Latest / 6 Ranch Podcast / Freshwater Spearfishing with Brett Leable and Big Jake Lords

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Freshwater Spearfishing with Brett Leable and Big Jake Lords · 6 Ranch Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: That's my technique is I go in the water and lay on the bottom and let them come to me.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I act like a piece of trash that's fallen off somebody's boat or whatever it is, and the fish are curious about something that you know.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: A tree falls in into the lake and shortly after the tree falls in the water, it's home to many fish.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: So if I go into the water with that mindset, I'm just going to be a tree that has fallen in the water or I'm going to be you know whatever a rock, and you just lay there and silently, kind of just really slowly move your head really slowly, do everything super, super slow, and you'll think you're doing it slow until you videotape yourself or somebody videotapes you, and then it looks like Blair witch project and you're like what is going?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: on down there, and until you're really slow and really really one with that environment, the fish will react to you as if you were a predator there to harm them.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: These are stories of outdoor adventure and expert advice from folks with calloused hands.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I'm James Nash and this is the Six Ranch Podcast.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: This episode of the Six Ranch Podcast is brought to you by DECT.
• 1:25
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• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Gentlemen, welcome to the show and thank you very much for being here.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Would you like to introduce yourselves?
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: I'm Big Jake Lourdes, residing in Salt Lake City, Utah, born and raised.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Nice and I'm Brett Liebel.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I'm here from currently from Lubbock, Texas, but born and raised in Wisconsin.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Now Lubbock, Texas, and Salt Lake City are not known as spearfishing destinations.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: No, they're not, and yet you two are tremendous, especially freshwater spear fishermen, and you're kind of leading the charge in this world, and it's a world that has my attention almost in totality.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Like I'm, I'm starting to shove aspects of hunting that I've previously committed my life to to the side, so that I can learn more about spearfishing, become better at it and and open up opportunities for other people to get involved in it, and that's something that that you two have been working on a lot, and, uh, that's what we're going to get into today.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: But before any of that, uh, talk to me about the history of spearfishing, because it hasn't been around forever right, you, you probably know more about the history of it.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, it probably originates I, to be honest, I think, because spearfishing is so badass.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I actually bet that jesus.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: I bet he was spearfishing, yeah like I I bet when you know, in the scripture it said follow me.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: You know, and you know, I'll make you a fisher of men.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: In my head I'm like follow me and I'll make you a spear fisher of men.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You know, let's go, let's do this.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think uh, brief research.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about powered spear guns specifically so that they've got some means of propelling that spear forward.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: That really was depending on some newer materials before it was ever possible.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: So while we can think about, like stabbing a fish with a spear is something very old, actually swimming under the water and getting a spear to propel forward, that's relatively new yeah, I would.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I would say the modern era of spearfishing that you're talking about started with, like those original gangsters like jay rife, um, and, and some of the you know.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: He was in california and has a big spearfishing company named after him, now A great spearfishing company too, and that's the West Coast, and a lot of great names there that I'm not going to try to list them all.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: But then the East Coast had other great names too, like Arden and Don Pinder, and those guys were revolutionary too.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So the coasts, pre-internet of course, were developing modern day spearfishing, you know, separately, um, and then when they would get together and host, uh, like a nationals tournament to see who's best, the west or the east, essentially it was a showdown that's where they would share, share gear ideas.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Who's the dude that shows up to nationals every single year, that comes and takes pictures, don?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Barthman oh, dale Saunders.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Dale Saunders is the United States underwater, no, usoa.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So that's the governing body of skin diving in the United states.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Competitive world, so that's the uh underwater society of america, usoa, and they have, uh, what they call the?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Um athlete of the year, and dale saunders, who jake's talking about, was athlete of the year 1960 and he's still diving and still taking pictures, participating with us today that's the.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: That's phenomenal, dale saunders was uh, he was a california guy and he currently resides, like in the midwest somewhere, so he's freshwater now really interesting.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Uh, the and I'm probably saying this wrong is it?
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Is it bushaw?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Um that that, as far as I can tell, was the first powered spear gun in like 1947.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, bouchat, yeah.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: So when these you know World War II, it brought so much technology back.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: You know there was tremendous development during that time in all sorts of space, but one of the big ones were elastics.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So a lot of our rivers in this area that couldn't be navigated by a steamship or a paddle wheel or anything like that, they didn't get run until those rafts, those survival rafts, came back from World War II and then suddenly there was a boat that could do it.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: They could slam into these rocks and handle all these rapids and I think that some of that same material that those rafts would have been made out of is what those first spear gun bands were probably made out of.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, rubber.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: You know rubber bands essentially is what we're, you know, putting on the end of a wood stick that then propels a spear forward with a simple trigger mechanism.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And you know refining that over the years and and now we're into, you know, from from that humble beginnings to inverted rollers and and just crazy technology that pushes spears out 30 feet super accurately to shoot, you know, huge fish, tuna and all marlins and all kinds of stuff.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: It's, it's incredible.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: And and.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: 30 feet with a spear gun is like 600 yards with a nice rifle.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: That is a long ways.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: There's a lot that can go wrong.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: 30, 30 feet with a spear gun is like 2000 yards with a rifle.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, hey Jake, it depends what you're shooting at, right like even you couldn't, couldn't miss a 300 pound tuna right at 30 feet, that's true I could.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I could miss um, but you know, tuna are wicked fast, right so?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And the same problem that you have with long range shooting on animals is time of flight, right so?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: If my bullet is in the air, for you know, a second, 1.5 seconds, sometimes north of that, that is a long time for an animal to stay still, and there's no predictability that says that it's absolutely going to.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: And same thing with the fish, um, just because it's there when you squeeze the trigger doesn't mean one flick of the tail and it's gone you bet you got to lead them.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: You got to lead them on the run, I mean brett's got a 267 pound tuna, so not not all of us can say that we've got a triple digit tuna.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Dude that's.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I don't have one.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I shot that one as an incomer.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: That wasn't uh, that wasn't a difficult shot, cause that was kind of my joke.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: It's that fish was 18 inches tall top to bottom.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: And they and it was a school of them.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't even know how big the school was, it it seemed like it was endless yeah and um full of cow tuna, so that's a really great success story of a fishery that came back um.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: California did a great job with that and I was fortunate to take one of the one of the first big cows that came back to california.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: I think it was 2017 or something I just caught 196 pound yellowfin in louisiana and that thing owned me and, uh, I mean the.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: The real seed exploded off the rod.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Um, things are breaking.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: I could feel the line getting wrapped up in the sharks that were in the bait ball.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: It was pure chaos.