transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Officially turned around, guys.

Speaker 2:
[00:02] We are back, baby.

Speaker 3:
[00:04] We are fucking back. We are back.

Speaker 1:
[00:07] Classic.

Speaker 2:
[00:08] We are back.

Speaker 4:
[00:10] We are back.

Speaker 3:
[00:12] We are getting Doug back.

Speaker 2:
[00:14] And we're the three best friends that anybody could have. We're the three best friends that anyone could have. We're the three best friends that anyone can have. And we'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave each other. All right, everybody. Welcome back to another week of Muskies On Tap. Welcome to episode number, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, 150. Welcome to the pod. I'm one of your three hosts for the intro outro, Gus Mantey. We got none other than Brian here in the call and Max. But Brian was not in the interview. He'll explain why either now or at the end.

Speaker 1:
[01:02] So we can we can dive into it at the end. I was traveling home from Vegas, brutally hung over. So even if I wasn't 30,000 feet in the air, I probably wouldn't have been able to tune in. But I do I do love our guy, Doug. So, you know, maybe I would have gone the extra mile for him. But we'll break that down a little bit on the back end of the interview, which I think we got a good amount to debrief their first time, probably not to be the last time had a blast.

Speaker 2:
[01:30] That's good. Glad to hear you went MIA for a couple of days there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good night. We're on it. And also it's like, yo, Brian, how's it going? Don't worry about me. But we also got another than my brother Max here. Max, how are you doing?

Speaker 3:
[01:50] I'm doing good. What the hell have we talked about for 150 episodes?

Speaker 2:
[01:55] Oh, that's how to catch muskies for a good bit. Yeah. How to twitch, twitch bits.

Speaker 1:
[02:03] What bait season? Grubber.

Speaker 2:
[02:06] Talk about musky lures like the entire winter.

Speaker 3:
[02:09] That's kind of all you can do. Yeah. I think you mentioned in the last pod, I think we're like one week out from our three year anniversary.

Speaker 1:
[02:17] So it's maybe two weeks out.

Speaker 2:
[02:21] Whatever the week, yeah, it might even be next week. I mean, the numbers don't add up exactly on the three year mark. But I know that three years is next week because it's post cave run. PMTT, that was the first one ever.

Speaker 1:
[02:35] How are we celebrating that giveaway or?

Speaker 3:
[02:39] I don't want to get to you, Mr. God.

Speaker 2:
[02:42] What you got?

Speaker 1:
[02:43] Just keeping the joke going. I think that was a couple of months ago in the dead of winter when I announced that we were going to be doing a merch giveaway. And y'all were like, what are you talking about? We don't have any merch.

Speaker 2:
[02:52] We don't have any merch to give away.

Speaker 3:
[02:54] Yeah. Yeah, we've been in the lab a little bit with some new branding ideas. Just nothing really come into the execution stage. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:04] Hasn't reached the manufacturing floor yet.

Speaker 3:
[03:06] Right.

Speaker 2:
[03:07] That's kind of the tough stage though, to be honest.

Speaker 1:
[03:09] But those greater wheels are firing.

Speaker 3:
[03:13] Yeah. A couple of decent ideas are out on the table, just kind of going through border view right now.

Speaker 1:
[03:19] It's a very slow border view. Like it's like shipping and handling, and then it has to get to my desk, and then pass on to Gus.

Speaker 3:
[03:26] Got a lot of suits that it needs the green stamp of approval. And yeah, I get it. I get it. But no, man, just yeah, getting fired up here. It was at 70 degrees today in the cities. Extended forecast is looking not bad. So we'll see how the old spring shapes up for us here, but I don't know, Gus, why don't you just kind of, no, go ahead, what you got for us.

Speaker 2:
[03:52] No, no, no. You said something with the warm weather. I was just gonna say that the Northwoods is heating up nicely pretty much everything that the big lakes are opened up. Just the deep, clear lakes had some ice on it. Some of them were like fully sheeted over as of yesterday.

Speaker 3:
[04:12] You've been doing any smallie fishing?

Speaker 2:
[04:14] Yeah, I got out today for the first time and caught a couple. You know, it was flat, calm and sunny. Had to search for them in a little different spots. They weren't really pushed up shallow like I was hoping, or at least mid-depth. Had to get them on some deep rock humps, but. Both of y'all. 42 to 44? 41 ish. I mean, it was a little superficial when it was like flat calm. Every time the wind picked up, it dropped down to like 41, 42 again. So that was on a lake that's probably been open for five days, six days.

Speaker 1:
[04:52] Is all the snow gone? Just like where they plowed it, maybe still there?

Speaker 2:
[04:58] Yeah, there's still snow left, like big piles from big parking lots. If you go in the backwoods, like there's a ton of trees, a lot of snow right up against the roads where it can't really melt from all the shade. Otherwise, we're doing pretty good. I mean, water's flowing really nice. All the rivers are nice and plump. A lot of rain up here, which has been awesome. Yeah, I think there's some statewide flooding going on too. Oh yeah. Like I saw down in New London. Chiokton, Wyeowiga. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[05:35] I'm looking at the extended forecast here. Yeah, I mean, it's looking fairly stable. Looks like it cools off for you next week, but got some warm days on the horizon. I'll be curious to see what the water temps will be during fishing opener weekend, first week of May.

Speaker 2:
[05:53] Yeah, we shall see. I mean, yeah, wait, what opener again?

Speaker 1:
[05:58] Two weeks.

Speaker 3:
[05:59] The general fishing opener.

Speaker 1:
[06:01] Max's pronoun, May 1st.

Speaker 3:
[06:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[06:06] No, no, no. Second, second. But no, all good there. You know, we'll see you guys on the flip side of this, but we get Doug Wegner on here and we have a great interview, Max and I. So we did this a little bit prior to doing this intro. For those that are watching, this will be out on YouTube, by the way. So if you are listening and you want to watch it, head on over to YouTube, Muskies On Tap. You can find us there. But yeah, we'll have an interview with Doug and it'll be brought to you by Thorn Bros. Max is rocking the, rocking the lid right there.

Speaker 1:
[06:44] Max, where's my lid at? I need my Thorn Bros lid.

Speaker 3:
[06:48] I got it.

Speaker 1:
[06:49] I just got to get my meds for opener, I guess. Probably the next time I see you.

Speaker 3:
[06:53] Yeah, probably. Shit. I suppose so. I got a whole bag of goodies for you next time I see you.

Speaker 1:
[06:59] I know, it's going to be like Christmas.

Speaker 2:
[07:01] I got one for you too, Max. Got you a huntsie tail goody bag.

Speaker 3:
[07:05] Whoa.

Speaker 2:
[07:07] Brian, you too. Oh, Brian, you already got yours. Max, you know about this, I think.

Speaker 3:
[07:11] Yeah, I forgot, but I appreciate the reminder. It's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[07:14] Nice. Hell yeah. Yeah, perfect. Well, we'll see you guys on the backside. Let's let this interview rip. I got a recording, so we might as well just hop right into it. So, Doug, how was today? How was the walleye fishing, Ben?

Speaker 4:
[07:40] We had a good morning. We had fun. We caught, I think we caught, probably 20 this morning. We had a 30 and a quarter, so that was good. Great fish. Yeah, just been on that walleye grind, man. It's been a lot of fun, almost a month. Today's the 19th. Yeah, I think I started on the 21st this year. So I've been going on every day.

Speaker 2:
[08:04] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[08:04] So for us, muskie guys who have, Gus, have you ever walleye fished Green Bay? I might have once.

Speaker 2:
[08:11] I did once with Uncle Roddy. We trawled in Suamico, I think two consecutive years, and we did pretty well.

Speaker 3:
[08:19] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:20] That had to have been over a decade ago, though.

Speaker 3:
[08:23] Yeah. Yeah. So what's the setup like for you walleye fishing? What's kind of a typical day on the water? Is it busy out there where you're fishing? Is it, I don't know, just kind of help us out. Speak to us like we're in kindergarten, like walleye language like we're 10 to 13 years old.

Speaker 4:
[08:43] Yeah. Well, so we use a spinning rod. We like to put the reel on the bottom. Don't flip upside down. Oh, man.

Speaker 2:
[08:50] I'm already rolling. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[08:52] Not it, no push buttons allowed. Generally, no bait casters unless we're trolling. But no, it's a super fun place to walleye fish. It's not your typical jig and minnow over the side of the boat, vertical jig. And it's honestly as close as you can get to power fishing walleyes, or as close to must fishing, I would say, as you can. So it's a lot of casting at shallow water. You know, a lot of side imaging stuff. It can be baits in the bottom, baits suspended in the column, it's trolling, it's casting, it's during daylight, it's after dark. I mean, you can fish for these things as hard as you want. They're like Muskies, they bite all day long. The beauty of Green Bay, like some of our best fishing, especially early spring is honestly midday, sun out. We want that water warming. Just your typical kind of spring trend, even say if we're doing spring Muskies, you like that midday warm up, sun out, light wind or a little bit of wind blowing on a shoreline. So it's fun. It's a really cool and they're big. That's what I really like is that we have some really, really big, big fish. We've got 30 inches. We've got 10, 12, 13 pounders that come in the boat every single year. So it makes it fun, but it scratches my itch. It gets me out fishing. So I've been fishing since March 21st this year. I've been going every day and then I'm going to be keep going here for probably about another two weeks. And then I take a little break and then we go full blown into Muskies for the rest of the year.

Speaker 3:
[10:18] Are you, go ahead, Gus.

Speaker 2:
[10:20] I was just going to say what stops you to, other than just prepare for Muskies and we'll get into that too. Is it just like they become post-spawn and they go somewhere or, you know, I'm a walleye guy in the small lakes up here. I'm not Green Bay at all, so.

Speaker 4:
[10:36] No, they, like even right now, like they're, we're actually fishing for mainly post-spawn fish right now. All of our pre-spawners, they spawned about, the majority of the fish have spawned in the last five days. So they're on the backside now. But what happens is, like, they're just so concentrated pre-spawn and right away post-spawn, just high concentrations of fish. So being Green Bay, a Great Lake, Lake Michigan, tons of water, there's a lot of fish out there, but there's a ton of water. So anytime that they're, you know, consolidated is put yourself in a really good position for high success, high numbers, a lot of fun. And then, you know, it's kind of almost like, you know, Muskies too, like you get that post-spawn bite where the fish are somewhat concentrated. And then there is that weird kind of lull or transition when some fish go to the open water, some fish stay shallow, some fish do this, some fish do that. So they do disperse, right? So that's really when they really disperse is kind of when I take my little break from, you know, fishing walleyes every day and then get all my musky stuff ready. It's right on my wife's birthday. So we normally try and do a little trip or a little getaway for a few days and then come back, rest it up and ready to roll and then give her hell for how many days till it freezes, right?

Speaker 3:
[11:44] Till they don't get into the varsity type stuff.

Speaker 4:
[11:49] No.

Speaker 3:
[11:51] Last walleye questions. You kind of answered it too when you were talking. But so when you're, I mean, obviously you've been out every day since you said the 21st. So you're kind of tracking these fish on a daily basis. Are you fishing, you know, pods of walleyes or are you guys picking out, you know, individual fish? Like how does that, how does that kind of work? Like if you go to an area, you know, call it, they were, you're smashing them in one spot. You know, yesterday you go out there today, they're not there. Are you just trying to, you kind of have something like the Rolodex of where you can find them or are you just that day, just trying to find pods of fish?

Speaker 4:
[12:27] Yeah, you're just looking for pods of fish that day. And the cool thing about Green Bay too is that we do definitely have spots, but a lot of it is water temperature driven. And a lot of it is giant sand flats and roaming fish. And your structure is actually your water temperature and water color. So fish can move, sometimes they stay right where they are and you can go back out five, six hours later and get them right where you got them the day before. Or some days they move five, six, eight, ten miles overnight. Or that school is dispersed and you got to go find fresh fish. So it's fun in that sense. It's kind of something new every day in a sense, but you're trying to find the pattern every day, break it down and then, so there definitely are spots, but there's definitely, it's not like, okay, I got to run and I only get to fish these three spots. You can fish as many areas as you want. I really don't call them spots, but you can fish a ton of different areas and always keep looking for new fish or fresh fish or different fish.

Speaker 3:
[13:23] Okay. That was a much better answer than my question was. I think that's what I was trying to ask. You did a very nice job at helping me through that one.

