EP: 448 | Monte Burke Tells Fishing Stories

On this episode with talk with New York Times best selling author, Monte Burke, who is very interested in studying and sharing the persona of fishermen who will do just about anything to be at the top of their game. His books Lords of the Flies and Sowbelly dive into the interesting cast of characters of chasing world record tarpon and the extreme efforts on going to catch the world record largemouth bass. Monte is a great conversationalist and his stories are even better. This one might surprise you.

 Listen, Learn and Enjoy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I am Jeff Foxworthy and welcome to Gamekeeper Podcast. If you want to learn more about farming for wildlife and habitat management, then buddy, you are in the right place. Join the Gamekeeper crew direct from Mofty Oak Land Enhancement Studio as they discuss the latest wildlife and habitat management practices, news, and of course honey. There's no telling what you'll learn, but I'm gonna tell you, I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We're live in three, two, one.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

All right, Dudley, we got a literary guy today. I mean we got somebody smart to talk to. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

So he uh he made an A in English grammar, probably.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

I'm gonna bet he probably didn't eighth grade. Yeah. So Lanny, I found this guy's books a few years ago. I read um Lords of the Fly, which is not the story you're probably thinking of. I love that movie.

SPEAKER_06 0:52

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:54

But and another one, Sal Belly, and uh he's just he's he's incredible. I remember you talking about the Lord of the Flies.

SPEAKER_06 1:03

Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's a beautiful place of the world.

SPEAKER_04 1:07

It's great stories. And uh so we've been wanting to talk to him for a while. He's a busy guy, and I love how I follow him on uh he he probably didn't know this. I follow him on Instagram, and he's always DMing you. He's always posting with his dogs, and we love dogs, and and and so let me get we we've got Monty Burke here.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

All right, yeah, welcome, Monty. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. I feel like uh with that introduction, I should be smoking a pipe or something like that with a smoking jacket.

SPEAKER_06 1:35

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bob Bobby's got a pipe smoking jacket.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

I do not I I do not have a So let me get him properly introduced here. So Monty Burke, he's sitting up there in Brooklyn, New York. Man. I mean, he's up in the city. Yeah, we're I mean the main city of the world. He's sitting right there. Is that where they make the Picante sauce up there?

SPEAKER_06 1:58

New York City.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

All right, all right. Let's get here. So Monty Burke is the author of a New York Times bestseller. We're not gonna hold this against him, but Saban, the making of a coach. I think that that must have been a heck of a story. We are not Alabama fans, but we certainly respect Coach Saban and what he's done there.

SPEAKER_06 2:16

That's great. Yeah, I think he ought to be the commissioner of football. I think all this NIF stuff going on. He knows more about it than anybody else.

SPEAKER_04 2:24

Yeah, yeah. So also the Lord Lords of the Fly. Uh Fourth and Goal, another football sowbelly, a book I really enjoy. Sowelly. What's that one about? It's about bad, about competitive bass fish and trout. Yeah, it sure is. So hang on, let me finish this.

SPEAKER_06 2:43

I'm sorry. I'm just getting excited talking about that.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Another one, Rivers Always Reach the Sea. And all these books are critically acclaimed. All there's just been lots of uh other magazines and stuff have just praised his writing. Um for Monty for 14 years worked as a reporter, a staff writer, and editor at Forbes, which is a hoity toity big town magazine. Hoity to financial magazine. He's now a contributing editor at Garden and Gun, which we love. Yes, The Drake, which I love, and is written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Outside, Field Stream, Fly Fishing, and more. And Monty is a graduate from Middlebury, Middlebury College.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Uh I used to have a t-shirt, Middlebury.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

With a BA in religion. We have to ask him about that. He grew up in New Hampshire, Vermont, North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Monty Burke.

SPEAKER_06 3:43

Come on. Hello, everybody. Yeah, thank you for being here today. Of course. You've you've lived all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I feel like a military brat, but my dad was actually a uh headmaster. So we kept going from school to school to school. And uh it was actually pretty cool. Pretty cool. It was always fun to be a little bit different where you were, right? Like when I was in Alabama, I was the northerner. When I went to college up in Middlebury, Vermont, I was the Southerner. So it's always been kind of fun.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Yeah, I would uh look, Vermont and all that. I'd like to go up there Turkey on for sure. You'd like to go anywhere, Turkey. It's beautiful up there. I hear it. It's beautiful. Yeah. It really is. So so let I'm I just want to add this the the book about Coach Saban. I bet that I bet he was a tough interview. When you sit down with him one-on-one, is he as intense? You know, he's not.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And I should have known this going in. My I was kind of terrified, right? Because he because his persona, his public persona is like veins popping, and he's yelling at Lane Kiffin on the sidelines and you know, grabbing his AJ McCarron by the face mask. But he's actually one-on-one and in very small groups, he's extremely charming, which which makes total sense if you think about it, because he was probably the greatest recruiter that college football has ever seen. So he's warm, he's funny. He's still a little intimidating, you know, because he's behind this big desk in his dark office, you know, with his little he's got a little button he can push the door open and closed. And uh, but no, he I found him to be extremely uh charming and um and funny, actually. So he's got kind of two personas.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

That makes a lot of sense, you know. To to be considered the GOAT, you know, you gotta check all the boxes. I mean, you gotta have the personality too. And you know, to have such a calm demeanor like that when it when it's needed, you know, that that says something about it. Absolutely. Uh almost like uh we had some Navy SEALs come to the office one time, and I thought they were gonna be like, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, you know, to be that, you gotta be good at everything. You know, you gotta have the personality too. Yeah, yeah, sure. I can see that. Charm charm is a big part of leadership. That's right. Yeah. That's a good quote right there.

SPEAKER_04 5:52

Monty Burke. So let's let's start with Lords of the Fly. Okay. And what kind of attracted you to that story? There's a lot of characters in this story, a lot of guys, I mean, real life characters, that uh that dedicated their lives to trying to catch these big tarpon. And that story just when when I read it, it sucked me in. And it was just amazing what those men and women w went through or would go through in in their pursuit. Can you speak to that just a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, I mean, I just love I I think 95% of the things I've written, uh, and you know, books and include and magazine articles about are about people who are obsessed with something. I love, I just love that because it's you know, it's interesting to me because no matter what it is, whether it's tarpon fishing, trying to catch a world record bass, card collecting, or coaching at Alabama football, you know, this is these little obsessions are things that make the world go around, sort of. I mean, they the thing that gets you out of bed, to animate you. Of course, they also have a dark side, which is also fascinating if you push it too far. So that was sort of the basis of that. You know, I'd already written Sow Belly, which was about guys trying to catch the world record bass. So I kind of knew a little bit about, you know, the sort of fundamentals of record chasing, I guess. And uh, you know, I just I love and I love tarpon fishing too. So I I would actually go down and fish with the uh I did a story on a guide named Steve Huff, who becomes one of the big main characters in Lords of the Fly. And he was there in Home of Sassa. You know, Lords of the Fly is about a particular time, or the majority of it is about a particular time in Home of Sassa, Florida, when, you know, all the world's greatest fly anglers and guides all gathered together for the month of May every year to try to break the world record tarp. And uh so I love the on-the-water stuff was great, but then finding out like what was going on off the water. I mean, these guys were partying, they were hanging out with women who weren't their wives. There was like kind of wild drug stuff going on, there was a mobster involved, and you know, it just had this this elements of all these different things kind of funneling into one thing. But I've I've always been I I love fishing so much, and I've always I've kind of come close. I I am obsessed with fishing, but not in the same way these guys are. I don't really care much about records that much, but um or at all really. Uh but I just there's something about angling and becoming obsessed with angling and kind of becoming, you know, getting in tune with the ecosystem and a fish uh that's just fascinating to me. Just totally fascinating.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Yeah, let me let me read this quote. So I I I am predicting that Monty will know exactly who said this, but I want to get him to explain the thought. But I'm gonna ask and see if especially Lanny. 100% if y'all know where this quote came from. Richie, you're involved in this too. So thank you for including Richie. So many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish that they are after. Lanny, who said that? 50 cents. Shakura. Pretty sure it was Shakira. I quit.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

That was a good one.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

You know, Shakira, I could almost buy. Oh, you would. Oh, you're Shakira fan.

