EP:349 | Talking Crappie with Hayden Jeffries

On this episode we discuss crappie with expert fisherman Hayden Jeffries of Brandon, Mississippi. Hayden has won more tournaments than we can list and is widely considered to be the best at what he does. By fishing 12 months a year he has a handle on what they do and how to catch them in the various seasons. We end up learning a great deal and discuss fishing tactics for different lakes, depth, water conditions and times of the year. He’s a home boy that has the reputation for being one of the best at running Live Scope and he explains his thoughts on the controversial subject.  Whether you call them crappie, white perch, or sac-a-lait or even crappy , you’ll want  to chase them after this one. Listen, Learn and Enjoy

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm 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 Austria's 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 going to tell you. I bet it's interesting. Enjoy.

SPEAKER_06 0:26

We're live in three, two, one. All right, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to West Point, Mississippi. It's another rainy day. Imagine that, Land.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

I thought it was going to hold off till after lunch, but we ended up getting it in the morning.

SPEAKER_06 0:39

Toxie, when I look at the weather, it looks like after today we got some sunshine for a while.

SPEAKER_07 0:44

I don't trust it an hour in advance anymore. So that's what it said about today. Woke up this morning, 15% chance of rain. Looked at it 30 minutes later, 40% chance of rain. Looked at it 10 minutes later, 100%, 68% chance of rain. And then 30 minutes later, it's pouring. Yeah. And still pouring now.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I learned a lot earlier this week with uh our buddy from Nutrient. I really did. So it's interesting to give me a little more perspective on these showers.

SPEAKER_06 1:12

Well, uh there was one thing he said about these free apps we have on our phone. Do you remember that later?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

I remember that. Explain that real quick back to me. Basically, they are increasing the amount of percentage of rain chances on the free weather apps to make you look at it more often, is what he said. So you're better off getting more better data through a paid app. Which is interesting because you've been giving me grief for two years for paying for a weather app. I have, because I thought it was a good idea.

SPEAKER_07 1:39

I just told you what happened to me this morning and how fast it was constantly changing your percentage. You know, and he also explained to us we don't need to get go down all these rabbit holes because weather will do be on it all day. But how that per you know what it means when you see 65% chance of rain is not like truly there's a 65% chance of rain and how they calculate that and what it means. That was very educational, too.

SPEAKER_06 2:02

Yeah, guys, so the we'll have this podcast uh with Eric Snodgrass about weather. With nutrient accidents. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:09

Well, all I know is I'm I'm I mean, I can't even go pick tomatoes like it's full sun and windy, and you still get eaten alive by mosquitoes. I I've never seen anything like it. That's right.

SPEAKER_07 2:22

Everything.

SPEAKER_06 2:23

So today we're gonna talk about crappie. All right, and we've got the maestro over here. We do. We have a uh a celebrated uh young man over here that's just won all kinds of awards and accolades. And he eats a lot of crappie. I think I don't know if he eats a lot of them. I try to eat them once a week. There you go. But but welcome, Hayden Jeffries. All right, yeah. Brandon, Mississippi. Uh young guy, how old are you? I'm 25 Monday. So just turned 25. Young man. I wish I was 25 again. I bet you know what I know now.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

You cut your teeth on the old Ross Barnett, I bet. That's it. Um, born and raised right there outside of Jackson, Mississippi. Um, I've been fishing Ross Barnett since I was a little kid.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

So that's my stomping ground. Yeah. As a matter of fact, my family had a fish camp. Uh they got rid of it uh, I guess, in the late 50s. Uh I guess eminent domain. Uh and it was called Blue Lake. It was this doughnut-shaped lake, and uh, it is now underneath the Ross Barnett reservoir. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Low spot out.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

That's interesting. Yeah, really low spot. Who was Ross Barnet? It was called the Mud Hole. He was a gov governor of Mississippi. Sure was. Yeah. Well, I grew up with his grandson.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

I've always heard that's a fantastic fishing lake. It's it's one of the best ones I've been on. I've been around the country looking at a lot of different lakes and I always enjoy coming home.

SPEAKER_06 3:43

And Laney, I think they've got a lot of alligators down there, too. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

Now tons of gators everywhere.

