Reaction To The Zaldain Podcast

Wes Logan and Spencer Graves talk the most recent drama in professional fishing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Le's get right into lines and times. This morning, I'm Spencer.

(00:03):
That's my boy Wes Logan. Wes is looking at his
picture in the UH in his phone.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
What were you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:10):
I got I got some. I got a whole different
conspiracy going on that that I'm trying to dig into.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
So obviously, the conversation over the last couple of weeks
since you and I talked has really been about the
Bilge podcast with Chris Aldane, his wife and Bill Lowen.
That episode in particular, and there were some things that
I heard on there, and I'm sure you've heard grumbling
since that came out, and some of the conversations. Number One,

(00:37):
people talked about the label of it. It was our
rookies playing in the gray area. That lumps all rookies together.
There are some rookies that aren't involved in some of
the scandals that people were talking about.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
People didn't want to name drop.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
I mean the two rookies that a lot of people
are targeting, or Trey McKinney and JT.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Tompkins.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
It's like the number one names that pop up, and
then you have the other rookies. Now, are they doing
things that are extremely detrimental? To the sport and illegal
in the rules. There are some cases where you could
say that, like Trey didn't watch one of the videos.
He also came out and said that he didn't see

(01:17):
that there was a no wag zone because he didn't
watch the video. He ran the no wagg zone. He
got called out by somebody. I think Swindle may have
said something to him, m M, because he's the one
that protested, right, Swindle ultimately protested.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Well, it wasn't necessarily a protest. He was Swindle knew
he broke the rule and had to turn him in it.
I guess you would technically call it a protest. But like,
but that's the reality. If Jerald sees him or sees
anybody break a rule, it ain't like he singled out Trey.
Like he saw Trey break the rule, Gerald has to
report him. If Cherald doesn't report him and Trey figured

(01:50):
they find out Trey did break the rule and Swindle
saw him and Swindle didn't say nothing, they're both at fault.
And that's in your rules correct clears dry black and
white as it can be. If you angler briker role,
you have to report that angler or you and him
are just as guilty like y'all are guilty one in
the sign.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
So with the whole tray scenario, like I've heard, you know,
the backstory on some of these things, and I won't
bring that up because that's hearsay. To be honest, I
wasn't there, so I'm not gonna bring it up. But
what I am going to bring up is, just like
you said, every angler on the elites is there to
police all the other anglers on the elites and vice versa.

(02:27):
They're there to police you.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Right. So after I heard.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
The zeal Dane podcast, you know, I listened to a
lot of things, and I heard a lot of the
things that were mentioned. Zaldane said this, and it kind
of floored me a little bit.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Spot on, And you're getting beat. We're getting beat by
a lot of guys who really like their bass fishing.
IQ is somewhat lower, you know, arguably lower than than
the veteran get you know what I mean. So just
the experience you're getting smoked by by.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
So much comes from time on the water.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, I don't. I want to be rewarded for that.
You want to be rewarded for that.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
I prided myself on being able to catch a fish
that nobody else could catch because I knew how to
make or find that fish or making bite, whether the
conditions were, you know, super.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Tough or good.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Just I've always been able to figure out how to
catch them a different way than everybody else. And now
it's I just feel like everything I've ever known is
I got to start over you.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
So here's basically what I took from that is that
a secret was exposed. Okay, if Bill Loan was able
to go out there and catch those fish, then nobody
else was able to catch his words, then the secret exposed.
Oh you were finding fish offshore and you just had
a way to figure him out. Now with Livescope, you're
able to see what the fish are doing, which you
can relate to the Zaldane thing where he's like, you know,

(03:45):
these guys arguably quote unquote have lower fish IQ. No,
they just understand another section of fishing that you might
not fully understand. I don't think that makes their IQ low.
I think it makes their IQ high in that Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
I think it just me as an angler, it's a
different i Q. Neither neither guy is neither traditional guy
veteran has dad an called it or the the you know,
the younger generation, younger than me. It's a different high
I Q that if that makes sense. Like, so they're
really they're really smart as you know, breaking down this
technology because I mean just the basic honest truth through