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: I can't imagine being in the water with all that no man, sign me up like yeah oh, there's no better feeling of just getting, just seeing a big bay ball and just the fish zooming in and out of it.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, there's nothing.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Shooting uh, shooting a big fish in the water is like a comparison to shooting like some big game animal, like a big elk, you know, like a 400 inch elk.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: There's no better feeling in shooting something big and your buoy just goes zooming past you.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no, no better feeling yeah, I I look forward to that feeling.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm looking forward to it and I'm doing what I can to earn it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Let me talk to you guys a little bit about what I'm doing right now to to get myself into this world, and you can tell me all the ways that I'm screwing it up.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: I'm doing O2 tables and CO2 tables every other day, alternating those.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like I'm making any progress, but I think that the progress is probably pretty slow.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I'm signed up for two dive schools in June.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: One of them is going to be in Florida and it is a PADI course, and then the other one is with Oregon Free Divers and it's a different course that goes to 20 meters.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: The first one's a 10 meter course, the second one's a 10 meter course, the second one's a 20 meter course and then from there you know our water temps are going to be about right, by the time I'm done with all that, for me to start hunting sucker fish here in Oregon, which is one of the only species that I can legally hunt, just due to what Oregon's regulations currently are just due to what Oregon's regulations currently are.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: And I'm enrolled in the national online tournament through the national freshwater spearfishing association so excited for all this.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: What else should I be doing and am I?
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Am I wasting my time with any of the things that I'm trying right now?
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: I would say I mean Brett's.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: The Brett's got a phenomenal breath hold, but we like to do like apnea walks.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: So hold, hold our breath and like walk, because then cause like it's so much different when you're just sitting there holding your breath and doing tables other than rather than like walking, cause it propels like you're actually using, actually using your muscles which you're going to be using when you're freediving.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Gotcha.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: So Brett, talk about apnea walks.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, apnea walks are huge.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: That was a game changer for me.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I think everybody starts with tables and first off, james, like getting into a course and, in your case, doing two courses, that's that's perfect.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Like that's.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I learned so much taking my course and um stuff I thought I knew and I didn't, and I learned so much.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's key.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: If you can find a course, take it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And then um, dry land training, like we're talking about.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Uh, the tables, yeah, they work, but they're slow, um, and and watching youtube and other influencers, like jake uh on on instagram, you know, are gonna help you move faster.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Like when I started spearfishing, we didn't have we basically didn't have the internet right, so it was all word of mouth and it was hey, what are you doing?
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Kind of collaborative stuff, um, and then just figuring it out and doing a lot of things wrong.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: But uh, apnea walks has been the number one game changer for me.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And then number two game changer uh is uh breath hold stretching.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So every day in the shower, uh, or wherever you are comfortable.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I like the shower because the hot water runs on my back and you know, after a lifetime of building construction, my back is toast.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I like to shower because the hot water runs on my back and you know, after a lifetime of building construction, my back is toast.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So I like to be just loosen up, take a nice deep breath and stretch like all my normal stretches while holding my breath.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: And that breath holds, stretching like all the way through contractions and all the way through um, as long as I can muster um, is really immensely helped my game.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And then we, we do like when Jake and I and our other dive partner we're at blue water world cup, we were breath hold stretching the whole ride out to.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: You know, start right on the boat.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: On the boat we're just stretching and we're getting beat the death and the in the waves.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: But it helps, I mean it works.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Just before you dive do breath hold stretching.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, the waves, but it helps.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: I mean it works.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Just before you dive, do breath hold, stretching?
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, uh it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: It seems to me that you know, being able to hold your breath and be comfortable underwater extends your opportunity to be able to call fish in.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Um, you know, sneak up on fish if you have to.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: But I think that the the hunting aspect of spearfishing is what intrigues me the most, and being able to watch really good spear fishermen like kylie, and how she's really she's she's hunting in very similar ways underwater as she does when she's on land, and that's something that that I'm trying to translate and find the nuance and difference between.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: But man it, it's incredible.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: It is incredible to, even if it's 30 seconds, like 30 seconds of being under and being able to get ahold of the bottom and sit still long enough for that world to start to adjust to you being in it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: There is just nothing like it yeah, 100.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And and jake, uh, jake and I have two different hunting styles, right um?
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: yeah, brett's all about keeping it slow and I'm like I will swim miles jake is a hunter.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Jake is a is a true hunter man.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: He uh we like to joke like he can't hold his breath for 40 seconds or something you know um, but he, he just shoots fish like he's a great hunter and a great uh shot.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: And and that might make up for whatever lack of free diving gear, free diving mechanics, he has or doesn't have what are some of the popular species that people are going after in freshwater and and what are places that people can do it?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: um, I mean there's right.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I mean there's probably, like probably, six states that you can shoot, like bass, catfish, walleye.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I mean those are probably like the striper.
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: Uh, those are the categories of fish that most people are going after.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: Carp, obviously, suckers, I mean you can go and chew carp almost anywhere.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Um, but then you're getting into like the trout.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Uh, brett and I, actually what was it?
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: A couple days ago we, we tallied up all the people that have shot lake trout and there's like there's got to be no more than 30 people that have shot a lake trout dude, my heart jumped out of my chest when I saw that picture and I messaged you immediately oh, you should.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: You should see some should see some of the some of the messages.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Lately it's like it's so good.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So you caught, you shot, an incredible lake trout, and this is a species that is doing some interesting things.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: There's recently an article that came out, and it was actually a study that showed how lake trout in in yellowstone were impacting the elk population.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Right, really, this is fascinating.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: So lake trout are eating so many cutthroat that the cutthroat aren't running in the rivers anymore and the bears that were depending upon that as a food source are now going out and killing elk.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: So with the addition of of wolves to that ecosystem, some habitat loss from from old fires, uh, all the tourist pressure and uh and and lake trout, now you've got a decreasing elk population in yellowstone park that can't recover.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Um, fascinating stuff.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: So I would love to see that as as an area that we could go and hunt lake trout as well if we could go up to jenny lake and blast lake trout.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, sign me up I mean they're.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: They're asking anglers to retain all of them, right, like they want them gone, so why not allow spear fishermen to go there?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: is that in um?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Would that be in montana?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Uh, would be the jurisdiction.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I know it's a federal park, but who would have the fishing regulation?
