. We were coming into structural areas. Primarily what we found were, were deeper rooted channels with points, right? So, you had staged your boat with the wind to the best of your ability to drift into a point at a distance as slow as you can so you could fan cast it, right?

Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Well, fighting with the trolling matter from one location, the boat made it hard. So, you're always kind of jogging. So, what they do is they do the old school drift sock thing and I went, this is actually a better methodology than what we're doing now where we'll face into the wind and spot lock and throw opposed to put a drift sock out. It'll slow down a mile an hour, two miles an hour depend on your drift. And we were dealing with big winds, but the drift sock slowed us down where we were able to pepper points, right?

You're getting plenty of casts off to really cover the deep, mid and shallow sections of a point by implementing a drift sock without their setting there and fighting your trolling matter all that way, right?

That was interesting. That was interesting because that was kind of an old school thing that old guides would do. I sort of grew up, it's not something I used all the time, but it was a trick I picked up in the early days and I sort of lost and it's like just because it's old doesn't mean it's dumb. And the implementation of a drift sock center boat was pretty dang good to us. And all I'm thinking is the way that we stage sometimes influences our bait's running depth.

We can all agree on that, right?

So, depending on which way wind and current is going, running depth is effective. So, if we're fighting on spot lock and I've done it, if I'm nose into spot lock and the waves are blown with it and I'm kind of spot lock is kind of like an anchor mode, if you will, it influences thing as opposed to like the natural flow just a slower deal.

That was interesting.

I think I'm going to break out a drift sock again the next time in a nasty situation. Definitely in that Minnesota thing. If I was fishing like last time we were up there, Jay fishing those deep breaks or fishing outside weeds staging that way makes more sense because if you got a guy in the front guy in the middle and got in the back of the boat, you have a very wide fan there where you could stage into the wind, drift in and hit a section, come back out, restage and do it again. You see what I'm saying?

Instead of trying to parallel it drift in cast pull back off on the big engine drifting cast pull back off on the big engine drifting cast.

That was something that used to happen long before spot lock, which gave the presentations a lot more of a lively sense in the water in my opinion. The baits weren't getting behind the boat. You've been on my boat before Jay where we're fighting it and you know the last quarter of your cast guess what's happening. The baits behind the boat and it's funky and you just know it's not going to get hit. Rarely do I ever feel like when the bait is dragged behind the boat that I'm going to get a strike, I can't really think of one where I've been implementing. You know what I'm saying?

I do know what you're saying. That's a bad situation.

It's a bad situation. I totally agree.

When you're moving faster than you properly present a bait. It looks like shit. You know like a glide bait, you know, you're trying to run this glide bait and it's just like, okay, next thing you know your line's blowing and things you know 15 feet to the right because of your drift too fast and you can't control it properly. And so, you're losing a quarter of your cast if not more every presentation.

Sure.

So, you got a fish falling now the bait's all funky. We're going to that old school thing was pretty interesting. So, it really opened my eyes in that capacity where I went, you know what? Need to give that a look again because there's nothing wrong with it. And sometimes when you bring a new tech, right Jay? It's like we both love music. You bring in digital into guitars, right? And you go, everybody's on the digital tip. There's something about the tube sound that we need to revisit. So, some of the boat positioning things, the drift sock thing, I think one thing we talked about already about musky mechanics. I think that's the big summer video this year. We talked about that about the what we're doing, right? What we're doing wrong boat control and how to do different things, right? Because a drift sock is a superbly inexpensive investment. But in that scenario, have we not been using that? We would have been in big trouble.

Absolutely big trouble.

You know, so the other thing I was saying is this, the difference I saw. The observation I make for the European listeners and we got tons of them like I said, are a few guys are thinking about this or just conceptualizing watching this. They're running a lot of rods that I think are too soft for some of those big fish. Like, if you look at say, like in companies we brought in at the Musky Shop. For Westin, they make great stuff. But a Westin Rod, we talked about Okuma, right? They're kind of a step-down, so there are extra heavies of heavy. Okuma is kind of in the middle where Westin or some of this stuff is softer, right?

I've seen that.

Yeah. And so, if I'm a pike guy over there, I'm going to throw something heavy. So, to pick up the prototypical pike rod and we threw and we know, hey, you've heard it before, it was a tough interview and a tough list and we talked to my buddy, and J's buddy Mads at Savage Gear. Actually, I threw a Savage Gear rod all week, Jay, believe it or not.

Great quality.

That's what we had. Shipping a Shield Rod over there was scary.

It is what it is.