(04:22):
These are iPad kids. They grew up with an iPad.
Like I was just talking to somebody the other day
and I didn't have a cell phone, a flip phone,
Nokia block phone whatever, you know, the one you had
to type numbers in to make a letter snake. Yeah,
and it would get longer every time you caught it,
you know, ate one of those block things and you
couldn't make it touch itself. Yeah. I got that in

(04:44):
seventh grade. And like the dudes that are that are
so good with this lives go. And there's some older
guys too, they're great with it, but like they understand
it and can break it down because they they've that's
what they've been doing their whole life since they were
five years old.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Were removed from that, and I'm and I'm gonna I'm
gonna say this song thirty because you're thirty years old,
you're not too far removed them forty one.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Years I'm with you, you.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Know, like when when I look at one your social
media game, your social media game is above and beyond
what a lot of other guys do, and it's literally
you and your wife doing it. That's okay, Yeah, It's
not like you're funding this big extravagant expense to be
able to do it. You're putting up content. People relate
to the content. They like the content. You do well
on there. You understand technology. These younger kids understand technology.

(05:29):
It's just who can dive into it more. And you
and I have talked about the ford facing sonar thing.
I have always maintained and will always maintain that it's
a technique. It's no different than being really good at
spinner bates. It's no different than being really good at cranking.
It's no different than being a really good worm guy.
You understand that technique better than anybody else. The difference

(05:50):
is they have something to visually watch while it's happening.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
And when I feel and I feel this in like
confidence in my self, is if you were to just
commit yourself to scoping, like that's all you did every
time you went out on the lake and learned it
every single day. Different conditions different lakes, different baits, different
depths of water. When you can dial it in, you're

(06:16):
gonna be hard to beat because you have an endless
supply of fish and knowledge coming to you every day.
That makes sense. So because you're gonna have the whole
lake is gonna be open to you. Where if I'm
a you know, halfway decent swimjig fisherman, like I consider myself,
I'm not great, but I'm decent at it.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
You know, you have your own.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
It's crazy, it's only going to play in a certain
section of every and it may not even work on
a certain lake where the last certain certain exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Where that bit could be going on for two weeks
and then and then it's gone where and then you
have to readjust to something else where with the forward
face and so on.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Art you just have a lot more fish to work with,
and in multiply multi day tournaments, I think you have
a better chance to do well in single day tournaments
without using it then multiple days. Because shallow fish traditional
fishing habits, you tend to run out of fish faster.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Right, Okay, so let's break this down. Though you're going
specific to a swimjig YEP Okay, so you're talking about
one bait on shallow water techniques.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Correct.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Live scope is primarily a deep water technique. They can
throw a minnow, they can have a jerk bait, they
can throw a glide. There's numerous baits that they can do.
Same thing with upshallow. You have to throw a swimjig.
You can have a worm, you can throw a fluke,
you could do a frog. You can do all these
different things in order.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
To catch them.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
The only primary difference is the visibility of how clear
that image is when you look at forward facing and
you're looking at a fish that's twenty feet down, Yeah,
it stands out a lot more than being able to
look into the grass and see it now perspective mode.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
It's unreal, buddy, that's a whole different ball game that
will be.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Now the guys are figuring out prospective mode that will
become the forward facing sonar for the shallow water guys. Yeah,
like you'll be able to scan through and if that
zone gets bigger to where you can really see forward
forty to fifty maybe even one hundred feet, yeah, it's
going to be it's gonna be insane. This is all
the technology is continuing to fuel and grow the sport,

(08:21):
and it's growing with the people that use technology. You
just have to adapt yourself to doing it. What I
took from the Zell Dangerous podcast is Chris was really
worried about calling out names because he didn't want to
say anybody. Bill didn't say anybody. I saw his interaction
with Logan Parks on social media where Logan or Bill said, look,