SPEAKER_06 3:47

So look, for guys listening to this, I'm I'm looking at Hayden and he looks like he's about 6'3, 6'4. Like you could have played like a Ford in college basketball. And you've got this long hair. Uh Bobby always talks. I don't know why Bobby always talks about it. It's because Bobby has no hair in Toronto.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yep, it's a it's constant. Don't take it personally. It's everybody that could be. It's called hair envy.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Well, yeah, I probably do. We'll talk about hair products in a little while. We're good at that. But you kind of when I remember that song, the Charlie Daniels song about uneasy rider rolling into Jackson, Mississippi on a Saturday night and had his hair stuffed with the I kind of picture that's what I picture when I look at you, hey. That's funny. Easy ride. Are you familiar with that song? I'm not. I'm good listening to play it for him.

SPEAKER_07 4:32

Yeah, if you're he has a much calmer response to Bobby's antics. Uh off color or off beat or whatever. Humor. You know, very calm. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Okay. All right. Well, let's get let's get right right down to it. We're gonna talk about crappie. You are you are a professional crappie fisherman.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Yeah. I've been fortunate enough. I've been fishing full time for a little over three and a half years now. Um, had a blast doing it. I got to travel the country there for a couple years and um just awesome all the way around.

SPEAKER_06 5:06

How well how tell us how you got started fishing? You know, there had to be an adult somewhere in your life that brought you up.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Um my grandfather's both of them fished. They would take us every chance they got, but then dad, he loved it. Um anything outdoors related, he tried to get us in there, um, whether it was hunting, fishing, whatever it was. And so when we were little, he would take us fishing for whatever he thought we could catch. Um, just you know, to where we could be satisfied with catching something. We may be catfishing one week, brim fishing the next. And but we never really messed with crappie any. Um, I didn't start crappie fishing until I was probably 15, 16 years old. Um, had a still a good friend to this day. He he took me crappie fishing for the first time, and I fell in love with it. Um, started going with him basically every Sunday afternoon. He would get out of church and we'd go crappie fishing for a little while, and so that's where it started, and um it kind of just built from there. A lot of people just think about crappie in the spring when they're spawning, but you chase them year round, I suppose. I fish 12 months out of the year. Um with advances in technology and everything else, crappie are very targetable um year round.

SPEAKER_06 6:04

What do you think you like so much about why did you hone in on crappie?

SPEAKER_03 6:08

I don't know. I've I've I've tried to figure that out myself. Um, I still enjoy fishing for a lot of different species, but it's it's just something about a crappie's brain that I don't know. He's different.

SPEAKER_06 6:18

Taksha, when you were growing up on the Tom Bigby River, and uh did you do a lot of crappie fishing?

SPEAKER_07 6:23

No, I didn't actually. I did some, but that's one thing I've always been fascinated by it because I don't know a lot about it. But I'm the same way. Grew up in crappie country. I was actually, you know, we bass fished a lot, but my I guess my most, you know, catfishing, catching river catfish was my favorite thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

Yeah, all my crappie experience was going with my granddad. He would he would go in the spring when they were spawning and take a bucket of minnows and we would catch a bunch of crappie.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Yep. My first exposure to it was actually Joe Champion uh down at Portland. Oh, yeah. Uh fishing off the banks with those poles. And I tell you what, I liked it, there's no doubt about it. But that time in my life I'd kind of got established with my spring.

SPEAKER_07 7:03

You were in this, plus that down there. That's in that Miller's Ferry watershed area, which is world famous too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:12

Well, I almost felt like growing up you had to pick one or other. You had to pick turkey on your crappie fishing because whoa.

SPEAKER_07 7:18

Unless you just hunt all day, it's the perfect combination. It is not crop.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

I will say I've never killed a turkey. Ah, this makes sense because I haven't caught many crappie.

SPEAKER_07 7:29

If you kiss crappie, if you have an obsessive personality, don't start. Yeah, because it'll get you.

SPEAKER_06 7:34

You ever been dipping a jig down a riverbank and hear a turkey gobble?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Not that I can say. Well, if you do, hit me up with a with a pen. Yeah, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

Yeah, I've killed I've killed several turkeys right near this really good crappie spot in your um, you know, in your in your where you yeah, where you probably guess.

SPEAKER_06 7:55

Yeah. I have met a couple of guys, and I've never done this, but this sounds like this would be the ideal. But they would put in and hunt and fish down some core of engineer property and crappie fish.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Hey, hey, hey, keep keep it quiet, bro.

SPEAKER_06 8:09

This is way down south. Okay, well, that sounds a lot better. You know, and they might be uh trying to catch some crappie, and if they heard heard a turkey cobble, they would check on X. See if they could. If they could, they'd probably step out of the boat.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

That sounds like a lot of fun. That sounds like something.