SPEAKER_06 9:03

Bobby Bobby's a huge Shakira fan. That I don't know if it's Shakira the the way she dances, but Monique, it's it's tell us about that quote.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

It's a beautiful quote. Uh it's attributed to Henry David Thoreau, I believe. Is that right? That's correct, yes. It is he actually never said that though. I looked into that. Ah. So now it's just attributed to him. But it's so beautiful, it sounds like something that that he would say, and it actually encapsulates a lot what Lords of the Fly, what Sow Belly, uh what the stories and rivers always reach the sea is all about, really. It's not about, you know, for me anyway, and I think for a lot of people who do this, it has nothing to do with the it has nothing, not has nothing to do, but has more to do with what goes on around the sport than it does with the actual catching of fish, right? It's about being, yeah, I don't know, whether you like being outside, whether you like practicing your casting, uh, you know, whether you like um, you know, feeling the tug of a fish, whether you like being with other people, uh, whether you like the sort of contemplative nature that fish can get, you know, fishing can get you into, whatever it is, it's always been about more than just the actual act of catching fish. I mean, it you gotta think that the there's you know, there's a reason why some people get really into hunting and fishing, is because it's sort of this atavistic thing that's in our genes somehow, right? I mean, this is how yeah, this is how our ancestors did it, right? And so for some of us, thank God, you know, we we we have this connection back to our way, way, way back ancestors. And uh so it's something, you know, I I always say it like this when I'm on the front of a tarpon boat and I see a tarpon coming, or if I'm up here in New York and the fall run has started and stripers and false albacore have fallen through, like there's this feeling I get that's like right here. And I can't really explain it, right? But it's this just this incredible feeling of uh being alive, uh desire, lust, even almost, right? It's like this crazy, uh, indescribable thing that that that I think everyone who does this and does it with some seriousness feels. And that's really what it's all about, right? To me. It's like, and the rest of stuff is great, like hanging out, you know. I get to see, I just went up to the Catskills and fished with you know, some great buddies every year. I do it every year. And I fish with my dad and I fish with my grandfather and I fish with my uncle and my brothers, and you know, it's just it's there's so much more around all of this than just uh just the actual catching the fish. And I think that's what that uh quote, uh though made up, or I don't know if it was made up, but though wrongly attributed uh gets gets really to the heart of.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

So it could have been 50 Cent. Probably, I guess. Probably not. Well, I tell you what, I know we know exactly what you're talking about for sure. Even the the tagline of this business. Well, though we don't use it as much as we use, it's not a passion, it's an obsession. Uh, and that's all rooted in I think you've done a very elegant job of describing what that is. I mean, because it is. We talk about it being a lifestyle, but it is everything. Now, is it, you know, the culmination of that holding, you know, whether it's a turkey for us or or a bass or a tarpon or whatever it is, you know, is is the ultimate goal, but you enjoy every aspect of it. Absolutely. Um, from getting ready uh to the people that you do it with to the places you do it with. Uh and and I can't think of a more um soothing, you know, relaxing way to spend a day than all day doing that.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah. There's a there's that old cliche about the the journey is more uh uh more important to the destination, which is true. However, we need the destination in order to give shape to that journey, right? So like so like you do need to, you know, there's I there are some people that I've met like, oh, I take the hooks off my flies and all this sort of stuff. And I'm like, I don't think I'll ever get there. You know, like I still I still need the destination, right? But it is the journey, right? It's it's the it's the you know, it's just that feeling you get like when you when you when everything comes together and you shoot the turkey or you catch the fish. Like it's it's yeah, it's usually it's taking you steps to get there, right? I mean, like pain and and learning and hooks in the head and all kinds of crazy stuff, and you finally do it, you know, and like it's all worth it. It's all great.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

So can you tell some of the just a story or two out of the Homo Sassa that era? When I when I read through it and that this guy Tom Evans sounds like he was just as hardcore as a guy could be, almost to the point where he it almost sounded like maybe I mean he was he he was obsessed with it, and and maybe his family suffered from he didn't get to spend as much time with them as maybe he should have.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I mean, these guys they they broke they broke everything there. They broke hooks, you know, they were trying to figure out how to catch these monsters. These were tarpon that were 20 to 40 percent bigger than any tarpon in the United States. Uh and you know, they would break hooks, they'd break rods, but then they became so obsessed they started breaking marriages themselves. You know, one guy even dies, you know. So it's like the i i i tom was a great there there were many ways to tell Lord, many characters through which to tell Lords of the Fly. I could have told her through Stu Apt or even Flip Pallet or Billy Pate, or you know, guys who are more well known. Tom was probably the least well-known, Tom Evans, of that cadre of hardcore anglers there. But he was to me the most interesting primarily because at the age of 82 physically just done, could only stand for he was huge, he'd gained a lot of weight, had terrible you know, botch back surgeries, could only stand for like two minutes at a time, and yet he was still going to home assassin. And the fishery had declined, you know, all the fish had left and he was still going there. So he was this sort of poignant, this poignancy to the whole thing. Now, Tom was not everyone's cup of tea, he was he's gruff, politically incorrect. You know, I I think I I wrote in the book that he's a he's a uh bull who's always very uh happy to find himself at a China shop. Like he's that kind of that kind of guy. But there was this kind of uh poignancy to the fact that he had been going there for 36, almost 40 years, uh and you know, trying to and again, he comes, he goes back to that quote, really. It it morphed into not just really the uh catching of the breaking the world record, it was about all of the rainy day friends that he had there, all of the the people, the guides, even his enemies, he liked seeing. You know, there's one guy, Bobo Cunningham from Mobile, who we couldn't stand, but he he loved seeing him. It was part of his thing, you know. So it was like every May, he would say he would spend every May in Home Sassa and the 11 months, the other 11 months of the year thinking about Home Assassin. So he was this just this just wild character to to kind of tell this story through, I think. Um but there are a lot of other ones. I mean, there was you know Billy Pate was fascinating, uh you know, Al Fluger, Stu Apt. I mean, just just and you know, a lot of minor characters you probably never heard of. There was a guy named Bobby Era who was a who was an actual gangster um who fell in love with tarpa fishing. Um and so you know, it it just became this kind of irresistible story. And the more I looked into it, the richer and richer it got. I'd never heard of Bobby Era. I didn't know it was a mobster uh down there during this time and and you know, kind of stumbled upon him just doing more and more research. And one of the great privileges of the job that I have is that it, you know, someone pays me to go down rabbit holes, right? And I just love it. I mean, because the sometimes you go down there and you you come up and your face is all dirty and you got nothing, but sometimes you go down there and you're like, oh my gosh, look what I just found, you know. And it's so fun. It's like this revelation, and it's it's such a wonderful privilege to be able to do that in life, I feel like so.

SPEAKER_04 16:31

Well, did uh did the Bobby guy did uh was there any interesting stories about his mob connection? Did it influence how other people behaved around him?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Absolutely. I mean he he was so he was part of the Gambino family. I was just as an aside, I was I I live in Brooklyn, as you said. I was a little bit had some trepidation about writing about him because I figured, you know, at one point there might be like this knock at my door and be like, you know, a bunch of guys in black suits, and like I'll get all lit up by machine guns, be like, this is for Bobby. Because I I wasn't all complimentary about Bobby. But so you know, Bobby got really into he got really into fly fishing. He was also into mobstering. You know, there's like, you know, the all the whole thing, like guy puts the key in the car and the car blows up, uh, slash tires, you know. There was a a meat guy in home of Sass, uh, uh, you know, um uh who he went to get a steak and the guy didn't didn't respect him. He thought the guy was out of business next year. You know, all the guides started carrying guns on the water. He was a real he had a real temper too. He was a real he would he had he only had the uh forefinger and thumb on one hand uh because of some accident. Um and so he had a hard time. He could hook the fish really well, but he couldn't reel them in very well, so he'd lose a lot of fish. And whenever he did that, he would take all of his gear and throw it overboard and leave. And then and then like four boats would come in and everybody would dive in and get his get his uh you know, he helped found the Abel Reel Company too. I don't know if you know that's a fly fishing reel company. I mean, so anyway, lots of stuff, and he was just a just a a real menace on the flat, sort of. And I I love uh that there's a couple people actually liked him, so when he died, um they put up like a PVC pipe memorial, they had one pipe like this and then a cross, and they put his his rod in the top of it. And you know, of course, storms of like that took it away, and pretty soon it was just one thing like this. And I described it in the book as uh Bobby's kind of last revenge. It was a middle finger uh being shown to the whole world. So anyway, yeah, he was great. I mean, there's but there was all kinds of characters like that. I mean, I could have kept going on that book. Could have been a 600-page book, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

You know, you mentioned Flip Pallet a minute ago. We we he we we got so fortunate. We we had him, I think, on three podcasts with us. We took him deer hunting. Uh we went to uh Jeff Foxworthy's farm, he killed his l heaviest, largest buck. Yeah, with a bow. That's agree. And that was just that was just two uh that was two years ago. It's just so raw still.