So, if you're looking for it, I was throwing the heaviest Savage Gear rod to get my hands on. And it felt like just a typical mid-heavy musky rod. And my thought is this if I was going to be over there and this is what I was going to do, I would throw a heavy musky rod all the time because the hook set power and we missed some fish. We did. I don't miss a lot of muskies, but we missed some pike the way they hit because of the softness of the rod, which I think is hook penetration. So, my thought is this, something I would say all the time, and Jay, you, you, you've talked about it before. When you're throwing rubber baits, guess what's important? Hook set, right? You’ve got to drag the teeth through the rubber before the hooks penetrate.

Darn right.

In such an area where we're dealing with the prototypical bait, the baseline bait is not a bucktail, which is wire, and the hook and the teeth slide on easily. But you're throwing typically rubber baits. Now we got a hard hit. You’ve got to drag the teeth through the rubber bait before we get hook penetration or before they open their mouth. Why are we throwing softer rods?

Yeah. I 100% agree with you on that.

I mean, my observation on the whole European market is that I'm not knocking anything, but you know, it's, it's, they've got a lot of, they've got less opportunities to, you know, pair up with something really of the proper power. Like you said, most of these rods that are, that are labeled heavier, a little bit, so a little bit softer than, than perhaps, you know, a St. Croix would be, for example, you know, so might be a little bit misleading for some of the anglers over there when they think they're getting a rod and do they have nine and nine and a half foot rods? Not all. See, that's the thing too, you know, it's still relatively shorter and softer. So, you know, it's, it's a story of my life shorter and softer. You need, I, as I said, if you, if you drop me in the Netherlands, you drop me in Europe and said, okay, you're a pike guy now. I would say you're losing 15 to 20% of your strikes because the rods are too soft. Those fish are hitting hard. I'm wanging on them. Now I'm taking the back by now the rod. Now I'm trying to pull their teeth through rubber baits because their primary consideration is plastic. From a musky perspective, when I'm throwing dogs and I'm throwing Pounders or I'm throwing Mag Dawgs, what's the nomenclature in our sport is a heavy action rod at least.

Right?

With a fast reel to pick up the slack and really jam that fish up. So, slow reels and soft rods with big rubbers, are not a great idea. So, that would be my consideration there, but just to take away anyway, Jay.

Hmm, those are my musings.

We're going to talk structure fishing. I'm going to talk a little bit, hopefully, next week we'll have time for it. Kind of a master class of structure fishing three where we go even further into spot on spot because it translated over there, by the way. The tiniest structural elements translated just like a musky fishing. So, I want to talk spot on spot. I want to talk really finding the spot-on spot in structure fishing next week, but we got a bunch of Q&A to do here. Jay Bird, what do you think?

Yeah, sounds very cool. You know, and just to illustrate to your listeners too about where you were, it's just like from all you understand, you're on this massive, massive bay where you normally, you know, you said you're really not within a half mile a short, any point of fishing these channels. And it's like you travel, what, five, ten miles north? You're the north Atlantic Ocean.

Literally.

That's crazy.

It was awesome.

Yeah, it is.

Sounds great.

It was a great time. Well, it was for the baby room. It was a baby room. “You staying babies’ room.”

Yes.

Right. Walking around frickin’. Two guys with zero BMI, you're sitting near your fat shorts. Like I've never felt fat or I'm like six, two, six, three, some was somewhere in that ballgame, right? Not fat by American standards, you know, they're walking around. You're like, Oh God, I'm a dump. I know what it's like to be the short ugly fat friend now, Jay.

Okay.

It was, it was fun. We had a blast. And Amsterdam is as quiet as a church. Nothing's happening.

Oh, okay. Sarcasm?

No, it's very, very family-friendly.

Anyway, let's get to the Q and A.

All right, Jay, but we're gonna get caught up on some Q and A here. I'm trying to get it. This is jet lag Q and A, by the way.

Okay. Bring it on.

Patrick, where do you guys buy lead tape that you weigh your baits with? Love the podcast. Thank you.

So, we have a lead tape. Do we have Storm dots or anything from the Musky Shop?

We do. We have strips and dots. I think they're in stock still. Let's see here. So those are small. They're originally kind of designed for, for the bass stuff, but you know, you can use more than one. Okay. So yes, storm, suspend strips at the musky shop. It's Lead Tape with removal adhesive ways to alter your lure buoyancy. And they're silver.

Because they're lead. They taste great.

They're not recommended for use in California or California.

California says, no, do not eat the lead strips.

But that is a really good option.