SPEAKER_08 8:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

That would be the one I would definitely use if I was crappie fisherman. Yeah. Fishing. Well I guess you wouldn't mind. I mean, you could have a shotgun in your crappie boat. I don't see why you couldn't. I don't know. Just keep it in the rod box. That's right. And the gobble, go get it. Good to go.

SPEAKER_06 8:38

All right, enough about that. So before we did go down this, let's start with Dudley and rapid fire. We'll get to learn a little bit about you. It's brought to you by our friends at Nutrian. Dudley's got one of the caps on. All right.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

Hayden, are you ready? For about in your answer. We're just we want to get to know you better. All right. Are you ready? Yeah. Uh bananas in the boat. Doesn't bother me, or absolutely not. Doesn't bother me. Uh do you think largemouth bass taste good? No. What is your personal record crappie? 3.94. Hey. Pick one. Fried okra, regular fries, tots, or onion rings? Fried okra. Is there a perfect oil for frying fish? I like peanut. Okay. Have you ever fired a customer out on the water? We went to the ramp one morning. That's all I'll say. All right, fried fish again.

SPEAKER_03 9:45

Bone in or fillet? Um I've always been a fillet until I tried a skinned crappie. Not skilled, but skinned, and it it changed it for me. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Okay. What is your favorite dipping sauce for fried fish? Ketchup, whatever. Hot sauce. Hot sauce. All right. North Mississippi. Pick one. Grenada, Sardis, or Enid? Grenada. How old were you when you killed your first buck? Eight, probably. Somewhere in there. Um, uh, probably need to erase this one. But uh, do you turkey hunt in the spring or is it all fishing? I've never killed a turkey. All right. Have you ever caught a tagged fish a second time?

SPEAKER_03 10:28

I have caught several tagged fish, but I'm not going to say that I've caught one a second time.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

A second time in a row. I just I thought that was neat. That maybe since you fish so much, maybe that's happened. And last but not least, does your long hair cover up your red neck? My neck is actually very pale because my hair covers it up.

SPEAKER_08 10:48

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 10:49

I didn't know if there was any truth to that from the David Allen Co. song.

SPEAKER_06 10:53

No, kind of old contrast. How does that go, Lang? Delta, can you give sing a few verses? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_07 11:00

He can't actually know. Let's move on.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

I do know it, but I can't see it near as well as Dudley. I've got another question. Have you ever met or heard of Billy Joe Cross? Billy Joe. Being that you're from Rankin County. I don't think so. So you might you were like the new generation.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

So Billy Joe Cross was the Philippine Mansion.

SPEAKER_04 13:20

You have replaced his uh Legacy. Legacy. In the 80s, I would say.

SPEAKER_07 13:27

But he was in a lot of wildlife and fisheries. Oh, yeah. He was really big with DUs.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Um but uh he's also a famous cook. He has a cookbook out, but he was like the Oh, I have one. Before crappie fishing was cool, he was like the best crappie fisherman known in the area.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, super Mississippian. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:49

Anyway, thought I'd I'd give a shout out. Hopefully, some of his family's listening. I'll have to look into that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:54

Before we get too far, tell us about these skin in these crappie.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yeah, what are you skinning the crappie before you press them hole?

SPEAKER_03 14:01

I've tried eating whole crappie before where you just knock all the scales off, and I'm not a fan of it. It's kind of fishy. And so I had a guy show me one day you take a filet knife and run down both sides of his back and grab it with catfish pliers, and just like you would a catfish, just rip the skin off of him.

SPEAKER_07 14:17

And it comes off without tearing the flesh. That's right. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

And so then you just you take the you take the fins off the top and the bottom of them, leave the tail to where you get the crunch and just batter it and drop it in the back. I love that tail. It's good.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, I do too. Do you gut them? Yeah. Okay. And then skin them. I got some catfish skin in front of them. You think the fishy taste is in the skin?

SPEAKER_06 14:39

I've always heard that it is. Oh, it's in the fat.

SPEAKER_07 14:41

I mean, it's certainly gonna contribute to it.

SPEAKER_06 14:45

So it's gonna be ever growing up, I remember some people would they'd get uh the eggs from a crappie and they would fry those. Have you I've never tried it.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

I've never tried it. I've had some mullet roe fried. I've never had crappie roe fried.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

I've tried it, it just it really didn't do a whole lot.