(08:44):
I didn't know it was going to be named that way.
Our rookie's playing in the gray area, lumping everybody together.
And to me, the video should have never been titled
that right because it was what it was, a click.
But it was a click obviously, and they got what
they wanted it to become. To be fair, I would
have posted I would have labeled a video something like that.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, it was just people's right, right, and it did
it obviously is it did.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
But there were a lot of things that came out
in that, like the letter that was written by an
angler going.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
To the majority of the field.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
I know not everybody got it, but talking about like
a hard reset and tournament fishing. The end of the day,
you guys are playing high stakes poker table with five
thousand dollars. You say, listen, I think that I can
do well in this tournament. That's the name of the game.
The game is to go out and catch them. You're
giving banks that you have to fish between. You got

(09:39):
to find the five biggest fish. If you do it
in fifty foot, you do it in five foot.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Whatever you want to do, right. I mean, I've always
said we were basically game one. It's just it's it's
a little we have a fishing rod in our hand
and it's up to us.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Like we have.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
There's a lot of stuff out of our control, but
a lot of it is our control mentally, physically, you
know all that stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
But you just happy to be the generation that is
seeing the biggest change ever fishing ever.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I don't care that you can't compare it to side scan,
you can't compare it to mapping like.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
And it's only gonna get better.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
All of that helped, like tremendously helps you catch fish. Obviously,
it helps you locate fish, didn't help you catch them.
This this is the first thing that's ever come out
that's truly helped you catch See what about a fish,
not a bass? A fish is doing in the but it's.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
That fish's determination on whether it's gonna that's right, that's right.
You know, you you pester them enough, and that's the
thing they're gonna be. I understand. Like if you see
them and you can cast at them. But I'm not
the most accurate caster in the world. Right, it's not
the easiest thing for It's really easy to cast out.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
It's simple, Like I mean, you can go do it, dude.
You cannot do it for a year and go out
there and within ten minutes it's like riding a bike.
You're just like, Okay, that's forty foot I'm back on run.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Greg Hackney break down a dock with a spinner bait
the mast Master Classic two years ago in Knoxville.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
It's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
I mean, to go up to a two bay dock
that can house two boats. It's got multiple pilings, and
for him to go all the way down without hitting
a piece of wood and bring that spinner beat within
a half inch of those pilings, and then to go
to the other side and back handle all the way down,
I mean, multiple different ways. He's like a maestro with

(11:22):
that fishing rode. To watch him do that and then
for me to go out the next weekend and backlash
every three casts trying to be Greg Hackney. That does
separate you, guys, and it does make you good. But
if they're not biting the spinner bait that day, as
beautiful as that presentation looks, it's not going to do
anything for it.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, And I mean, dude, like you got to remember,
we do it every day almost. It's our like, yeah,
it's fishing, it's bass fishing, but it's our job, right,
Like we can't walk in here and I was watching
you move in these knobs with the volume and the
noise and stuff like, don't we would be lost as
a goose trying to do that, right unless we came
in here every day and we're like, okay, you need
to move this up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Literally, it's just this dous justly a bunch of flashing
life trained monkey can do it.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
I do, okay, No, But you're right, there's in every
career you have something that's really good. In my world,
I understand communication, I understand conversation, and I know what
can hit hot buttons, but you and you had to.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Bring stuff out of people talking like you know how
to get stuff out of me that I wouldn't just
normally just say in a random conversation.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
But that's what makes me so laugh, makes me laugh
so much, is when I saw a rookies playing in
the gray area, I went, I know exactly what they're
trying to do. You grabbed the ladle and you stir that. Yes,
that's what you're trying to do, and it worked. Bill
Lohen going on there just speaking his mind. Listen, I'm
in support of all three of them on that podcast.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
You speak your mind. I'm the type of.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Person where if you're going to call somebody or a
group out, name names. If you really want to do it,
be stand up and name names, because I would tell
somebody if I had a problem with what Trey McKinney
did in a tournament, I go, I have a problem
what Trey McKinney did in a tournament, and I'd want
to have some validity behind that claim. I said to

(13:10):
Bass some of the BASS officials when they gave him
the penalty, I go, you had Tray McKinney standing on
a dock for an hour and a half in his
penalty explaining what happened. That shouldn't be Lisa Talmadge, the
tournament director, should have been on the video and said,
yesterday we assessed to fine or a penalty to this angler,