SPEAKER_06 18:55

With a long bow, too, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 18:56

No, he shot it with a rifle. He was on the rifle. Yeah, he did try with a long bow for the first day of the hunt, and then he said, Yeah, I'm with you.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

Let's burn some powder.

SPEAKER_04 19:05

Tired of being a conservation. Let's get this done. He needed the deer to be about 14 yards, if I remember right. We were struggling with that.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

So well, all their setups were for wheelbows. Yeah, Dudley was there.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

Dudley went on a napping trip on that one with him.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

No. He brought his rum. They they had all kinds of seafood, a cooler full of stone crab claws. I I was just in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

What a great what a great. Did you get to meet him and spend any time with him? I did. One of the real thrills about doing that book is that all of these people, Chico Fernandez and Flip and all of these Stu app, all these people that I grew up kind of, you know, admiring from afar just from reading about, I I got to go meet, you know. So like I I called up Flip, uh, and he said, Yeah, come by my house. And he lived in, you know, I can't remember the name of the town, but it's kind of inland Florida. And we sat outside uh and he cooked me a bison burger, and it was kind of gently raining. And uh we just sat out there for hours and hours and hours and talked, and then we had dinner. I mean, it was just the greatest. He just he was his voice was so wonderful too, kind of like Honey Bourbon. You know, he had this kind of great. I don't know if you guys know this, but he he did a voiceover for a lot of ESPN's uh college football stuff, actually. He was the voice on that. Um he was just you know, he just had story after story, and uh, you know, uh at that point was sort of lamenting the fact that you know he that his generation had not done uh quite a good enough job. He thought uh teaching the next generation by conservation. Uh he was just very thoughtful uh and it was a great guy, and that was a huge loss in the in the community, England community.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

Yeah. Yeah, Lanny, one of the things I remember about him, I I'm guessing he was close that he was close to 80 when this was 75 to 80. Yeah, thank you, mate. He stayed up later than everybody else, every every night. Yeah. And then he was the first one up. And one of the nights we were there is when it was during the election, and boy, he was glued to that television. He he was really into that. So well, all right. So uh Monty, can you uh uh one thing that we're all really interested in, especially me, uh the the story of Sowbelly and this pursuit of a world record bass. Can you tell some of the stories of some of the crazy things people have done and are doing?

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Uh so that book was great. That was my first real full book. I'd edited a book before that, but uh that it came out of a Forbes story, believe it or not. There was a something called the Big Bass Record Club, which promised eight million dollars to the person who broke George Perry's iconic record, and it turned out to be kind of a Ponzi scheme. But anyway, that got my editors, it had money in it, so Forbes was like, Yeah, let's go do it. So I went out. The first person I really hung out with was this cop named uh Bob Kruppi was a motorcycle cop, and uh he was just a really kind of conflicted, strange guy who uh I I just you know fell for immediately because he was. Which is so so fascinating, so uh you know obsessed. He would he would work all day, you know, putting, you know, arresting prostitutes, stuff like that, and then then, you know, go into the bathroom, change into his bass fishing clothes, and ride his motorcycle out to a lake and uh and and fit and try to break the world record. Uh and he came really close. I think he had the third largest bass ever on record. Uh but then you know, you had people like um the three guys out in um in uh on Lake Dixon out near San Diego, um, where that lake, for whatever reason, became ripe with these huge bass, and one bass in particular that was caught a couple different times and appears on a on the top 10 list a couple different times. Uh and they were fascinating guys. I mean, they were they were younger, um, and they were, you know, all worked in kind of the kind of this shady casino uh uh uh space. And um uh they they were just fascinating. And then I loved there was a guy named Porter Hall who was from Alabama who uh loved the world record, wanted to break the world record, and was out in California on the scene for a little while, got frustrated with it, then came back to Mississippi and tried to grow his own bass uh on one of his ponds there. And uh, you know, then there was a Texas biologist who was fascinating. And then probably one of the most fascinating people to me was this guy, Sammy Yera, who lived in Cuba. And he was obsessed with the world record bass, obsessed with the Americ with American bass fishing. And you know, living in Cuba, I remember going to his house uh after we had spent the week together fishing, and uh, you know, he lived in a basically what you would call a ghetto. Like it was just and he had a PhD. Uh, you know, so it's just like a totally different life down there, really again kind of poignant to to look at from an American perspective. But he asked, I asked him when I was flying down there, he says, Is there anything you want? I don't know how much I can take in, but anything you want. And he said, Can you please get me as many old issues of field and stream and outdoor life as you can? So I showed up with like this box of of uh you know field and streams going back to 1980 something, you know, and he was so thrilled. Um so I mean the whole thing, I mean it's a the the i it it was so different from again. This was a story about people, not really about the fish, although I do I do get into the sort of rise of bass fishing and all that in the United States, but uh it was really more about people and sort of what they what they do, what they give up, uh what they gain uh in the pursuit of something that to a lot of people seems completely silly, um, but is everything in the world to them. And again, that's that has always fascinated me. Um and so that was a really that was an incredibly fun book to do. I can't believe someone took the the leap of faith to give me a book contract on that, but good gosh, that was fun. I can still remember sitting at an apartment in Manhattan at the time with my other dog and sitting there and trying to you know wrap out the last you know couple of paragraphs of the book, but it was just so fun from start to finish.

SPEAKER_06 24:50

I bet so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Um, and you know, like there's uh we're big deer hunters. Uh you could probably write a book about that obsession as well, of people that just go nuts trying to get a uh 200 plus deer.

SPEAKER_06 25:06

I would say I dig um whitetailed deer will mess people up, won't it, Bobby? Yeah, oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

So what do you think? What is your theory on on that big fish? Wasn't it 1932 in Georgia? Uh you say his name was George Perry. George Perry, yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

22 pounds, four ounces. I mean, do you think that was legit? Uh you know, it's it's hard to it's it's hard to refute it. That's the thing, too. And and as I get into in the book, is it is it it at some point over time, it didn't matter whether it was legit because it was the destination we were just talking about, right? It defined everyone's journey. Um so it it you know, I I sort of talk about that a little bit in the book, but uh one of the more interesting characters is a guy from Augusta, uh uh Georgia, who was the newspaper reporter who was kind of the biggest defender of Perry's legacy. Uh and you know, he had things like he had a photograph, you know, of like a of a fish that looked like it could be 22 pounds of four ounces, you know. I mean, so he and he and he fiercely defended Perry. Uh the problem with with Perry's fish is well a number of problems, but one of them it was you know was it was weighed on a uh postal scale. The bigger problem is he took it home and ate it. Um so you know and then after my own home.

SPEAKER_06 26:21

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

And so, you know, I I think if you if if if I had to bet everything I had on whether it was real or not real, I would say it was a really big fish. Was it exactly 22 pounds of four ounces? I don't know. Was it probably over 20 pounds? Probably, maybe. Um, but again, it's the mythology of all that. And and it was in an oxbow uh of a river, and uh the the guy and Augusta and I walked in and he had put a plaque right where the where it was called uh Montgomery Lake, um it was called back then. Um and he put a plaque there. So we we and he had figured out almost exactly where Perry was. And it was so we like you know bushwhacked our way back in there and saw this plaque where the world record largemouth bass had been caught, which was just so cool. You know, it was just such a fun, such a fun thing. The whole thing was so fun. But I love the myth of of Perry. Perry was a was an everyman, you know. It was kind of like very democratic, right? It was very much like uh like bass fishing and very American in that way. He was a, you know, he wasn't some rich stockbroker or something like that. He was just a farmer, you know.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Yeah, it is a good story. Wow. So the guy in Mississippi that was decided he was going to try to the from Alabama that went to Mississippi to grow. Can you do you remember some of the things he was doing to try to grow those fish?