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: yeah, I, I think it would be uh, national park service you know, because montana is a pretty open state, like jake was mentioning before, there's several like six really open states and then there's a lot of other states that are kind of dabbling, let's say.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: But Montana is pretty open.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: In the west side of the state they allow, like walleye I don't know about trout, but certainly some more game fish opportunity.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But that's a great argument to make.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: But like any government regulation, it's slow rolling right.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have to start a petition or or do something to get it voted in into law to allow people to do it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: But spear fishermen would be the perfect.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Um, you know it's like when they ever have problems in urban eras with deer, they hire specialized.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: You know it's like when they ever have problems in urban areas with deer, they hire specialized.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: You know hunters that essentially are sniping deer out of these areas effectively and safely.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And the same could be said for spear fishermen to help combat the wayward lake trout.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely Jake.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: What kind of messages were you getting after you posted that photo?
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: well, I, just, I, just, I always tune in and say at brett label, can you, uh, can you tune in and help this fine gentleman at um and tell him how great lake trout tastes?
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: Um, at, you know, a 45 inch lake trout tastes.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Well, sir, this is.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: And then, and then break it down like we try to, we try to give them, uh, we try to channel their hate, uh, somewhere else, because you know we're all on the same team, in the same side.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I hate when bow hunters and I know jake's touched on this on other podcasts but like bow hunters pick on rifle hunters for not being true or whatever, and fly fishermen pick on bait guys for not being, you know, real, and I just feel like, guys, we're same team, same side.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: We can't let us be divided.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: So let's not, let's not hate on each other yeah, it tends to be people who prefer a less effective method that, uh that are sending that hate, right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Um so they just uh feel some type of superiority by using a method that's less effective, and and then they feel threatened by somebody who's using something that's more effective yeah, it's, it makes sense and it's actually funny.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: You say that somebody that's actually like hated on me on instagram.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I've taken them on like spearfishing with me just to show them how, how hard it is.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Um, and they're dude after.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: He was like bro, I have so much respect for you like, like he didn't shoot a single fish and I'm like bro, like there's fish here.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: So it's like like when you're fishing, you're just you don't see anything above the water and you're just, you know, throwing something in the water and waiting for just.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: That's like luck and I mean, I guess there's some skill to it where I feel like.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like with spearfishing, there's so many elements that come into it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Well, like like the hunting, like, yeah, you know camouflaging yourself, but you're also holding your breath, um, you know, also trying to get this fish's attention.
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: You know we're using crack pipes and throw flashers.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: So, oh sorry, we're not using actual crack pipes.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: We, you know, it's a PVC pipe with like tinfoil wrapped around it, so that way your viewers are like going to like a smoke shop.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Be like do you guys sell crack pipes here?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Now you got to go to Salt Lake City to get those.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get them downtown, for sure.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Oh man, yeah, it's interesting because it's so selective, right?
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Because you're not only selecting for the species, you're selecting for the individual, and you simply can't do that with a hook, right?
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And the reality of catch and release fishing is that a significant portion of the fish that we catch and release die, and you know that's calculated into fishing regulations.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And also with spearfishing, sometimes fish get off the spear and die, right that that?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: That is another reality of it.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: But with that hook any species can come along and bite it for the most part if they can wrap their lips around that bait.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: With spearfishing, especially if we're talking about these non-native species or species that are causing harm in an ecosystem, spearfishermen can get in there and they can select for that species only and for specific individuals within that species.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: You know whether that's male or female or certain certain size limits.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: You just can't do that with another method right, 100?
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: yep, it can.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: It can be very sustainable.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: You know it comes down to the end user.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Who's pulling the trigger, right, if?
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: If somebody's out there being a wahoo and and just doing dumb things and killing just for the thrill of it, like that can happen too and some people will give the whole sport a black eye for no reason.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: But, like jake, like everything he does is is sustainable as it gets right down to, you know, filleting his lake trout, cooking it, you know the normal way, and then whatever's left over, the carcass the carcass he smokes for five or seven hours, um, takes the scrapings of whatever little bit he couldn't fillet the cheek meat, the collar meat, the, the head meat, I mean and he takes that, puts it into a dip, eats the fins.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Like spearfishing has the ability to be the most sustainable method of take if people are just, you know, good stewards of the of the sport, right.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: You know I took the, the you know spawned out suckers that I was killing last summer and I was putting them at the base of the trees in my orchard and right now these trees look so healthy and, you know, there's just like some scales and bones around the base of it and everything else is dissolved down into the soil and you know I'll be eating fruit this fall that has DNA from, you know, these fish in it, not actual DNA, but the nutrients, um, those, those isotopes from those fish, that that I hunted last year.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: You know I'm going to turn those into apples and cherries and that's incredible.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Absolutely we.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: We did that on a pretty large scale um last year at the world freshwater spearfishing um championship in uh Lake, powell, page, arizona, and I think about 180 competitors over a two-day period.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: All the game fish we shot on day one were used and eaten by participants or whomever but their families.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: But the second day we focused on an invasive species, the common carp, which is a filter feeder.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: It tears up the bottom searching out invertebrates and you know they destroy the habitat as well as take the food source Right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So they're parasitic on two different you know avenues and we took out something like 2 000 um pounds of no, that's not even right, it's like it was two full dumpsters and 2 000 fish, like 3 400 pounds worth of fish.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It was insane.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: And they took, and they took them to.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: The mayor of this little town dug a pit in his house or his property and we put him in there and he composted him for use as fertilizer by the other people.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And so it was.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: It was completely cleaning up an invasive species, helping the resource on one end and then turning it into something usable on the other now I I try to be as fair as possible in all things.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: So what are some reasons that people or governments would not want to allow spearfishing?