SPEAKER_07 15:01

I've tried a couple of catfish. We used to catch those catfish with big old egg size.

SPEAKER_06 15:06

Yeah, but uh it I didn't ever like it. Yeah. It's interesting all the different things that different regions of the country have gravitate to.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Do you think fish heads are I mean are a delicacy in a lot of places?

SPEAKER_07 15:21

Such a big thing about crappies with the uh general public is the you know, such a great taste in fish and all. But have you noticed different uh lakes in different areas or different times of the year or whatever that different ones taste differently?

SPEAKER_03 15:34

I'm gonna say it can definitely change depending on water conditions, depending on several different things. A black crappie and a white crappie can be a little different. Is there a preference between the two? Table wise? Not really. You just want something that comes out of a fairly clean lake. I gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

And help help me understand the black crappie and the white crappie thing. Are they together and they're different parts of the country, different depths?

SPEAKER_03 15:55

They can live they can live in the same lake and live in the same areas. Um they're two completely different species of fish, but they also do a lot of the same things.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Do you have different tactics for each one? You'll have to mix it up for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_06 16:09

I like that he says crappie and not crappy. I've never heard crappy much. Sacramento. I grew up calling them white perch. White perch, yeah. But there are places in the country that call them crappy. Where is that? Um, Alabama for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

What? Anything that directly. A good friend of mine, he calls them crappy.

SPEAKER_06 16:34

He may be an isolated uh I don't think I'm speaking for the majority of the state and it's crappie. Uh I wasn't expecting I was expecting you to say New York or some place like that.

SPEAKER_07 16:46

We should write a book on the proper pronunciation of them.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

I think it's like the autobiology, it depends.

SPEAKER_07 16:53

What's the what's Dudley usually knows it, but he doesn't on this. What's the scientific name? Oh, should have looked it up. Google will tell you. We knew this. We need that.

SPEAKER_06 17:01

I'm sure Hayden knows that. I don't remember it right off the top of my tongue. All right, Hayden. So let's talk about I'd like to understand uh like these tournaments that that you've gotten into. How are how do how the it is it very similar to a bass tournament or you you get a you how how how are you you guys doing those?

SPEAKER_03 17:21

It's uh it's very similar, um, except most crappie tournaments are gonna weigh seven fish compared to five. Um they give you a couple extra fish because a crappie's not gonna grow to ten pounds like a bass could. Um but oh goodness.

SPEAKER_06 17:35

So and you've got I see spider rigs on some boats. Is all that wide open to you?

SPEAKER_03 17:41

Um these days most everybody's using live scope when it comes to tournament fishing. Um you'll see an occasional uh spider rig or trolling. Um, but for the most part, everybody has kind of gravitated towards the newer technology. Is anybody still using minutes? They're still allowed in tournaments and they're fished at almost every tournament. Hey, there's a chance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:02

Well, you you you brought up live scope. That that's an interesting, I mean, we need we need to talk about it a little bit, but and I understand you're one of the best at using a live scope. Why is that? How did you it were you a gamer and you just understand?

SPEAKER_03 18:17

I've gotten that a lot. They think they, you know, people say, Oh, you must have played all kinds of video games as a kid. And I really didn't. Um, dad wouldn't buy us an Xbox. He wouldn't buy us a PlayStation. He said, If y'all want something to do, go outside. I didn't get an Xbox either.

SPEAKER_06 18:29

I got a I got a dog.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

And we ended up getting one as we were older, but never played it. You know, by then we were in the outdoors and doing that, and so it just sat there and collected dust. Yeah. That's good. So uh how how did you learn to use these things? So let's see, LiveScope came out in 2017, 2018, somewhere in there. Um, that's about the same time I was graduating college. I mean, graduating high school, going to college, and then two years later, COVID hit. And so I was already kind of starting to use LiveScope a little bit and get familiar with it. And then when COVID hit, they sent us home from school. I was working a part-time job that we could work 20 hours a week, and so I had nothing but free time, and so I started fishing um pretty much every day that the weather would let me. Um getting out there, using it, trying to figure out you know what I was looking at and trying to understand it. And it took it took a while, but um finally started to come together.

SPEAKER_04 19:20

So I I know very little about that. Um so you it's facing downwards?