I have in the past gone to sporting goods stores and they'll sell like tennis racket tape. Any weighted tape will work. Like in Europe, we were doing bell sinkers and all that fun stuff, right? So, weights, weights, weight, it depends on where you put it.

Right.

And so, if you say a shallow running crankbait or crane bait, you put it on its back. It's going to act differently than putting on its belly or on the back or the front of the bait. So, you have to experiment and you've got to have a goal when you're reweighting a bait. Don't just arbitrarily throw stuff on the ground. I'm doing something cool. Have a focus. I need this bait to do X, Y, Z. I need it to rise. Tail up, head up, right? I need to run two more feet, three more feet. You've got to dial in. You've got to have a dialed-in process to get there.

Kyle, the lake I fish used to have a great weed line and multiple weed beds. For whatever reason, I blame the lake association. The lake just doesn't have weeds anymore. Like it's hard to find. When you do, there's a fish there, but obviously, they're all there all the time. Question. Have you experienced this? How do you adapt? Thanks for the show. Appreciate it.

So, what I want Kyle to do is let's say that lake has a map, a good topo map, right? The ol’ start thinking structure. Start thinking structure. The weeds that have a fish on them, what's the structure look like? Is there something leading in, something leading out? If a lake is devoid of cover, right? Muskies are still going to move in, shall they're going to use small structure oil. So, a lot of times that littoral zone that shall own, there's something special about it. I've been on lakes that are nothing but weeds, right? The entire edge from 12 to zero feet is always. That's where you focus on, Jay. So, dissect the map and go, okay, these are the areas I've caught fish or seen fish before, where there are weeds. What commonality exists between weeded and weedless areas that are productive?  That's right there.

What would you say, Jay?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think he started off by asking if it was something like the local lake association might have put some chemicals in. We see that around here. There's in certain lakes that you've been on a few of them with me, Steve, where it's like, what the heck is going on here? There were weeds here last year. Is it that last year? Not to mention that one lake that got exploded with milfoil, then the next year it changed again. So, milfoil.

Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, thanks for sure. And start picking off those spots that, you know, if it is completely devoid. I mean, that's, that's all you can do. Well, it's one of those things like, let's just say we got lake X, Y, and D, whatever. And for some reason, the weeds just don't come back because there's a vegetative blight or whatever, right? They still have to feed. They still have to stage and they still have to ambush. I've always said, I'll always, for the till of the day, they put me in a hole in the ground. Structure is far more important than cover, right? But structure can be better if it's in conjunction with cover. So do your research, do your homework, and really delve into it and go, okay, there's a, just like we're talking to where I want to talk the spot-on-spot. This guy's kind of lit, question goes right there where, okay, there's a small irregularity at the six-foot brake line that is four feet wide. Is that important or not? Well, what is the connecting structure, right? There's so many ways you can break this down where I've done it now from fricking Washington State and Oregon to Tennessee to Wisconsin to Canada to Chicago. Now to the Netherlands and, and, and Hungary. It works everywhere I go, Jay, everywhere I go. I don't show, the only place I can't get right now is Mongolia and Russia to prove the point. So, if it works from Hungary to Washington State, I think we've covered the Esox's habitat range pretty fricking good.

Right. Not a lot of dead zine in between.

So, studying the map and seeing the deeper meaning there, we'll get to it next week because I'm again jet lagged and leaving all the Tourette's plane. I am so convinced that anyone can do it. It's not a matter of like some, I know something that you can't figure out. That's the furthest thing from the truth. It's just a matter of, of, of, of confidence really. Okay, think about the lake, uh, Lovers Bench Lake, Jay.

Right. Mm hmm.

The two places that are most productive are a structural point in front of neighbor Steve's boat, right. And then a long extenuating finger over there.

It's structure.

Now there's cover involved, but if you think about when we're going past that bench, right? Every time we go up there, where's the hotspot?

Mm hmm.

Yeah, around the bend and around off the point.

Mm hmm. And classic structure, classic where classic structure is great.

I think next week, let's, let's remind me, don't let me off the hook for this.

Right.

I'll scream, I'll go, I'm lazy.

We'll do Q and A.

Next week, let's go into that, that next realm of what matters because it becomes a matter

of this. Understanding where their structures are now having a visualization of, of how to target

them. That's huge.

Okay.

So, we know where this break is and our waypoint is X, Y, and Z or where is it at and how am I interpreting? How do I, I, I, I, it's got some stupid, but you know, if, if let's say we're fishing off the port side of a boat and we know that there is an inside turn coming up, there's a point and there's a small divot on it. You have to conceptualize and visualize where that is to cast to it, Jay. See, that's, that's the thing, you know, imagine how many people do in that drift, right? Look, you know the drift.