Speaker 4:
[13:31] I love the walleye stuff. It's super fun. Like I said, it's fun because they're big and I just enjoy it. It gets me fishing and gets me on the water. I'm a lot sharper come muskie opener because I've been on the water, my boat's all dialed in, my eyes are adjusted to my electronics or whatever it is. We're looking for tiny little walleyes inside of engineering or all these different ways and techniques that we fish for them, and then muskie fishing. I'm already in mid-season form.

Speaker 3:
[13:59] Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. One thing we were talking about before we hopped on here and something I wanted to ask you about. You're talking about that transition between the walleye and the muskie season. You want to give us just a quick hit list on some of the things you do to prepare for the long war of muskie season?

Speaker 4:
[14:19] Yeah. Some things that I do, and I think we'll probably get into more. One thing I do a lot is just tackle preparation, and it's not just your standard sharpen your hooks, tie fresh leaders, fresh line. I pre-make a ton of my bladed tube rigs. I've got probably three dozen of those ready to go before the season comes about. I cut apart and rebuild a ton of bucktails. I build all my own rear spinner kits, whether that's for tubes or for bucktails, or all different sizes of blades and clevises or swivels or all that stuff. I tinker with a lot of stuff in the off season. Because come guiding season, it's go, go, go, and every minute you have off the water, you either want to do something that's life-related or catch up, pay your bills or whatever you have going on or sleep. A lot of that for me, I probably have 60 bucktails sitting on a shelf right now that I'll have just hanging up that I'll need to get rebuilt. Either ones that I bought this year that I want to tinker with or play with, or ones that I built in years past that didn't perform right, that I need to change this or change that, or play with this or that. Sharpening hooks is obviously one thing too, and then even with rubber baits, there's plenty of swapping out hooks is a big deal for me. I hate a lot of our standard hooks that come in our lures, so a lot of replacing hooks because in the moment, when you're on the water, none of us want to miss a cast. None of us wants to take two minutes off to go change a hook, but you have all winter to do that. We get such a short window to muskie fish less than half of a year. I don't want to waste a single minute on the water, digging through, trying to find a replacement hook to put on this dog or deuce or swim bait or whatever it may be, when it's taking away time that it's something I could have done in the off season. I'm huge on preparation. But it's more than just, like you said, plugging in the boat or re-spooling line or tying on fresh leaders. For me, I want to make sure all my tackle is super organized. Everything is in tip top shape, ready to go. And if we get to cut a hook, sweet, I'll dig a new hook out.

Speaker 3:
[16:31] And are you doing any sort of like, for example, Gus and I, he was driving back from a seminar yesterday and him and I probably spent an hour and 15 minutes just talking about different lakes. We're going to try out this year, different spots where you're going to hit, what our plans were for, you know, our muskie opener Memorial Day weekend and just kind of like what we plan on, on doing. And I think that goes a little bit into the prep for the season too. Like, I don't know how useful that stuff is, but it sure is a lot of fun. Do you do any of that where you're already kind of looking into like, you know, call it even an end of April or May, like, Hey, I'm going to try this out on Lake of the Woods here, I'm going to for sure hit this spot, you know, a couple of these spots early season. Are you starting to get those wheels spinning on where you're actually going to start going and fishing?

Speaker 4:
[17:18] Yeah, I think those have probably been spinning since December. It's just, I mean, I lay in bed at night so much in the winter, just staring at maps, marking waypoints, new spots, new areas. Google Earth is my best friend. You know, One Boat Network. There's so much so many things that I, you know, scouting stuff that I do in the off season. You know, booking trips. Jess and I are going on a couple trips this year to new places that I've never been before that I'm super excited about. Yeah, and even, you know, some lakes that are newer to us that we've been to, but just at different times of the year. And yeah, I mean, all that stuff, I think, I kind of have done. I just need to, the tackle stuff is kind of the thing that, I don't know, if I push it to the very end or procrastinate on that the most. But I probably weighed, I don't know, anywhere between 1,000 and 1,200 waypoints on my phone this year on a six different bodies of water across the country that I plan on seeing or visiting this year, right? And setting up stuff and even like just the scheduling. Yeah, there's, yeah, you get a lot of prep works already done. I'd say the hardest stuff is already done. Now it's just the fun tackle tinkering. We're 80% through our prep for this year, I would say.

Speaker 2:
[18:33] Goodness gracious. I don't know how you don't get overwhelmed in that. I'm getting overwhelmed just looking at the lakes and our little area of Vial Sonita, this region.

Speaker 4:
[18:41] Well, that's part of it too. You guys have dozens and dozens of lakes that you guys can fish and jump around it, which is super cool. Whereas I'm looking at probably a 10, maybe a dozen lakes total that I want to fish. And man, I might not even get, I won't get to all 12 of them this year, but in the next three years or five years, I'd like to get to those. So, but you guys have like, and maybe the bodies of water that I'm probably looking at are much larger than the ones that you guys are talking about or jumping around to. So, I mean, there's multiple ways to look at that, I guess, but you guys have it overwhelming in the sense that there's so many different lakes versus I have the lakes that I want to fish or that I'm interested in going to right now is a shorter list, say a dozen, but there's a lot of water on those 12 lakes or places.

Speaker 3:
[19:31] Yeah. Right. Funny thing, like when I was talking to Gus yesterday, it's like we were like, we really want to go check out this lake. And it's like, well, if that lake sucks, like what else is around it that we even know? Like we don't want to have to go, you know, drive an hour to only get skunked and then have to leave and then have to drive another, because you're talking about, like, you don't even want to waste a cast, you know, changing a hookout, right? Like we were talking about opener, we're like, well, we don't want to be stuck because it's happened to us in the past where all of a sudden we're driving down, like, you know, highway, whatever, in Vilas County, like, okay, where are we going? We don't know where to go. You know what I mean? Well, that's the thing.

Speaker 4:
[20:08] I say that to myself all the time, like, how many Muskies do we drive by to get to this spot, right? From the last spot we were at, right? And how many lakes did you guys drive past that have Muskies in them to get to your next musky lake? Like, it's the same thing.

Speaker 2:
[20:19] It's crazy. It's just like being efficient is definitely one way to put it, but like stick into a game plan. I feel like we didn't do anything that crazy different, however many years ago on Opener, but I feel like we screwed up because we would make all these random decisions to just jump ship or move lakes or not give at the time. Or, you know, I'm sure you maybe have done that on more of like the Canadian Shield or even Green Bay. I guess you got to make large runs depending on what the bite is, if it changes, whether it's August or Opener or, you know, the I don't know if you still do the trolling thing in like September and October, but I'm sure that switches on a dime. I had one question. It's kind of very specific to like more Canadian Shield, kind of selfish too, because we'll be going to Wabugoon this August. And we're going to also start, you know, dropping waypoints, waypoints, looking at spots, looking at satellite, looking for bays and rocks and all that sort of things. Like when you have all these waypoints set in advance of going to like a new lake, kind of a two-part question. But at first, when you go to this spot that you've never ever been before, are you either taking casts right away or are you going to drive past it and like side image it, see where the rocks are, the weed edge? Like what's, and then make a decision from there. Cause like that's a time saver. Like if you do that and it looks terrible, you go to the next spot, you just saved a lot of time or you drive by it and it looks amazing, put you waste of the time to drive through it.

Speaker 4:
[21:59] Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think a lot of that just comes down to like then and there, what's going on. But I think if I have my mind that I'm going to fish it, I'm probably going to fish say the first at least three or four, say in a new place or new body water. And if I'm getting burned and not necessarily getting burned in the sense of not seeing fish or not catching a fish, but not seeing what I like to see either if it's not the right kind of rock structure, not the right kind of weeds or lack of weeds, right? If I get burned by three or four spots in a row that I've fished that to me looked really good on the map that I took time out of my day to go and fish, I'm a lot less likely to go fish number five and six and seven, where those ones I'd probably drive through first, right? So because you can only see so much on Google Earth, like just because it looks good on Google Earth doesn't mean it looks good when you're staring at your side imaging or you're in the middle of fish in the spot, right? There's a big difference there. So it's tough that even things that look good on a map don't look good when you're there and vice versa, things that don't look good on a map, you drive past me like, holy crap, that's like the coolest looking spot in the lake. And on Google Earth or on a map, it doesn't look like anything. So I think I try and stick to a plan or make a plan and somewhat hold to it unless I'm getting burned by it. And I'm not saying burned isn't not catching fish or not seeing fish, but just not seeing what I want to see or what I expected to be there.

Speaker 2:
[23:24] Gotcha. That makes sense. Question. I think so. I think that answered even the second part, which just had to do with fishing it or not, or I don't know. I mean, I think that lines up.

Speaker 4:
[23:38] It's no different than saying, like if you're trying to figure out a pattern and you go fish five, you're going to fish five weed spots, five rock spots, five sand spots, right? And then like if you're getting burned by five of those weed spots, you're not going to go fish a sixth weed spot. You're going to go fish a rock spot or a sand spot or a deeper break.

Speaker 3:
[23:54] Right.

Speaker 4:
[23:55] So it's just, you know, you can't expect a change unless you make a change.

Speaker 3:
[24:02] Yeah, that makes sense. Well, let's switch gears too hard here, but I do want to make sure we get to this before we get to in the weeds on the Muskies stuff. So you got a pretty exciting new development coming out here in the near future. I don't want to steal the show here. So I'll let you kind of explain what you got cooking behind the scenes and what's dropping here in the near future.

Speaker 4:
[24:27] Yeah. Well, thanks to you guys too. I mean, you guys have helped a lot with this. You guys have heard we've been doing the discount code with Muskies On Tap, the mod code for you guys, but we launched nextgenmuskies.com, the website at the Chicago Muskies Show this year. We basically took our YouTube membership and then moved it over to our own personal website. So we were kind of sick of dealing with YouTube kind of drama and BS and being told what we could and couldn't do. So I just hired a guy to build this website so we can do our own thing, have a lot more freedom, have a lot more creativity and bring you guys even better information than in years past. So we worked on that for the last, I worked on that all winter. I ice fished one day all season. And then now we've been continuing to go through with that and we're super stoked to be launching it as a mobile app here in the coming week. I don't know if it'll be out by the time this gets released, but I worked really hard to try and get it done by the time we got to this. But regardless, we're going to have a mobile app for Apple and Android. So you can have Next Gen Muskies on your phone. You can access your account right from there. We're still going to have the website. We still encourage everybody to go on the website and sign up on the website physically and then download the app and sign into that personally. But with that, we're going to have an app right on your guys' phone with all kinds of amazing musky intel and knowledge. So we're stoked about it. We got to put a ton of time and effort into it, and we're still doing that as we speak.

Speaker 3:
[25:50] What? Is Venturing Into The App Creation World, I mean, how is that? Was that interesting or did it go for you?

Speaker 4:
[25:59] It's total, like you want to talk about weeding through the slop. I mean, holy crap. It's insane. I'm lucky I have some friends and some connections that are way smarter than I am and guys that are willing to help me out. So I got a good friend of mine that both myself and Jesse actually work with them. He designed a website and now he's designing the app. And we're basically just right now waiting, I believe on the Apple authorization to go through. So I think we're good on Android right now. And then Apple we're waiting for. So we haven't technically fully released it yet, but it will be out there very, very soon. We're just waiting to go through the last, cross the T's, dot the I's, because it is an insane mess to get an app put out to the world. Holy crap.

Speaker 3:
[26:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:42] So I believe that.

Speaker 3:
[26:43] I've kind of always wanted to ask you this, and it's going to be a roundabout way on how I'm going to get there. But so like, you know, for the people that maybe are just getting into muskie fishing and they, they don't know who Doug Wegner is quite yet. And their list of this podcast, they're like, you know, download an app subscription based stuff. Like I'd like to kind of know who this Doug guy is before I figure this out. Is there, you know, is there any like of your old YouTube videos? And not to put a spotlight back on the YouTube stuff, but is there any like old YouTube stuff you'd recommend people to go back and watch that's still out there? There's some of your favorite stuff that you released. I mean, I'm sure it's probably really hard to pick just one, but are there any just kind of couple, like general trips you did or any videos that you look back on? Like, yeah, that was, those were bangers.