(13:32):
Trey McKinney. Because of this infraction, he will not be
allowed to fish for the first hour and a half
of today's tournament.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's keeping everything square.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
To put the guy who's penalized out in front and say, hey,
tell us what happened. You can do that after, but
you need a bass official in order to say what
took play.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Here's what really bothers me about that situation, that one
in particular. So any publicity's good publicity, right, bad, good, whatever.
If you're in front of a live camera on Bass Live,
you've got your jersey on. Even if it's bad, they're
still seeing your sponsors. You know what I'm saying. Okay,
that morning it was day to at Saint John's. I
had a live camera in my boat. And who is

(14:12):
on live for thirty minutes in the morning explaining what happened?
Trey McKinny. Why so you're taking So he was on
bass Live explaining what happened. Standing on the dot, Well
this is what happened. I didn't And he was explaining
that he didn't watch the video, and it really portrayed
him like like, yeah, I did something wrong, but I

(14:35):
know what I did wrong, and I'm taking full responsibility
of it. I'm the bigger person. Oh okay, well, no, dude,
you screwed up. You shouldn't be getting thirty minutes alive
from the other anglers that are out there fishing.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
I'll tell you straight up in the media world exactly
what that is. And you and I have had this conversation.
I've had conversations with other elite anglers. You have to
control your own narrative. No one will promote you better
than you.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
Exactly right, But they gave it to him.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Like it's my point.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
My point is is, if Lisa Talmadge is the tournament director,
Lisa has to be the one that goes on with
Zona and Tommy and says, we assessed a penalty to
Trey McKinney because he went through a no EIGG zone
that was clearly identified in the Angler video. He told
us he did not watch the Angler video. That's another

(15:19):
thirty minute penalty or whatever it was, to make it
the hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
I agree with you, don't give him the time, Like
what I.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Would say is after these reporters that show up to
cover the array, right, then you go up to him
and you go what happened?

Speaker 3 (15:33):
What happened?

Speaker 1 (15:33):
You know, and you ask him questions. But just like
we do a Major League Baseball all of the basketball.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
All of it, right, I agree with you. I think
that's I think that's a bad deal.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
I really think it should have been Lisa's Lisa, and
I love Lisa to this. She works her butt off,
she has some hard decisions to make. She should have
made the statement, but it should have been a two minute,
minute and a half segment. That's not on Lisa, that's
on the media attainment Bass.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Yes, because the media team there's two different things about Bass,
like Bass in the media team that they have is
a group out of Arkansas that's separate.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, that's separate, pass right, And I don't.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
Think I actually don't think people realize that.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
An, Yeah, their.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Contract is by Bass to do this. If if they
lost that contract, somebody else would come in and try
to scoop up that kind of But because Tommy Sanders
and Zona have been there for years, through the ESPN
days and all that kind of stuff, they go along
with the package.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
What and by by me, you say, I'm not saying
Tommy and Zone. It's the production people.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Well it's not only that, but it's also the people
who handle the communications past to be able to say,
here's the press release.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I just say. The mot people think I was calling
out Tommy and Zone, You're.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Good, I don't.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
I didn't read that, so I'm pretty sure nobody else would.
But the fact of the matter is, if there is
an infraction in the organization, be it with your anglers,
be it with a spot like whoever. If they're under
your umbrella. You're a bass angler for the basil, it's
your under bass's umbrella. If you screw up in a tournament,

(17:03):
bass has to put out a press release that says
today we assessed a fine or a penalty or something.
To West Logan, they put it out and then it's
on the media. Everybody else, Angler's Choice and all these
other groups that follow around. It's up to them to
go up to you at the end of a tournament
and say and get one's happened. And it's also up