SPEAKER_01 27:38

He was trying to replicate, uh to a certain degree, was trying to replicate what was happening in in California. So one of the reasons those those bass and California became the hotspot. You know, it kind of went from like Florida to maybe Georgia, Alabama, to a little bit of Texas were kind of the bass fishing for big bass hot spots. And then it all of the white heat went out to California. And the reason was because you know, they planted Florida strained bass out there, and then they started uh stocking 12-inch rainbow trout. So in theory, so that anglers could either fish for bass or trout. What happened was the bass started eating those trout. And so, you know, I saw a couple of these bass like in real life. Like I didn't see anything, I didn't see any 20-pounders. I think the biggest one I saw was a 17-pounder that a guy caught when I was with them. And they were they were the most ugly, unnatural looking things you've ever seen. You would hold it up like that, and it was like the bass would only be, you know, I don't know, that long, but the belly, it was almost completely round, right? They had this distended belly because you know, they would pull up those stocking trucks and the bass would come in, they would know it was feeding time. And so that's why those bass got so big. And so what Porter Hall did in Mississippi was to try to replicate that a little bit. I mean, he tried to balance the pH and do everything like that he could, but he would stock his Mississippi pond with trout, uh, with you know 12-inch, you know, basically protein nuggets. And um, you know, he he made some big bass. He I don't think he ever came close. It's just such a bizarre, it takes everything's got to be exactly right. In fact, California, you've seen a real drop-off now on the the you know, Texas probably has bigger bass than California now. Um, but it's just kind of a it was a cycle that those bass went through, and it he couldn't quite replicate it in in Mississippi.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

I think I remember reading about that a long time ago. Was one of the more popular lakes called Lake Castac?

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Castac was there. Yep. Castayc was there. That was where Kruppy fished. Casitas was another one, and then Dixon was the one that really, you know, where they those the trio of casino guys I was talking talking about really got hot and heavy on a couple fish uh that were in the top, they're now in the top five uh ever recorded.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

That's that that is amazing. You know, I hear of a lot of people that in the wintertime here in the South where you can stock trout, but they they don't survive when that water warms back up. Yeah. They don't make it. But they uh uh you know we had a friend that did a couple of podcasts with us, he's passed on, uh Barry Smith. He was part of the American Sportfish hatchery, and they were part of the team that sent Florida strained bass to California back in the day. He could they could they sent them to Africa, parts of Africa. So they he always kind of kept me in the loop on some of that stuff. And uh, you know, guys around here they've gone through phases of stocking tilapia and uh uh different kinds of freshwater shrimp. There's just uh people have tried so much to add weight to their bass in their in their private pond.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

People have also tried uh nefarious ways to add weight to their bass. There was a uh I had a like chapter in Salbelli that I called Bass Holes. Can I can I say that here? Bass holes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was about it was about the people who would there were some notorious, there was a mother-son duo, and there have been a couple other people, and I'm sure you've seen there's been stories in walleye tournaments and stuff like that in more recent times, but you know, stuffing weights down in and claiming that something was a world record. And I mean, it's just like there's always been and this was even without the eight million dollar promise, this was just for the notoriety, I guess. But it's it's just insane what people do to try to try to illegally break these records.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Then you had that guy that was snagging those big fish and got busted. Yep. That was pretty recent. Yep, that's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I mean, it all reminds me of a Carl Hyacon novel called Double Whammy. I don't know if you've ever read that, but it's about a bass fishing tournament, and then one of the guys always he stuffs weight down the fish and he and he tries to pass it off as the winning fish. It's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_04 31:39

Yeah. Those are great stories. So um, Dudley, I know you got some I I should have done this at the very beginning. Uh you've got some rapid fires for him. I apologize. I didn't do it now.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

Yeah. All right, Monty. So we usually ask our guest a couple questions, trying to get to know you better. Um so uh we just call them rapid fire, so try to give me a quick answer if you can. All right. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

I am.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

Um have you ever caught a fish in Central Park?

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I have, yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Okay. Uh have you ever been up north ice fishing?

SPEAKER_01 32:19

I did when I was a kid in Vermont.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Okay. Uh, what about what is your favorite SEC football team?

SPEAKER_01 32:26

Alabama, roll tide.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

What about your favorite non-SEC team?

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Can't have anything else but Alabama, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 32:36

Uh all right. So, what what do you prefer? I like asking eating questions. So, what do you prefer to eat? Cooked salmon, cured salmon, raw salmon, or dried salmon?

SPEAKER_01 32:47

I guess raw. I don't like salmon.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

Oh, ooh. Pound for pound, what is the hardest fighting freshwater fish, in your opinion? It has to be a smallmouth bass.

SPEAKER_05 32:59

Yeah, I like that answer.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

What's the furthest you've been offshore while fishing?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

80 miles in the canyon of New Jersey.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Okay. What is a bucket list fish species you'd love to pursue?

SPEAKER_01 33:14

I think a wild steelhead from the west coast would be really cool. Never never fish with it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

Uh, name a place you fish that you fell in love with, not because of the fishing, but because you just love the place.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

I would say I have a cabin, a family cabin on the Margore River in Nova Scotia on Atlantic Salmon River. Atlantic salmon are almost impossible to catch, so I spend a lot of time there fishing and not catching, and I love it.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Name a species of quote-unquote trash fish that is really fun to reel in.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

Uh I guess well, I love bluegill and I love carp.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Okay. Um, have you ever been fishing with the infamous Kenny Gregg?

SPEAKER_01 34:00

I've not.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

Okay. Uh, which largemouth has the best personality? Northerns, Floridas, or F1s?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Florida.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

All right. Good answers.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:12

So why are these Atlantic salmon so hard to catch?

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Well, for one, they're not eating when they're coming in. So you're sort of uh they're doing it out of instinct, most likely. Uh and uh the second thing who's a little sadder is that there just aren't as many as there used to be. Um but they've been always notoriously hard to catch. They're called the the fish of a thousand casts. So even when they're there, they sometimes won't eat. But that makes the reward even better. I mean, I just they're so fun to fish for. Uh, they have a lot of history. Uh and I love casting. I've learned how to cast a double-handed rod, which is super fun to do. And um, they're just it they take place in the most beautiful rivers that around, I feel like. But I've been everywhere from Labrador, went to Russia not long ago. Uh you know, they're so fun.

SPEAKER_04 34:56

Yeah. There is a, and I'll I can't think I've read a book about a salmon that's in Russia that uh it's got an odd name, but that that that people were spending a lot of time trying to catch.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Uh there's a Tyman, maybe you're thinking of? Tymon? It may be that. Yeah, that's a salmon, it's a salmon, it's not a salmon, but it's a it's a of that same family, and they're giant. They're absolutely giant. They're like 30 pounds, 40 pounds, bigger than that sometimes. But yeah, they become they're on the other coast, they're on the Pacific side uh of Russia.

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Yeah. And the more the effort that people had put in to try to go over there and fish, it was incredible.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

It takes a lot more effort these days. I know, I know a couple people, uh, I won't name names who have, you know, you can't fish, you can't, since the sanctions happened, you can't fish in Russia if you're not Russian anymore. When it used to be this big business for them, they had all these Yankees and English people and stuff like that coming to fish there. But I I do know of a couple people who have uh gone to Finland and then snuck over the border to go salmon fishing in uh in Russia. Seems like not a very not a very smart thing to do. You wouldn't want to get caught in Russia, I don't feel like right now.