Speaker 4:
[27:31] I mean, I don't mean, from what I hear from all, you know, all the people that have been with us for, I think we've been on YouTube for over 10 years now. Everybody talks about the Week on the Woods series, like everybody talks about that, which was a super fun series, part one and part two. We're both great. It was a bummer that part two got cut short, but those were great. There's a bunch of awesome, just snippet videos in there from all over. But I think the Week on the Woods one really is just showing two buddies going to a super amazing place in Northwestern Ontario on Lake of the Woods and just showing everything that happens, the good, the bad, the ugly, and just going through all of it. And I didn't, I mean, shoot, at the time we filmed that, I was, I don't know what the hell was I, 21 or 22 years old. Crazy, I was, yeah, 21 years old. Maybe it was even 20, 21, 22. But regardless, it was just super fun. We were all learning as we went. And still to this day, I don't know everything about Muskies. I know a lot about Muskies. I don't know everything and we've brought that into the app, too. Or we've brought other people into it because from other places, because I don't know everything. I know a lot, but I don't know everything. And I just want to help everybody be successful on the water. And I think if we bring in anglers from all parts of the country, we can do a lot better job of helping new anglers catch more Muskies and even experienced anglers. Like the amount of in, you know, Musky Hunter magazine stuff that I read growing up like I was, and even to this day, like if you're ever done learning, you're done growing. You can't just shut it off. So I don't know. The long story short, Weekend in the Woods series is a great one to watch. There's just so much. I wish we still had that cinematic feel and vibe to a lot of our stuff, but now it's just so much more educational, is what I'm really, really good at is, I feel that I'm best at more so than entertainment is the education side of it.

Speaker 2:
[29:27] That's probably two good words I was about to bring up anyways, like the Lake of the Woods series is awesome, just like an entertainment factor of muskie fishing, of like really getting the raw feel of like what muskie fishing is, like fishing hard, going up to a beautiful place in Canada, and catching muskies and losing them and having a good time with your friends and whatnot. But then there's just the whole part that I think a lot of people miss coming into the muskie industry, now that there are podcasts and YouTube videos everywhere, that it gets a little washed and flooded, and the educational aspect kind of goes out the window, and everybody getting into the sport just wants to be like, I want to throw just that lure just because I saw him throw that lure, and then they go throw that lure and they have no idea what they're doing with that lure. They don't even know how to start working it, and then they get frustrated and it comes in like a full circle. So I feel like the educational aspect is, it got lost for a little while there, but I think it's coming back, and Next Gen is definitely one place to find a lot of it.

Speaker 4:
[30:35] Yeah, I think anything that's worth, you can only get so much information for free, and anything that's worth value eventually is gonna cost something, right? So it's kind of hard to weed through all of the information that's out there now, because there's so much stuff. You've got the internet, you've got YouTube, you've got all this stuff. So it's like, what do you listen to? What do you believe? What don't you believe? And where's the best value in all this? And it really comes down to, if there is probably truly value to it, some of it might be free, but not all of it's gonna be free. It's no different than guides. Your buddy might take you muskie fishing, and you might be good at it. But if you probably want a really good experience and learn something really special, you're gonna want to probably hire a guide who's been doing this on this lake for X amount of years, or in this part of the country for this amount of years. So at some point, there is the value in it when the people who truly believe they have something figured out or have a really good corner on what they're doing, it's eventually gonna cost something at some point. There's only so much good free information out there. And if you listen to everything that's free, you're gonna get pulled in so many different directions, and you might not be getting the best information that's out there.

Speaker 3:
[31:43] Yeah, I agree. I definitely, I think, feel that to my core. I mean, we certainly tried to be a little bit more on the entertainment side with the podcast, because I think something that does kind of get lost in it, when you try to, props to people that do the education stuff, and really know what they're doing, because it's tough. There's no one size fits all for muskie fishing. And we've had countless guests on now, and you could go back, and if you've listened to every episode, there is 100% contradictions in what people are saying when you listen to so many different guides and so many different guests that we've had on. One guy might like, you know, this time of year for this reason, while another guy swears that that is like the worst, you know, two, three week stretch of the year. So it's just, it's tough. And you talked about like, where to trust to get your information from. I think that's a really big piece of it. Like finding somebody that you can feel comfortable with and knowing like, okay, this is all great starting points. And then at the end of the day, I mean, the most experience, the most, you know, education, right, is getting time on the water and going out there and actually trying to execute stuff. And, and then that's when you, that's when I feel like the learning curve really hits the hockey stick, you know, and you start ramping up. So yeah, no, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4:
[33:07] I think you gotta just find, I just think you have to find someone that you align with as far as like, maybe it's your fishing style, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, because you can have, like you said, people that contradict each other. And there's some people that are, they're probably really good muskie anglers and things that work for them might not ever work for me. Just like, it just, if you try and replicate someone else's bite sometimes, it's so hard to replicate theirs, let alone do it better than what they're doing. So you have to find someone that, you know, someone's fishing style or how to, that you really align with, whether if you're a rubber guy, a top water guy, a Twitch bait guy, right? Like, I'm not the greatest with Twitch baits. There's plenty of other people you should listen and talk to about dive and rise baits and Twitch baits, right? But if you want to talk about, you know, bucktails or rubber or top water, you know, I've got a ton of experience with that stuff, right? So, you know, you just got to find who you align with and what makes sense for you, and, you know, try and figure out your own way. Like everybody's musty path, I think, should be their own, but you have to figure out ways to make it your own, but still, you know, be on the trends and what's going on and, you know, kind of pave your own way with help from everyone. I'm the same way, like, I have tons of influence from my friends and anglers that I look up to and, you know, people in my life that influence me one way or the other of how to fish, what to fish, you know, all these different things. So, I think there's plenty of people out there that you can take really good inspiration from. You just have to figure out who you want that to be. And it shouldn't just be one person, in my opinion, either. Like, it should be a handful of people.

Speaker 3:
[34:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:37] Absolutely.

Speaker 3:
[34:37] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[34:38] But it shouldn't be everybody.

Speaker 2:
[34:40] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[34:41] It's fine in that happy medium, fighting that balance, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[34:45] I mean, I could parallel this a little bit, Max, and we've talked about this a lot with just fishing tournaments. And you all of a sudden put a bunch of really good musky fishermen into one area, or at the, what do you call it, the welcome meeting, the night before the turn, whatever. You put them all there, and you got, people are yapping around and chatting this, I'm on this bite, this and that, do this, yada yada, all this stuff. There's just a ton of influence there. Everyone's a really good musky angler, but it's just, when it all boils down to it, Max and I have had the best success when we do our own thing and we stick to our own game plans, and we try to not let anything else go through the filter of our ears of what we're wanting to do. I mean, we have a game plan, we stick to it, get a lot of influence from people, and we've told stories on, when people say this is what the bite is, and they don't eat this, we would go out there and catch them on what they don't eat, and let's just do our own things.

Speaker 3:
[35:51] Well, and just like you talk in tournaments, I mean, you want to talk about how there's no one right way to do it. I mean, even with all, say you got 100 good fishermen on a chain, like the Eagle River Chain, or any of the stops that they typically go to a year after year after year, right? And you'd think, well, okay, they've been to the Eagle River Chain 30 times, or 25 times in the past 30 years, like there should be just this one way to win the tournament, right? But every year it's different, and every year when that starting gun goes off, you got 15 boats heading upriver, 10 boats heading to your east, 15 boats heading down south. So everyone's got a different idea in their head on what they're going to have success with that day. And then you get done after day one, even at day two, you go and start talking to people. I was getting them on glide baits, or we were getting them on magnum rubber, or we were getting them on single five bucktails. So it's like, it's one of those things where, I think it all goes back to what you were saying, Doug, with you kind of, if you're in the learning process, which you always are, you find people that you can relate to and who you trust, and then you gotta just get out there and start figuring out yourself too.

Speaker 4:
[37:03] Yeah, and like you said too, I mean, there's nothing replaces time on the water. That is the number one best tool to learn and to grow as an angler, spending time on the water. There's no way to replace that, but the second best thing I think you can do is all the map studying, right? The lure tinkering or the preparation, or if it's watching videos on Next Gen, or if it's all this other prep work that you can do when you are not on the water, don't have the time to be on the water. So, like I said, I'm huge on preparation. And if you can't be fishing, right, you might as well be getting ready to go fishing, whether that's playing with your baits, playing with your tackle or learning or watching videos on how to catch or be more successful or find new spots whatever the topic you want to look into is.

Speaker 3:
[37:50] Yeah, and another cool thing is like with the stuff you're putting out, I mean, at the end of the day, like again, there's gonna be so many different ways to do it. But even if you just take like one small thing from one of your videos, say it's like a way to retrieve a rubber bait or when this condition shows up, this is what I typically like to throw. And it goes from somebody catching zero muskies to catching one musky. The great part about musky fishing is that's the difference between a bad day and an amazing day, right? So the line, Gus and I always talk about this, the line between being an absolute killer and being a zero is pretty thin a lot of the times. It just comes down. One cast, one little decision. So that stuff I really like because that one little thing maybe you picked up from one of your videos, all of a sudden it triggers in your brain on a day out in the water and boom, next thing you know, you caught a fish and it made the world a difference.

Speaker 4:
[38:49] I guess I got a question for you guys. Instead of me getting grilled over here, I'm going to grill you two. You guys have been, once we talked about getting you guys to work with the Next Gen, what you guys have had access to all the videos, what have you guys liked so far? What do you guys see? Is there any things that pop out in your mind that you guys have watched that you guys really like?

Speaker 2:
[39:10] Oh, boy. I know recently I watched your bait haul video because everybody loves a bait haul from the Expos, and just the variety that you got was pretty crazy. And I like how you're already bringing up. What I definitely liked about that, actually, now that I'm thinking about it more is he didn't just grab a bait and say, hey, look at this color. This is really cool. Set it down. Grab the next bait. This is kind of cool, isn't it? You talked like this bait is going to probably crush here because of this. And it's like, here's the blade color. Here's when I'm going to throw it. I'm going to like it in this situation. I might tinker with this. Hey, look at this rubber bait. It's got a hook placement here. I really like how it's got that. I'm going to upgrade to these hooks. Like you just give a nice recipe of what you're going to do with those baits. So that's one that I saw recently. I'm trying to think, I know over the other night, I put on the tube one. That was neat. I don't have a molder or whatever. I got a buddy. I think I'm going to try to maybe make the Wegner rig. But so far, it's been just the Red October rig with, the way that you build your rear blade attachment that same way with the wire shrink tube.

Speaker 3:
[40:32] Yeah, Gus kind of honestly took a bit of mine. I was going to say a lot of the mod stuff is sweet. I just like seeing what you're doing with different baits. And we don't need to go into too big a depth there. But I always just like seeing what other people are doing. You know, like a Red October tube is such a funny bait. We've talked about a lot on this podcast, but it's like just a hunker rubber with some tentacles off of it. And then there's 25 different things you can do with it to, you know, okay, help your hookup percentage, help the way it falls, help the way the action, like all this different stuff to actually get it dialed in and have confidence with it. So I would say the mods are great. And then, you know, what you're doing with the in-depth stuff with other people that hop on, I think is really good. Cause like you said, you know, having people actually talk about like very specific things. That they have success with is is awesome for certain bodies of water. Cause then people that are fishing those bodies of water, like those are just, I mean, that's gold. You listen to somebody who's out there doing it.

Speaker 2:
[41:38] For one that's coming up, I mean, this this will actually come out. Isn't Cave Run coming up in a week?

Speaker 3:
[41:45] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:46] Right. Yeah. Unfortunately, Max and I are not going to be going down for that event. But I mean, you just had Greg Thomas on, Doug, and I listened in on that one. He, I think he talked about trolling and short line trolling for 45 minutes.

Speaker 4:
[42:00] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:00] I want to say, which is pretty sweet.

Speaker 4:
[42:02] It was amazing.

Speaker 2:
[42:03] I enjoyed that. I mean, that's like a totally different animal that people hear about it so, so much. But that guy's knowledge on that was pretty immense. I really enjoyed that one. And that's just another one of those things like Max said and you were bringing up too. It's like getting people from all these areas and just compiling it.

Speaker 4:
[42:23] Yeah, and that, you know, it's fun to have. I think we've had Greg on, we had Spencer Berman, we just did Luke Ronestrand last week. Those have been our three interviews.

Speaker 2:
[42:32] I'll look back at those.