Okay. Right. From the boat landing to the bay.

Yes. Right. And they're going through and, you know, the average person going through their, maybe they don't have decent electronics, maybe they don't have any, but regardless, they're going to say, they have great electronics and they don't have to use them. Maybe they have great electronics, but what are they going to say? Oh, just got shell. Oh, weeds just came up. We're up to the top here and they don't. They keep moving. Oh, okay. Weeds are gone and they don't. They keep casting. They're in a straight line. They don't.

Yeah, they don't.

They're not visualizing it. That's a point and you need to get around that thing and fish it in, in distance and in. So not over the top of it. I listen, when I turn this hat around, Jay, this Paul Signature, your Musky Shop hat, I go Over The Top.

The one I autographed.

Listen, if I don't win this arm-wrestling match, I'll lose my son.

Oh, what?

You remember the fricking Over The Top is still on.

It's like the dumbest premise ever. He's a truck driver, arm-wrestler. They go with the top. I turn my hat around. He's like literally arm-wrestling to win a Peter Built.

To yeah, raise his son.

The plight of a single dad, I guess.

Gold Steve when I turn this hat around, I'm Over The Top. But nonetheless. So what you're getting into, Jay, or you're articulating pretty damn well.

That's the first is barely.

People might go in this straight line where they're comfortable with their casting distance to the shoreline. Perfect, perfect way to put it right. I see the grass and where the water's hitting, but they don't augment their route to create casting distance for the bait's running depth to structure. So, you have to get what's your running depth of your bait. So, if the structure is seven feet down and we're targeting that with say a crack in what distance do I need to be off of this structure for my excuse me, for my running depths to be appropriate for it. We'll cover that next week.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because what you're saying is that you go, oh, there's a point they go right over at the fissure behind them or under them, that location and perfect example, the first time I was ever on that, like ever, right?

We had neighbor Steve and Buck in the boat and you tagged 46 47 on an outside cast.

Yeah. Right. I'm trying to keep people or get people geared up and set up and dialed in on, okay, here's

what we're doing, and boom, J just max one. Okay, that's outside cast. There's something out there, boys. Let's go and scan that. Let's go zero line that get it, get a run on it.

Right.

All right, we're going to troll it. Remember, we trolled the crap out of it.

Lost a couple headlocks.

Actually, okay. What's this look like? Now I understand what it looks like. Now I know how to address it. Now every time we hit that, I go, all right. Come in tight. I need a dog leg out here. We need X, Y, Z casting distance. We're going to work the point we work in. Sometimes we work the top of it. Sometimes without our point. It's all, it's all hand in glove. Anyhow, shut up. Jay, efficiency.

Yeah, it's efficiency.

What's the coldest water temperature you can fish for musky in fall or winter?

Um, if it's frozen and it's legal, right? It doesn't matter.

They're eating in some capacity.

The colder the water, the slower metabolism. Yadda yadda yadda. For the Fox musk, excuse me, for river musky. Okay, let's see where he's at. For river musky is at best to fish in deep, slow current areas such as middle, bottom of the river's during winter.

Um, no. Musky?

Yes, no. Here's the deal. I see where you're at. I see where he's at. Muskies are going to feed in slack water adjacent of current primarily, especially in the winter, right? So, they don't want to burn calories holding, waiting for something to come by. So, they'll be in slack water, much, much like a trout wheel. They'll be behind something. They'll be in slack water. They'll be in easy water in the lunge out. Bang. Hit something and come back in.

And then his last question for winter musky, Lake musky.

What is the ideal depth to troll?

Okay. So, to troll for a musky in the winter, we're still coming out. A lot of people, Jay, cold waters right around the corner, pre-spawn, whatever it might be. So, we've talked about in the past, but I'll say this, trolling is there's not, a given number.

Right.

Trolling is an ongoing experiment. Um, you know, Dr. Bob working on some articles for us, you know, he's a scientist. Jay, a bit of a scientist myself. But, um, when you're trying a theorem out, right, you have an idea. We need positive feedback. We need to dial in on it. So, when you're trolling, if you have the luxury of multiple rods, run one mid, shallow, and deep. And if mids get an action, dial in from there. So, there's not a hard and fast rule. Obviously light penetration, frontal movements, moon phase. Things of that nature. But most importantly, where the forage is staged in relation to the depth of waters, your most important factor on setting your trolling passes.

Okay. That's the first thing I'm going to look at where I go. Hey, what's important? Where's the beta? Where's the stage?

Andrew, to start off, my girlfriend caught me listening to the podcast and now it's forcing me to go. Sorry.