SPEAKER_03 36:02

Well, that that just comes right back to these folks that are obsessed and and willing to do crazy things. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

Flying if they fly in some vintage uh old Russian helicopters to get back to these places to fish. And it's just kind of the stories were crazy that I heard. But so look, can you walk us back to uh your first tarpon? What got you you you you your self-admitted tarpon crazy? What what uh what can you exp share that experience that hooked you so deep?

SPEAKER_01 36:32

I remember like it was yesterday. I went down to do a story for Garden of Gunn on on this guy named Steve Huff, who is legendary guide, considered to be among his peers, considered to be the greatest flats guide who ever lived. And um we hit it off after that story, and he only has I think 12 people that he fishes with every year, and one of them couldn't come one year, and uh it was actually Carl Hyacon suggested that I take his place, and so Steve said, sure, and we've been fishing together ever since then. In fact, I'm leaving on Sunday to go fish with him for a week, uh, which I can't wait. But anyway, uh on our our our first day out there in the Everglades, which I absolutely love, there were laid-up tarpon everywhere. Uh laid up tarpon is probably my favorite way to fish them because they're they're they're kind of asleep, they're resting, but they're floating, they're really close to the top of the surface. Sometimes their tail is sticking out, sometimes it's not, you've got to figure out which is the tail, which is the mouth. And you have to throw it like exactly you have to throw it like exactly like six inches in front of its nose. If it's closer than that, it spooks them, but if it's too far away, they don't see it. But anyway, that day, because I I think it was because I was so jazzed up, I could not, you know, hit the side of a barn. I was throwing it on their tail, I was throwing on top of their heads, I was throwing it sometimes, you know, 10 feet away. And Steve would be like, that fly was closer to that fish when it was in the boat before he cast it, and that kind of thing. Uh that hurts. And then finally, towards the, you know, I and and he he's like all the great guides. He he plays the role of a teacher, a mentor, and maybe most importantly, a psychologist. He kept on saying, he kept on saying, We're gonna get one, man. Just take a deep breath. And he, and you know, I started to believe him after a little while. But I finally made a good cast. It was a laid-up duo of fish. I made a good cast for one of them, and then they spooked anyway. But that then that happens. But I felt something click. You know, it's a little bit like when you hit a baseball so well that you don't feel anything, or when you hit a perfect three-iron or something like that, it doesn't, you know, it just clicks, it feels perfect. So about 20 minutes after that, a big fish came up and gasped, you know, got a little air and kind of stayed there. And I just instinctively threw it, you know, hooked it. I'll never forget. Looking, I was still facing, you know, this way on the boat uh towards like three o'clock, and a fish jumped at nine o'clock. And I said, Hey, did you see that one, Steve? He said, That's yours. So it had it had taken my line and gone, and it was already behind us. And uh, it was like the most thrilling thing. I mean, it took me, it took me two hours to get it in, uh, which is despicable. I've learned how to now get him in in 30 minutes or just break them off. But it was my first one. And, you know, I was I was dehydrated. I felt like when it finally landed, I was dehydrated. My back was killing me. My rod had been in my stomach, and I had a big bruise where my rod had been, and my hand was stuck, like curled up. I couldn't get it on uncurled, and I felt like vomiting, and I never forget turning to Steve after all that saying, God, I can't wait to do that again. Man, so that I have a bit of a literally from that, there is nothing to me in the world of fishing like the take of a big tarpon. Like it, it is, it is uh exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. And it's truly, I've told people this, it's a it was a life-changing thing for me. Now that people got people, oh come on, really. And I'm like, no, I don't mean like getting married, having kids, something like that, but it changed my life in terms of I decided at that moment that this was something I could not live without. Like I had to keep going to try to do this. And there is, it's a weird thing because it's the only fish that I know uh that that, you know, when when when they're that big in particular, when they're, you know, say over 130 pounds, that you really are a little bit scared because you know uh in not a, you know, you're not like terror, you're not like uh weeping, but you're but there's a little bit of fear uh involved in that uh because you know what that fish is gonna put you through and what you're gonna put the fish through if you actually hook the thing. And to me, that's a real buzz, you know, to like to have that sort of uh I think it was Kant who described the sublime as uh terror and beauty. And to me, that that's what those big tarpon are. It's it's it's sort of terrifying and and beautiful. So yeah, from that point on, I was just a just a junkie. And like like I said, I I'm leaving on Sunday. I've been practicing on the lawn here, you know, for about three weeks now. You know, I mean it's like I just can't wait. It's my favorite trip of the year. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Yeah. Boy, that's a good story. Yeah, that's interesting that what you said about, you know, once once you hook into that thing, you know, it it's just getting getting going. You know, you you buy the ticket and you take the ride. You sure do. You sure do.

SPEAKER_01 41:00

And you, you know, you get better. And you get you gotta get better at it just for the sake of the fish, right? I mean, that was like uh I'll I'll never do that again uh for a number of reasons. But one, it's it's not right to put the fish through that much, you know, turmoil. They're too tired if you do that. But yeah, well glad you clarified that. Yeah, and but if you learn how to do it, you know, as I have uh gotten better at this, you you can you can either land or break off a fish within 20, 25 minutes, you know. It's like but it's still painful. It still takes a lot out of you. You're fighting these fish, right? Like you're actually pulling as hard as you can, which is so different from any any other kind of fishing that I've done.

SPEAKER_04 41:36

You know, I had a similar experience, Lanny. If you remember, I've told it to you many times. Wake up, Lanny. Wide away. But uh there's uh a captain in uh in Isle of Murata, Craig Brewer. I don't know if you ever encountered it. I know Craig, yeah, but but uh I fished with him about 10 years ago, and just what what a great guy. But uh fished for a couple days, finally hooked up on a tarpon, about a hundred-pounder, and then for the next hour, it was just I mean, I was enjoying the whole every aspect of it, but it was agonizing. Every every muscle was in performing, doing work out there. Yeah, it was Craig said if this was normal, I would have told you let's break him off. This is your first one, so we're gonna fight him off. And it it took almost an hour. And uh, but uh after that, I don't know that I could have of if we had hooked up again. I don't know if I could have stood it. It was like one was I mean, I want to catch another one, but that day one done one had just about killed me.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

So look, Lanny, if I told you, would you believe me? If I told you that Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel over there in Italy at the Vatican where the Pope resides, all that there was a tarpon painted on that ceiling, would you believe me?

SPEAKER_01 42:54

I would not believe you. Would you set him straight, please, Monty? So you know, you know what's interesting about this is that um, well, I'll save that story for the end. So, yeah, so on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which is one of the most famous works of art ever, painted by Michelangelo in the 1500s. Saying it. There is, you know, there's the last judgment, there's that famous one of God and Adam, you know, almost touching fingers. Looking down from God and Adam, you look, you look right here, and there's a picture of Jonah, a painting of Jonah, who, of course, was the the guy who was swallowed by the whale and then regurgitated three days later. And um you look at Jonah, and he's looks like he's in kind of some kind of amount of pain. You look down by his his left leg, and there is a fish about to chomp his leg. And it's not a whale, it's a tarpon, um, which is fascinating because the Mediterranean historically has never had tarpon. So the the mystery is how would Michelangelo know what a tarpon looked like? Um and there's lots of different theories. I I went really talking, speaking of rabbit holes, I spoke of earlier. This was one of the most fun ones, right? So I went, I called Michelangelo. Angelo scholars, you know, I called the Italian Department of Environmental Conservation, whatever, the fisheries department over there, to try to figure out, you know, how he would he would ever be able to see one of these things. And the two theories are one is that there are tarpon in Africa. They had ships going to Africa that maybe they brought some small tarpon back on ice, or that maybe a tarpon got lost from a Gulf Stream, which happens every once in a while and washed up on shore. But it's such an odd thing that he put a tarpon in there. First of all, because the story, of course, is you know wild widely translated as a whale that swallows him. Um but I love it. You know, it plays into the mystery of the fish, and of course, tarpon have swallowed, you know, meant many a man. Uh and what was thrilling is that about a month ago, I went over with my wife and my youngest daughter, and we went there uh to the Vatican and literally raced through. They they don't let you get to the Sistine Chapel to the end of the tour. We didn't get a tour guide. And I we weren't running, but we were walking very fast just to get to that. And I just sat there for like 30 minutes and stared at this thing, and it was just so cool to see it and you know, uh to see it in person, which I'd never done before. But it's it's really truly it's a moving piece of art anyway, the whole thing. But yeah, that in particular, uh, you know, if you're an angler, especially an angler who loves tarpon, it's gotta must-see. You gotta go see it.