Speaker 4:
[42:33] Yeah. So Luke was super good too. But the cool thing about those, all these guys is one, they're absolute hammers where they fish and have stood the test of time. But two, I kind of know how a lot of those guys fish, or I know what I have confidence in or how I fish and how I've educated my audience to what I'm really good at or really successful with. So for me, it's fun to kind of poke and prod at those guys to ask questions about what I'm not good at. And that's maybe short line trolling, or that's talking to Luke about topwater baits or different kind of topwater baits, right? Or talking to Spencer about fishing more open water rubber stuff or how he gets his rubber baits to do this or do that, or why he likes this over that with rubber baits. Like the amount of fine detail that these guys have in their respected waters is so incredible. And I'm a huge detail freak. So to really, for me, it's super fun to kind of poke and prod these guys and get the goods out of them. For not just the surface level stuff, but the really deep stuff where I can kind of, they kind of open up a door or a crack and then I just throw a wedge right in that thing. And I'm like, all right, we're going down this rabbit hole and I'm going to get every ounce of it out of you, right? Same thing with Greg with the short line trolling. I mean, sure, like throwing a couple down rods in is one thing, but like Greg's detail in what he does and the baits he fishes and the leads he runs and how he runs it is insane. But to go down that kind of rabbit hole with all of these super high end anglers has been super fun.

Speaker 2:
[44:08] Yeah, absolutely. I got a question for you, Doug. I was going to ask it maybe a little bit earlier, but now might be the right time when you said, you're very detailed fisherman, you have your things that you do well, you love to do that. That's how it's probably more so categorized as power fishing. If you're rubber bucktail topwater, that's definitely power fishing. Phenomenal way to catch fish as always. But for all your travels, I'm curious, do you take notes? Do you even have time to take notes?

Speaker 4:
[44:45] It's so bad.

Speaker 2:
[44:47] You just power your way through these bytes, power into the next one. It's like, shit, this one's done. All right, I'm going to barrel into this next one that we definitely got onto last year because I think it's shifting or is it down to more of a science. I hope that makes sense because I like to take musky notes. You're better at it. Trends in weather and everything like that. And I will look at years past and pick a lake based on past experiences. I love that. And one, actually one biggest thing that I found out is I get a lot more information about the shitty days. I learn way, way, way, way more on the really bad days, what not to do. And I feel like that was some mistakes I made as an early angler. I'd look back at notes and be like, crap, I just went to that same lake in the same time of year in the same weather pattern where I got skunked last year and I just got skunked again. Huh. I don't want to make that mistake anymore.

Speaker 4:
[45:49] I've said that a lot, too. I learn more on the hard days than the good days. Because if you can crack that one code or if you're... I'm very blessed to wear a fish on woods where our goal when I leave the dock for the day is like three or four fish is always my goal for the day. But if we catch three or four fish, sure, we had a good day. I feel accomplished. I feel like we did a good job. If we're having a tough day and we only catch one fish, to me, it means a lot more of how did we catch that one fish because what should have been working or what normally works wasn't working. So what were the adjustments we had to make to catch one? To me, I learn more sometimes by catching one than I do by catching 10. And it sounds crazy, but I think you can learn more from those tough days than you can from the good days. If they're biting everything and they're every spot you go to, this side or the other, are you really that good or are the fish just going, right? I think there's a lot more to be said for when you're having a tough day when things aren't going right, the fish are not where you expected them to be. What changes did you make to make it happen today? I think that's a big thing. Right. And then going back to the other side of your question of, I should take notes. I wish I took notes. I'm really happy that you do. And one thing that I've told myself a hundred times that I don't know why I don't, because I could literally drive home and hit the microphone button on my phone and just start talking and spill out what the weather was, what the water temperature was, what was this? And I could just dump it all in my notes on my phone. And I could do the end for some, I don't know why I don't probably, probably because honestly, like my customer, I spend so much time with my customers and I want it to be such a good experience for them. I don't want to have to tell them, like, they stay at my house. I'm at a place right now, my customers are staying with me. They're taking a nap right now in between, in between fishing. You know, I don't want to babble there, you're off as we're driving home, like I want to talk about the day and how exciting it was, or you know, what we thought or what are we going to do tomorrow? Or start making a game plan. And then by the time I get home, you throw something, you know, eat something quick and then you just crash or you dump footage and I just crash. But the footage, like footage helps me a lot. I take a lot of pictures of my graph for water temperature reasons. So I can go back and look and see, okay, when were these fish biting? What was the water temperature for me is a huge deal, no matter where I am. But I don't necessarily, when you were talking about the bites and said, okay, this bite's over, I want to go to the next bite. The problem that I have is I get bored so fast that I generally somewhat know the progression of the bites or how things are going to go. I can't wait until that bite's done to go on to the next one. I normally cut the bite short to start on the next one early. I'm sick of the area. Maybe I'm sick of fishing these presentations or this style and I want to fish a different style. I'm always pushing maybe that envelope to get there earlier. Generally, I'm going to struggle those first couple of days because maybe all the conditions aren't right. But again, that comes back to it really helps me dial in on, even though all the conditions aren't right and maybe the majority of the fish aren't there or doing that thing yet. If I can catch a few fish, it tells me or helps me learn what's really, really important to that's going to set me up even better as the bite as that bite that I'm on is going to continue to get better rather than trying to hold on to that bite as long as I possibly can before it totally burns out.

Speaker 2:
[49:25] I think a lot of sense that does make a lot of sense. I got I'm going to probably boil into like one statement here. I feel like the beginning of a bite is a lot better than the tail end of a bite.

Speaker 4:
[49:38] Almost so much like if it's no different. I'm in the middle of walleye fishing. So I'm just going to use this. But when I find a school of walleyes and I start banging on them, by the time I call Kyle and let him know, or by the time Kyle finds a school and starts banging on them and calls me, by the time either one of us get to where the person is that's catching them, we already missed it. 90% of the time, the peak of that is already over. You have to find it on your own in order for it to be the best that it can be.

Speaker 3:
[50:10] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It would be early than late for sure. So you said you carved out a few hours the other night to attend the spring hearing. I'd be curious to just get your thoughts on what you thought of it. How did it go? Just generally.

Speaker 2:
[50:25] Where did you go to?

Speaker 3:
[50:27] Yeah, where were you at and how things went at yours?

Speaker 4:
[50:32] Yeah, I think I started my guide trip early. I had two trips that I had an eight and a five and I started early so I could get done by like seven. I think I started at five, whatever. I started early in the day, in the dark, so I could get my two trips ran, get done and then drive the 45 minutes down to Green Bay to the Technical College or wherever they hold it. I forget the name. But yeah, ran down there quick, ran inside, got there just in time to hear the ones that weren't on. I circled whatever, did the rest of the list, but then obviously the Muskie opener came up and supported pushing that back to our old opener Memorial Day weekend. Just ran down there quick, made that happen. Honestly, I'll be honest, I left the meeting probably after a half hour being there, just made sure I did everything I needed to do. I didn't need to hear about the birds and the bees and the wildflowers and whatnot. I tried to support as much stuff as I could. I know I circled everything. I'm a huge proponent. I think all of our license fees should be higher and increased in any way we can help fund our DNRs. A good thing from the meeting I was at, it sounded like they're really struggling for funding and money and everything else. So I think we can all reach in our pockets and help throw a couple of dollars from Everybody Goes Along ways to help support our DNR and our fisheries and everything else.

Speaker 2:
[51:58] Right. I think that was like the first thing they mentioned at ours in Vilas County. What county was it?

Speaker 4:
[52:03] Brown. I went to Brown.

Speaker 2:
[52:05] Brown County.

Speaker 4:
[52:06] Yeah, it was where I went to.

Speaker 2:
[52:09] Okay. Got you. Was there like, so for example, and we went pretty into detail on the Vilas County one. It was pretty well attended. We had over a 100 people at the Vilas County one, and for a second, it got a little hostile as soon as the opener was talked about, and then the reasonings and what not by the DNR. A couple of people kind of shouted, and I explained that I wasn't a fan of that. I didn't like seeing somebody with aligned views. I was there for the same reason this person was there. I don't know who it was, nor would I want to name any names at all either. But I just didn't like the representation. I feel like that hostility between Muskie Fishermen and the DNR, it sucks. Even if our views don't align, or people, we want more of this and that, and the DNR is like, no, we can't do. Even if it's like that, I just feel like that's kind of the wrong direction. But just, you know, talking with, you know, meeting a lot more people from Green Bay, it sounds like you guys have a much better relationship with your DNR, your program's doing really well. You know, you guys backed off this new opener to be earlier. You know, you have your old, I can never remember the word. It's almost like a, it's like a program that Green Bay's on, I think. I don't know if it's...

Speaker 3:
[53:35] It's like a rehabilitation program, isn't it?

Speaker 4:
[53:37] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:37] Like a project.

Speaker 4:
[53:39] Yeah, a project, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[53:40] Yes, a project.

Speaker 4:
[53:40] Bringing, yeah. We're bringing muskets stock, or you know, natural reproduction back, or trying to bring back natural reproduction. Our biologist, Jason, is a really nice guy. I think he's in a tough spot. He's got a lot of people looking at him. And we have, you could argue, you know, the premier fishery in the state of Wisconsin. I think there's a lot of pressure on Jason. He's a numbers guy. He's a facts guy. And I don't necessarily always agree with him 100% on a lot of things, but I think overall he's doing a good job. He's very accessible to us as far as if you have questions or he's came in and talked at the Tidal Town Club and has done a good job that way. So I think all these people that work in the DNR have it super tough. I think we need to cut everybody a little bit of slack. They're there to try and protect our resource and help our resource. And these are the resources that we get to enjoy and try and go and spend our free time doing. But none of these people that are working in the DNR making a shit ton of money or making money handle their fist, I mean, they're scraping by, but they're doing it because they care about the resource. So I think we need to cut them some slack there and just try and support them and like you said, try and get aligned with other anglers or just give people a respect, I think is a big thing and try and get everybody that we all want probably the same thing. We just had to figure out how to do it together.

Speaker 3:
[55:04] Yeah. I think that's what was one thing that was kind of interesting about this whole opener thing is it feel like it really kind of got people to like, I don't know, band together is the right word, but it got enough momentum where people were showing up to these spring hearings that probably never would have gone and it just makes me wonder if there's maybe different things we could put energy towards how there was energy put towards this Northern Wisconsin opener, which was cool to see. I mean, it's great when people are getting involved. I think Gus and I, for the first time in our lives, have really started to care about this stuff, even though we probably should have been for much longer. You mentioned there's some things that you would do differently or maybe you would change. I don't want to put you on the spot too much, but what are maybe some of those things that you're just kind of seeing from a 10,000 foot view as a guide and somebody who's on the water every day? Is it walleye stuff? Is it bass stuff? Is it musky stuff?

Speaker 4:
[56:07] It's more musky stuff. Or I'm sorry, it's more walleye stuff, I should say, than anything. It's more walleye stuff and guiding stuff. I wish we had a higher guide fee or guide license. I think it's absolutely insane I can make a living off of a public resource for $40 a year. I think that's ridiculous. Regardless of, you know, I haven't killed a fish out of Green Bay, whether that be a walleye intentionally, right? A walleye, a musky, anything, a smallmouth, a brown trout, anything out of Green Bay in at least five years, it's been all catch and release. Every single walleye goes back. Obviously, muskies and bass and trout. But I think it's crazy that, you know, we don't have a license or a fee for a license that's $1,000 a year, $2,000 a year, $5,000 a year, to make a living off of a public resource and have that money go back into stocking or research or whatever it may be. I would like to see that increased. I'd like to see our fishing licenses increased. I'd like to see our non-resident fishing licenses increased. I think all of our license fees need to go up. We don't have any money. $20 to fish for a season is incredibly cheap. It's no different than the guide license. $40 to be able to guide full-time is insanely cheap. I need a captain's license, but that money doesn't go towards the state. Gus doesn't need a captain's license in Northern Wisconsin. He needs a $40 guide license and a $20 fishing license. It's crazy. I wish we had a catch and release walleye season on Green Bay. Right now, we can only keep one fish over 15 inches or over 28 inches if you're in the Fox River, but I wish it was just strictly catch and release. Everybody's here to, I shouldn't say everybody, 95 percent of the people that come to Green Bay or visit Green Bay are just here for a trophy opportunity, and they don't keep fish regardless. But when you get people fishing by dams or fishing in rivers and snagging fish and then they're harvesting fish, and generally the fish they're going to harvest are going to be large. So I wish if we can have a catch and release bass season, why can't we have a catch and release walleye season? It drives me absolutely nuts. We have a closed perch season on Green Bay. We don't have a walleye season.

Speaker 2:
[58:18] I didn't know that was a thing.

Speaker 4:
[58:20] We protect our perch more than we protect our walleyes.

Speaker 2:
[58:24] That's ridiculous. I heard about that.