Compose yourself, Steven, compose yourself.

Andrew, to start off, my girlfriend caught me listening to the podcast and now it's forcing me to go in and get a screening for the Tism. Jay, you got the Tism?

Yeah.

Yeah. I believe you have the Tism.

Oh, boy, I'm fishing a smart car.

Jay, the musky office.

That's one of the great opening lines of all time.

What's that?

My girlfriend caught me listening to the podcast. I'm just sitting there and he said she's sexy. She wants me to have an autism screening.

It's appropriate.

Why are you doing that? Why are you listening to this? It's like honest to God. Like me and Jay are just absolutely what we're to get together. We make a full spectrum, Jay. We don't cross over in the middle, but we cover the entire spectrum in a sense by way of musky fishing. Don't come at us for being insensitive that we're on the entire musky fishing spectrum. Tism.

Anyway, I'm fishing.

I'm laughing. The time I ordered you roses and Jay was afraid of them. Are they terrorists making the E-roses, Jay?

Anyway.

Oh, yeah. Last summer when I picked those up?

Yep.

No, they're not.

No, not in Saint Germain.

Yeah, whatever.

You're safe. I'm sure you're safe. You're safe in Saint Germain. I'm laughing so hard.

I was tired and dumb. Got the Tism.

All right, Andrew and his girlfriend, they're fishing a smaller, very staying central Wisconsin flow is just south of Highway 10 for the opener this year. The main basin of the lake maxes out about 20 feet with many humps, points, islands, etcetera, dynamite structure. He's all over the place along with tons of downed log stumps, and reasonable weed cover. There is also one main creek arm coming out that balloons out at 15 breaks in. My question is, where of the two areas would you focus for the majority of your time if you only had one day? No action whatsoever last year and trying to change it. Love the podcast and everything. Pod caddy says, keep killing it. Breaks up the monotony of my work day in commute as well.

Where does he work, Jay, if he's got the Tism down at the crayon-eating factory?

You're all right.

We got bad crayons. Feed them to the boy. Jay, you should just lay at the end of the symbol.

There's a creek arm. Early season, Northwoods got worse.

He said early season.

That's really bad.

I'm going to the warmest water I can find. If you drop me off, opening week in Wisconsin, and I'm magically transported there and I'm just gonna show up on my boat and I wake up and go, it's like a dream I have, Jay. By the way, I dream had one night. I dreamed in Dutch, by the way. Kundas. Which is weird. When you're around something long enough and trying to muddle through it.

Hagen das?

No, Kundas.

Anyway, no harm.

Wooden shoes?

Wooden shoes. Kundas.

It's simply a matter of the warmest water possible. It's going to be my number one thing. I wake up in a fever dream on a boat, opening weekend in Wisconsin on this body of water that seems to have everything. Lakes, you get this lake with weeds and structure and everything. Where's the warmest water? First and foremost, first concern. Where are spawning flats at in that area? So, let's find an area. You know, okay, just traveled, making it up to go here. Jay, I want to go to Chicago.

Right?

I want to go to Chicago.

Okay.

Right?

Well, Chicago is a big city, much like this lake has a lot going on.

What part of Chicago?

The hottest part.

The hottest part.

So, I'm going to be southside.

Right?

So, I'm going to be southside.

John, I'm dimly.

Right.

Going down a field.

Right.

Where am I going from?

It's the... We got on a weird tip. It's the narrowing of focus is what I'm trying to convey.

Right?

I'm going musky fishing.

What lake are you going to?

I'm going to like, you know, Winter Schnitzel.

Okay? When am I going? And where should I look?

It's the narrowing of the focus. So, the nomenclature of opening season in May and in the Northwoods is the north end of the lake and the warmest part that gets the most sun. The next step is, like I said, well, I need a hotel. What area am I looking at? It's the same thought process. So, I'm fishing Lake Winter schnitzel. And the time that I'm showing up there says I should fish the north end of the warmest end of the lake. Now once I do that, I'm going to look for spawning flats. I'm going to look for structure adjacent to those. I'm going to dissect and focus in logically step by step. So, pick your body of water. Pick your seasonality. Pick the structure that season appropriate. Pick the water temperature that is season-appropriate. Now we dial in on the structure upon the structure that dictates where they are at in their structure movements. Opposed to, you know, in my brain, the islands are out of the question because maybe on this lake I'm wrong, but allow me the latitude, which is, well, islands are often cropping up in deep water. So, I'm going to narrow my focus. I'm not just going to Chicago or Cheboygan or frickin’ Punxsutawney. I'm going to a hotel there to do one thing. I'm not trying to just, you know, take in the whole city and one day I have a mean focus. I'm narrowing my focus. Does that make sense, Jay? Or my two-year-old leg?

