What Would Slick Johnson Do?

Slick Johnson sits down with Spencer Graves. They talk about proposed slot limits, the good, the bad, the ugly of tournament fishing and what "scopers" do better that makes them more efficient.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm really excited about today's episode. My buddy Slick Johnson
is going to be joining me. He's been known on
social media is the guy who really puts out everything
that's happening in fishing, the good, the bad, the ugly,
and we're talking about tournament and professional fishing. On top
of that, we talk about a lot of the regulations
that have been proposed in the state of Alabama because

(00:22):
that's where Slick lives. He fishes these lakes all the time.
So what we plan on getting into is the good,
the bad, the ugly of professional tournament fishing. We want
to talk about some of the regulations that have been
put out there and also live scope along with up
and coming anglers. What really makes high school fishing and
college fishermen different than what we all knew. So Sleck, first,

(00:47):
I want to talk about the Coosa River and the
proposed slot limit. Do you think anything's actually going to happen.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think that we'll end up going to a minilmo
probably fifteen inches, maybe even sixteen inches. But what's crazy
is that, like I just left Mobile and I was
at something similar for the saltwater people, they do something
very similar. The state the Marine Resources people come in
and they talk like it's a recommendation, but we want

(01:15):
to hear from you guys. We want to get uston. Yeah,
and so the first guy that spoke, he gives they're
talking about flounder, redfish, sharks, commercial netting, triple tail, you
name it. They're talking about all these fish and they're saying,
you know, we're trying to make these we're making these
recommendations of what we should do. And they got all

(01:37):
these charts, but it's kind of like the one for
the Coaser River. The data was incomplete. They took a
very small sample and that and so how do you
get the data? And that's my issue with the whole
Coast of River thing was you came and you I
believe in science, but you came and took such a

(02:00):
small sample from the worst lake of six and then
we want to say this is what you need. And
so listen, I get it with us, some of us
old rednecks throw a bunch of fish in there, and
I don't fix it. I get it. I get it
because I used to be that guy. I used to

(02:21):
be that guy that said, why don't we just put
one hundred thousand f ones. But then when you know,
these bologists have taught us that, hey, you gotta have
the habitat. And here's the other thing. If they go
throw one hundred f ones in there, we're just going
to deplanish that racesource as fast as we call.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
That's why my main conversation that I think I always
target on is the conservation side. Like conservation, when people
hear that, they think, well, we need to save the animals.
It's not saving the animals that you can't properly go
through and call and take some out and do this.
You have to get give animals an opportunity to thrive

(03:02):
in the area that they're in. And it's no different
than I've heard people say, well what about they start
putting antler restrictions out there, And antler restrictions are actually
kind of good when it comes to deer hunting if
you want to go after bigger deer, but if you
want to have better deer, bigger deer populations, and maybe
not even the populations, but you just want to have
a healthier deer, you have to supply them with stuff

(03:25):
that makes them healthier, and food. Habitat is everything. Obviously,
Genetics plays a part. That's the same thing with fish, food, habitat,
and genetics, that all plays a part, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
And I've read the things that this same biologists rode
about Texas saying it's a marketing ploy But then okay,
Texas has a better habitat for the fish. I don't
think there's anywhere in Texas that can compare to light
Gunersfield right.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now as far as like the size, the bags, the fish.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Quality, and what we're learning because of Liavscope has taught us.
And I was on the phone with Jordan right before
I came in here. Jordan Lee and we were talking
and we were like, do you think the fish have
always been here? We we didn't know. And so when
you go out there right now and people see these
weights and it looks incredible, and it is okay, But

(04:22):
for these guys that are catching thirty four pounds, look,
I've caught twenty eight to thirty pounds every day I've
been to guns I've been over there eight times in
the last two weeks. But Hayden Marvin and Tucker Smith
are catching thirty five pounds, Brody Robinson's catching thirty three,
Bryce Kissler's catching thirty three, so.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
And of course everybody is just going to go with
the easy thing. Oh they're just scoping. But they're doing
something a little different than everybody else.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
It's different, and let me tell you something, you've got
to be really, really good at it. But what I
have realized is that there are so many six to
eight pounders in that lake. It's incredible. I had no idea. Now,
on the conservation side of it, are we what are
we doing to the resource by catching these Fish's never

(05:09):
been caught before this time of year. This is the
time that they went and fed up, and they weren't disturbed,
They had no stress. When you look at the tails
on these fish and they're holding them up, they're blood red.
They look like they've been on bed. And I had
a biologist tell me. He said, they're stressed out because
they're putting them in the live well. And everybody thinks

(05:30):
that When I go out talking about catchway release, they say, oh,
it's because of fishing Chaos and that sort of thing.
And I'm like, okay, I don't get paid a penny
by fishing chaos. I hooked up with Fishing Chaos four
years ago because they did have the technology to do
Catchway Release. You know, I listened to your podcast with
K and I heard K say, you know, one of

(05:53):
the things was about cost. We can't do it because
of the cost. Her next sentence was, we spent over
one hundred thousand dollars. So ating your lias, this is
about us, This is about us changing the way we
think reprogramming. Yes, and look, weigh ins are about ego,

(06:15):
and it always has been. It's for all of us.

Speaker 1 (06:18):
But there's no doubt because I agree with you on
walking up and having two big fish like you want
to show them off. There is no doubt. And I
bet Jordan would say the same thing. You go to
a bass Master Classic. The excitement that you see in
a bass Master Classic when somebody holds up giant fish.
You sit there and you go, dude, that's that's huge.
You go to Red Crest, you already know who the

(06:39):
winner is by the time they get to the past floor.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
That was one of Jordan's reasons for coming back.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
I mean, and that, but that does mean something in
the world to make a sport interesting and entertaining.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Absolutely, But at the same time, you know, is it
really the fish holding up that we're all excited about
because I love watching that truck come driving into the
Classic and that guy getting out, and yes, we want
to see him hold up fish, But why can't we
bring one? Why can't we bring two? And you know,
one of Jordan's things was we talked about it one day,

(07:11):
you know, in depth. Why are you wanting to go
back so bad? Because on it? I mean, honestly, he
made more money at thean my left. Why are you
wanting to come back? And well, I miss the fans,
I miss you know, meeting people at the way in
and whatnot. But let's just be realistic about it. Okay,
that way in costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to