Speaker 4:
[58:28] I think it's awesome. We have these big three pound perch at times of the year, world class trophy perch fishing. I think it's amazing we protect them during the spawn. You can't keep any. You're not supposed to target them. I wish we could still do what we do. We still fish for our walleyes and do catch and release with our walleyes. But you know how many phone calls it would save the DNR if they didn't have to worry about 20 snagging calls every single night on the Fox River, the Ocana River, the Pesce River, the Menominee River? All these people snagging fish in the tail and then taking them home as their one fish over 15 inches or 28 inches. It's insane. Like, why does a bass get special privilege? I can guarantee you a small mouth in 40 degree water with some old catch and cook on it, a little bit of salt and pepper tastes pretty darn close to a 24 inch walleye coming out of Green Bay in 40 degree water. Blind taste test might not be that big of a difference, but because it's a bass, we have to catch and release it. But because it's a walleye and they're known as a fish that we eat, we're allowed to keep one. So that's my little spiel and down the rabbit hole of the sea change.

Speaker 3:
[59:35] The walleye fish fry, I feel like, is just...

Speaker 2:
[59:37] I don't even know if I want to step into that up here. There's a billion different regulations on the lakes up here. It's like 15 inch minimum slots, one over this thing. For a while, they had no keeping, catch and release, only on the Monaco chain for a while, and then that's now blown up and that fishery's gone down the hole on walleyes. I don't know a ton on that, but I do have a very random question here, Doug. I just want to hear your thoughts. We haven't had a river guy on in a while. Anyways, but what are your thoughts on dam fishing in general?

Speaker 4:
[60:18] For muskies or for fish?

Speaker 2:
[60:21] I guess fish, but kind of muskies too. I kind of ask this only in the fact that when you have a dam, it's an obstruction of typically a fish moving up for a reason, and usually that reason is to spawn. So it's like a lot of concentrations of fish there, and it's where snagging happens a lot. And I don't know, I've just always had thoughts on it.

Speaker 4:
[60:47] I'm a huge fan of refuges. You know, I've pushed to try and get more refuges put in place in Green Bay. We don't have a refuge right now at the Ocano Dam, which is a huge issue for Oualas, I think. I would love to see one there. I would love to see maybe a bigger one at Peshtigo, maybe a bigger one at Menominee. But I'm definitely a fan of fish refuges during the spawn, just to protect those fish, like you said, from spawning and just let them do their thing and not bug them and harm them. When it comes to Muskies, once the season is open, the thing with dams is that it's such a great high concentration of bait fish and the whole entire food chain, that it is a great area to fish. It's tough because imagine in the middle of musky season, all the fish are done spawning, you're not harming the fish or water temperatures are fine, and there's the best spot in the lake, but you can't go fish it because it's a dam or it's closed off because of this. That'd be really tough for me. I know there's some controversy with people just sitting at dams and fishing dams all the time for muskies. I see both sides of it, and I don't want to stand on one side or the other, but I think as long as you're not doing harm to the fish or they're not trying to spawn, and you're not torturing a fish or really bugging them, I don't know how you draw a line, it'd be tough. So you shouldn't do that, or shouldn't be able to fish for them.

Speaker 3:
[62:18] Us musky guys are always walking a pretty fine line of conservation and still driving large hooks through their face.

Speaker 4:
[62:25] We're the closest thing to fly fishermen. It's hilarious.

Speaker 3:
[62:29] You're always just, and I was even thinking about this, we talked about the opener last week quite a bit, and there's just no perfect science to it. Even Memorial Day weekend is just some arbitrary date. Hopefully, the fish are relatively done with the spawn, but you just never know every year is going to be a little different. Maybe it's a cold spring and they're still hanging out, like are you just not going to go fish or the Memorial Day weekend thing. Some years it is in the end of May. This year, it's really the third week of May, essentially, so it's a little earlier. We do this funny thing where we walk this fine line of like, we definitely want to protect them, but at the same time, it's like once it's open season and we're out there on the water, you're doing everything and you possibly can't.

Speaker 4:
[63:17] You have to draw the line somewhere, right?

Speaker 3:
[63:19] Right, right.

Speaker 4:
[63:20] That's the difference. It's no different than 79 degree water and 80 degree water, right? It's the same fricking thing.

Speaker 3:
[63:26] Yeah, yeah. Totally.

Speaker 4:
[63:28] So like you just have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. If it's Memorial Day weekend, if it's the first Saturday in May, if it's 70 degrees or if it's 80 degrees, you got to draw a line and it just, we have to try and put the fish first, I think is the biggest thing and then just play off of that. So if we can have a good suggestion, I think Memorial Day weekend has worked for everybody. Everybody's used to that. Northern Wisconsin already got the, you know, the later push into December, how many years ago? Five years ago that it got extended. So you just need to, you know, how greedy do we want to be? Because if you talk to any old timer that, you know, Wally Fishman was great on my, on my lake when I started, when I bought my cabin here 40 years ago, and it's never been the same since. Well, what changed? You showed up and you started keeping your walleyes and you started doing this. It's not all the Muskies that are eating your walleyes. The Muskies have been in there for hundreds of years. So we just got to look at ourselves and, you know, we are generally the thing that, that ruins things. And we just have to try and protect ourselves from ourselves.

Speaker 3:
[64:31] Yeah. Easier said than done for sure.

Speaker 4:
[64:34] Oh, absolutely. And I'm not like, I'm not an angel by any means. I mean, we've all, I'm sure we've all done things that, you know, we're not proud of or looking back. We would go back and change them. But we just have to try and put forward and do things that are going to be, you know, put the fish first in the future. I think is our biggest thing.

Speaker 2:
[64:52] Yeah. Yeah. And you answered that that really well. I didn't mean for that to be at all like a trap question or anything, you know, on the damn fishing is like, hey, where do you stand? I meant, you know, the whole of the day I was just kind of a bulldog. Spot locked, anchored actually. Anchored. But no, that's cool. I mean, I think, yeah, fish refugees are definitely probably beneficial. I mean, I've just seen some of those videos of like the Okano and Peshago of how many walleyes in there and like a foot of water and you can just see them. It's, I could see something like that benefiting some sort of refuge when they're trying to on eliminate people snagging the crap out of them.

Speaker 4:
[65:34] They're only there, like they're only there for so many days. The DNR says it will take shore fishing opportunities away. A lot of those walleyes come back, maybe not the big giant ones, but a lot of walleyes come back to the rivers in the fall. We have an amazing fall Fox River Walleye Bight. Really, really good. So why not harvest them then, or why not target them then? Why can't we just leave them alone? But anyways, we're down a rabbit hole. What's up with Muskies?

Speaker 3:
[66:00] I have a question about the Muskies show is for you. Unfortunately, he's not even here to defend himself. But do you feel guilty at all for taking advantage of a drunk Brian Eckle selling him all of your old rubber baits?

Speaker 4:
[66:15] I did not. I don't think I could manage him. I let him use his own path. He's a grown up. I think that he was very hammered. He's a great way to meet Brian. I got to meet Brian I think at three o'clock when Brian was in a good place. He still had wits about him. But when he came to the bait swap at eight o'clock, there was not a whole lot there.

Speaker 2:
[66:39] There's a light switch and it turned off.

Speaker 3:
[66:41] Yeah, lights are on but no one was on.

Speaker 4:
[66:43] I think he bought a cool double dog.

Speaker 3:
[66:45] No, he got some great stuff for you. I had that was 100 percent sarcasm. I think he got some great baits for you that I was stoked he bought because I mean, any bait that Brian or Gus buys, I know has a high chance of ending up on the end of my rod too. So yeah. The full circle for all of us. Yeah, for all of us. So when he bought those from you, I wanted to buy more but I just needed to be a little bit.

Speaker 4:
[67:15] You need more liquid courage like Brian.

Speaker 3:
[67:16] Yeah. But he got some really cool stuff from you. I mean, you did a huge, huge kind of offload there with a lot of rubber baits. Did you sell a majority of those or how did that go?

Speaker 4:
[67:28] I think I sold, I probably had like 400 baits that I tried. It wasn't just rubber. It was everything. It was mainly rubber. It was probably half rubber. I went down a rubber rabbit hole there for a couple of years and just bought everything I could get my hands on. That was a relatively decent deal or maybe I'll use that color one day on this place or that place and just bought everything. I moved recently and I was just like, I got to fricking unload some of this stuff. So I sold a bunch of stuff and then we had about, I took the remaining stuff to Wausau there and when I didn't sell there, I think I probably had about 80 baits left, maybe 100 baits left. And then I gave, I think I broke them up into like 25 a piece. I gave 25 baits to the Title Town Muskie Club for them to sell or give away, either sell to raise money for stocking. So I donated 25 baits to them. I think I donated about the same to Capital City, down in Madison. Love that club. They do a great job. I always donate and support their muskie stuff every year. So donated some baits to them. And then I donated some baits to the club that put on the muskie swap at Wausau. I think I gave them about 25 baits as well.

Speaker 2:
[68:40] Wausau Area Muskies Inc?

Speaker 4:
[68:42] Yeah, I think that one.

Speaker 3:
[68:43] Yep.

Speaker 4:
[68:43] Or whoever. Yeah, those guys. And then there was one other one I think I did too, but I just, whatever I had left that I didn't sell, I was just like, I'm not going to take these home, let them sit in the corner of my garage, give them to a kid or let them sell them and put the money towards stocking or whatever else.

Speaker 3:
[68:59] What kind of got you like your infatuation with the China rubber? Cause obviously there's a lot of that in the lot. And I just curious, when did that start? How did it start? I'm assuming you still held on to some of your favorites.

Speaker 4:
[69:14] Oh yeah, I got a lot. I would honestly, it started with Kurt Hanson, the guy that owns Storm Brothers. Just fishing with Kurt on a late fall trip, and he had this one old school pounder that I just had a really good experience with, we'll say. Caught a ton of fish on it, had a bunch of fun with it, and I just looked at it in the water and was like, wow, this thing looks different than a normal pounder. And there's a time and a place for both. I have a ton of China pounders, I have a ton of standard ones too. There's definitely, they act differently and they do different things and there's a time and a place for both. But the China ones are just hard to find. I mean, there's only so many of them, there's no more being made. So I dumped a bunch. I kept way more than I dumped.

Speaker 3:
[69:57] Okay. Yeah. I was just curious, as somebody who's just starting to build their own box of the China rubber baits, you were very nice enough to actually point out a double mag China deal at the Minnesota Swap, if you remember that for me. Thank you for not taking that one. So I'm very excited to use that one.

Speaker 4:
[70:17] Those are cool. Yeah. I mean, the little fin or the little curly cues on the side, the twister tail. Yeah. Does that matter? I have no idea.

Speaker 3:
[70:27] We've concluded that it is the reason why they catch fish. That's our conclusion.

Speaker 2:
[70:32] Absolutely.

Speaker 4:
[70:33] When I went down the double dog rabbit hole, I think that was 2018, 2019 is when I went down the double dog rabbit hole. Because that bait has been around for a long time, and it ran its course. Then I don't want to say I brought it back, but I had a stellar season on it. Then I just started posting videos away, the viral double dog video, and the one that jumped out of the water, eating it, and whatever else. But the first one, the one that started that whole trend, was a walleye old school double dog with the two twister tails out, or the two curly Qs off the side. So I don't know, I just kind of hung on to that. But the viral one.

Speaker 3:
[71:12] What color was that one? I don't know if I've seen a walleye version of that. Because I've seen there's the purple-ish, black and orange one that we have a bunch. There's the, I've seen almost like a rainbow trout one. Tulip-y, like that one. And then the sucker one that you pointed out to be in Minnesota. Those are the only three colors I've ever seen of that.

Speaker 4:
[71:34] Oh, there's a pro walleye, like the gold one. There's a pro walleye with white tails.

Speaker 3:
[71:40] Wow. Like the gold top, white belly, white tails.

Speaker 4:
[71:43] I don't think it has a, maybe it doesn't have a white belly. I think it's just the poured gold with the fleck in it. The really nice walleye with the two white tips on the tails.

Speaker 3:
[71:56] Yeah. What was the color? I think it's, I don't know if it's called Twinkie or somebody just called it Twinkie.

Speaker 4:
[72:01] Yeah. Twinkie's a great one.

Speaker 3:
[72:02] Twinkie. Yeah. They made that. I wish they'd bring that color back and see what they could do with it with new tech or new stuff, how they pour it. Cause that's a nice little in-between gold, almost like a gold pearl type. I don't know. It's nice.