No.

And you can take this year, for example, I mean, it could be postponed by opening and, you know, for a second it is this year. So yeah, it probably will be, you know, had the spearing go this year, Jay, with the life I don't know. I don't know. I'm not trying to go down a rabbit hole. And, you know, last year kind of bummed me out.

Everything locked up here again. Everything's frozen. Two weeks ago, something like that, everything was open. The Minocqua Chain was wide open and I don't know, it's been frozen so...See what happens.

Live for everything musky.

One thing I'm looking for help with is replacement hooks. How do I know the size or gauge or collar is the right replacement hook for my bait? Jay, the shit I bought up the other day, we needed to do the database for... We need to do it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, we need to do it.

Sure.

Okay, let me make your...

Let's make a promise.

What do we have to do it?

I promise you, Jay, that I will love you forever.

Yeah, what Steve's getting at besides that is kind of getting a how-to match up the proper hook. Now, it might be a replacement hook because some of these replacement hooks are special ordered, special made for certain companies. So, they aren't readily available to a consumer. But if you had an appropriate, the closest hook and match it up for size because here's one you don't know about.

We've got this...

We've got BKK doing some special hooks for us coming in and they aren't available outside the bulk element. Like you got ordered a thousand of them type packs and these things are cool. But like some other European-type stuff, these things are... The sizing is completely bizarre on them.

Yeah, like a three-ot is like a one-ot in a Mustad.

So, dude, we'll have the appropriate illustrations for how to...

What we need to do...

I'm doing it live.

So, what we need to do is this, Jay, in.

So, I'll cover Livingston and Bucher, right? And then I think some people have it on their website and we'll message everybody else. Like Smitty, Jake, you're listening and Don Jane's, it's great. Email me the hooks. What hooks you use? We'll send out a questionnaire and get it and then we'll put together a database that by manufacturer, by bait. This is the stock hook. This is the closest retail available equivalent.

That's a great idea how to do it.

Because it drives me nuts.

This is not...

Let these manufacturers send us the official verbiage and then we'll go from there.

And we'll go from there.

So, mark our words, Jay, by opener. We'll do it. What do you say?

I need it.

I call you all the frickin' time. What's the one thing I'll say you said the BKK, right?

Kids Club.

That's the Burger King's Kids Club, right?

It is.

It is.

Okay. Sure. Sure.

You remember that Jay Burger King?

Anyway.

Sure. Nonetheless, all these Euro hooks are BKKs.

They're great.

They make a short...

So, you're saying about the size.

I believe it is a... That's what we're getting.

Yes.

It's like a short round bin.

Uh-huh.

That's what we're using, dude.

They make one that I think the Euro size is like a 9-0, but it's like a 7-0 short.

Okay.

It's wicked. And we did some Krakens on those.

That's funny because like...

Getting one of the Kluijver boys' boats, Jay, you think my boats organized this thing as like German engineering. Like, you know, I'm a mess if you can't tell. Jay, have you ever met me? I don't know if we've ever met in person, but I'm kind of sloppy at times, right? Believe it or not.

Yes.

Yes. You know, I keep the boat pretty dang clean, but when I'm in the... When I got the Tism fired up, like the dude said earlier, when my Tism's at full, I'm full, full bore. There's baits laying everywhere in this circus. Now this is like, Steven, there's a split ring by your foot. Like, okay, you know. You use something, you put it away. But they both had these awesome boxes of like, BKKs. Another thing, by the way, learned a trick. This was kind of killer. So, they had all their replacement hooks, but they had them bound together with bread ties through the eye, whatever.

Sure. Sure.

They're having these little Planos, but they bread tied them. So, they're not hanging up and all sloppy. So, I'm going to try that. So, you get your little...

Highly organized.

Highly, highly efficient. Much like the Germans. They left them with that idea. But anyway. They're good. They're good.

Yes.

Anyway, we will work on that project.

Ryan, we talked about that before. I appreciate it. He said he loves the podcast, and that. Thank you so much. I need that because I've called Jay a million times going, hey man, what's this hook? What's that hook?

I think we've all done that.

And I think it's about time to have a database. So, we'll put that on the app as soon as we can, right? Jay will work on the questionnaire. And then, you know, it's not going to be like, well, do this. Do add this hook for more buoyancy. I'm not going there. But I think a lot of people, like whether it be Mustad or VMC, and then we'll do the direct replacement.