SPEAKER_06 45:22

Well, you learn something new every day. Yeah, you learn something today.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Yeah. I was just gonna say my memory of the Sistine Chapel is of my mom getting in trouble for taking flash photography.

SPEAKER_06 45:32

Ruining the paint. No flash, no flash.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Yeah, it's so funny. My my wife tried to take a picture with her cell phone, and some guy came over and basically batted at her hands.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Yeah, Richard, do you have a question? Uh yeah, sure. So um so your writings cover, you know, fly fishing, sports, and faith. What connects those worlds for you personally?

SPEAKER_01 45:55

They all start with F. No, I'm kidding. Um so well, they all rely on faith, I think, uh, would be one thing. I I think that again the obsession is sort of a is sort of a uh uh a through line through all of those things as well. Um and I think you know, uh I I was a religion major, so I'm I'll always been interested in how uh you know just religion just fascinates me, right? So every book, even the football books, I'll have uh I can't help but throwing a little bit something in there. Maybe it's a reference to the Tower of Babel or something like that. But you know, again, getting back to that journey and destination thing, I I think all three of those things uh there is a destination that defines journey. And when you you which what what successful football coaches do, what crazy obsessed anglers do, what people of faith do, is they fall in love with the process, right? So Nick Saban famously, you know, followed something called he he got coined as the process. But really, what it was was he loved every little part of coaching football. Like all he got so into the minutia of it, like how his cornerback's hips should be aligned, uh the snap of the ball, what the you know, food guys are cooking for his players for for lunch. Um, you know, just down to the the most minute detail. Same thing with Stu Apt. He would stay up all night. I don't know if you guys have ever seen a proper tarpon leader, it's a beautiful piece of artwork. Uh I have a picture of one in my book, uh actually an illustration. And he but he would stay up all night perfecting those knots, you know, doing a bimini twist and uh the huff nagel and all these cool knots of like that. So you'd stay up all night, and I think people of faith do the same thing. I mean, sort of so to me, it's this two through lines there would be obsession and then uh an absolute falling in love and becoming obsessed with the process.

SPEAKER_04 47:51

That's a good question, Richie.

SPEAKER_06 47:53

I was gonna say the same thing. Just nug me deep.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

Yeah, I might need to get up and just want to. I try, man.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Will you write me some questions? I was just sitting over here just uh just pondering the situation. That's a very good question.

SPEAKER_04 48:04

That's a good one. Wow. Well, what should we be asking you, Monty?

SPEAKER_01 48:11

Uh I don't know. I mean, um, you know, I just wrote another book about football. It came out in January about uh uh the USC Trojans when Pete Carroll was the coach out there, uh when Reggie Bush and Matt Leiner and all those guys were there, which was also really fascinating. And you know, what a lot of people ask me is why sort of a little bit like what Richie asked, you know, why the uh why football and fly fishing and and aside from those two things I just mentioned, uh my mom always has the best answer. She's from Alabama, she always says, Baby, I'm just so happy you put all that time you put you did fly fishing and watching football on T T V to some good use. That's what she said. It's true. I mean, to to a certain degree, I'm I'm mimicking what these guys do, right? What what what these people are right about. I'm I'm obsessed with them being obsessed. And a book is very much like a uh like a football season or chasing a world record. Uh again, you there is the you know, the destination at the end is to have a completed book. Uh but if if I were to sit here and look at, you know, just that blank page and that cursor blinking up in the left-hand corner right there, and I, oh my god, I have to write a if I have to write a complete book right now, I'd lose my mind, right? So it's about doing the little things that writing the first word and then writing the first sentence and then writing the paragraph, and then like taking these little tiny steps to get to this greater good and falling in love with all those steps kind of along the way and just loving it the whole time. And you know, one thing that for me and my career has been interesting is you know, I I published my first book 25 years ago and you know, writ written many magazines like that. But the one thing that always strikes me is that it's it's never gotten easier. It's never gotten easier. I just turned in a story uh yesterday at Garden Gun, and like it there's a good amount of pain that goes into every story, right? It's still that you still have to look at that blank page with that cursor and come up with something, come up with a way of telling a story. Now, unless you're plagiarizing or using AI, it's novel, right? It's new. No one's ever told the story the way you're gonna tell it. And um I love that, right? I've I'm at the age now where I have friends who have been, you know, working at law firms or whatever, and they're all bored out of their minds with their jobs. Um, and I'm not because I can't be. Because you know, you need to always be, no matter what you feel like, no matter if you're grumpy or sleepy or whatever, you just have to sit down and do it. And and and it it's incredibly gratifying. In fact, more gratifying now, I think, than ever because of because of the threat of AI and because of you know all the other baloney going on. It's I I love reading and writing more than I than I probably ever have. Um so I've always just really appreciated the fact that it's still hard. A lot like fishing, actually, I feel like. I mean, you can get technical proficiency as a fly angler, but you're you're never gonna catch every fish, right? Uh you're never gonna catch every fish you see. Uh and as you get better, you challenge yourself to try to, you know, maybe try to catch a permit or try to catch something that's really hard to catch. And uh, I've always loved that. I mean, uh to me, those challenges are what make it what keep you alive, animated.

SPEAKER_04 51:17

Yeah. Yeah. Do you are you uh do you have uh like a is your process to so many hours every day that you sit down to write?

SPEAKER_01 51:25

I don't really have. I mean, I don't I don't really have a uh a set process. So like right now, I finished that story yesterday, but I'm working on a new one now. What I'm doing now is I've I've uh you know um I'm transcribing all the tapes that I've from the interviews I did. So, you know, I try to, let's say it's a book and I have a year to do it, I will divvy that up. I'll do about half that time uh interviewing and researching, uh, which you know is a real extroverted thing when you gotta go out and talk to people and get them to tell your tell them stories, sometimes stories they might not, you know, be eager to tell right away. Uh you gotta drag, you gotta kind of pull it out of them. Uh and then, you know, once you've kind of feel like you've completely talked to all the right people and and done the research, you know, then it's a six-month period of complete introversion where you sit down and all you think about feeds into the book. Like I'll be walking outside and I'll see a tree and I'll be like, that reminds me of a river system. You know, it's like this crazy everything, every book you read, every movie you watch, like that, everything, oh, that reminds me of something. You know, it's all feeding in. And you grow a big nasty beard, the kids look at you kind of funny. But I love both parts of both parts of that process are are are so gratifying and so fun. The the only process of writing a book that I don't like is the promotion part, um, which is why I've involved the dogs in the in the uh Instagram thing, because I couldn't figure out a way. To me, it's always it's so yucky the way we writers promote books. It's kind of it, and me, myself included, like it's awful, right? You won't hear from me for a year on social media, and then I'll have a book coming out, and every day I'll be like, hey guys, buy my book. It's me again. Hi, haven't seen you in a while, but I have a new book out. Could you please buy it? Um I wish there was a way to like if you bought my book, then you can shut off the you know, shut off my feed for a while. But the the only way for me to I I a friend of mine sent me a picture of his dog reading uh Lords of the Fly is actually where it started, and I was like, that that could be fun, you know. And then people just start sending me, you know, their animals reading books. I had a some chickens and I had a pig actually, or a hog named Clementine reading Lords of the Fly. And then it's now it's kind of become like a thing where I have a book come out, people send me pictures of their animals reading it. To me, that's a more fun way to promote it than it is to, you know, be so nakedly promotional.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

Who uh who are some authors who have inspired you? I'm I'm just off of the top of my head. Uh I don't read a whole lot anymore, unfortunately, but uh Willie Morris, the courting of Marcus Dupree, uh that kind of style sounds a lot like you. Who who are some folks who have inspired you?

SPEAKER_01 54:01

I mean, I've always loved you guys know who Thomas McGuine is?