Speaker 4:
[72:18] Warren Brothers has some really cool custom colors and there's a couple Twinkies in there is all I'm saying. There's a gold Twinkie and a silver Twinkie and some of the Thorn custom line of colors. One thing Thorn doesn't get enough credit for is like, we have an incredible line of custom colors. People just don't know, we're not a Team Rhino. We don't just sell custom colors, but we have our own shop custom colors and patterns. And honestly, Luke Ronestrand designs 90% of those.

Speaker 2:
[72:46] Mostly rubber too.

Speaker 4:
[72:47] A lot of rubber stuff. Yeah, I mean, there's there's bucktail colors too, but the ones that are probably the coolest are definitely the rubber colors.

Speaker 3:
[72:54] I was actually just there yesterday picking up my extra heavy 10 foot stealth that you told me to get the dirt cork and everything.

Speaker 4:
[73:03] So I love it. Yeah, I got a four rod sitting there that I need to go get at some point some stealths and I'm gonna walk the dog rod that I built. I'm super stoked for.

Speaker 2:
[73:15] Would you share the build?

Speaker 3:
[73:17] Yeah, share the build or no?

Speaker 4:
[73:19] I think I did a, what did I do? I think I did an 8.3, it was an 8.3 extra heavy Predator with like a 16 inch rear.

Speaker 3:
[73:31] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[73:33] Yeah. Yep. Standard guides, palm seat.

Speaker 2:
[73:38] Makes sense.

Speaker 4:
[73:39] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[73:40] And it's typically walking it down, chopping with the rod tip down for that reason. Yep.

Speaker 4:
[73:48] Yeah. Jesse has one, I think it's 7.9. She had one made two years ago. And I stole that one for a while this summer, but it was a little too short for me. So I went with 8 foot 3.

Speaker 3:
[73:59] Yeah. I'm sure because you're pretty much exclusively using 10 footers, right? Or are you switching it up a good bit nowadays?

Speaker 4:
[74:09] I'm switching it up.

Speaker 2:
[74:10] 11 footers?

Speaker 4:
[74:10] Come on. I've had 11s for two years now.

Speaker 3:
[74:13] Oh, jeez.

Speaker 4:
[74:15] I do fish 11s, so I have two 11s. So I fish the 11s with any giant blades, giant spinner baits. If you want to throw out a super model, like an extra footer rod with those big giant blades, they catch so much wind and you can't throw them. So a footer rod really helps with that. The rod gets a little heavy with that much extension material in it. But the rod that I liked probably the most last year, that I had a ton of fun with was a 10.6 extra heavy stealth. So like that for a bucktail rod was unreal.

Speaker 2:
[74:50] That's only like a half a foot of extension in the rear?

Speaker 4:
[74:54] In the rear. So the difference, once you go over seven inches of an extension, even a musky rod from Thorn, they have, once you go over seven, you have to do an undersleeve and an oversleeve. So you have twice the sleeve material and then you have a lot more epoxy. So it just adds more weight, right? So with a six inch extension, we can just do an undersleeve. So it's about half of the added weight. So it's still super comfortable to fish and it wasn't super bulky and cumbersome. Now I fish out of a big deep V walleye boat, right? So I'm not saying that you guys need a 10 foot six rod, but for me, it's nice for my customers up in the bow. It's nice for me in the back. Gives you a little bit more room. I mean, that's definitely a much nicer rod to fish than the 11 footer, just weight wise. You know, the boat side stuff, the 11 footer is insane, but it's not as comfortable to fish. That 10-6.

Speaker 2:
[75:45] Figure eight to the next county.

Speaker 4:
[75:47] You know it, baby.

Speaker 3:
[75:48] Especially on the back of the boat. Oh my God. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[75:52] And then I did build, I had three 10-6 extra heavy stealths built, because I have two right now, so I wanted some more, because I always have an extra two. And then I built a 10-6 heavy stealth. So I love our heavy stealth, but that's like a topwater and twitch bait rod. But like those fish get so spooky and jumpy boat side with topwater, I thought maybe an extra six inches would let me start a figure eight out a little bit further from the boat, and let me get away with a little bit more, you know, keeping those fish further off the side of the boat and bringing them right up tight. Because I do like to keep my topwaters on top. At least.

Speaker 2:
[76:31] I was just about to ask that, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[76:33] In the beginning of my eight, I like to keep them on top.

Speaker 2:
[76:36] And another thing that I'd be curious if you've seen this before, and it's why I got turned off of doing topwaters under the water at first. I didn't catch like any and I tried it and tried it. And one thing I realized, I even talked with some other people, I think I was plunging it too quickly. And I was making like a lot of bubbly trail and noise. Like it was like...

Speaker 4:
[77:00] You're too aggressive. I see people take it too aggressive. Like it just makes a ton of noise going under.

Speaker 2:
[77:09] It's not natural. Like it doesn't feel natural that all of a sudden something goes underwater and there's all this like bubbles and that and whatnot. I don't know. It doesn't seem right. It spooks the fish every time.

Speaker 3:
[77:21] This goes back to like who you take your advice from, but I could swear I don't remember who it was, but I remember I like heard something or watched something of somebody talking about topwater fishing and submerging your topwater when you get to the boat. And I remember Gus, I'd watched it like before we'd gone out one time in September. And I remember I tried to dunk like an MK65, like five feet out from the boat. And we watched a 46 just literally do like a complete 180, like it was coming in wiggly tail. And then it just was like, oh, that's not food. And I'm like, what the heck? I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. And then, you know, if you learn, obviously that was like great learning experience. Like don't do that again. So, you know, it's just got a full circle back to like, you know, the who you take your advice from and then also stuff that you actually see out on the water is the greatest tool.

Speaker 4:
[78:19] That's funny. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not, you know, but I came from like, I mean, I watched Booker my whole entire life and had a super close connection with him. And he was always a subsurface top water guy. Like every time the top rater came in, it was going under. And I've caught a ton of fish, you know, going under as well. But I definitely start my figure eight on top. I just don't want to, I don't want to show my whole hand right away is kind of how I explain it to my customers. Like the bait's already been coming in on top in a straight line. I want to continue that. And then my first change is going to be a change of direction on this, right? Or as it's coming in, right? You can do the zigzag or like the little S turns coming in. And then when you get to the boat, you make the 90 degree turn, and then it goes into a figure eight, right? And then you show that fish, the lure on top of the water, right? Now changing direction or doing a figure eight. And if the fish is, you know, slowly disengaging with the lure, then I'll take it under the water and bring it more. And it's more, and to me, it's more in front of their face. It's again, something different. You didn't show your whole entire hand right away. So, but once I take it under, I like to keep it under, right? Like I don't like to go under and then come up and then go back under. Like I keep it on top. And if the fish isn't hot or isn't interested or is falling off, I take it under. And then I kind of keep it under until they're gone. Or like my last resort might be to bring it back up.

Speaker 2:
[79:40] No, that's that's good advice. That's funny enough. The one and only muskie I have caught on top water in the figure eight, under the water was the top rate or exact same scenario. I had it on top. I think it was a smaller fish, so it really didn't push awake. And then I saw it last minute, did a first turn and then it buzzed off. Went around to the second turn, didn't see it again. And I think as I went around that turn, I saw it on side image. I was fishing dirty water, slowly took it under, didn't really know where it was, and then the next turn just out of nowhere, bam, underwater, ate it, crushed it. This is dead nuts on to that. That seems like a good recipe to go.

Speaker 4:
[80:19] Yeah, definitely a fan of like, especially like, and I take it under like, as you're in like the slowest, like the very slowest part of your outside corner, like when it's at that slowest point and they don't eat it, like right when you're about to speed up, that's when I actually take the bait under so that it's not going under at a super rapid speed, right? They don't get that awkward, loud, aggressive plunge, right? So I take it under after I decide, okay, the fish isn't going to eat it in that corner. Now I'm going to take it under, but it's a lot more gradual and a lot more subtle if you take it right after that slowest point, if they don't eat it. Versus in the middle of your, you know, figure eight when you're coming fast, okay, I'm going to plunge it to get into this next figure eight. I don't want that. Interesting.

Speaker 2:
[81:01] And are you specifically talking prop style baits?

Speaker 4:
[81:04] Yes, tail baits.

Speaker 2:
[81:04] Basically tail baits.

Speaker 4:
[81:06] Don't take your MK65s or flap tail.

Speaker 2:
[81:08] Just going to say it's like, what's your experience with the flap tail?

Speaker 3:
[81:11] Do you remember that happening?

Speaker 2:
[81:13] Yeah, I do. I know what fish you're talking about. Yeah. It's the cleaner water lake, right? Or am I thinking that one in October? Or is it the dirtier water lake in September?

Speaker 4:
[81:23] How many times has this happened, Max?

Speaker 2:
[81:28] I just remember a follow from that size of a fish multiple times with you throwing it. And I could remember if it was that early October in the cleaner water and that island thing, or if it was in the dirty water in that bay, or am I not even thinking of the right fish? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[81:44] Do you remember? Yes, dirty water in the bay.

Speaker 2:
[81:47] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[81:48] Not, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[81:49] Now I remember.

Speaker 4:
[81:50] Max is like, next topic, please.

Speaker 3:
[81:51] Let's start.

Speaker 4:
[81:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[81:53] You're looking out like, aye, aye, aye.

Speaker 3:
[81:56] Yeah. Yeah. What else do we want to talk about here, gentlemen? I think this has been good little smorgasbord of walleyes, muskies, preseason, getting ready for the year. I'm, I'm excited. I'm excited. I think it's, I think 2026 is going to be a good one. So I'm stoked. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[82:15] I'm really excited. We've got a banger walleyes season and things have been super good. And I'm hoping to just carry, carry this momentum into, into Muskies, baby. I'm freaking stoked. I'm jacked. I'm excited.

Speaker 3:
[82:26] Yeah. It's going to come up quick here. I mean, we're, we're, I mean, what is it? How many weeks till? Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[82:32] I mean, the other opener is 12 days away.

Speaker 3:
[82:37] So people are going to be already getting out in shit. Yeah. Less than two weeks away from now. And then with that early Northern Wisconsin opener, you're just looking at a couple of weeks and, or Green Bay, I should say. The Green Bay opener and a couple of weeks after that. And yeah, it's always nice when you start seeing Muskies start flooding your timeline again. I feel like it's a good cleanse that everyone needs right now.

Speaker 2:
[83:02] It keeps people off the Internet as much.

Speaker 4:
[83:05] Yeah. I would say I caught my first Muskie of the year the other day.

Speaker 3:
[83:08] Nice.

Speaker 4:
[83:09] Yeah. Customer caught on a hair jig. It was a big one, like a 48, 49-inch hair jig. Right in the corner of the mouth. Three-eighths ounce hair jig.

Speaker 3:
[83:19] Unreal. That had to be a fun fight.

Speaker 4:
[83:21] And landed it. Yeah, it was great.

Speaker 3:
[83:23] Hey, was it windy at all or was it a nice calm?

Speaker 4:
[83:26] It was nice and calm, luckily.

Speaker 3:
[83:27] That's good.

Speaker 4:
[83:28] Fish, yeah, she fought for probably five minutes. She was pretty well tired out. Guy took her time. She was hooked perfect. But yeah, right in the corner of the mouth and grabbed her fricking old school baby. It was awesome. She did that. There was no chance she was fitting in the net. And I didn't want to stress her out. I'm like, well, get a video of the fish swimming next to the boat, because we're either going to lose it right here. I'm going to get a hold of it. And I just grabbed her. I held her up in front of the guy real quick and threw her back.

Speaker 3:
[83:54] Popped it. And it actually goes. Yeah. Anytime you're sticking your hand in the water next to a muskie, it's always a little dicey.

Speaker 4:
[84:03] It's just yeah, hand landing. I was just, you know, maybe some people need to leave their net at home and just experience that once. It's fun. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[84:09] But you see like the old school videos. Oh, yeah. They used to always like the small ones. They'd be like, no, I'm good. I don't need the net, you know.

Speaker 2:
[84:16] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[84:17] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[84:17] It's just like a lot of sip by the boat for a little bit. And I'm just going to grab it.

Speaker 4:
[84:20] And then we get my inner dick piercing out. Just grab this thing.

Speaker 3:
[84:25] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[84:25] I don't know, man.

Speaker 3:
[84:26] Proper country.

Speaker 4:
[84:27] Yeah. I remember handbombing like a 53-incher like five years ago. That was a freaking toad, big pre-spawn fish. When Gus were caught on a rip and wrap, oh, it was a freaking tank.

Speaker 2:
[84:39] Oh my God. So big.