(07:31):
have when you're there for four days. Sure we could
be putting that money back into pay it. And the
whole fishing tournament thing is is screwed up anyway, because
the way we've always had it is you put money in,
you go catch five, and you come show them off
and oh, by the way, you're gonna be fishing for
nine hours. And that's not exciting for people to watch

(07:52):
dollan hours of fishing.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
But that same argument is made when it comes to
like a golf tournament a golf tournament. You don't want
to watch somebody play eighteen whole golf. You have to
go around. You got to find the interest in the
action when it's happening. In most golf tournaments, they only
come down to the last couple holes. So, you know,
do you just show the last three holes of a
tournament on the last day.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
No.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
They obviously put it out there because they want advertisers
to see there's eyes on this, this is how we
can make money. That's the same thing with the bass
tournaments when they have the four day Classic, they have
it there because they want their advertisers to be able
to maximize the money that they spent to be in
front of people. So if we did away with that,
you know, you would potentially the organizations would lose some

(08:35):
advertising dollars, might not lose the advertiser, but they might
not make the money that they do.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Who do you think makes more moneytising from advertising?

Speaker 1 (08:45):
I would probably say MLF and the And the big
reason is they have a lot of different fingers to
what they do. You know, they do the team tournament,
but then they have you know, the BPT and then
they've got the tackle warehouse and all these things are
really televised or at least done well online.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
If you're gonna see the Bass Pro Tour, you've gotta
go to your phone. You've gotta go online. Therefore, you
gotta see their sponsors. And you know, I was really
hard on boy duck It for a long time after
if okay, boy duck It and I talk occasionally, and
I was really hard on him, but it was about

(09:25):
things that was going on within the organization. I'm the
biggest MLF fan and always have been. I think that
boy duck It and Gary Klein did the greatest thing
it's ever been done in bass fishing as far as
conservation goes. When they went to catchwave release. Took a
lot of balls to do that, sure, and that's the
greatest thing that's ever been done because we did it
at the top level. I'm doing one at Gunnersville this

(09:49):
next Sunday Catchway release. It's all studs fishing it. Bubba
gave us the skills, or they didn't give them to
us gto purchased them, but they gave us a really
good price. And what we're trying to do there is
go to instead of that Tuesday night or guys bringing
in you know, five six pounders is we're going to

(10:12):
go to catchway release. And you know, I heard it
the other day in your podcast with Kay where she said,
you know, we can't have an observer on every boat.
Do we have one now? Because you can't tell me
they don't cheat? Now, you know, if people want it.
Are not saying people on ABT, but I'm saying people
in tournaments. If people want to cheat, they're going to cheat.

(10:34):
And quite the true thing, and we hate changes past fishermen,
but the honest and the facts are And we've got
a video that's coming out in the next two weeks
that we do with fishing chaos. If you watch my
son in a way and I don't post a lot
of videos about my kid, but if you watch the
ones from his way in, he rolls that bag up,

(10:56):
he soaks it till the last second, and he takes
off running to the scales and gets it up there. Hey,
probably gets six or right ounces more in every turn.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, he doesn't want the water to come off.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
So when you're now, because of technology we have with
catchway release, weighing them in the boat is way more
accurate they do.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
You know, what tim over at Hammond's Fishing in the
near so they've been doing this for a while. They
were actually the first ones that that I saw, and
they did on the scale that they did where if
you want to get into their digital tournament, you show
up to Hammond's the tackle shop. They have eighty scales
and they're all set scales. They're all the same exact

(11:37):
type of scale. They're all set up the same exact way,
and you have to go out and you have to
record with your phone and it can't have any chops
or any edits. It's got to show you holding the fish,
clipping the fish, getting the the read out of the weight,
bringing the fish over to the side of the boat,
unclipping it, and letting the fish walk in while everything
is in frame. And I do say that when k

(11:58):
brought up to me, she was like, well, look, I
got a lot of older guys that fish abt they
might not be interested in doing it. I don't disagree
with her.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
I think there's.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Plenty of people that are going to be like, oh,
I'm not interested in doing that. The reality is connectivity
is still going to be the hardest part for a
lot of tournament organizations, because you do get in some
backwaters where all of a sudden you're like, we don't
have connections. MLF they had to have those satellite packs
on the back of their boats in order to have
some sort of connection. So that's the only downfall that

(12:28):
I see to it. But after doing several digital tournaments,
it just seems like everything's going to go there and
people will have to adapt. But again, the people that
will have to adapt are really guys my age, your age.
The younger kids, they already understand the technology stuff that's
going to be quick for them to do, but some

(12:49):
of the older guys, like in the next ten years,
they can either get on it or they don't have to.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, and I'll think five years from now, almost every
boat starlink are some version of that.

Speaker 1 (13:04):
Well in all these companies too, the AT and T's,
the Verizons of the world, the t mobiles, they're all
getting better, they're getting I mean, it's it sounds perfect
for a lot of people now with catchway release, but
we also have to wait for a lot of the
technology to continue to get out.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
There and their scales being created that I can't even
can't really talk about right now. But I'll say this
to kind of give you a hint. Our phones have
lasers in them. Yeah, and if I take a picture
of you, I can tell you exactly how long your
arms are, your feet, how tall you are hold nine
yards by the lasers in that phone. And so we're
getting to that point technology wise, to where we are

(13:43):
going to be able to take a picture of a
fish and know how much it weighs and we don't
even have to have the scale.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Five years ago, Gold's Gym rolled out a program to
where you would walk in as a new client of
Gold Gym. They would have you stand in what looked
like a tanning bed, just put up on the side.
It would scan your body, would do a whole three
sixty and it would show you body fat content, It
would show you how tall you are, how much you weigh.
It broke everything down. That was the early days. Now,

(14:11):
I mean you see that technology every single day when
you go to the airport. I mean, we have it.
It's just it's it's got to get better. It's easier
to adopt it now and watch it continue to get better.
Because if you have one of the new Bubba scales,
you can already have a tournament with what five to
ten of your friends or whatever.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And it's listen, it's getting to the point and I
can say this, The BFLS will have that pretty soon.
I mean it's coming all the way down to that level.
So people are gonna get used to it. It's gonna

(14:51):
be a thing. I mean, that's one of Boyd's big
things is to get it. He wants just catch away
release at to be a fil level and it kind
of solves those problems of doing a slot lambit. You know.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
The problem then will be how many fish do we
actually as anglers, not just tournament anglers, as anglers, do
we need to take out of the lakes every every year?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
And and the argument has always been from the conservation
people that we're not taking enough out right. And so
that's why when.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Race got started Catchway and or when he started catching release,
everybody was like, what you can't do that you talking about?
Like they were mad at him. Yeah, they were yelling
at him like you have to put those fish in
somebody's bag and take those things out of here, and.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
We need a okay. Bass stands for Bass Angler Sportsman Society.
When it started, we had an organization that was there
for conservation, an organization that fought with us, fought for
us with the conservation people, or you know the states
in the saltwater world, you have CCA Conservation of America.