SPEAKER_03 19:26

It's a forward-facing sonar compared to you know, a lot of your older stuff, it was down imaging, or and you were looking directly under the boat to see how deep it was. Um then side imaging came out and it got to where we could scan off both sides of the boat a hundred feet or so. And then the forward-facing sonar um came around. And so it's it's looking off the front of the boat, um, scanning 75 to 100 feet.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

Okay. Um, and and so it's you're not gonna be like often jigging straight up and down. You're gonna be getting it out.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Well, we'll still fish vertical, but um, you're using it, you know, to locate fish, locate structure, um, different things.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

It just makes it a lot easier to see exactly where they are. You're fishing for a fish most of the time.

SPEAKER_06 20:10

Wow. So you can pull up to a brush top and know whether you should fish it or not. You you could say, Oh, there's none here, let's go and find another one. Or here they are, guys. And you can see you can see them.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

If it's a brush pile as big as this room and there's one fish on it, you can kind of pick it apart, and sure enough, you'll see them sitting there.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

So we kind of cruise around, be like, mm-hmm, that's not big enough there.

SPEAKER_03 20:33

In a tournament, I mean you're looking for the biggest fish. I can see that. And so you send a lot of waste time when they're not. You've got to train yourself to drive past the smaller fish.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

There's a bunch. And then some days when you're just out there fun fishing, you try to catch every fish you see.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:48

It's the it seems like the live scope has really kind of polarized people, and and some people think that you're y'all are gonna catch all the fish out of a uh out of a lake. But what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_03 20:59

It's a very touchy subject um for a lot of people. I've you know been using it for a while, and I've been I'm gonna use Ross Barnett in as as an example. Um, because I've been watching it for let's say five years with Live Scope. Um there's more fish in that lake this year than I've ever seen it. And a lot of people have said, well, you're looking at more water than you used to look at, but I've been looking at water for a while. You know, I stay on the lake pretty much every day, and so I get to see you know what's in it um somewhat, and the lake's super healthy. Um live scope will never kill a fishery, I'll say that. Overfishing will kill a fishery. Yeah, good point.

SPEAKER_04 21:37

So if the proper regulations are in place, proper size. Self-regulation, um, so as long as the the the folks managing the resource are doing their part and collecting the data and all that, where they can set the property.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Oh, and you gotta think it's gonna help them collect better data too. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not just fishermen that can use it.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

And I feel that a lot of these lakes, it could actually help down the road because they're borderline overpopulated with crappie. And so a little bit more harvest is probably gonna help that lake grow bigger fish.

SPEAKER_07 22:08

It sure could. I didn't think of it in terms of a better, more accurate census. Yes, that's actually for sure.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

I mean it's a certain it's a surveying tool.

SPEAKER_07 22:17

Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about private, you know, you gotta not knock in all our fish biologists' buddies, but having to shock the lake to find out it may be a better way. Cruise around and look at them. For sure.

SPEAKER_06 22:28

So yeah, I mean, I can remember being a kid. My dad loved to fish for crappie, and but sometimes we would go and you wouldn't you might not get on them. You know, and we'd try different depths and all this kind of stuff. And as a young kid, you you you just love being out there fishing, but but it was so much better if you were catching fish. And I can see that this would be a way, I mean, I guess that's like a no-brainer. But it but I can see how this would really help guys taking kids and just everybody having a better time.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

For sure. For sure. I get to spend a lot of days every year with kids in the boat, and we always have a good time. Um, usually because we can, you know, get them on some fish.

SPEAKER_06 23:06

I can't even get an attachment to emails from time to time. I just I look at that big live scope when I see them on boats, and I'm thinking, how in the world does a guy figure out how to do all that?

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Once you see it though, I mean it it makes sense. It's not people overcomplicated, I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_06 23:23

You know, it's come so far in the last four or five years, Lane. We've been paying attention to it, but yeah. Are you hearing I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

I'm scared to see, really. I mean technology. It's getting clearer and they're getting where you can see farther, and I don't I don't know where it goes.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Um, all right. So let's talk about cost here. What uh is there like an entry level price that or I mean are they all similar?

SPEAKER_03 23:48

They're they're similar. You have three different brands that make them. Um I'm gonna say entry cost into it to get a upper end good system um four to five thousand. Okay, whereas you could get Cheaper. Get a smaller display screen, but then it's harder to see what you're doing and whatnot.