SPEAKER_04 54:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Yeah. So McGwane, I just revere. I mean, he's he's uh not only a great novelist and a great short story fictional writer, he's a great, you know, nonfiction writer. He's written some beautiful, some of the most beautiful stories that I that I know of uh about uh fishing, about permit fishing and tarpon fishing and trout fishing. So I love him. But you know, I I read a lot of novels too. I read, I just reread Great Gatsby, which is an absolute perfect piece of art. Um uh I love a guy named James Salter, who you maybe probably never heard of, sort of an obscure American writer. Uh but I you know I read pretty voraciously. I'm like always, always reading. It's to me, it's important to read really good uh other people's really good stuff is sort of so it's aspirational and I feel like it also feeds your gets your creative juices going a little bit. But like I said, I'm reading more now than I have in a long, long time. I just love it. You know, it's sort of fending off the AI, the incoming AI uh takeover.

SPEAKER_06 55:04

Yeah. I mean you keeping it original, babe. That's what we gotta do.

SPEAKER_03 55:07

You just have a really cool job, and uh, you know, you get to, you know, you get to travel to you know interview people. Uh how cool is that, you know, getting a write off a business expense by going and hanging out with some really cool person. Go find some learning about fishermen that catch a bunch of fish and write about it.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

It's pretty fun. You know, people do I'm like people think that I I don't actually fish as much as people think, right? Like I doing that homeless asset book, I was probably on the water with Tom Evans and his guide, guides uh, he had two guides on there, um, for you know, four three and a half weeks. I'd go out and I fished one day.

unknown 55:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

So a lot of it is uh a lot of it is just observing, but I just like being out there anyway, so it's kind of fun. And I pick up things from, you know, by all I this is tell people this all the time, by all rights and means I should be the best flycaster in the world. I've been taught by Lefty Cray, Andy Mill, Steve Huff, and Nathaniel Lindville, who's a great saltwater angler in Key West, and I'm not the best flycaster in the world. In fact, I'm still pretty fairly mediocre, but it's so cool to have these guys, I mean to have Lefty Cray show me or try to show me how to cast a fly was one of the coolest. You know, I I never forget. We went I did a story on him. We went down to his house and he had this little pond by his house, kind of algae covered or whatever. But we went over and he cut a little some of the grass away from it. He said, Let me let me see you cast. And I get out there and I take his eight-weight rod and I throw it. And I thought I thought I threw it pretty well. You know, I got out there and he goes, he goes, Did you did you look at your back ass? I said, No, he said, good, because it was ugly. And then he sits in there and here's this guy. He's at the time I was 45, he was 90, so he was double my age. Um, I'm 6'5, he was about 5'2, so I'm you know more than a foot taller than he is. And he gets out there and two false casts, throws the entire line, you know, out there, 90-year-old guy. And so it was just things like that are so, you know, to me as a fishing geek, as a football geek. Like I just love being all uh being around all that stuff. It's just so cool.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

You know, the he mentioned a guy in Texas that was trying to grow huge largemouth. I I wonder if that's the the gentleman that uh, you know, was in the food plot business and and uh I don't think it was. He was talking about a biologist, but he may have been working with him. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

Could could have been. Yeah, Texas had a big bass program when I back when I was right in South Belly, and they were actively trying to grow the world record through the state.

SPEAKER_04 57:28

The guy you're talking about was trying to grow prawns and flood them into other lakes, and I think he was very successful at that. Okay. But I don't think they've gotten up above 15 pounds. I'm not sure about that. We've got a we have a pond fertilizer called Perfect Pond, and a lot of these guys that are trying to grow big bass buy our pond fertilizer from us. It's the best one in the world for sure. Of course, it is. And you know, and Monty, let me say this. So uh you don't know anything about me, but I've written a couple of fictional stories. This is gonna come up. He's gonna look for some advice. So I and I so I I'm paying attention to you and everything. I've much admiration. But all my life, Carl Hayes and I just I just gobbled up his stories as soon as they would come out. And then when I fished down there with Craig Brewer, I went into some tackle shop and there was a trophy there, and it had Carl Hayeson's name on it for a couple of times for a bonefish tournament. So he is a super serious angler.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

He is. You know, I I I did a story after I did that story on Steve Huff, Garden Gunn asked me to do a story on Carl Hyeson, and I was thrilled because I I grew up reading him. I I love reading him. And so we went down and actually we fished with Steve Huff, and I was pleasantly surprised at what a phenomenal angler he is. What a phenomenal angler. I mean, just a great caster, great eyes. Uh, you know, because so many times you meet people who are supposed to be good anglers and they're and they're just not. And and he was. Uh he was also funny as hell. The that I I did a story on him, and Rivers Always Reach to see it. He the names he has for a fish that won't eat his fly, I can't I can't say him on the we're a family uh podcast here. I won't say him, but he just has, you know, as you might suspect, has like, you know, 10 different awesome names for him. And you know, he chipped his teeth a couple times, you know, over the years, biting Tippet. I mean, he's like a legit, legit uh fly fisherman. He's won bone fish tournaments, as you said, has caught 180-pound tarpon, had the world record permit in his hand, but the but the uh the rod broke, so it disqualified the fish. I mean, he's a truly legitimate uh flats angler in particular.

SPEAKER_04 59:30

Yeah. Wow. He's always been a hero of mine. I've always uh loved his stuff. So look, we typically do a trivia question for our guest. Okay. Um I think you're gonna I'm kind of uh Richie, I think this one's gonna be we should have done a better question. Well, I know, Bobby. Why didn't you do a better question?

SPEAKER_00 59:47

Well, Bobby, you always come up with these super uh questions out there that you know try to know he's gonna know this all right. So um uh Monty, real quick, so in your times out there in the flats, out there live fishing, did you ever take bowl peanuts out on the boat with you?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:05

A bowl of peanuts.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Boiled peanuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:08

Oh, boiled peanuts, yeah. Uh I thought you said a bowl of peanuts. I was like, yeah, I'm holding it. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

We're not the only one.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:16

Yeah, we've had a lot of people. So we're we're sponsored by uh a company that makes bowl peanuts when you go in a gas station here in the South and a lot of other places. You can buy the McCollow Farms uh bowl peanut peanut patch bowl peanuts. And we've had since we've been doing this podcast, they've been sponsoring us for about a year. We've had a number of people email us and say, Are y'all eating bull penis? What are y'all talking about?

SPEAKER_06 1:00:39

Yeah, so we over-enunciate boiled penis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

And all those folks were from your part of the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

That's the uh yeah, you got the the the the uh weirdness of having bold, not weirdness, but the uh weird to northerners of boiled peanuts, but then also the southern accent. So yeah, I can see where the the bold penis comes in.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:01

But we definitely got both of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

I I never have, no. Uh and that's not to say that someone else hasn't, but I never have. But I maybe I will. That sounds pretty fun. You should try. Yeah, we'll send you some.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

Is that one of those things that are like considered unlucky on the boat, like peanuts? No, no, bananas.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:15

Bananas are unlucky. I think that's a superstition. That's exactly what it is. You nailed it. It's overdone. You had you had been writing books, had you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Are you superstitious? Am I superstitious? Or a little stitch? Oh, am I new? Oh, but you ask are you asking me? I'm a I'm a little stitched. Yeah. It's funny, you know. I was I fished with Wade Boggs, the fit the uh the uh baseball player one time, and he said he was one of these real superstitious guys, as you remember. He he had the same chicken dinner every night before every game, and I mean he was like super, super, super superstitious, extra superstitious. And uh he told me he was one of those guys who was like uh, you know, I'd never take a banana on the boat. He's like, I don't I don't even wear Fruit of Loom underwear, is what he said.

unknown 1:02:01

I'll never forget that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:02

And then I was writing the story for Forbes, and we had a really hardcore fact-checking department, so I was checking every fact before I gave it to the fact checker because that could be a real pain in the butt if you get anything wrong. And I looked up the Fruit of Loom thing, and there's not a banana on the Fruta Loom, by the way. It's like a grape and or you know, I don't know, a grape and something else, blueberry, something like that. So I thought that was really funny that he won't even wear anything that he even thinks might have a banana.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:25

But anyway, yeah, how about that?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:27