(16:01):
There's a chapter in most of the coastal states and
they go directly to the Marines resources people and says, hey,
this is what we want, this is what we need,
this is what our anglers are fighting for, and whatnot,
and you kind of have a go between. We don't
have that in the BASS world anymore. We did. That's
what BASS started as. Now Bass is a business that

(16:24):
basically helps a printing company, is what BASS is.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Therefore, because of the ownership, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Not you know, that's what BASS is. Therefore, it's not
We're not conservationists anymore. To so to speaker, we don't
have a voice for the angler. Now, it's all about
a business.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
I wonder if Chase Anderson and the guys over there
would actually entertain a conversation about having that as a
thread of what their model is. Because in hunting you
have Safari Club International SCI where they're the only hunting
group that has actual full time attorneys that fight state governments,
federal governments, international governments to protect hunters and hunting rights.

(17:06):
And I reached out to a couple of them after
the first conversation about the Coosa River slot lit it
came up and I said to them, I go, who
would be a good resource And they were like, Bass
would probably be the best one. But you're right, they
don't really activate that arm or even focus on that
as much as it probably was set up to be.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Kay has one of the biggest voices probably for us
as far as Alabama. You know, she's the one that
has the connections to contacts, to talk to people. And
you know, you don't look. Lee Holmes was in here, Ley,
I tell you right now, he's not the one you
want to be. You don't need that person that's you know,

(17:48):
that gets so emotional about it and I lovely, but
you know his passionate, passionate And you know I called
him one day because we got at the talking and
when I listened to your podcast with them, I called
him and I chewed him out. I was okay, I said,

(18:09):
you know what you sounded like? He said what I said,
somebody that will not give an inch and just it's
your way or no way, and I said, and what
are you doing with your tournament? How are you you know?
And so he was like, Okay, you're right, You're right,
I do need to I probably, you know, I'm willing
to compromise. I said, it didn't sound like it, But

(18:29):
it didn't sound like it. He came on my live
that night and man, he he was fired up. And
you know, we have to be able to compromise because
at the end of the day, we as fishermen don't
know what's best. We don't and we always want to
We always want to pick what helps us the most.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Sure. That's why the conversations from what we've heard from
the opinion of biologists or people at the DCNR is
that they feel like people who argue against this are
only doing it for selfish reason. There's plenty of things
that all of us do that are selfish reasons. We
all want to go out and fish in tournaments. We
all want to have an opportunity to not just get

(19:07):
a check, but we want to win a tournament. I mean,
who doesn't want to take home a prize of one
hundred thousand dollars. Are there things that some of these
major tournaments need to do, like MLF and BASS and
increase the payouts. Yes. Are there things that they're trying
to do to make it seem like they're making the
organizations better. Yes? Are they backtracking or they throw something

(19:28):
out there and then they change their mind the next
two days. Yes, you can't do that. Like the pr
side to me is like you have to do something,
stick with it, and then slowly phase it out if
it didn't work. Yeah, it's interesting the bass world now
because it is it's kind of at a head, Like
we all kind of knew that it was going to

(19:48):
go to catchway release, It just might be here a
little faster than people wanted it to be.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, because if you think, I mean all over the
country now, especially and live scout Listen, I'm not four
against lof scope. I could care less you have eighty
four translucers or you ban it, I don't care. But
live scopes made it a lot more efficient for catching
fish and catching bigger bags, and I think that's going

(20:16):
to have effect on an effect on lakes all over
the country.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Look, you and I went fishing on Gunnersville. You pulled
up to a point, you said, there's one right there
on the bottom and you threw a little crankbait out there,
and I watched it go right over top of his back.
He turned and you, I mean the live scope. You're
able to tell what that fish is doing, how they react,
whether or not they're in a mood to chase, if
that's the right bait. Efficiency is key with everything. People

(20:41):
that think you have live scope on your boat and
you can just go out and catch every fish, oh
sadly mistaken. Oh God, you get to see an inside look.
You get to peek inside their bedroom to know what
they're doing. It's a look that nobody in fishing's ever
seen until it came out.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
I'll give you an example of something that's happened over
the last as twelve days at Gunnersfield. And some of
the studs that get mad at me for telling secrets
or whatever, but whatever. Those fish that everybody was catching
was typically no more than four feet under the water surface.

(21:17):
They were staying up hiding a water column. The baits
out in the middle of the river, middle of the creeks,
and we call them floaters. The floaters are easy to catch.
Now you get me one down there, it's twenty two
foot deep.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
I ain't throwing at it, hugging the bottom.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah, you give me one of fourteen foot deep. I'm
not throwing at it. We're lazy when it comes to that,
because we know that if I troll through these bait
balls enough, I'm going to find five six pound floaters. Well,
we had that big coal front black Friday. Black Fridays,
when they caught the big bags Saturday, everything changed. All

(21:57):
the bait had been up in eight to ten foot
of water, and those big bass would sit over the
top of them, and all the bait went to the bottom.
And so now the bass now the only floaters changed,
and the only floaters up there are the ones that
hadn't figured it out yet. Yeah, you know, but that
that brought the other thing that it taught me, and

(22:20):
so that you remember when album rig got so good.
You remember when it came out and it was just crazy. Sure,
so I think I figured out why it was good
because of lascope. I watched this. Those bass don't typically
the little bass will go in a bait ball and
you'll see it a big hole in it, and they're
eating in the baitball. The giants are sitting up there