SPEAKER_04 24:06

I wonder if you know in 10 years they'll be like$3.99 at Walmart. Kind of like big screen TVs.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

No, it'd be like a Bluetooth to your phone. You flip it on the front of the boat.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

It's pretty amazing. Right now it's kind of it's kind of going the other way because people are wanting bigger displays and better transducers and this and the and so it's getting expensive. Um the system that runs on the front of my boat's probably 10,000 or so. Okay. But you're a professional. I use it every day so I can justify it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

I mean, a country music singer doesn't have a$400. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 26:41

That's right. You know, the great thing to point out, too, though, with all this advancing techno technology, um, you know, probably a wider gap, but you can just still go fishing old school, take your chances, drum in us, whatever. Or you can you can you know have the best of the best technology. It just like hunting. I mean, you know, not everybody has to have 50 trail cameras telling them everything's going on. They just take their chances, climb a tree, scout, look for Muno sign, and and you can you can enjoy the full gamut of out there in nature. Yeah, there's a balance in there for sure. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 27:16

All right, let's talk about catching crappie. So when you I'm thinking about the spring. You show up at the Ross Barnett reservoir. How do you how do you decide? I'm using a yellow jig today or a pink jig. What what goes through your mind there? Is it watercolor? And are you jigs?

SPEAKER_03 27:34

I use jigs a lot. Um mostly watercolor. Um and it's not really the color of the water, it's how much sediment's in the water. So, like during the spring, it's gonna be muddy. I mean, you think about this river right here, or say Grenada, it's gonna be super muddy. Um and it looks the same every day, but the clarity changes just a little bit depending on how that sediment is churned or whether it's settled down or whatever it is. Um I try to stay as natural as possible when I'm picking a jig, just because a crappie eats, you know, something that's fairly natural most of the time. But when you start getting into the mud, um you have to start playing with different colors. And after studying it, I'm gonna say red shows up the best. Like if it's just super, super muddy, you can't see your bait as soon as you drop it in there, they can see red.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

That's interesting. You you know, you would think it would be something neon-ish, chartreusey.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

And chartreuse, it actually turns white when you put it into muddy water, and so it's harder for them to see that.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

So, what would be if you had to just one color to fish all the time, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Um, my go-to jig would be silver for sure. But it depends, you know, different times of the year, and back to that black crappie, white crappie thing. Um a black crappie's gonna eat a smaller bait than a white crappie typically is. And so if you know you're fishing in an area that you know is predominantly black crappie, um you're looking a little smaller and probably a little more bug-like almost, maybe some browns and greens and different things like that coming into play.

SPEAKER_07 29:00

What about uh like insect stuff? Like right now, the I guess this time of year, the the willowflies hatch. And I've seen them be such a massive hatch when we grew up on the Tom Bigby, and that's when we would catch a lot. You could actually put a light out and get a whole bunch of them and put them on a brim hook, and I mean as soon as you drop it in the water, you catch you know, brim or a lot of crappie would bite it.

SPEAKER_03 29:23

Yeah, we've had a lot of mayflies this year down there, and I didn't know what was going on because every crappie we were catching, their their mouths were red and bleeding. Oh, wow. And I didn't know what it was, and I kind of asked around and it they were eating larva off of wood, so the crappie's actually swimming up and eating those larva off of the stumps. Huh. And so it was beating their mouths up almost making them bleed. Yeah, I would have thought feeding, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 29:50

So the uh my one big fish story I tell about my of course, my my fishing buddy was Monka Bud, which everybody here knew. Um Peggy's dad. And so the Tom Bigby in the summer has just a very slow current, you know, just very slow, but it does have a small current. And the hatch was so ridiculous, you could just see them everywhere. They were on your clothes and everywhere. So he had an old screen door and he hung it with some rope to where it stuck down in the water right on the bank. And so it was, you know, kind of like you would stop the flow a little bit with it, but it was a screen door. And then he ran a light down there. And there was a light hanging over it all night. And the next morning woke up, there was this huge drift of Mayflies, Willowflies. Like it was backed up the river a little piece from there. And we literally, until we got tired of catching stuff, we'd catch you put I was catching them on a fly rod, but you put a couple of them on there, and just as soon as it got below that drift, boom. I mean, even caught a big bass doing it. So was he? But the crappie were so packed under that thing.

SPEAKER_04 30:56

Was he creating an eddy? Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_07 30:59

No, it was it was the bait, it was like a bait pile.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

Oh, okay. So it collected the front of the screen.