(17:26):
to you as an angler to then go, well, you
know what, I got a penalty today because I had
too many fish in my live. Well, but I got
to tell you it was so inviting because my Skeeter
Boat has a really nice live.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
You can twist it.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Yeah, you can then handle it the way you want
to handle or marketers.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
That's what our job is.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Correct.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
Like again, like, well, I went back to any publicity.
He's good publicity. But them putting him on a pedestal
that morning all live like, but.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
Again he controls. It's not his fault that they put
him on there. I mean he took Yeah, I mean
you're gonna give me thirty minutes a camera time, I'll
take thirty minutes. Oh absolutely, talking about every single everything
on here, yeah, like every single one.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Hey man, trying is so good. Yeah, I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
I'm ready as soon as they let me go. I'm
gonna run that that you know, that basket or whatever.
But I don't even know what. Buddy runs down the
lake and I'm gonna make sure he's stopping at no wait,
but when I get through it, I'm gonna be rolling.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
I'm gonna slow down because I know that my Yama
there he goes capable of you, like you get up
playing fast, you have to be able to handle I
mean dude, he's been taught and brought up like he's
been raised to be the marketing fishing guy. Like you
can tell by the way when he's in front of
the camera, Like the dude's not missing anything. It's there's
just a lot more going on than just him being

(18:37):
a fisherman and being a professional in front of the camera.
What I want to do is I want to play
you a couple more eclips from the Bilge Podcast with
chrisal Dane and Bill Loewen.

Speaker 4 (18:48):
I don't get too wrapped up and like overgoing to
Lake Murray. I gotta like what happened and what's the conditions,
and I want to read all the tournament reports. And
I've never been that guy. I've always been the guy
that I want to fish the condition when I get.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
There that day.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
You know what I'm saying, Like, Oh, well we didn't
know there was going to be a cicada hash. Well
that's going to change the whole whole deal. You know
what I'm saying, Well, last year when we were here,
it might have been a foot lower than it is
this year. So I don't kind of harp on what
happened last year. I try to just when I show up,
I put the boat in the water, and I fish
the conditions.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
This is what makes me laugh about that is just
because Bill Loewen doesn't want to do some of the
homework of what these tournaments have done leading up to it,
Because this goes into the conversation of getting information right.
If you're reading tournament reports on social media, does that
consider that you're getting information that other people can't?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
No?

Speaker 1 (19:40):
No, because the reality is anybody can find that on.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Social media to the public.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
So if you're finding out something through information or whatever,
just because Bill doesn't do that doesn't mean that it's wrong.
And that's what I thought was so interesting about Bill's
take on you know, I fish the conditions, dude.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
I'm happy for you.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
I think most people, when they get out there and
they realize the conditions are different than what they read
or what they know or what it was through history,
you're going to fish the conditions that day.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, I mean, and I have the utmost respect for
Bill because of I mean, he fishes the way. I mean,
I grew up watching him fish, and I've you know,
a lot of stuff I do I do the way
he done, or he's taller, videos anything like that, and
if that, he's one of the best I've ever seen
breaking down a place, Like if we just showed up
blind on it, like nobody knew we were going there, dude,
he'd be and he would be one of your top picks.
You better just to break it down.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
But a lot of that is because of the years
that he has experienced. Absolutely do that.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
You can't. You can't. You can't take that away from him.
I mean he's been there since the start of the Elites,
like when it when when it started, Bill started, and
I mean he's still here, so obviously that says a lot. Yeah,
but I think Bill's take on it is more of
like way past the public tournament reports and the social
media posts, like it's the stuff that that's real behind

(21:00):
closed doors, like that's the I think that's Bill's more point.
I know what he said, but as he was saying it,
like it's it's not up to Bill to tell people
that they can't go returnament reports or watch YouTube videos
like I do that, Like I want to know see
men Bill men and Bill are like I talk to
him all the time, but I think different. I want
to know everything that's happened up to date as much

(21:21):
as I can legally, because just like he said, it's
gonna be different than it was last year, Well, I
don't want to like have a preconceived notion and know
how I if we're going back to back years, I
don't want to think that it's gonna be the exact
same when we get there like it was last year.
If the water is two foot lower, I would like
to know before I got there. I could, because that's

(21:41):
how my mind works.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
I want to be I know, one foot seems like
a pretty big difference. How different do fish act when
the water goes down even an inch?