(22:42):
waiting and what they're waiting for its five or six
fish shad to get spooked by those little ones, and
then they go grab those five or six And it
hit me. I was like, that was just the a
rig was natural because the bait balls up for protection.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
You have fifty thousand threadfin in one ball, But then
you see this one that's got six and you throw
it out on the edge, and all of a sudden
you get picked up.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Because for you and I, common sense would say, why
don't they just go through there with their mouth open
and get a big ring like a whale. Yeah, it's
not safe. That's not the way nature intended it. And
so those bigger bass set out away from the bait ball,
they wait for five or six shed to get spooked
and they go get them. The big bass are not

(23:32):
in there.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
But that's that's the same argument that a lot of
guys have with brush piles. You throw in a brush pile,
you catch one one and a half or another one
and a half or another one to have her. Guys
will quit and they'll go that's all that's here. You're
casting the same exact spot. If you start to pick
off the edges, maybe go out a couple feet all
of a sudden, you're not getting nearly as many bites,

(23:55):
but two to one and a halfs doesn't match a five.
Scope shows us now the attitude that I feel like
a lot of guys have with live scope, and it's
funny like that argument for a lot of guys, whether
or not it's good or bad died pretty quickly when
that slot let Me came out. People were like, oh, well,
this is where I'm going to focus my anger with
live scope. If you can read the temperament of what

(24:18):
a bass is doing. Because you talked about Black Friday,
I was on Logan Martin. You caught him on Logan Martin.
I mean it was a catching day, but the next
day you go out there, that cold front kind of
settled in. Most guys know after a cold front two
to three days is what you want that to kind
of stabilize back to normal. You couldn't catch them, No,
it was almost impossible to get a good one on

(24:38):
the line.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Well, let me ask you this. Do you know of
anybody that's a stud or very efficient with that's ever
said we.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Need to no, no, and listen.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
I'll call him out. I don't mind calling him out.
Matt Hair I speak to Matt hair and almost every day. Okay,
Matt hates Livescote. Matt has some great points about what
Livescape's doing to the lakes or could be possibly doing
to the lakes, but there's been a lot of energy
fussing about when you better just go out there and

(25:16):
figure out how to do it. And it's not what
the argument that drives me crazy and not to get
in a big Livescope debate, but is when I hear
these guys think that you're just going and dropping the
troll motor wherever and randomly catching thirty pounds, that is
not the case. You still have to know where, you

(25:40):
still have to be able to attract that fish and
being Milliken said it one time and I got mad
when he said it. Now it's it's one of the
truest things ever. At the Classic last year he made
a comment about he guess he should have just went
randomly through it the bank, blindly hoping to catch a
fish with a chatter bait. I thought that wasn't that

(26:03):
wasn't cool to say. Now you're saying that the guys
that are leading and just got lucky. But then he
clarified what he was talking about. He said, when I'm fishing,
he said, I know what I'm throwing at, and I'm
having to figure out how to make that bite that
fish go to my bait. I know exactly what I'm doing,

(26:26):
and I have to make the right presentation at the
right time to get that fistory act. He said. What
I was saying was these guys are just randomly going
and throwing blind and hoping ones there in bites. Now,
what he doesn't understand is that they're not just randomly

(26:46):
throwing there. You know, they're throwing somewhere that they're supposed
to be. And I think that's the disconnect between our
generation and the young generation. We get mad because they
didn't have to figure it out. We had to know
why the fish sure there, and they don't have to know.
And that was the one thing I always told like
growing up, you never catch fish by accident. Figure out

(27:08):
why you called that fish because there's a reason. And
I never would buy him a sixty two transition because
I didn't want him to see three or four hundred
feet because then I was afraid he would just go
out and scan. But the older generation, I feel like
the disconnect there is. Hey, we had to figure all
that out and y'all got a cheat code, but the

(27:32):
older generation had to cheat code first in the elite.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
But here's the thing. You want live scoopers involved in fishing.
And the reason is because when you can go out
and you can actually catch consistently five to ten to
fifteen to twenty bass a day, whether they're good fish
or not fish, or they're not the ones that are
going to win you a tournament, but you're catching, especially
at a young age, we want kids catching. We want
them to know what it feels like to get a

(27:57):
tug on the line that keeps their interest in it.
The reason why we really want live scopers is who's
more dedicated to putting out habitat on a regular basis.
Is that the guys that are beating the bank in
less than four feet, No, it's the guys who are
looking for a new target area in maybe twenty food
of water. So what do they do. They put out

(28:18):
brush piles. They figure out what brush piles are best.
And sure you get the argument of like somebody's on
my brush pile. We saw that at you falla Let's
be real once it goes in the water. You have
no ownership of that. If I go by my side
scan and I see it all of a sudden, I
can market and I can go back and I can
fish it. Whether it's quote unquote yours or not. The
reality is every bit of it is good for the sport.

(28:41):
The impact that I could agree with Matt Heron and
some of these guys on is will it put more
stress on fish? Could it be worse for fish in
the populations in the future. And there's a chance that
we could say yes. But again, as tournament fishermen, we
haven't done what biologists and conservationists want us to do,
which is take some of those fish out. Remember the

(29:02):
tournament I think it was last year. It was part
of MLF and it was in Mississippi. I think guys
were catching fish, they were bringing them over to the tube,
they were putting it in, and then they didn't even
put them in the tube. They were just putting them
in dudes' bags in coolers, and there were people that
were like, what is this look that actually kind of
needed to happen. I was upset when I first saw it.

(29:22):
I was like, you can't, like, you can't do that.
The sportsman side of me was like, actually, you really
shouldn't do that because they're not catching the fish as
their limit. That's just us giving them away. I've seen
guys in Georgia who will go out to Lake Lanier,
They'll catch fish and then they'll sell them. I'm like,
I'm pretty sure you can't do that. But we have
to take some of these fish out. And that's why

(29:44):
when I saw the mortality rate that everybody was complaining about.
The complaint that they have about the mortality rate is
that the dead fish are back in the water.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, and so at that point, what does it matter
if you give them somebody? But here's what I want
to know, is that mortality rate accurate? How do we
know it's accurate?