Speaker 4:
[84:41] Yeah, the big one.

Speaker 2:
[84:43] That's crazy.

Speaker 4:
[84:44] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[84:45] I do have two very short questions to end this, that I'm curious to your answer on. So what is one bait you're super pumped for this season? Whether it is to throw early in the spring or something. Let's just say summer bait. What's your one brand new bait you got this winter? And while you're thinking there, the other short question is, what's going on the end of your rod immediately? Green Bay opener, first finger throw.

Speaker 4:
[85:12] Good God, Gus. Just, man, those are two incredibly hard questions. I mean, end of the rod, we're going to have a 10 foot extra, or 10 foot heavy stealth with a probably some single bladed black bucktail. I don't know blade color. Depends on water clarity at the time, but a single bladed black skirted bucktail that's going to hit the water at midnight. Man, bait I'm most excited about. Is going to be that Trident.

Speaker 2:
[85:58] Oh my God, I had my hands on it. I was literally going to grab it as you're sitting there. Because I'm like, this is the one I was. Yeah, I only bought the smaller ones.

Speaker 4:
[86:08] If you could, that's fine. If I bought, I got all I bought all the sizes. Yes, if you couldn't tell from that video, like I'm so excited for that bait. How Spencer Berman talks about that lure. How Spencer Berman talks about that lure. That just that's everything you need to know.

Speaker 2:
[86:22] Yeah, there. I think it's gonna be a beautiful, deeper weed edge, deeper rubber style bite that I got going on up here. It's time and place for sure. Like I'm still gonna, if I'm throwing at shallow weeds, it's 100% gonna be like a Medusa or bladed tube first. And then you step off the weeds, it's gonna go to a Bulldog or that Trident. Or a tip as well. So.

Speaker 4:
[86:43] That Trident with some swapped out hooks. I'm really stoked. We're releasing, I worked with a company to make a new couple of new muskie hooks that I don't know when they're coming out, but it should be sometime this season. I'm pretty stoked about those.

Speaker 3:
[86:58] Sweet.

Speaker 4:
[86:59] Really stoked about those. We got to fish them last fall and they are bad ass.

Speaker 3:
[87:03] Do they work?

Speaker 4:
[87:05] Yes, they work.

Speaker 3:
[87:06] Do they stay in their mouth?

Speaker 4:
[87:07] Yeah, they keep them pinned pretty good. We had to cut a bunch of them. Put it that way.

Speaker 3:
[87:12] That's usually my favorite types of hooks.

Speaker 4:
[87:15] Yes, the cut ones. Yeah. I'm super stoked to the season. Yeah, the single bladed black bucktail and the trident. I think honestly, I'm most excited for that bait in the fall, but I'm going to throw it all season. I got all the sizes. I bought them all. Take all my money, Paul.

Speaker 3:
[87:34] You did.

Speaker 4:
[87:35] Take all of my money.

Speaker 2:
[87:37] You could start a bait shop if you wanted to, I'm sure.

Speaker 4:
[87:41] I do have a lot of, yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's disgusting.

Speaker 2:
[87:45] It's an addiction. It's awesome. It is.

Speaker 4:
[87:47] It's just fun. Like buying musky baits is fun.

Speaker 3:
[87:50] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[87:51] This is all fun. I'm pumped for the season. Yeah. What do you say, Max?

Speaker 3:
[87:55] Oh, yeah, it's part of it. It's like, what can I catch these things with?

Speaker 4:
[87:59] Yeah. Well, even like, like you guys talked about before, like that video I did and like going through all the new baits I bought, like I try and the problem is like you're working out for those shows and you just start staring at baits in the wall and you're like, where can I find an excuse to use this so that I buy it? And you're just like, talk yourself into a situation where like, that would be the best lure for that scenario. Okay. I'm going to buy three of them. Like, that's just how it goes. That's what happens to me when I stand in the Thorne Brothers booth for days on end.

Speaker 2:
[88:27] Yeah, it's dangerous.

Speaker 3:
[88:29] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[88:30] Okay, Kurt. Yeah, I don't, you don't owe me any money for this weekend for working. I actually owe you $600.

Speaker 2:
[88:40] Oh, my God.

Speaker 3:
[88:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[88:42] Well, you got any other questions, Max?

Speaker 3:
[88:46] No, this is great. Great chat. Thank you for coming back on doing a little 2.0. Sorry, Jack and Brian weren't here to...

Speaker 4:
[88:55] I just had, no, it's all good. I just had Jack's dad in the boat two days ago.

Speaker 3:
[88:59] Oh, nice.

Speaker 4:
[89:00] All live fishing.

Speaker 3:
[89:01] Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[89:01] We had Big Scott in the boat the other day. We talked about our summer plans. We got a, we have a super sun, super fun summer coming. Hopefully Jack's going to get on two of our three trips, hopefully all three of our trips, but if he could make two of them, that'd be sweet. I'm going to have to swear him to secrecy on two of them. If he does come, not a lot. I'm not going to let him talk on the pod.

Speaker 3:
[89:22] Yeah, that's okay. We'll be in big trouble.

Speaker 2:
[89:26] That's totally fine. We swear him to secrecy too when we take him up here. No, that's exciting for you, Doug. I mean, you get big beast in the boat during the summer. You get to learn how to work rubber baits. And I mean, that's got to be fun, you know.

Speaker 4:
[89:41] Wait till he sees after the schooling I gave his dad last year and he started catching them on rubber. Like we talked about that in our first podcast, you know, like incredibly awkward it looked. His dad looks fishing rubber. He caught at least a dozen Muskies with me last year on our last two trips on rubber. It was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2:
[90:01] Jackson with two hole, he's screwed.

Speaker 4:
[90:03] Oh, yeah. Like he just got a pit bull and you just get the net.

Speaker 3:
[90:07] I'm sure there's nothing better for you two as guides watching people catch their first fish on rubber. Cause that is-

Speaker 4:
[90:15] Any kind of lure.

Speaker 3:
[90:16] Any kind of lure for sure. Like I feel like, you know, the bucktail thing, it's like, okay, it's a little more elementary. You know, anyone can throw a bucktail for the most part. Obviously there's, there's levels to it. But like getting that fish to like eat a, you know, a big rubber bait, I think is like, cool. I mean, I just remember like way back in the day when I got my first one on rubber, it was like, this is awesome. Like I finally got a fish on, you know, a rubber bait. And that, that like feeling that tick or even just when they head hunt it, it's kind of like nothing else.

Speaker 4:
[90:45] So that's top water too. I got a great clip of a good customer of mine from Colorado, got his first top water musky and he was just losing his freaking mind.

Speaker 3:
[90:55] Freak it out.

Speaker 4:
[90:55] Like a 42-incher, the dude's caught hundreds of muskies. He's never gotten on top water. He was losing his freaking mind. It was great.

Speaker 3:
[91:02] Did it wake up behind it? Did he freak out?

Speaker 4:
[91:04] It gave him the whole show. Caught it like the third turn. Like he was losing his mind.

Speaker 3:
[91:10] That's cool.

Speaker 4:
[91:11] Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2:
[91:12] What a sweet way to get them. Yeah, I look back at the first year that I like pop the top water cherry and I'm like, man, that was a good top water year. I'm like, oh, that's like all I threw because I was so addicted to it. I got that first one. I'm like, dude, I'm just going to throw this from the back of the boat the whole time. I don't even care. Whatever. Usually it's the first bait. Now I'm going to throw in the back. I don't really care at all. And that was fun.

Speaker 4:
[91:39] I'm stoked for you guys. You're going to get to make your first Canada voyage. I'm really excited for you guys.

Speaker 2:
[91:44] Yeah, us too. A lot of prep. It'll be fun. Right in the heat of the season. So, all right, Doug. I'll appreciate you hopping on here. This is a great chat. Covered a lot of avenues and whatnot. We'll have you on again at some point. I know you're going to be busy. This was a lot even just during your walleye guiding season to set up for sitting on a beautiful Sunday midday. Probably one of the first times we've ever recorded a podcast at this time of day.

Speaker 4:
[92:15] Sorry. Sorry, everybody's schedule is a nightmare and we're going back out fishing here in an hour and a half.

Speaker 3:
[92:20] So best of luck.

Speaker 2:
[92:22] Get it. Get a nap in. Good luck and stay in touch.

Speaker 4:
[92:26] Okay. Thanks boys. Appreciate you.

Speaker 3:
[92:28] All right. See you Doug.

Speaker 4:
[92:29] See you boys.

Speaker 2:
[92:30] See you Doug. All right, welcome back. Just had a great interview there with Doug E. Fresh, Doug Wegner down there in Green Bay. He is smacking the walleyes right now. Pretty jealous of those size of fish, the caliber that they bring in on Green Bay. It's very, very impressive. Cool stuff. Covered a wide variety of things. Brian, you're gonna have to listen back, I guess. You know, you weren't there for it, so.

Speaker 3:
[93:08] Gus, Gus, Brian, what was your biggest takeaway from the interview?

Speaker 1:
[93:11] Um, see how close you can get. Where do I start? Uh, about walleyes in Green Bay?

Speaker 2:
[93:18] They were talked about.

Speaker 3:
[93:19] What was something that just blew your mind when we were talking to Doug?

Speaker 1:
[93:22] Honestly, it was what like he's how willing he's gonna be this year to get me out on his boat in Green Bay, because he just learned at the expo that I live right down the road.

Speaker 3:
[93:31] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[93:32] And so like in the interview, we talked about getting out together, so that'll be fun.

Speaker 3:
[93:35] I think, fortunately, I was not brought up in the interview, but damn it. Hey, that was a good swing though. Sorry about that. Strike one. Strike one.

Speaker 1:
[93:46] Wishful thinking.

Speaker 3:
[93:48] Yeah, no, always a pleasure to have Dougie Fresh on. Good time. All right, Brian, let's hear it. Give us a recap on your time in Las Vegas. Did you have fun? Did you be safe? Did you keep your head on your shoulders? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[94:04] You know, like we debriefed before, didn't really know what I was getting into. I will say like the whole feel of it is kind of crazy. Like it sits amongst these mountains on this like dead flat desert floor. And it's just like a tropical oasis amongst these big ass resorts. It feels like a, like a movie set kind of when you're driving by it on the outskirts.

Speaker 2:
[94:27] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[94:27] It's like a grownups, gigantic Wisconsin Dells. I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it, but.

Speaker 2:
[94:33] It's pretty good, probably.

Speaker 1:
[94:34] Yeah. I mean, you know, I could probably tell a long story, but to keep it semi short, first night got there at the tail end of kind of our work duties for that Thursday, went out and hit the casino there after and had the best luck I've probably ever had playing blackjack and was hitting at like a 70, 80 percent clip.

Speaker 2:
[94:54] Now, now why do you think that was? Was it Vegas? Like what?

Speaker 1:
[94:58] I think it was Beginner's Luck. It could have been like the casino gods being like, all right, he's at our temple now, let's reward him. So I ended up, they're like 25 or $50 minimums. I forget what we started on. I think I started like 300 bucks in and pretty quickly started building it up. Some drinks start pouring in, you're sitting there longer and longer, you get a little antsy, you get a little eager, you start feeling good about yourself, start betting $100 hands. When I changed that bet to $100, I hit like my first eight bets in a row, eight hands, and I'm like, holy shit. And I'm just funneling the $100 chips, my winnings into my suit coat pocket just so that I don't start betting something stupid. And play it for like, I don't know, an hour. And eventually I just stand up because I'm like, I got to figure out how much I just made. And I ended up making, in that sitting, I was at like $1,500. I was like, all right.

Speaker 3:
[95:59] All right, full stop. Now, did you take my advice after you had that good of a night?

Speaker 1:
[96:08] I know it was great advice. It's just slipping my mind.

Speaker 2:
[96:13] Sounds like you took it.

Speaker 1:
[96:15] Well, I remember to your advice of starting on like Fremont and easing into things.

Speaker 3:
[96:19] No, no, no. I said that night, oh yeah, I guess I probably gave you that advice that evening. I said, take like 700, 800 bucks and hide it in your suitcase.

Speaker 1:
[96:29] Yeah. Oh no, that's exactly what I did.

Speaker 2:
[96:31] For the entire weekend.

Speaker 3:
[96:32] Yeah. Don't touch it. Just pretend it doesn't even exist.