Speaker 3 (21:52):
Depends on the lake. If it's a if it's a
more of a highland reservoir, i'd say like a Lanier,
don't I don't want to say Smith, but it would
be Smith. I just don't want to even bindy deeper
a deeper type deal where they don't necessarily live shallow
like they do. But it's nothing for a fish to move,
you know, two feet or ten feet off the bank

(22:13):
because it went from a foot a foot lower. And
if you go to the Kusa, you're so here's a problem.
Like we just fished the ab two one hundred at
Wis where you can have a flat reading up to
a bank. At Whis it's two foot deep for three
hundred yards. Well, dude, it drops ten inches. That fish
has got to swim, you know, seventy five yards to
get some water bike over his back. That's going to

(22:34):
reposition him big time. So it just kind of depends
on the lake. But if you're on a more dirty,
shallow water, flat flatland reservoir, it's gonna affect it a
lot more than a highland deeper. Not necessarily got to
be clear, but normally you got dirty or water. The
fish lives shallower because they can't see.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
So in the conversation that they were having on the bills,
they were talking about information, and they were talking about
how when guys are going through the open they're able
to get information. On lake's a little different based on
the rules.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
You guys.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
As soon as the schedule comes out, done, you're done.
Don't like you can't do it. I'm talking about to
the to the to the the second. I believe soon
as we see it, like that's it. Joseph Webster has
a house on Smith Lake. As soon as the schedule
came out for this season and Smith Lake was on there.
He said to his wife, he goes, I won't be
going to the Lake House at all, like not even

(23:28):
getting close.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
And so but like, dude, You've got a great dude
like Joseph that immediately when he sees it, he was like,
I don't want to put myself in any kind of
position right to even be questioned on a rule in fraction.
And I was the same way at Neely two years ago,
and you know Will Davis was the same way last year.
Like you just we immediately get in that mindset where
you don't even want to put yourself even close to

(23:51):
having anything in question.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
And with some of the information tactics that I've heard
some people do, like they they buy guides and they
send out their friends and then a monitor through Snapchat
like location services on phones, to me, it's gonna get
increasingly difficult for anybody at BASS or MLF with these

(24:12):
rules to be able to do it where you guys
truly have to use the honor system. And I'm sure
that's getting increasingly difficult.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
So, as I'm sitting in your office right now, how
do you feel like the honor system is in the
professional fishing right now, Well, I'm not in it, you know,
like just on the outside looking in.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
On the outside, look at it.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
It doesn't look that that we hear about, you know,
as a casual fane. You know, there's some things that
pop up as a fan where I could sit there
and go, oh, that seems a little strange.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
It's kind of like an odd idea. You're like, huh,
that's kind of interesting. But then you just like like
play it all, play it off.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
No, but I get it. But until I fished a
place like Okachobe. If you took one hundred and four
guys and you put them in Okachobe and I was
somebody that didn't know anything about tournament fishing, I'd be like,
good God, look how big that body of water is.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Now, when you get there and you realize that it
fishes like.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
A it's horrible because literally boats are stacked on top
of each other because it's an area specifically compared to
a pattern lake. But when I see something like that,
I go, I don't know those guys know, Like, how
do they know? How can they break down that much
water and be able to do it? There is a
part of me after tournament fishing where when you're running