Speaker 1 (30:01):
And how do we know it came from tournament fishing?
Because the kill that happened on Lay Lake in the
north part of the river, where they weren't running water
for three or four weeks, that kill rate was worse
than any tournament that they had down there, and all
those fish go to spoil. But we need to remember
that there are animals that eat those fish, and even

(30:23):
if they decompose and they go back into the water,
there's biomechanisms and organisms that are in the water that
also feed on those fish. So it's really not wasting.
It's wasting if we just drive down the road and
knock them out, and then we shoe off all the
birds that come over to get them.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Well. And you know, I've called people out high school organizations,
different organizations.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
I think a change has to happen in high school though.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
When they've had fish kells. And this is one thing
I want people to understand. I am very diligent when
it comes to a fish kill, and people see these
things that I post. I don't post ninety nine point
and I'm saying stuff get sent to me. But if
I get a fish kill, I'm gonna go check it out.
I'm gonna find out what they were doing with their tanks.

(31:08):
I'm gonna find out that the oxygen I'm gonna find
I'm gonna find out everything before I post anything. And
if I post something on there about a fish kill,
those people did a shitty job. The ABT had one
this year over at Town Creek. Nobody ever heard me
post that. I got hundreds of pictures from that. People
sending me videos mad because I wouldn't talk about it. Oh,

(31:31):
you just won't post it because o Kay. Let me
and Kay hate each other right now? Okay, so I
ain't got no reason not about it, all right. So
but I try to get these terminent organizations to just
do right, just do better. We're always gonna have fish kills.
That's gonna happen, and sometimes you can't help it. Sometimes

(31:54):
you do everything you can and you just can't help it.
Something happens.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
The high school thing, though, is interesting because that's where
I think a little bit of control needs to happen.
I think we need to limit the amount of boats
that go in. I think it needs to be treated
like high school football, where you're trying to make a team,
or if you're on a team. I remember playing golf
in high school, and if we were going to be
in a tournament, we had to qualify amongst our team

(32:21):
in order to qualify for that tournament.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
That's the best thing I've heard.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I think that that's obviously a key that we should do.
Going to three fish, I've heard arguments from people where
they say three fishesn't enough to really make a big difference.
But I also look at the quality in the fishermen
that you have in high school. And this is not
a knock. This is simply time on the water and
the ability to do it. You have a kid like

(32:45):
Fisher and Aya who's out there all the time. Your
son Late, he's out on the water all the time.
These kids have the ability to go out on the water,
they put the time in. There's an interest there. They
have that level. There's other kids where they don't have
that opportunity, but they don't want to fishing tournaments. We
shouldn't discourage them from fishing, but we should also make
it a place where it's a it's learning over winning

(33:08):
for sure. At the high school level, yes, because your
kid's going out he's learned every day. Fisher's learned every day.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
There was no reason and and people that take this
as me saying it Ergont and I don't mean it
that way. My son has no benefit to fish in
a high school tournament because if he goes and loses
and has a bad day. He didn't have a good
day at Logan Martin a couple of weeks ago on
high scho tournament. What happened? What what's wrong? We because

(33:36):
I didn't win? And when we pulled up and we
told people how much weight they had. Everybody's like, oh,
he's got a big bag. He's lying, he's lying, and
you know it's it's one of those things where Lake
does get to fish every day. He fishes five days
a week minimum. There's a lot of kids at that
level Fisher when when Fisher was at that level, and

(33:58):
man had no business fishing against the host kids because
they they were gonna catch them every single time. However,
Fisher and I, as good as he is, would go
and have a tenth place finish and then people say, oh,
well he ain't that good.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Then, Uh no, yeah, I disagree with the whole you know,
saying that to a kid because he didn't have a
great day.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Here's what we started doing when Lake was in ninth grade,
starting eighth. His eighth and ninth grade year, he won
more tournaments those two years than he ever had. I quit.
I was not gonna go fish Asa BFA anymore. I
wasn't fishing fast Nation, I'm not fishing in Alabama. We're
gonna go fish the opens. Because what it became was

(34:46):
let's go and beat our chest fishing on our home lake.
Like people say home Lake Look Lakes Home Lakes, Pickwick
Lake's Home, Lake's Wheeler, Gunnersville, Smith Lake because he fishes
them so much. So I said, hey, if I'm gonna
teach my kid about fishing and he's going to go

(35:06):
to the next level, we need to go instead of
fishing the Bass Nation tournament on Whealer Lake today, Let's
go to harsh Chain and fish the Bass Master Open.
Let's go to Sam Rayburn and fish the Bass Master Open.
Let's go fish the MLF. And so we started traveling
all over. Because there's what you said about people qualifying

(35:27):
within the school, best thing I've ever heard, because I've
been in it and I've seen it. And if I
got say, I got twelve teams right on my high
school team. Three of them are good fisher three teams
are good fishermen. They could do well. Most of the time.

(35:49):
I would have kids show up without rod and reels.
I had a kid when we went to Lake Martin.
I told everybody to put a foot braid with a
floor carbon leader. This kid comes with twenty pounds fluorescent mono,
you know. And so that was the best thing I
had heard. To limit the numbers these high schools can

(36:12):
go and have in house tournaments, or.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Heck, you can have county.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
You can have in the county and then take the
top twelve and then you get to go to the tournament.
But we tried to do that when I was at
West Morgan, when I actually was with the high school team,
we would do in house tournaments and there was kids
that probably had no business fishing a tournament at all.

(36:38):
They just weren't to that level yet. And so had
you're trying to get dads that's never fished before, never
been in a boat to be your boat captain. Our
second high school tournament boat captain fell out, and so
one of the dads told me he could boat captain,
so I let him take my boat. My lower unit

(37:01):
went out that day because he tried to take off
and fish all day with the motor trim dup. He
didn't know the trim now and he had the kids
laying on the front of the boat and he was
doing this right here, and he hits away. My lower
unit goes out know any better. So it's a safety
issue when you've got people that don't have the experience
on the water and you get that many boats. And

(37:23):
when I heard you say that the other day, I thought,
oh my gosh, that is the best thing that could
possibly happen.