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: We're trying to figure that out.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Best answer?
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, best answer.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's a bit of a head scratcher.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: I don't have a good answer for it, but y'all have been in it for longer than I have.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: There's really no downside.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: And I was just, I literally just emailed um maine, the state of maine, the other day and I I was like, uh, dear maine, you know, dear the state of maine.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Of course I'm emailing the uh um fish and wildlife commission on behalf of the national freshwater spearfishing association, because I'm on the board.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm emailing them to try to open some opportunities, just for just for rough fish, just for invasives, just for you know what?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: They don't have a limit for currently hook and line.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: It's just another method of take and there's not too many people that are going to take take the opportunity to jump in the water in Maine and go spear a carp.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: But I know, I know one person who will specifically, and she has.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: She, she's a female, has three kids who are chomping at the bit to get into it that her kids range from like two to five.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: And what better way to get them started in the water than in freshwater, where it's safe and calm and, you know, pretty easily controlled, as opposed to what you saw probably diving in Hawaii, with current and waves and so forth.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: It gets pretty hectic in a hurry.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: And then in the Northeast, where she lives, that you combine all of those elements with low visibility and great white sharks, so it's kind of tough for a kid to get into it until they're a little bit older.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: So freshwater is a great introductory method, yeah go ahead jake um.
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: Are you talking about the famous uh ann hilton?
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: yeah, onna, onna, onna is famous.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: She's gotten very famous nice well on.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I hope you you get your opportunity when I go to the fish and wildlife commission here in oregon this year.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: What is my pitch to them?
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: What has been effective in other states?
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: How do I get them to take a risk?
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Because these agencies really oppose risk.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: They get hate no matter what they do.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: It's a really difficult position.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Somebody's going to be mad about every decision that they make or don't make.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: So how do I get them to to take that risk and say let's go ahead and expand this and and um, maybe just have it be for our non-native species?
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Um, one person that you could actually talk to is John Dirk out of Michigan Um.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: He helped get opened like parts of Michigan Um, and I think it's going to be open probably next year for like part of it for salmon nice, um, but he's, he's opened the game fish for sure, big time he did.
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: He did a lot of work up there and that's a great idea, jake right, but I think the biggest thing with that is um and what like these.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: You know fishing game is they want data.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: You know when you know I, I've, I've been with fishing game where they would go out and do their um real studies, the harvest studies right, right, where they'll, you know, you know, do the drop net and, uh, take the fish out, measure them, you know, see what they're eating.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: Just just for data yeah so the way they actually do it in michigan, from what I've seen, is they're taking you know where the fish was taken, how many of the fish was taken, um, who took it?
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Um, and like, how many days in the water?
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, how many spear fishermen are in the area?
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: yep gotcha they're using spear fishermen to.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: They're literally having the spearfishing report.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So they're getting, as part of opening the resource, they're getting real-time data like sightings.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: How many fish did you see?
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: What kind of fish did you see?
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Are you seeing gobies like invasives in the Great Lakes?
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Just like you were saying, it's huge real-time information that is literally hands or eyes on, as opposed to from the surface electroshocking, or from the surface hook and lining.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: And, with the technology we have and the apps that we have today, that data collection is more seamless than it's ever been.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: They could even incorporate something like the Fish and Chaos app that you guys are using for the online tournament.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I want to get into this tournament, so can people still sign up for this?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Because it's on, it's it's started?
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: yes, sir, it started uh two days ago, um may 1st, and it runs through october, and the neat thing about this tournament, as opposed to other tournaments, is you can sign up anytime, as long as you sign up before you start harvesting fish.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: So so is there a bit of honor system there?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think spear fishermen are the most honorable people.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You know we need to play by the rules and stuff, but I think that gives a unique opportunity for people who are coming maybe late to the game.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's colder where they are, like it's super cold where Jake and you are right now, but here in Texas the water temps are already in the almost seventies, so I can really get started.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: That must be nice Sometimes.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: We have.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: We have alligators here too, so Right After I get done with this, this bear hunt next week I've got a quick turn and then I'm heading to the Yucatan and I'm going to be spearfishing for three days down there.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: The last time I was down there I had a barracuda scare me really bad, and now I'm mad at him.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: So I've got a vendetta against the barracudas.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: And a little bit.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: Make sure to shoot them in the head, because I'll come back after you.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Vicious.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Vicious, good to know.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, last time I I had one swimming towards me and I was like all right, this is going to happen.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: And he got what I now know is in range and just stopped and opened his mouth and showed me what he was working with.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And I headed for the surface.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: With a quickness man Um I, I wanted nothing to do with that surface.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: With a quickness man um I, I wanted nothing to do with that, and uh, so so now I've got to go back and and seek my revenge on the barracudas and, uh, you know, hopefully not get sigatera from eating them sig, sig is a concern.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Uh, freshwater has no sig.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Another great reason yeah, but we also can't eat like uh, we can't eat a freshwater fish, raw, right.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Really, really.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know some people that have, but you really don't want to make a practice.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've, I've done it, you know, mostly with kokanee, with these little landlocked sockeye salmon.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Um, I've, I've eaten them raw quite a bit and I know that I shouldn't, and I take a lot of risks with food that people think are stupid, but it hasn't gotten me yet, so I I continue with the stupidity.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I also.
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: I also feel like a lot of people, I feel like there's a lot of myths out there.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: You know, like, like, like, like Brett, like Brett said, like we have people on my Instagram that like, oh, the bigger the fish is, the worse it's going to taste.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: And I'm like sir, would you rather eat a 30-pound tuna or a 300-pound tuna?
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: The fat is going to be a lot greater and it's going to taste a lot better in the bigger tuna.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And he's like yeah, that's a good point, the bigger halibut are a lot better tasting.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I'm like perfect.
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: So let me ask you have you ever eaten a 45 inch lake trout?