(25:25):
around a body of water and I see you in
your a FC wrap Skeeter, I go, and I see
this little guy on the deck, I go, that's obviously West.
If you drove by and you saw me in my
Phoenix and you saw this giant, you'd be like, damn,
that's a good looking dude.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh there's a beard. There's a beard. I got it.
I got it.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
So I think that that also gives up a lot
of information. So in my mind, I'm kind of like, okay,
I kind of have an idea of what is what
Wes might be trying to do or what he's trying
to find. Now, I would feel bad as a tournament
fishermen if I set a waypoint on where you were
and then you weren't there and I decided to go
back and check. I would feel dirty doing that.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
I also feel dirty when I fish with friends of
mine and let's say we're running their boat and they
take me to one of their spots and we whack them.
I would not go back to that spot in a
tournament unless I talk to my friend and he.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
Was like, hey, go back to Head's spout where we were.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
It's almost like, yeah, there aren't any secrets on lakes
because of how good the mapping is, because of how
good the technology is. It's only getting better. But there
is that underwritten code or that that non discussed code
where it's kind of like, hey, you don't do this.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, well it's like that unwritten rule of you don't
do that. That word the slick gets a lot of
grief on TikTok for talking about the unwritten rules, and
the average person I will read the comments and they're like, well,
if it's unwritten, why don't they ride it. I'm like, dude,
you don't understand.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
The same thing in baseball.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Like in baseball being a baseball player, if if you
did something dirty to one of my guys and get it,
you're getting one ahead. But as a pitcher, it's a
little different, Like you know, you have to hit them
where you hit them. This is what you're deciding. Like
if you hit him in the ass, it's like, it's
not big of a deal. Just watch your mouth.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
You bame them between the shoulder, blazeer or the head.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
If you came into my catcher and you trucked him
and you're not supposed to truck him. You got to
give up or slide, and you didn't. I'm putting your
I'm putting it in your hole exactly. You either, Yeah,
you're gonna know. But it's it's like the baseball deal.
Like if you're up by a in the you know,
the seventh hind or something. You're not still and every
time you get on or bunt and trying to move
got out. You know what I'm saying, unwritten rules. It's

(27:43):
not like a technically a rule. It's just being a
good person. You find yourself having to say, I want
to talk you a dick move. That's the problem, that's
what you know. Yeah, in a tournament, if you're on
a stretcher bank, and maybe I fished that stretch in practice,
but I see the ear nose is pointing where I
want to go. You might not be on your trolling motor.

(28:03):
You might just be casually going down that bank or whatever.
If I jumped one hundred yards in front of you,
I'm being a deck Oh yeah, okay. Even though we
can fish within fifty yards or wherever, the rule is, the
unwritten rule.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Is okay, I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
And the other thing is if you pull up to
a spot like that and you see a guy coming through,
let's just say I cut you off. You would fish
that bank, but you weren't really catching anything. You just
want to see if maybe they would fire up. You
didn't catch anything on that bank, But all of a sudden,
I've been catching them on that bank, and I come
cutting through, but I see you're there. I may not
even act like I'm slowing down to go there. I

(28:40):
might just let you go because if you're not throwing
the thing that they want to eat, I'll come back
behind you and fish it. And if I whack them
there and then I see you in waigh in line,
you go, how do you have twenty one pounds? I go,
I don't know. I was on that bank where you were,
and I whacked them. Then you would start saying, well,
what were you doing or whatever. Like you guys could
have that conversation. The unwritten rule is I'm not going

(29:02):
to cut somebody off to get to my spot. But
if it's in a tournament and the rule says you
got to fish within fifty yards, you got to manage
your professional relationship with the other ant.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Exactly and know whatever decision you make. And this is
not even in fishing, this is in life. Know, whatever
decision you make and that split second is how it's
going to affect on down the road. Because there's a
funny thing about ten tables. They're always turning. Karma's got
a name and she don't play, you know what I mean.
But I man, I do. I think there's some guys
out there that, like I've always prided myself on, regardless

(29:35):
of the situation or the outcome, I can lay my
head down at night and know and I've made mistakes,
I've done stupid crap. I mean, I'm a freaking red
Nate from Alabama. I'm not the smartest guy in the world.
But like I try and do the right thing. I
can lay my head down and I know I did
it the right way. But I think there's some guys
that that just could like it never happened.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
But you know, this.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Also popped up a lot in MLF. And I don't
know if you because you're in the bass world, I
know you hear about this stuff. I don't know how
much you watch this stuff. But Jordan Lee was down
in Florida and he was on a frog bite and
he was absolutely destroying him. I mean, twenty five thirty
pounds a day. And all of a sudden, I think
it was Dylan Hayes pulled up and you know, they
had a little on the water dispute. He said, Man,