Speaker 1 (37:28):
But here's the other thing, Like, no kid wants to
go out there and get their breakes beaten off every
single time that they're on the water. Like it's there
is a level in learning through losing. And that's something
that's gone away in the generation that a lot of
people have out there right now, is it's okay for

(37:49):
a kid to lose. Like, look at what you were
just saying about Lake and about Fisher, is they go
out they don't win. People are like, what's wrong, Well happened, Well,
you just didn't have the best day. They still finished tenth,
or they finished fifth, or they even finished in the
top fifty. It's just it's a long game. And I
you know when you were talking about how Lake had
to go to different places and learn different lakes. I know,

(38:12):
guys that competed in the opens last year made the
bass Master Elites where people would go up to them
and go, ay, you're only good on this one lake,
and then they go to this other lake they get
good there and they'd be like, ah, you're only good
on lakes with this type of bait. And then they're like, Okay,
they proved themselves. And what's beautiful about is it shuts
the people up.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
They have listened. I took Lake and Fishers to Harris Chain,
Florida together because we wanted them to fish together. I
fuss and complain all the time with the kids. You
always fuss and stuff. I've had them in the boat
twice and you don't say a word. You don't, you don't.

(38:53):
You don't tell them where to go, You don't say
a word. They know where, they know where they're going,
they know what they're doing, and they know During the tournament.
Ryan took them at Gunsville. I took them to Florida.
At Florida, they should have had the biggest high school
bag ever. They had a really bad day losing them.
But they finished fourth in this big tournament hairs Chained

(39:14):
with half a day practice. It was the most proud
I had ever been of them. Too. Now, Fishers weren't
done a lot now and like's one lot of stuff too,
but they finished fourth in that tournament. And dude, me
and Ryan were so happy. That was so incredible because
you practice for three hours and you come tow here
against all these local people and people all across the

(39:37):
country and you did this. Well, then they go to Gunnersville.
I think they were like fourteen fifteen. We did that,
and they go to Gunnersville and they were in a
bass Master Open or an MLF something. There's a couple
of hundred boats. But they got a top five again,
and me and Ryan talked about how awesome it was

(39:57):
to boat captain with them too, because it's fun when
when you got a fourteen and fifteen year old making
those decisions that like professional anglers are making, you're going,
oh my gosh, and you just shut up. You don't
you don't say anything, and you're listening to them.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
You know, think there's competition between the two of them.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I think there is now oh yeah, now, oh gosh, listen.
That's why they only fish two tournaments to get it.

Speaker 1 (40:26):
But that's the point. The point is in high school
you're trying to develop not only your style. You know,
your your boys have Lake has the confidence, fisher has
the confidence that's instilled by you, that's instilled by Ryan.
But when they go to a place and they're making
decisions that even you, somebody who is an accomplished fisherman
in your own right, you're probably sitting there going damn.

(40:47):
I didn't even I wouldn't even thought of that.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Yeah, I used to with Lake. I used to want
to make my decisions, and the bad thing was when
mine didn't pan out, it was really bad. Oh yeah,
And then I felt bad because look, I've cost him
some turn. I cost him the one at Logan Martin
it was one hundred percent. I was the fight of
where we were starting, at what we were doing, and

(41:12):
we he said where we wanted to start, we start there.
He caught three and ten minutes, he had he had
what he wihed in in ten minutes. And he keeps going.
He's catching them and we just we keep they're not calling,
and I'm like, dude, we need to leave. He turns
around and looks at me, and he said, an old
man once told me you don't leave fish to find fish.

(41:34):
So I just sat back, all right, and I'm like, hey, dude,
we gotta go. We got and I made him leave
and it was a bad decision. And so yeah, they
they have a totally different mindset because they've learned things
with Livescope and we're setting our ways and they have
their own idea. Look, I didn't fish with Lake for

(41:55):
a year. I probably didn't fish with Lake five times
he went he wouldn't let me get.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
But our hope with any one of these kids is
that they'll become the age that we are. And for
some guys that get set in their ways, the hope
is they won't be like that. They're always good. They'll
get set in there with they will they'll be the
same age that we are when they are, and they'll
be like, well, are these new lot of kids. I mean,
we haven't even touched on this, but I'll be really impressed.

(42:23):
And I don't think anything is not going to have it.
I believe this will happen for sure. I can't wait
to see what the forward facing sonar is going to
be in fifteen years.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Oh my gosh, wait till you say what it's going
to be Monday.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
That's my point. My point is the stuff that's rolling
out I.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Think is coming out Monday. I don't know what day
it's coming out.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
But twelve nine.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
But that's my point is, Like everybody can argue, oh
I don't like ford facing sonar, Just wait, Like technology
slows down for no one, So guys either need to
start understanding it and get into it, because I'll tell
you what, it's a lot easier to understand it now
than it might be if you're trying to get into
it ten years from now.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And you take I still think that it's going to
come back. The fishing knowledge is going to help you more.
But if you have that fishing knowledge plus the forward
facings on our technology, and Fisher is a prime example,
I cannot stand and I and I defend him. Oh,
I can't stand it when people talk about Fisher just

(43:28):
being a lifecover, okay, because I know how he catches
his fish. Every time he catches one, right, if he
has a tournament. We talked, I talked to Ryan. I
know how he caught him. I know those decisions he's making,
and the dud the dude would still catch him, and
so would Trey McKinney, So would all these guys.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Now, Oh, the most impressive thing that Trey did was
I think it was Lake Fork, Yeah, where he chased
down that one that stole his jerk bake and he
caught it and got his jerk bake back. Like if
you can't realize is that proficiency with the technology matters
over any bait that you throw exactly because for him
to be able to go, no, that's the fish, that's
the fish follow it sees the body do something. It's

(44:12):
set with three sets of trouble hooks in its body,
and he's like, it'll still eat this and he gets
it back. That to me was like, Okay, this guy's legit.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah, and I won't be the first fit.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
He made some bonehead moves while he was on the first.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Year and he would not have dominated without four faces correct,
I mean the.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
First But he's still a good fisherman.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
The problem is all of y'all have it, so it's
it's allowed, and so he's making the most of it.
And most of these guys that are arguing about it,
they had it before everybody else and you could have
learned it. And so I did a video after he

(44:54):
won l Ford about because people were bashing in livescob
stop taking, stop diminishing their credibility, give them credit for
what they've done. Until there's no forward face of sonar,
we can't say that they wouldn't catch them without it
because we don't know well.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
And for guys to say well, Ford facing sonar just
shows that we're catching fish that haven't been caught that.
I don't think that's true. I think every fish that's
in a body of water has been caught at least
once in its life because they start out shallow and
then they'll move around. But if you're watching how they move,
those guys still have to beat the bank every once
in a while, and they do and they still catch them.