He's definitely stitched.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:28

He is. All right. Well, if you don't get this question, I'm just we're just I don't there's no way you don't get this question.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Before we get to the trivia, though, we have a listener who left a review. Yeah. Uh so he listened, he watched uh podcast number 439 on snakes um on YouTube, and Polcat Daddy left a review. Y'all are the best as a 50-year-old lifelong sportsman. I've had my share of close call with snakes. I was nearly bitten in the lower lower torso region by a copper head while trying to set up on a gobbler, which I ended up shooting after collecting myself. I also have Afagal.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

Oh, God.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:08

There you go, Dud.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

That might be Ken, Dud. I think there's a lot more of us, Ken, these days.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:14

My my reaction to Afagal is unconsciousness.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:18

Oh man, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

Yeah, so that's tough.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:23

That could be that could be rough. Have you ever passed out?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

I don't want, I don't wish Alpha Gal on anybody. So what does he win, Bobby?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:32

Well, we've got one more of the thermoseats left. Nice. We're cleaning out the closet and found that, so we'll get that shipped out. Those are fantastic. Just in time for summer. Super warm, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

He's on your tracker seat.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:46

A timeless classic.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:48

All right. So here's our uh super question. All right. So obviously, tarpon have gills and can breathe just just like any other traditional fish. But also, can tarpon breathe air?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

They can and they do.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:04

There you go. Nailed it. Knew we would get that. Piece of cake. Yeah. That was you know, just trying to throw him a softball there or something. Is this the week that we're giving away $2,500, Lanny? Uh no, that's probably maybe next week. Oh, otherwise. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

But we'll get you a companion shirt sent up there too. Sounds good. No cash, but it's a bowl of peanuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

It's a bowl, boiled, boiled peanuts. Have you guys have you guys ever seen a tarpon gulping air? Yeah. It's it's one of the coolest. So it's a it's a thing they have because when they're younger, they live in um low oxygen environments to stay, you know, to stay away from all the predators. And uh so they have to go and gulp air and they and they do it particularly in the morning when the oxygen content in the water is low. So it's it's like if you're out there really early and the water's kind of flat calm and you just see these, you know, they they make a blue, it'd like to say bloop, bloop, and they're all it's like all over you. It's like trout rising, you know, 120-pound trout rising all over you. It is the coolest, coolest thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

Yeah. So, Monty, what did you intend to do with a religion uh degree?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

You know, my grandmother wanted me to be a a preacher, uh, but uh I wasn't I don't think I was cut out to be a preacher. But I I just was always fascinated by religion. I mean, uh and the and the role that it's played uh in uh the world, really. And and you know, the uh all the stories in the Old Testament are fascinating, you know, from the Tower of Babel to David and Bathsheba to you know David and Goliath. They're all like, you know, they all have these morals sort of, you know, to to to get across to us and and they're you know explicative. They they exp they try to explain what's going on. And you know, I had a religion professor who would he would always say, it doesn't really matter if Moses actually parted the Red Sea, like in actuality. It's uh what he would call he would call it profoundly true, right? So Moses did something. something to the equivalent of maybe parting a Red Sea by leading people you know around basically um so I always I don't know I found that to be I find those things to be very have a lot of power and and I love I love you know I love it in the way that I love literature because it has this uh imaginative uh power to it you know which which I just love I mean it's like it's all in your in your in your brain sort of which I you know which I think is so cool. Yeah I mean this whether or not you're a person of faith uh I'll just say it it's a good book that the stories are the best one ever really good it's it's got everything it's got sex it's got drugs it's got violence it's got redemption you know I mean it really does it's it's a it's a I'm gonna tell you what that old testament got all kind of stuff yeah it does yeah yeah and and I love how immature God was in the in the Old Testament too it's like uh you know it Jonah's a good example he's like Jonah go preach to these people in this wicked town he's like nope and he's like all right then I'm gonna have a whale swallow you you know we might do a little bit more of that these days if you look back at that town I'm gonna turn you into a pillar of salt and someone looks back at the town and gets turned into a pillar of salt it's kind of it's just like it's so kind of wonderfully immature I love it you know Solomon Gamorra.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:19

Yeah wow well I tell you what uh Monty we've enjoyed having you on here absolutely been a lot of fun thank you thanks you guys for having me appreciate it yeah we wish you luck with uh in the future and certainly next week with uh on your fishing trip thank you can't wait yeah I'm gonna need to here it comes well just hang on I'm gonna I want to get your address and all that so we can send all that to you but uh but Monty we we do wish you luck uh the uh we've got a magazine called Game Keepers you may not have ever heard of it I'm gonna send you a copy we might get you to write some stuff for us and certainly we've got something called uh the bottom land book club we can do a review of one of your the next thing that you've got coming out we probably don't want to review uh you know like the USC book that's probably not our our readership probably was but uh the next fishing book for sure okay sounds good all sounds good money I don't know if you remember it I did a review of Lord uh Lords of the Fly for you without ever knowing you a couple of years ago but uh I it probably never found it well where did you put on did you publish on Macio?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

Uh on the in our gamekeeper magazine I'd love to see that I don't know if I saw that I'll dig it out because I thank you for doing that assuming it was a positive review thank you for doing that it was yeah it was very positive.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:34

Oh I thought Bobby was talking about like on Facebook or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:36

No, no we did it in the magazine. I really really enjoyed that book and and guys I'll go ahead and say it what the stories that he's telling you can listen to Andy Mill and Nicky on the Mill House podcast you they've got a podcast about homo sass or several and Tom Evans specifically is a good one to listen to yep all right well have you got any questions for us before we let you go do you do you when you're out there in Brooklyn do you ever watch our television show or some of the outdoor I do I do when I especially in the wintertime I get really hard up for you know we we we we have very good fishing but only like eight to nine months a year.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:09

So there's a you know in mid-January I'm usually just Jones and so yeah I'm flipping around the TV checking out stuff. I love hunting shows I love fishing.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:17

I told you some I was watching yeah how about that all right guys this has been fun anybody else got another question really interesting Richie I'm looking at you I feel like we want to go catch I don't know this might be out of the ordinary you earlier you were talking we were just kind of talking I don't know 20 minutes ago and you said hey I'm gonna save that story to the end that that was well no that was the fact that I'd actually seen it in person uh the the Sistine Chapel in person.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

I was gonna start with oh I just went to you know the Sistine Chapel but I thought I figured I'd tell you the what it meant first and then and then uh tell you how how awesome it was to actually see it in person.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

It's interesting that there are no tarpon in the Mediterranean but they're in the you know they there's a lot of uh places around Africa Lanny pay attention Lanny I'm talking to you paying attention that where they fish for tarpon over there yeah they're catching them on the Gulf Coast here.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

Yeah yeah they they even go catch them in that brown water outside of the the passes at Venice in Louisiana.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:13

And wasn't there isn't there a guy fishing out of Biloxi that's caught a big big tarpon?

SPEAKER_04 1:10:17

I think so those are some big fish that come through there. That's right. Yep. Well guys if you get a chance to go tarpon fishing do it. It's a lot of fun I was going to ask you if you thought there was anybody that had grown a world record bash but had kept it quiet in their in their private ponds.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:35

It's so funny you know I I thought about that while I was writing about South Belly has there been someone who caught one and just didn't know and threw it back all of that is possible right and uh I I would imagine if someone grew it that they would probably crow about it because they were you know kind of knew what they were doing right but I I do think it's one of the great things about that record in particular is it like I said before it's a truly democratic thing. I mean it could be a seven year old child could catch that record right and that was was always really it made those world record chasers who would dedicate their lives to it like they were it sort of was a fear they always had that somebody was going to come in here and randomly catch uh the world record who didn't even wasn't even going for it that kind of thing. Yeah on a cane pole with a cricket I mean it's very possible someone caught a bigger one than that and just took it home and ate it. I mean who knows right but but I think that's all kind of fun right to think about that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:29

Yeah that is good.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

All right guys once you say goodbye Dudley goodbye Dudley get us out of here thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast and be sure to tune in again subscribe to Gamekeeper Farming for Wildlife magazine and don't miss the Macio Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy Ronnie Cus Strickland