Anyway, Julio Martinez. How do you get the hook sharp on a spinnerbait?

My file sharpener. Excuse me. His file sharpens triples well, but seems to not get as sharp on single hooks.

So often use a flat file. Well, that's what I was going to say. So, you'll find most of your treble hooks. Bucher, I think is like a, um, Bucher and Chaos uses a Chinese hook, I think, that is like really hard to sharpen.

Don't kill me, Joe.

I think it’s; I think it’s; I don't think it's a VMC, right?

Livingston's a VMC, most of the US custom manufacturers, like Lake X, I think is Mustad. Um, looking here, Savage Gear as Chinese. You know, you'll have the different density of metal, but a treble seems to be softer. When you get into your spinnerbait hooks, those are a harder steel, I guess. If you think about like Don James, the figure eights, the meat grinders, the tailgaters, all this stuff or the big stainless steel versus steel bronze hook.

Sure.

So, you got a bronze hook or you've got like the amalgam metals of the Chaos hooks. Different grade, the files and it's crazy because guys will have one file and they go, Oh, it sharpens the crap. Oh, must have, that's a softer metal. You need a different bite. So, you need multiple files.

Smity diamond file. There you go.

This was great on, on, you know, the stainless spinnerbait hooks. So, you're not drawing the hook any differently. Like you draw like Southern draw, draw, you draw your file down the hook in no different manner. But if your file is, is really tearing through like a Mustad that bronze hook, that, that, that, that metal. And it's getting great point, but it's not doing on the stainless hooks. You might need a different file.

Like you said, the Smity diamond file is what I use on spinnerbaits. But I'm going to grab a different file for say a Slammer or a Titan or a Bull Dawg. So, I'll have my, and I'm a Smity file,  J convinced me on the Smity file. It's been a file fan. Anyway, are you a Smity file J?

More less.

Yeah. More or less.

Anyway, see you got your Smity file. Your standard with the little wood thing there and Jake's with handle. He's smiling. He's toasted the cedar.

Right.

Yeah, build out of Viking boats and hot glue.

So no, Manitoba call me.

Leave me alone.

Anyway, so you've got that file. This is great for those standard hooks, but that diamond file is way better on like Chaos hooks, Bucher hooks, and they're stainless-steel hooks. So, you'll notice just if one files really get on the bronze hooks and it sucks on the stainless hooks, you just need an extra file. I'm not trying to say you got to buy a bunch of crap, but I don't think there's a file like you flip it over and like one side's really good for stainless one size good for bronze. Would you agree or what was what's the deal with like say that Lure Jensen that little yellow handle deal? Is that multiple grinds or what's going on there, dude?

It's the same on both sides.

Yeah, it's a really standard, really good. It's small, you know, like the Smity ones because it's got a larger surface area longer a longer draw.

Yeah.

So that also means it's going to last longer because you know, all these files wear out, you know, we got when guides by hook files for us, you know, they get them six at a time, you know, yeah, that's what I did. You know, not just rusting, you know, you gotta be careful of that too.

Can I give you a hint though?

Yeah.

So, I usually, each year when I'm up at the shop we are filming Musky Shop TV, I'll grab two of the Smity files, right? And what I do to make them last longer is I take a wire brush to them every now and again. I heard that.

Yeah.

So, once they start rusting, take a wire brush to it, clean it out, which gets out dirt, grime and rust and file and an old file like because you're losing, you know, the gaps in the surface here, whatever. Take a wire brush to clean it up, take a little whatever, reel oil. I always have in the boat. Actually, have mainly to lubricate things: stupid can of reel ease.

Yeah.

You know, I'll take that, spray it on the Smity file, wipe it on my pants, ruin another pair of jeans and my wife gets mad and that will condition that file for a good, good, long time. Now the diamond files, I've had a bunch of them over the years. I only use them on stainless steel hooks or say like a Chaos hook because I've heard people it's hard to sharpen a Bucher hook or it's hard to sharpen a Chaos hook. It's because your, your, your file skating off of the metal. It's just not coarse enough. It's not the right grit to really bite into that metal.

Yeah. For sure.

Now, like you were saying the BKKs, those are nasty sharp when you get them, right? Now literally just every year, I've played with this where it was important to use a light file to get an edge back on those. You can't come with those with an aggressive file because it's such a fine point. You'll take off too much metal. You’ll take in.

Exactly. The lines are like cone cut.

Yeah. Right. So, you know, some chemically sharpened cone cut books are hard. They're ready to go. You know, but most folks are not that way.

Yeah.

You dang, you dang them off a rock, right?