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: no, so, like, yeah, so yeah, you know, I've eaten lake trout in the and I can't remember inches, but in the 25 to 35 pound range, and there's a lot of fat in them and they smoke up wonderfully.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I think smoked like trout is tremendous and the fat just drips out of them when you're smoking them and you mix that up with you know, good cheese and a cracker and you're you're living well.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Right, I'm actually Jake.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: You know he's an influencer.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: He's inspired me to, uh, go out and smoke, so I smoked after he did his, after he did his lake shot.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I smoked some paddlefish and I made it tonight.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: And my wife yeah, my wife, who's not a huge, you know, she's a certain type of fish eater.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: We have plenty of fish laying around but but, uh, she won't touch like the tuna, she won't touch the salmon, and my son and I just mow it down.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: But paddlefish, uh, smoked paddlefish, uh, fish dip a la Jake Lords is a big hit at our house.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Nice, yeah, it sounds like she's.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Uh, she probably likes halibut, right.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: She likes halibut, she likes walleye, she likes grouper, she likes hogfish, she likes all your white fishes.
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: I say that halibut is for people who don't like fish.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: It's the potato of fish.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: It tastes like whatever you put on it.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Pretty much and and and walleye.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: You know it's, it's the same thing like everybody.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: It's a very flaky white meat.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: That's great.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: But you know what another great uh fish is?
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Similar vein is drum freshwater drum.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: You know, jake and I were in arkansas last summer and we started calling them round walleyes.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: They were just as good eating as the walleyes.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: We could cook them side by side and hand them to you in a blind taste test and you wouldn't know the difference oh, that's interesting and they, they crush like mollusks and clams with these crunchy teeth weird back grinding teeth, you know and so maybe it's something in their diet that makes them, you know, very good you know, one of the worst eating fish out there in my opinion is a trout right and trout get get all the love and they're.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: They're beautiful and they're fun to catch in a variety of ways.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: But a rainbow trout or brown trout tends not to be very good table fare well, jake, jake, did you?
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: did you eat your two world record trout, your rainbow, and your and your brook?
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: You ate them both right I sure did yeah, I like brook trout.
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: I like char better than than true trout.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I I also don't do the traditional cook where you do like the lemon and you know the lemon pepper I actually use like steak seasoning or steak rub and smoke it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Um, you know, same thing on salmon and then do like a like a green garnish on it and it always got good.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: Do you ever cook salmon with mayonnaise?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: I haven't, man, it crushes and I know that sounds a little bit weird to people and mayonnaise can can be divisive, but uh, the alaskans do that a lot and if you think about what mayonnaise is, it's egg and oil, a little bit of salt and uh, yeah, if you season the fish first and then just lightly spread some mayonnaise over it and then throw that on your trigger, dude it is.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: It is pretty powerful stuff, really good, especially on something like a sockeye, where it doesn't have a lot of fat in it.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Um, it's, it's a good way to go give it a try I'm gonna yeah, I've done, uh, salmon pinwheelsels, where you get the salmon and then do cream cheese, capers, roasted tomatoes, roasted peppers, and then you roll it up, so then it's like into like a you know a wheel.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: And then you smoke that and it's just.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: It always comes out of fire.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Heck, yeah, okay, so the National Freshwater Spear Fishing association, what?
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: What's their primary goal?
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: What's?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: what's their mission?
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: I, I would say you know the number one goal is that we are the hub of for freshwater spearfishing.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: So you're on the west coast, jake's in the Central Mountains, I'm in South Texas and Anna she's in New Hampshire, and we're all connected right now.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: You know, if you end up over in one of these places, we have a network to hook you up with, to dive with, and freshwater is fun water.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: You know everybody's super chill.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: We're not.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: You know all about hiding our spots and calling you a kook and all this stuff that you see in some of these heavy duty saltwater fisheries.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Right, and like Jake, even himself a big Instagram star he is.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: You can DM him literally and he will take you spearfishing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: He is such a gem of a human and and takes time out of his day to dive with you and most people in freshwater the same way like we're.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: We're all here for the fun and uh, you know, jake isn't a one-trick pony either.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: He's uh dabbling in fashion now yeah you, you name it, I can do it.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: You know I play pickleball every day you know I'm at the gym, like in the sauna.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: You're in the sauna every day, for sure.
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: Sauna like I'm getting one percent better, like always always you actually.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I want to say this, you know in in public, for all you've influenced me to start working out again.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Jake, I haven't anybody this, but since after a year of you tagging me for 1% better, I started going to the gym last month.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: Hey, thank you, thank you.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: If it influences one person, it's worth it, that's that's me.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I've been influenced.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: So talk to me about the fitness requirements to actually go do this, for, for people who are listening at this stage in the show, if they're still here, they're definitely interested in trying this themselves.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: What do you physically need to be able to do to go out and enjoy freshwater spearfishing?
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Breathe, breathe.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Or hold your breath.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if you can hold your breath for 30 seconds, you can spearfish, because clearly I can jake, big jake.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Big jake is not a moniker.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Big jake is a real description of a big man and he is.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: He's as good of a freshwater, he's as good as a spear fisherman all around as I've seen, um, and and I'm an old man.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: So it's great because you don't have to be a young stud like a mountain guide hunting sheep and goats, right, you can literally be an old, out of shape, 40 something year old dad like myself and get in there and crush fish.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: And it's just a mentality or a mindset.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: It's.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: It's holding your breath and practicing and wanting, wanting to get better, and just hunting and being one in the environment.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: You know, when I say hunting, it's almost opposite of what you should be doing.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Instead of going to jump in with a deadly thought in your head, you need to really like, almost try to like, blend in and like have you know, really happy thoughts, like I don't want to shoot you fish, I just want to, you know, blend into your environment and they come right to you.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: If you start thinking dangerous thoughts, man, those fish are gone.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Dude, these are facts.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: These are facts and I heard this.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: So I've been dabbling in spearfishing for over 20 years now.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: Right, and just in the last few years I'm starting to take this more seriously, be studious about it, dedicate myself to actually being able to perform at a level that'll satisfy me.