Speaker 1:
[96:35] And I hid it because I was worried about, I was originally just gonna money spread it on the bed while I was going for work all day, but I was worried about housekeeping. So I did stuff it in a sock and put it in the suitcase. But anyways, I was like up 1500 bucks. I'm there with a couple of coworkers. A lot of people went to bed early, but I'm like, I gotta break the seal here first night. I went over to the bar, started mingling around chatting with some folk. The whole, where are you from, where are you from thing. Ended up go play in some more blackjack at like 130 in the morning and kind of continue the same luck. Ended up wanting another quick 500 bucks and was up like two grand on the first night. So I think we wrapped it up at 230 or three. Went to bed for three hours, got up at six and yeah, did the whole work thing again. Friday night went to a club. Had a booth at a club. To go spend money? Yeah, which was sick. Didn't actually gamble on Friday because we were just out, listening to some EDM, I guess, doing the whole clubbing thing, which is pretty foreign coming from Appleton Green Bay area. But it's a great time there. Another, I think that night was like two and a half hours of sleep. And then did the work thing again. Saturday. Some guys didn't sleep. Some guys that I was with were literally out till 6 a.m., went home, showered and showed up at our work event. I at least got a couple hours of nap time. And then Saturday did some more gambling. This time got hit with reality a bit. You know, I think Vegas was kind of like, we can't let them think that it's always free. Probably lost a quick, you know, 500. Played it then again after dinner. Lost another couple hundred. And at this point, kind of cut my losses. I think we ended up going to like a bar or something. And, you know, had some expenditures with the club from the night before. So all in all, I came home with cash, which is obviously good. I didn't absolutely drain it. Only went to the ATM once. So yeah, I mean, that was, that alone helped to hang over on Sunday. Last thing you want is to be terribly hung over off of a combined eight hours of sleep through three nights. And also I've lost your ass gambling. So I had a good taste in my mouth leaving Vegas. And that's why, you know, I'm like, you know, I would go again. That was fun.

Speaker 3:
[99:04] All in all, successful trip, I'd say. Yeah. Give us one thing that you were a big fan of, maybe something that surprised you a little bit. And one thing that you were not as stoked on.

Speaker 1:
[99:19] I don't know. I didn't do the whole like touristy part of Vegas. Like, I don't know if I was ever on the strip per se, other than like maybe to an Uber once. So like I'm not even sure exactly where like that strip is, that you see the typical pictures of.

Speaker 3:
[99:35] I was pretty obvious.

Speaker 1:
[99:37] I mean, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I guess I maybe saw that. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[99:42] I was staying like a half a block away from it.

Speaker 1:
[99:45] We were in the Vidara and then we would gamble in the Aria or the Cosmo.

Speaker 3:
[99:50] Just right next to the Blagio.

Speaker 1:
[99:52] Right. We went to a club called XS, which is kind of a little bit more across town. I was going to go to Caesar's. I don't think I ever stepped in there. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. My vivid memories are of the Aria and the Cosmo, and that's kind of where I lived. Which honestly, they were smaller than I thought they'd be in terms of the casino floor. I thought it was going to be like outrageously big, but you kind of walk in and walk straight into like the tables right away. So you kind of hang out in that area. You're not like wandering aimlessly like you are at some of these casinos that we're used to. So yeah, I guess, I don't know, I don't have like a worst takeaway other than like you buy five drinks and it's like 120 bucks. So that was pretty cool.

Speaker 2:
[100:42] Not drinks for free? Do they even do that at all?

Speaker 1:
[100:45] No, at the table you do. At the table you get free drinks. So that's where you, yeah. I mean, that's how they get you because you know you got to drink while you can.

Speaker 2:
[100:51] I was going to say, I'm sure they were feeding you heavy when they saw you just going up and up and up.

Speaker 1:
[100:56] Yeah, also I will say first time experiencing this, they don't have this in the Great North Woods, but you're sitting there, right? You got a lady coming up to you for drinks, you get a free drink, you have ladies walking by every 10 minutes asking if you want to massage while you're playing blackjack. That's incredible. So at first I'm like, who the hell would do this? This is just the dumbest thing ever.

Speaker 2:
[101:16] Sounds like you partook.

Speaker 1:
[101:18] Well, eventually one thing leads to another. I'm losing money. I'm having some drinks, chatting with a couple guys and lady keeps coming around. I keep giving her the old, oh, maybe later. And so I think I let her on and she just kept showing up every 10 minutes. You ready? You ready? So finally I was like, you know what? Tossed her a chip and I was getting a massage on the floor playing blackjack and you know, it was a great experience. Time really like flies by. I mean, you're in a vacuum there. You don't even know where you are. And a little slice of heaven really.

Speaker 2:
[101:53] So I'm just I'm overall just geeking out at all the musky people listening to this. Like what the hell is going on?

Speaker 1:
[102:01] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[102:03] Or maybe like a newer listener that's not doesn't know the lore behind Brian and you know what he does.

Speaker 1:
[102:13] Yeah, I was really honestly like I felt my hangovers were better than I thought they'd be. I think it was because I slept so minimally, like I feel like the hangover really kicks in when you do sleep more. I don't know what the science is behind that, but like I think I was just waking up drunk and never like getting that hangover kick. Until Sunday is when I was like, I was sitting in the airport waiting my flight to take off. My eyes were literally shutting. Boarding in like 10 minutes and I'm just nodding off sitting there.

Speaker 3:
[102:43] Yeah, I think that city kind of just brings it out and you know, I felt the same way there. You're just when you're there, you're kind of just there. You don't really think about, you know, sleep in here or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[102:53] Well, and then you kind of get stuck in the trans. Like last night, you know, Monday night, went to work all day Monday and I'm sitting there kind of like, man, I could grab a drink, go to the casino. So now I'm kind of out of it. I'm back in the routine.

Speaker 3:
[103:06] Yeah, back to reality. Yeah, that's hilarious. I know. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, it's a wild place. I'm glad you had a good time though. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:
[103:18] Now, did you rep any motgear out there? Were you recognized? Because I heard a story from a buddy in town here. He was there for, was it the Frozen Four, Max? Correct me if I'm wrong. Was that Vegas, right?

Speaker 1:
[103:31] WWE was there. Oh, this was a week before or something?

Speaker 2:
[103:35] Yeah, a week before or whatever. And they had motgear and got recognized.

Speaker 1:
[103:40] No way.

Speaker 2:
[103:41] I don't know if it was because it was like at the hockey thing and hockey goes a little bit more hand-in-hand with the Midwest and whatnot. But I was pretty surprised on that. That was another little small world coincidence thing. That's crazy. The motgear, Vegas.

Speaker 3:
[104:00] Good stuff. All right. Anything else to put a ball on this one or we kind of covered our bases here. I mean, we're still, well, we got to PMTT and Cave Run. That's starting this week. So that's exciting for all the folks that are down there. It sounds like that they're at a normal pool and water clarity is a little different. So we're missing out on the year where things can be a little normal.

Speaker 2:
[104:26] Normal.

Speaker 3:
[104:26] Maybe it'll be good, but I'll be curious.

Speaker 1:
[104:28] Do you guys have some of the Ego River buddies going down?

Speaker 2:
[104:33] Pete, Pete Blikards and his partner, Jared, and then Pete's dad is fishing with another guy. Otherwise, I think there's a couple of other guys, but Nick and Clayton will not be down there. Max and I will not be down there. But yeah, another interesting thing that they added, they went to the fish donkey app. So we're going to have plenty of people that we know doing the tournament. We're going to get maybe a little rundown on how it went, if it was smooth, if it was not smooth, because Max and I will be curious, we're actually planning on doing the Eagle River PMTT event. So we're going to have to be ready to roll on that. I think I have the app, I used it this winter for a winter long like fishing contest with buddies, but that's all I've ever used it for. I don't think you've ever used it, Max. Brian, I don't know if you really ever have.

Speaker 1:
[105:28] I've heard of it, but I don't understand. Is it for like validating fish or just keeping track of leaderboard or?

Speaker 2:
[105:34] Both, like pictures will be in there that I think only like, you know, the PMTT can see. I think I don't this is this is where, you know, we're going to get the.

Speaker 3:
[105:45] Yeah, let's see how it goes.

Speaker 2:
[105:47] I mean, I think the one thing that I found interesting that I don't know if you know this, Max, I haven't brought this up to you or Brian. I think they're going to keep a live leaderboard on until like an hour or two before it ends each day, which I think is a bit odd, because then you can see like when somebody moves up, like you're seeing the live feed like all of a sudden, oh, team this one caught fish. You could be like, oh, I know where they are, or I know what team that is. And like, that's a little interesting. It's kind of like back in the day with the judge boats, where when you see a judge boat go flying by, you know that they're going to register a fish, or you have your secret radio turned on like they did back in the day, and you're listening in to the channels, like, and you know what teams are catching. So I thought that was a little odd. I was talking with Pete about that, and he wasn't sure about that.

Speaker 3:
[106:41] So, yeah, I could see that being potentially, you know, I don't know if problematic is the right word, but yeah, it definitely brings up some interesting things that could happen. But I also, you know, I don't, I guess we'll see when we fish in June. I can't imagine we'll be tracking that very heavily, like when we're out on the water.

Speaker 2:
[107:05] I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to.

Speaker 3:
[107:06] I don't think I'd want to see that ever.

Speaker 1:
[107:08] I feel like if you're like, all right, we're going to drive across the lake, like one of you is going to be like, all right, you know, if we caught one fish, we'll see if we're getting dusted or not.

Speaker 2:
[107:15] Going through a channel or something.

Speaker 3:
[107:17] Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you might just want to at least just see. I'd be curious to know how, like, updated it will be to tech and... I'd be shocked if it's like Husky tournaments. Cave runs got terrible service.

Speaker 2:
[107:29] It's got a ton of hollers with no service.

Speaker 3:
[107:32] It also could kind of work against you too, like, you know, maybe you think you're in a better position than you actually are. And not saying that you're out there not trying to catch fish, but I don't know. That's yeah, that'll be interesting to see how it goes. But I'm excited to see the results of that tournament this year.

Speaker 1:
[107:47] Hopefully, everyone does well, and bummer that we're not down there, but we should try and get someone on, you know, for like a quick segment, especially just to kind of debrief how that fish donkey thing went and then to maybe kind of sum up how the fishing was. I don't know in the next few weeks if we can find a player in this field.

Speaker 2:
[108:07] Yeah, if we, it might have to be the following week. I'll be traveling next week and we already got an interview lined up, but I think that wouldn't be a bad idea. Just to kind of see how it went with those conditions and then also the fish donkey for sure. I think people would be curious about that.

Speaker 3:
[108:25] All right. Well, what do you guys say? Episode 150 in the books.

Speaker 2:
[108:29] It's golfing season. 150 in the books. I think I got one thing to add. I just went on my mind, if you guys are, whoever is still listening, if you are in, man, the greater northern Illinois area, southern Wisconsin, anywhere in Wisconsin, even Minnesota, there's a tournament and fundraiser outing all in one going on in May. Let me see if I can bring up this date real quick. But it's casting for kids. Marco Siki is putting it on. And it's for a really good cause. It is Saturday, May 16th. So if you're around, I think if you're a guide, you can be a guide boat during it. If you just want to fish it for fun with your own boat, you can fish it if you want to fish with a guide. You can fish it. It's like a tournament thing. And there's a crap ton of raffles, like a lot of signed hockey jerseys because Mark's got a lot of hockey background and coached for the Badgers for a long time and pretty cool stuff there. So yeah, if you want to get on something really cool, cool opportunity, check out Casting For Kids and get a hold of Mark. So fortunately, I'm not going to be able to do it this year, but I want to one of these years.

Speaker 3:
[109:53] Cool. Right on.

Speaker 2:
[109:55] Otherwise, that's it. I think Brian, take us away. I don't know what you're going to say about Dougie.

Speaker 1:
[110:03] All right, everybody, shout out to Dougie Fresh for hopping on for this interview. You had an absolute blast with him. I really, really had a good time on Sunday with him. I'm going to toss this one over to you guys here. I'm not the hockey guy. I'm curious to hear who your guys, maybe biggest impression for the first few games here or your maybe a hot take Dark Horse contender in the NHL playoffs.

Speaker 3:
[110:23] Go, Savers.

Speaker 2:
[110:26] I did. I absolutely love the Savers game that the other night. Dark Horse, Dark Horse. Wild. I mean wild, but Avs are going to beat him.

Speaker 3:
[110:37] Avs.

Speaker 1:
[110:39] Such a homer, dude. Alright, peace.

Speaker 4:
[110:42] Alright, peace.

Speaker 2:
[110:43] Alright, peace.