Mm hmm.

And now you got a project on your hand where you need to really have a light touch to address that hook back up, right? And it's an art.

It really is.

And if you ever, it's not something we've talked about in a long time, it's cool. But my rule of thumb, let me grab. I got a Phantom hanging here in the, in the bait cave, you know. So, I'm taking this Phantom from scratching across my thumbnail, which my left thumb always looks like I've been in a dog fight because I'm always checking hooks on my thumb. None of these hooks are sharp. None.

Right.

The trick is I want to file that thing up the side long strokes, right? Even and don't try to angle it. I see guys that try to pitch their file at an angle. Up the side, up the side and then check to see if that sticks on your thumbnail, right?

Yeah.

Take it against your thumbnail. It should not slide. If the hook point slides on your thumbnail, it's not sharp enough. If it kind of grabs and go, oh, that's not sliding anywhere. I'm not talking an enormous force or anything. If it sticks on your nail, you're good. That's my rule of thumb. Over sharpening is bad as well. Sharpen your hooks and then leave them alone. And once you've snagged bottom or you've fished them long enough, check them again. Check all the points on your finger, on your thumb.

Okay.

You know, that one needs a little dress. Light file. Once it's sharp, you don't have to come back and go crazy. The other thing I'll say is this, it's much like catching a fish. Guys, I've always advocated cutting as many hooks as you can when you land a fish. There's also a point where you go, that hook has been blunted, it's been snagged, it's hit too many rocks, it's time for a new hook. Which goes back to Jay. It sounds like we planned it best. Where in my life we didn't, while we need that hook database.

Yeah, you brought that up like the last month.

Yeah, I mean, there's really, I mean, three of the most important do's you should be doing when maintenance-wise on the boat is A, you catch a fish, check your leader.

Yes.

Check it for any kind of nicks or damage, then dispose of it if there is.

Right.

Number two is sharpen your hooks.

Yeah, after you fished it long enough, like you said, or made contact with rock or caught

a fish, it has to be resharpened.

And number three is check your drag. I had drags back off and readjust themselves after time, after not much time sometimes. It depends on the model. I'll tell you something goofy that I thought about. And this is a thought I'm not saying it's right around. Water creates friction, right? I fished open water with trolling baits before I go, how are these hooks not as sharp as they were after a whole day?

Good point.

Yeah.

Yeah. Sure.

Water can erode a fricking stone or cut gorgeous with a grand canyon. You need to look at all your hooks. The other thing, we actually had a fish and it's the truth, so I'm not going to candy coat  it. It's a big pipe, but fortunately we saw it's hooked in the end of its mouth, right? We get a hand landing this thing and Tim's wrenching it in. Boom. Split ring goes. He cut six fish on that bait before and didn't check the split ring. It broke or it straightened out or it just gone. It was, we don't know. It was just the hook and the split ring was gone, which is something to look at as to on your bait. You know what, split rings, we might take them for granted, you know, but always looking at your hooks and what's the point of presenting a lure if the hooks are not going to penetrate, right? Now, am I like anal-retentive over it? No. If they’re thumb-tacky when I start the day, I'm usually good just to dress them after you get snagged or whatever. Like you said, Jay, I mean, as far as terminal tackle, checking your leader, checking your snap. You know, check the snap out and make sure it's not fatigued at a certain or just colored discolored to a certain point a leader has a shelf-life hooks have a shelf life. That's one thing I guess I was getting at more than anything. You can only get so much shelf life out of the hook. You know, it's been sharp and 13 times and now, you know, I've seen guys they show me a bait and I know to say like the must that what three five Oh, what are that short round bin three odd Jay? You know, I'm talking about the one they discontinued.

Yeah, that's 356353.

Oh, my God. Tism.

It's not the three five five one.

That's the standard.

Shaughnessy, okay, so again, thank you, Muskie brain man. You know, looking at these hooks and you go, they've sharpened it so much. Now we have reduced the area of the distance from the point to the bar by half.

That's not good.

It happens.

Probably.

And think about it. If you're coming at an angle, you're not just coming up the hook, you're creating new points and things of this nature. Now you've augmented the hook.

Yeah, if you're coming up at points, you probably have to start over have to start over.

So, there's a shelf-life thing there. Yeah, we definitely like I said, we committed to it. So, we're going to do it.

It's going to suck.

It's going to be a pain in my butt and your butt, but we need that database.

You need that database.

We'll put it on the app here before the season opens there. Alright J. I'm jet-lagged.

I've been all around the musky and pike world. It's time I get some sleep.

Say good night, J. Bird.

Night, everybody.