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: And I'd heard people say now, these fish are smart as soon as it's different from snorkeling.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: As soon as you're in the water with a loaded gun, you can't be thinking these things, otherwise they're gonna leave.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: And it is absolute facts that these fish act incredibly differently.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: I see it a lot when I'm using a pole spear.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Um, I can be covered in fish like, like a little mermaid, and then as soon as I load that pole spear in my hand, they're getting out of getting out, they're gone.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: And all that's really changed is my attitude in the water.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And these fish survive in a really hostile environment because they're able to detect when there's a predator that is in predator mode around them true story lateral line.
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: I mean it's like, uh, you know hunting season.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: When hunting season rolls around, you just see the biggest deer walking downtown and you're like he knows, he not, he knows it's hunting season yeah, yeah, they're not, they're not dumb that that's my technique is I go in the water and lay on the bottom and let them come to me.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I act like a piece of trash that's falling off somebody's boat or whatever it is, and the fish are curious about something that you know.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: A tree falls in into the lake and shortly after the tree falls in the water, it's home to many fish.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: So if I go into the water with that mindset, I'm just going to be a tree that has fallen in the water or I'm going to be you know whatever a rock, and you just lay there and silently, kind of just really slowly move your head really slowly, do everything super, super slow, and you'll think you're doing it slow until you videotape yourself or somebody videotapes you, and then it looks like Blair Witch Project and you're like what?
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: is going on down there you know, and until you're really slow and really really one with that, the fish will react to you as if you were a predator there to harm them.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, some advice that Cliff Gray gave me when I was looking at different dive schools is he said you should really consider going to one that's super hippy dippy, because that stuff absolutely works in spearfishing and you can use.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: You can use those techniques for your own evil and uh, I, I'm definitely going to one.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: The one in florida is going to be like it's yoga.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: It's about your, your mental state of everything they're doing ayahuasca as they're, as they're about to go for a dive gosh, I hope so.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: No, I I don't know, uh, but but I I think that there's definitely something to that.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And there, if you look at the people who who are setting records with free diving, they're they're doing it with a, with a strong mental game, and they're thinking about all of those, those processes that you know are, I guess, uh, psychologically less conservative than uh, than than my normal lane 100.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: I, I, I think I took my diving to and spearfishing to the ultimate, next level during covid.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: So you know, covid struck, everybody shut down, and I was a self, uh, self-employed business owner and my wife worked for the government, state of Colorado, and I was like, well, all my work has gone away.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: State of Colorado is shutting down, locking down super hard.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Uh, the only thing we should do now is hook up, uh our camper and drive to Mexico.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: And we did.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: We just drove straight to Mexico because if the world's going to end, you might as well be enjoying yourself on the beach somewhere.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: And so that's what we did Went down and I dove every day for I mean like a hundred days straight, and it was only through a hundred days.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: And I mean not like hour long.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: You know sessions like you were doing with Kylie in Hawaii, but like you know sessions like you were doing with Kylie in in Hawaii, but like you know an hour here, half hour there, just enough to get dinner.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: But but every day it just becomes like this routine where you're like seriously one with the water and it sounds super weird.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: But you, you start to notice things about yourself you never noticed before.
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Like why am I gripping when I dive?
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Why am I gripping my gun so tightly?
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: That gun isn't going to get away from me, but but that grip was expending energy that I didn't need to expend and it was shortening my breath.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Hold, okay, Relax my hand.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: And then, as I'm going down, it's like oh, my shoulders, you're?
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Why am I tensing my neck?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm not nervous, why, you know, relax.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: So I was finding all these little muscle groups that I was actually being tense with over a hundred days of diving every single day, and really, really changed my game and really, you know, as hippies it sounds became one with water.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: What does that?
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Calmness in the water and and calmness within yourself due to the rest of your life.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, jake's leading the charge.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: On the ice baths, I think, like you know, it's become like you can't hardly open up Instagram without seeing somebody doing a cold plunge ice bath, whatever right.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: And it didn't start for Jake in you know a cold plunge thing.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: It started in spearfishing in cold mountain lakes and literally it's a mental relief, Like I it's, it's therapy.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: You know, not that I'm not trying to make fun of therapy.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Everybody should go to therapy in some form or another.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, but this is, for me, really where I focus and really where I can just find myself and center myself.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: You have so much mental clarity when all your all these elements come in the picture.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Uh, you're holding your breath, you're hunting, you're, you know, trying to attract fish, you're, you know, trying to provide a meal for you and your family, and I think all those you know come into the picture.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: You're, really honestly, just really grateful that you have the ability to do this.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I, I, I agree that there.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: there's an aspect of gratitude that naturally comes from it.
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: There's something about free divers and spear fishermen that that I find magnetic Like if I'm at some, you know, ambassador summit, and there's there's people from all kinds of skills all kinds of skills at these things.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: They're very, they're very interesting from all kinds of skills, all kinds of skills at these things.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: They're very, they're very interesting.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: You'll I'll be at an event and there'll be a professional driver and a professional mountain biker and professional spear fishermen and professional chefs and professional hunters like myself and the people that that I'm drawn to that have just this absolute calm confidence about their demeanor are the spear fishermen every single time.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: And you know that that was something that that's just a few years ago.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: I was at something like this at a event and I ended up spending the whole thing with uh justin lee and kimmy werner and I just thought that there was something very special about them as people, and they are very special people, but I think that they're made more so by their time underwater.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt If you, if you've spent any time around Justin Lee and Kimmy Warner like those are the two most genuine, honest to goodness people you've ever met and they've spent more time deeper than a hundred feet than I'll spend in my entire lifetime trying to catch them.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Like they.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: They just are great people, great stewards of the land, and both of them have come to freshwater events.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Justin's a big supporter of freshwater and he comes every year to our nationals.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: He beats us a lot, but sometimes we, every time we've, we've got him've, we've got him, we've got him a few times.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: The hawaiians are next level.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I mean hawaiians, yeah, you know, I totally still justin, I he went to, he went to bahamas a few years ago.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: That's my spot, and I was like hey, man, I just like bahamas.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: He's like oh man, it's incredible, there's fish, it's just crazy with fish.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I was like you know why he's like no, why I was.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: It's incredible, there's fish, it's just crazy with fish.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: I was like you know why he's like no, why I was like because there's no Hawaiians there.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: He said what do you mean?