(30:17):
if you were here and you were throwing a frog,
you would have had thirty pounds a day, but you weren't.
So I have a chance to win this tournament. Just
give me a way. And finally Dylan was like, do
you care if I go down there? And he was like,
that's fine. Pirting somebody's spot in a tournament has happened,
I think a little more. It's become a little more vocal,
a little more well known in MLF. It happened in

(30:38):
Redcrest between michael'neil and Adrian Avina, and it happened in
this most recent tournament. The heavy hitters, but they do
things differently, like they're a group A group B thing,
so group as on the water, group B isn't and
then it flips. So how do you protect against stealing

(30:59):
holes when you're not on the water at the same time.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Well, I think one problem that MLF has is when
they have those two different days that somebody's on. Will
you know they've got all the blog coverage, the photos
and all this, And it goes back to that honor
system between the anglers, like, yeah, the rule is you
can't go look at the website or look at pictures
or videos or watch live all day. But I mean

(31:24):
you how you can see that? Who can? Who can?
How can you police that? It's a It's a honored thing, dude.
And and I think that's kind of what Jordan was
getting at, because I respect Jordan with with everything. I
think he's one. I think he is the best fisherman
on the planet. It's not even close. And instinctly wise,
that was.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Going to be my next question. All the professional fishermen
that are out there right now, give me your Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's not even close. There's one dude on the he's
on he's on his own mountain. He's on Mount Lee
and then Mount Rushmore, Mount Rushmore over here. Uh. I
mean it depends on if you go by success, I
mean I guess it would be success. I mean it's

(32:07):
hard to argue the fact of Wheeler because the dude
does work hard, he catches fish, he puts them in
the boat like Nell does.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
The same thing works hard ketches fish when.

Speaker 3 (32:16):
Their team, they've learned to work together, and it's it's
become very apparent that they're working together. I don't care
what anybody says. They can call me if they want to.
They're working together, not not not breaking the rules or anything.
They've learned how to manage it on a lake and
both of them have a chance to win.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Is Pallinick in the conversation for the Elite Guys, Pawnick's number.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
Pawnick is right there with Jordan. You can't do his
name that he's named the prodigy for a reason, Okay,
And and Jordan and Brandon do it the exact right way.
If you were going to write a book how to
be a professional angler, the first two names in the
book would be Jordan and Brandon.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
So are we going to say your mount rushmore professional
bass fishermen that are active right now? Jordan, Lee, Brandon, Pallinick,
Wheeler and Connell.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
From a success point wise, yes, But I don't think
that two of them deserve to be with the other two.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
All right.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
I don't disagree with those names.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
No, they're I mean, but dude, you got like Alton
Junior's been catching the craft out of them. I mean
all of our guys, like Dude, Christie and Hackney and
like you, I mean, dude, I looked up to Christy guys,
they're they're tomless, like Bill Bill's tomless, Danny Brower, timeless.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
But if you look at if you look at AOI
from last year, you look at you're looking at stats,
and you got Trey McKinney, who's leading, who's leading the run? Right,
they could easily say, well, he hasn't had enough time.
I totally understand that, and I gotta put him out
of Mount Rushmore because to me, the Mount Rushmore is
the best of the best in the fact that they're going.

(33:44):
If Van Dam was still a pro angler.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Van Dam's on his own, but that's he just finished.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
If we were looking at guys who have fished and
you were putting him on there, Rick Kluon would have
to be on there. Yes, even though he's a current
angler right now, he hasn't had the success the last.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Oh my god, many seventy six years old. But that's
I'll be dead but I'm fifty six, like if I
won't even be here, So like, yeah, man, for sure.
Reality is there are really good anglers. And what I
would love to see is at the end of the
year you have the best of the MLF go up
against the best of bass top ten, top ten, dead
to head, that determines that determines your world ranking.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, for bass fishing.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
I can tell you one thing. I think if you
did that, you would have one side that would be
all for it and one that didn't really want to
go there because they gonna get exposed.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
We'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
It's lines and Times. I'm Spencer, that's West Logan