(45:33):
I mean, I watched Jordan Lee sit there and go,
I got a couple on scope right here, but I
think there's one over here, throws a chatterbait over boom
sets up. I've also watched Brandon Palina go I'm not
using ford facing sonar, but then you see him throw
a crank bait and he immediately looks down at the
screen and catches one, so it's like it's there. I
don't like the sanctimonious stuff where, oh, I don't use this,

(45:56):
it's there, You're gonna use it, especially as clear and
as good as it is. How can you not look
at it yet?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
And it you brought up Jordan I don't like to
brag on him.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
But well, he's a two time bass Master Classic winner.
I know that speaks for itself.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
I can go on and on about stories of things
he's done. But Jordan thinks differently. Jordan has lorance, which
let's let's be honest, it's not as good as garment. No,
and him and Lake went, we did a YouTube thing
and then flipping one day, and then they were gonna
go scope it. And Lake got up there on the
troil mar and goes, this is garbage. I don't know

(46:33):
how scope it is. Well, Jordan came out two weeks ago.
I called him, told him, dude, we didn't you know,
we don't call twenty eight pounds. You need to come
over here as crazy. He gets over there at lunch.
By two thirty he's got thirty two pounds. And Jordan
is just different. And I could tell you stories of

(46:53):
things he's done. And people say, well, what makes Jordan
Lee so good? Dude? He he don't even know. And
this is this is true stories. Okay, we're flipping on wheeler,
we're catching them. We go leave and we're going to
this other place we're going. He goes, did you say

(47:15):
that bird? I said, yeah, what about it? It's over there,
it's over by a bush. I didn't know there was
a bush there. I'm gonna go fish by that bird.
True story. He goes over there and there's like three
bushes and he flips and catches a six pounder. Years ago,
Jordan was young. He may up in eighteen. He was

(47:35):
fishing either a ABA weekend series. There's a multi day tournament.
Jordan has my shell beds at the time. He knew
exactly where I was catching twenty twenty five pounds a day.
He had this tournament one on he had to just
go there and catch them. Day one, they call his
boat number and he puts his trolling mother dad and
goes throwing a papar around the red rap. I'm sitting

(47:57):
over there watching. I'm furious.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Yeah, why aren't you on the shelf?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
So Lee. Anyway, he comes in. He's leading the tournament.
He's got twenty and a half twenty one pounds. I said,
if you wouldn't have wasted time with that popar, I said,
you probably would add twenty five. He goes, oh, I
never cracked my motor today. I said, what. He goes
to use the bathroom that morning, WILLI fly lands on

(48:22):
his chests. Another one lands on his chest. He goes, hmmm,
I might just stop through a Popar, for I go
anywhere he catches twenty one pounds right there by Ingles
Harbor on Popar. Never went to the show beds, never.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Had to multi day tournament. Did he go on day two?

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Didn't go on day two? But you know where? You
know what? You know what else he didn't do? He
do you ever went to where he caught the twenty
one pounds?

Speaker 1 (48:50):
He went to a whole new place, went too.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
You know what, Them barge ties get a lot of
wheel flies on them. I think I'm gonna throw them
barge ties first.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
But he's started fishing when he was like sex right he.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Was, he was a little bit older. His dad didn't fish.
And and this is something people don't know about Jordan Lee.
Katoma was you know, a mile thro the woods from
his house. He would drag that aluminum boat through the
woods to Katoma and drag it back home. And Jordan Lee,
Jordan Lee don't weigh nothing. You know, he was probably

(49:25):
ninety pounds at most, but he was all about it.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
But it's become second nature for him. That's what I'm
saying in you early on and.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
A lot of people think they love fishing. You gotta
you gotta really love it. If you want to do
it for a living. Look, I do it. I I
can go fishing every day if I want to, And
in some days I'm just like that, I don't want
to go. And you know, Jordan is one of them
that he eat, sleeps, freeze it. I don't go fishing
without him calling me and want to know every single detail.

(49:59):
He's not one I want to know to know a
place to go because quite frankly, he's never going to
go to that place. He's going to duplicate.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
It, and yeah, what's happening on the least.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
It makes me mad when we go man, because you
know I'll be on him somewhere and say hey, let's
go do this, and then he wants to go do
something totally different when we get there, and we always
catch them. Always we fished. The best story is I
had won like six tournaments in a row, catching twenty

(50:29):
five twenty six out off shore pre spawn. Jordan's coming
to fish this tournament with me. He shows up in
his boat and he gets there and we're idling out
and he goes, well, are you going to do to day?
I said, if I'm going to do the same thing,
I've been doing for a month. He goes, well, it rain,
not four last. Let's go fish some drains. I want

(50:50):
to go fish some places you ain't been in ten years,
I said, Jordan. By nine o'clock, we're going to catch
twenty five pounds. He said, well, just take me just drains,
lick on fishy seaholes. We pull up to the first
just pipe and he flips in there and he catches
three and a half pounders, puts it in the bottom boat.

(51:12):
I go to put it in the live well. Takes
me fifteen minutes to clean the live well out because
he was fishing in my left sad and usually live wells.
He has had zim cans, spit bottles, water bottles, sandw
trash can. Yeah. So I get it done and he's done,
flipped another one. In long story short, we went and
fish places I had not been some of them in
twenty years. And we caught twenty six or twenty seven

(51:35):
pounds that day, just fishing off the wall stuff. And
we pulled up to this one drain and it goes
to these golf course ponds. And I had told him
about it before. He said, where's that pipe at? You said,
when the water comes up, the fish go in, eat
and brim in the golf course pond I told him.
I said, well, I don't know if we can get

(51:56):
in there. Hey man, we wheel a tree Lian. It
took us forever. We get in there, I said, Jordan,
they don't buy nothing but a crank bait. I've never
caught him on anything. Of course, Jordan, he's gonna pick
up a jig. So I throw crank bait in there.
I'm not getting bed. He throws there, not here. Here,
He throws here and catches a six four. Right, okay,

(52:17):
well this is the one fish hole, Jordan. You're only
gonna catch one. We might as well leave. He goes,
let me throw again. He throws again and catches a
five eight. So we fish it. We don't catch nothing.
All right, let's go. We're going out. And he goes,
you don't ever flip that grass, I said, Jordan is
ten inches deep, and now we're throwing out. He goes,