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like you guys are stone cold murderers.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: You can spend four minutes underwater on a single breath and kill everything up to 150 feet deep.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: It's incredible.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: So you know it really is.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: I can't say enough good things about those guys, but they really are next level yeah, no, I, I agree, and not just next level at at their sport, you know they're, they're next level humans.
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: And you know, kylie's, kylie's.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: The same way.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Her ability to spot octopus dude, that startles me still, like I think about that for part of every day, is how she was able to spot some of those octopus, and you know, 45, 50 feet of water, and there was one of them that I shot.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: That she's like go down and shoot this octopus.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: It was sitting on top of a rock.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I was like I can't see it and I pointed my spear gun at what I thought it was and I said, is that it?
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: And she goes?
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: And I'd done so much surface hunting around here that, like I shoot a lot of fish with my snorkel sticking in the air and I was able to to shoot that thing and I had, like you know, six inches to spare on my tether and she's like I can't believe you hit that.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: It's like, oh well, this is something that I've actually practiced, but yeah, that the eyes that those folks have, um, truly incredible, like yeah, kylie made us next level human too.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Man, she, she came to.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: She came to freshwater at lake mead I don't think she had one day scouting and crushed everybody she she's an incredible human, incredible water waterman.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I've never been able to dive with her.
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: She was she was out of reach for me at Kona nationals when I was there in June and an incredible person, humble personality, just like Justin and Kylie.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Can't say enough good things about that that crew from Hawaii.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: Well, we got her applied for a cow elk tag in Oregon this year and hopefully she draws it.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: She's got over 90 chance of drawing it and if she does, I'm going to take her elk hunting and try to return the favor of taking these spearfishing.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: But, um, okay, if somebody wants to try this, give me me the 10 minute 101 of what they need to go out and try this and be safe and have a good experience.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Jake's got the gear.
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: Let's hear the gear list Jake uh, wetsuit fins uh, and like when, when I started, I just I mean I had like a surf wetsuit, no hood, you know, and it was like I had scuba fins.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: But I think you could get a decent setup with like a spear gun, a snorkel, a mask, uh fins, booties, uh, gloves, uh weight belt, for under a thousand bucks.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: For sure You'd be solid set up for for under under a thousand, for sure.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: And you are not getting into any kind of land-based hunting with quality gear for a thousand dollars.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: No, not not happening no, your rifle anymore, even a production off the shelf.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Remington 700, you know, bdl, or 700, 800, now just for that rifle.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: That used to be the standard to start out with right yep and so that doesn't even touch your boots.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Between those two things and bullets you're done at.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: A thousand dollar bill is burned yep, okay, so we've got our gear list.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: Uh, then what happens?
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: then if you do, if you do, what you do is take a, take a course if you can, or find some real experienced people to dive with and keep you safe, and that's where becoming close to the NFSA will help you to link you up or literally invite you along with us wherever you are.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I think that's a huge step.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: Right, jake, are.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I think that's a huge step, right, jake?
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: Right, yeah, I also think that, like just going, like even without even doing a class, just going out and getting after it to realize you're like holy crap, this is so much fun, um, I mean just just like you like you, you didn't start out by doing classes, you were spearfishing before you were doing classes and you realize you're like this is so much fun, like I want to take this to the next level and I want to get better at it, because all my homies are that I'm spearfishing with are a lot better than me.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: How do I get better?
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: and I think that?
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: I think that that's the part where you know you're like well, this is how I'm going to get better.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: Is I?
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: You know I need to do?
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: I need to do a class to figure it out.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Yep, and, and People universally agree on this right.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Like everybody that I talk to says you really need to go take a dive school and they're not that expensive.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: They're, they're very available.
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: And people come out of those things with with good things to say it depends on where you live.
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: Sure, I mean available, like twice a year in Utah.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Right, you might have to travel for it, depending on where you are.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: You might have to travel for it.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, like you know, I'm going to go to Florida.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: That's a long haul, um, the one in in oregon, I mean that's a seven hour drive for me, it's, it's.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: It's not all that close either.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: But you know I'm I go hard on stuff and, uh, I don't want to gloss over a point that you made, brett, which is that if somebody contacts one of you guys or the NFSA, um you, you're going to be really happy to say, hey, here's somebody in your state or somebody in your area that we know about and they'd they'd be willing to show you the ropes a little bit.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Like I said, freshwater is fun water.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: We want more people to dive with us.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: You know it's.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: It's more fun with friends, right?
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, jake and I never have more fun than when we're diving with each other and a group.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: You know we we took uh six different people to blue water world cup.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Six different freshwater divers went down and competed against the best of the best in uh la ventana, mexico, mexico, in blue water competition.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: It was super fun and even though we're just freshwater people, we're just we're there having a ton of fun and we're looking forward to creating that larger network and helping people link up and be safe together and scout together.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: And so you know, after you found your people, after you've maybe had some safety, some classes, your next step is finding your water Right, and it just comes back to exactly how you scout for new, new deer or elk spots or new duck spots.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: You get on Google earth or whatever you know mapping system Onyx I use a lot too and you know, look at the water.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Another one, another trick is stalk.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: Stalk people on Instagram and see where they're at.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Or if you have a potential lake that you think, go on Instagram, type in that lake name and see you know, you'll get a bunch of random people.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: That hashtag Lake Travis is a're like wow, there's actually some pretty good structure and coves or the water looks clear.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: You know it was a good lead just just by doing some quick background searching on the internet.
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: Nice, yeah, all all solid things.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: And then the other thing that I don't want people to gloss over, that uh, that Jake said is just to go try it.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Like one of my most hilarious, uh, spearfishing endeavors was back in like 2005.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: Um, I bought a pipe gun off the internet.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: I bought the wetsuit that was recommended for, you know, 35 degree water, which is what I was dealing with in montana, and I didn't research well enough to know that I needed a weight belt.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: So we go out in this lake.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: There's carp, carp everywhere.
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: They're starting to come out from underneath the ice and we're in a drift boat and I got all suited up and I jumped in and I was float.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: I was floating so high I couldn't get my fins in the water.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: You know, I was flapping around and I couldn't do anything.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: It's so embarrassing, but it the water.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I was flapping around, I couldn't do anything, it's so embarrassing.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: Good, um, but it also wasn't enough to make me be like, all right, I quit.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: You know, I, I just kept trying, kept trying.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: When I got to north carolina I tried to swim out in the surf and, you know, got absolutely stomped on by waves and lost my spear gun didn't give up on that either.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Um, but uh, now the information is so much more available and there's this growing network within freshwater and people's access to that network.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: It's changed everything.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: It's changed everything.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: So you know, now we can, anybody can reach out and and talk and ask and and get good information.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: It's's incredible, what an opportunity.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: I will say um Brett's, like you can type in a location on Instagram, because most of most of my places that I'm tagging is like Yellowstone national park.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: Homies are hitting me up and they're like hey, um, wearing Yellowstone, can you go spearfishing?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: And I'm like homie, you can't like just about anywhere once.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean that uh, the lake trout.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: I I tagged a pyramid lake like where they're, you know where they're shooting or catching those big uh uh, big cutthroat and big lake crowd.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: The Lahantans.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, but I mean seriously.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: If you find the network of people, if you found Jake or myself or anybody like us associated with the National Freshwater Spearfishing Association, I've got gear.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: I've got gear for days.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: My wife is not impressed with how much gear I have.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: You will be, though.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: You want to borrow a gun.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: You need an inverted, you need a.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: What did jake do?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: He?
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: He gave one of, uh, one of the guys in our network a whole blue water setup floats, float lines, a big, a big, 155 centimeter breakaways.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, thousands upon thousands of dollars a year.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: He's just like here you go, bro, enjoy and dude, flew down and and had a great trip in mexico.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: And it's like if you break it, you buy it though, right.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: But but like, if you, if you want to come to texas, like you got your choice of seven or ten different guns and and wet suits for days, and I have, I think, 10 different masks.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Like, try one, try one that fits your face, try one that works for you.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Like you know it's that's what part of being in the network gets you what's your tactic for uh, for sealing up the mustache?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: uh, when I dive, I always cut down this like little part, right here yeah um and then, and then I do Vaseline on my, on the stash gotcha yeah, I saved mine off.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: I I don't have as great of a, I don't have as great of a mustache game as you and jake, so I just shave it off.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I'll come back in a few days uh, the the guy that owns uh pop spearfishing in kona calvin lie senior.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Uh, what a gentleman.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed him yeah really they come they come every year to freshwater calvin lie and calvin lie senior.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: They come every single year.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Awesome people yeah, I spent about eight times more money than I went in there to spend just because I enjoyed him so much.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: Uh, he told me.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: He told me chapstick, clear chapstick.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: He said that that's easier on the mask, but I haven't tried it yet so I don't know.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: He would know they were commercial fishermen forever.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: And I know Cal Cal Jr Still is Um.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent people, great tip.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: Yep, okay, well, let's put a bow on it here.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: Uh, how can people support you guys, follow what you're doing, uh, get involved and uh, and where can they find you?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: um.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: They can find me on instagram.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: Tiktok uh, but big jake lords anywhere the influencers influence right careful, you'll be influenced.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: You have a patent on big jake lords like tm or oh, that'd be great let's work on that let's, let's do it.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and uh, I'm at the real brett label on Instagram.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big influencer.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I I just keep in touch and and as well you're a big influencer, I do my best.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I also National Freshwater Spearfishing at National Freshwater Spearfishing for the Instagram and Facebook, and then nationalfreshwaterspearfishingorg is the website and you can get on there and get all that information.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: We actually have a WhatsApp link on that website so you can WhatsApp a pro if you got a question.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you who the pro is, but you're looking at them.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: So I you know.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: You know your advice might be subject to how many gin and tonics I've had that night hey, you probably have the connections, james.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: How do we get donald trump jr into freshwater spearfishing?
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: oh man yeah, well, I think, uh, we just, uh, we just ask him if he wants to go.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, he's somebody that really values adventure and new experiences and would probably love that opportunity.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: We could reach out and make that happen.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: He was talking about coming out to the swimming fundraiser that we're going to do out here in August.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we'll see, we'll see, and in the meantime, I'm going to continue, continue in my practice and add in more apnea walks and be the best student that I can be at these schools.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: And boys, I'm coming for you.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: I'm going gonna be the sucker king when this thing's all over with let's do it I fully intend on being a national champion by the end of this year.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: That's awesome let's do it.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: That's great man, it's a, it's a great journey like.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: That's the thing everybody needs to remember.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: It's not a destination, it's a journey.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: You can do this until you're 80 and that's the best part about about freshwater especially yeah well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: I know it's it's getting late where both of you are, uh, I can't.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: I can't tell you how much I personally appreciate you.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Um, both of you have just been on the spot every time I've had a question.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: You haven't made fun of me yet for how dumb my questions are sometimes, and I just want to say thank you to both of you.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course Anytime.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Thanks for the exposure.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Fresh water is fun water man For sure, absolutely Well.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: I really do think that it's at a tipping point and it's going to become more popular as more people understand just how incredible this experience is and how available it is.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: You know there's probably carp where you live.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: You know it's the most fished for and the most eaten species in the world, so you know there's more bites taken of carp than any other fish on the planet.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: And, uh, you know the carp are are abundant, available and and, like we've talked about, they're the most loosely regulated species in the United States.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: And, uh, you know chances are you're going to be able to to go spearfishing for them.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: You just got to find water that's clear enough to see them and all right, fellas, thanks again and uh y'all.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Y'all have a good evening, we'll.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: We'll be in touch.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: I just want to take a second and thank everyone who's written a review, who has sent mail, who sent emails, who sent messages.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: Your support is incredible, and I also love running into you at trade shows and events and just out on the hillside when we're hunting.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: I think that that's fantastic.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: I hope you guys keep adventuring as hard and as often as you can.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Art for the six ranch podcast was created by John Chatelain and was digitized by Celia Harlander.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: Original music was written and performed by Justin Hay, and the Six Ranch Podcast is now produced by Six Ranch Media.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you all so much for your continued support of the show and I look forward to next week when we can bring you a brand new episode.