(52:38):
let me flip it. Back me up. I back him up.
He catches a four to eleven, and I'm and I
would have never flipped that crass.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
But that's a confidence thing, like he knows he is.
He spends so much time on the water, it's second
nature for him. That's a confidence thing.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
He's When people argue about who's the best in the world,
you can't argue against Jacob Wheeler. Jake, I don't care
what people say about Jacob Wheeler. Jacob Wheeler. When people
ask why is Jacob Whider so good, I'm gonna tell you.
He's a top five scoper, He's a top five offshore guy.
He's a top five scanner, he is a top five flipper,

(53:19):
and he's number one preparation tournament preparation. He is obsessed
with tournament preparation. And I heard a guy tell me
a story about talking to Jacob Whitler on his way
to Toledo Ben and he said, Yeah, I'm just gonna
jump out to a lead on day one and day
two and just kind of cruise the rest of time

(53:41):
to championship ran on the way down there. Just the
dude's incredible.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
But Jordan, you will never be able to replace confidence.
And that's why when you were talking about Lake and
you were like, I screwed him up on a tournament
because you wanted to start here. His confidence wasn't in
that here's dad, and he's gonna, you know, he's gonna
listen to what you say. He's gonna take it under advisement.
But you got to go with somebody's confidence. And that's
why when everybody knocks scopers, that's a confidence thing. And

(54:12):
you've got to have some crazy confidence to be able
to cast blindly at no target in the middle of
the water, work that bait appropriately over top of their head,
by their head, whatever you got to do to get
them to bite, because you've got nothing holding them.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
And it's these scopers the way Jordan Lee is about everything.
These scopers are about scoping. And I watched I've been
in the boat with JT. Tompkins, I've been in the
boat with Logan Parks. Those are two great scopers. And
to watch the things they do is just and they
don't even look where they're throwing, and still the bait

(54:48):
lands right on the fish, you know, and it's it's.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
This year in the Elites is going to be by
far one of the most interesting seasons I think professional
fishing's ever seen.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
I'm gonna go ahead and predict that Tucker Smith finishes
in the top five, and.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
That's good prediction. But if you look at that schedule,
a lot of guys say, ah, this schedule doesn't set
up well for scoping and all that kind of stuff.
It will guys have ways where they can find what
they're looking for when they do it.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Tucker Smith is I'm not gonna say he's technically I'm
not gonna say he's the next Jordan Lee or anything
like that. But we're talking about a kid that won
three straight national championships in high school. You can say,
let's high school. It was also at a different lake
in a different state. The dude, we're talking about four
hundred boats. The guy won three in a row. Okay,

(55:43):
he did that with different partners with Hayden, but then
he goes and wins a million dollars with Logan in
the Bass Pro shops.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Which is where his name really blew up.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
And and the stuff that happened with Joe Durham down there,
you fall, Hey, that gave him bad, messed him up,
and he was still in school. I think he probably
would have done well had he had he I think
he would have qualified that year had he fished all
of them.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
But he handled it the right way as far as
as far as a pr side, and.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Tucker's gotten a lot of heat from a lot of
things that just aren't true.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
But that's jealousy regardless.

Speaker 2 (56:21):
Of it being Tuckers. If something's true, I'm gonna you're
probably gonna find out about it on my page, no
matter who you are. But I just couldn't never find
anything in the same things been with Trey mckenne man.
I get all of these things about Trey McKenny and
I've yet to been able to say, Okay, Trey mckennie
did this, and he's not a good.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Person, traded some stupid stuff like you know, not watching
the videos before you're going out for a tournament and
then running through it, Like I understand, he's nineteen years old.
He's still trying to figure out what he's doing. And yeah,
while you're a professional and there is a etiquette to
being a professional bass fisherman that is always perceived, he's

(57:04):
still nineteen years old, you know, just like any of
these new guys that are coming up, they're still young.
But that actually makes the sport interesting absolutely is when
you have something like that happen, you go, oh damn,
somebody actually did something wrong and this could impact what happens.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
Yeah, the whole answer in his mama was bad. But
the no egg zone, I'll tell you why that one
really pissed me off. The night before I was on
the phone with him and JT and Tyler Williams, and
I said, put me on a speakerphone. I want to
talk to everybody. And I had the same conversation with Logan.

(57:42):
I said, listen, they're looking for any way that you
can miss it. I said, y'all need to go watch
that rules meeting three times, and after you watch it
the third time, I want you to watch it six
more times. And they said, well, we know the rule.
I said, the rules are different on every lake. I said,

(58:02):
you need to know every detail. I said, promise me
that y'all do that. Okay, we'll do that. Well, then
when Trey ran at no way up, I didn't even
call say I told you so. I think I called
cussins what I did well, And.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
You guys got to remember there's local rules and then
there's bast rules.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
Yeah, and then the phone call and that cost him.
Man that you could argue that that was a million
dollar phone call. Yeah, you know, anger of the Year
and what that does for you with perception and rookie
his mother. When I came up to him and told

(58:39):
him what had happened and explained to him what was
about to happen. I had went to him and told him,
you need to go sign the back of paper and
say you broke a rule. He goes, what were you talking about?
I said, did you answer your phone call from your
mother on the water? He said yeah. I said you're
going to get disqualified, and he turned as white as
that desk and I said you are. And his mother

(59:01):
started crying and she started apologizing. I said, whoa, this
ain't your fault, This is not your fault.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Yeah, he's responsible for what his actions are.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
And I even told her, you know, she and I
had a very heated conversation after that, and I was
very blunt. I said, you're hurting in morning. Help him.
I'd want to be there for my kid too. Listen,
I'd be the helicopter dad. I could do as I say,
not as I do, because I'd probably be doing it.

(59:30):
But you're not letting him be an adult and be
a man. If you're going to fish in a professional organization,
and right now you're the best in that organization, because
you're leading the points. You gotta be a man and
mama's got to quit. Hold in the hand.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
It's one of my favorite phrases. If you're going to
do anything in life, fail forward fast, like make your mistakes,
realize you made them, and get through them. It would
be interesting to see how he battles back in his
sophomore year at baths but Slick Johnson. Make sure you
follow him on TikTok, Instagram and everywhere. Thank you, Bubba, Yes,
Sir

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
H