SPEAKER_07 31:05

They were coming to the light and falling in the water, and they just I mean, it was probably a couple inches deep of them right at the screen door. I wonder. And then backed up the creek. And then there's fish remember, cut catfish, crappie, bass, everything in the river was feeding on them. Pretty neat. I still remember like it was yesterday. That's really neat.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

But for the most part, crappie are more of a fish-eating species, right? They're gonna feed on shad 95% of the time. Yep. Okay. I know, you know, bluegills and things like that, you know, you're you're getting closer to more insect type lures, whereas with crappie, you're normally imitating.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

And here's something that a lot of people may not know. So a male crappie, he'll sit on a nest when they first hatch and he'll raise those baby crappie just big enough to where they're food when he starts eating them. Wow. They're cleaning fish right now that have crappie inside of them. Um, this year's hatch, they're about an inch to two inches long, and those crappie are just gorging on them.

SPEAKER_07 32:02

Yeah, we better get on out the house before you can. The way crappie can populate is probably a good thing. Right, for sure. For sure. That's interesting. That is true.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

So they used all that energy to keep them safe and protected, and then they're like, well, I need some of that energy back. Thanks.

SPEAKER_06 32:18

Start eating them. So now that we're moving into the the hotter part of summer, um I'm looking at the weather, we're we're gonna be in the 90s next week for sure.

SPEAKER_07 32:27

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_06 32:27

What are Crompi doing now?

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Um on Barnett, the lake I fish primarily. Our fish are coming back out. So, you know, March and April, those fish are pushing in shilo to spawn. Um, they're getting that out of the way, and then they kind of come back and just set up, they don't come too far out. They'll set up shilo um and they'll hang out there until we start getting this 90-degree weather. And when we start getting that, that shallower water is gonna start running out of oxygen, and so those fish are having to pull back deeper. And so I'm kind of fishing the first drop um of the lake right now, kind of eight to twelve foot of water. Um, really keying on structure right now. Um it seems like as the water gets hotter and hotter, the fish want to sit on something. Whereas like during the winter, you go out there and they're just roaming around. Um, during the summer, I'm really keying on structure a lot, um, and we cast a lot. So the fish will group up on structure and it may be a hundred fish there. And so instead of pulling up and you know, jig fishing them, we'll sit back off of them and actually throw to them 30 or 40 feet. Try to catch more of them.

SPEAKER_06 33:25

Is that a normal size school, a hundred fish, or or do you see bigger or I've I've seen groups of crappie upwards of probably a thousand fish before?

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 33:35

And will they stay there a couple of days so you could you could fish them today and go back tomorrow?

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Yeah, yeah. Um, I've got some piles that will hold three to four hundred fish all summer. And they'll be there. Do you go out and and put structure out? I've put a lot of stuff out over the years. Um, I need to do more of it, but you also have to have permits and a lot of other different things to do it.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

And so is it do you have a go-to? I mean, we all the cedar trees. Cedar trees. Christmas trees. Yeah, Christmas trees.

SPEAKER_03 34:00

What's the best way to do that? Get enough weight to hold it down. Which can which can be tough sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:10

Cinder block, cinder blocks, cinder blocks are better good. Yeah. There's a lot of little groups that do that at at boat ramps sometimes. Boy Scouts. Uh if I'm my memory serves me, you are a Boy Scout like that. I was a Boy Scout. Did y'all do any kind of programs like that?

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Uh I don't remember doing specific fish structure programs, but I mean, I was always, you know, chunking everybody's old Christmas trees in any lake I could growing up.

SPEAKER_07 34:30

So y'all just gave me an idea for you know even in ponds with some fish structure doing that. I just had never thought of before. Because cedars I've thought are just you cut them and drag them out there far enough just to, you know, laying right off the bike or something. But you could take cinder blocks and some rope drill hole in it and put a couple of them together and shove it off. I'm I'm sure if you you drilled a hole in the butt or base of a cedar and had it anchored, it would stick kind of stick straight up, probably, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 34:57

So a lot of people will take a milk jug or something and tie it to the top of them.

SPEAKER_07 35:01

Uh so it'll hold it up. Right, yeah, that would be really cool structure. Oh fat. Let us know where you have a device. Oh, I'll I'll send you a pen on everything, Bobby. Count on it. In fact, it may be a long way to get to where I send you pins to, but if you'll get it, it'll be worth it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

I wouldn't steer you.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Okay, so in the last couple years, they've started doing some habitat days on the core lakes up here in North Mississippi. And so they're putting out 500 tops probably. That's awesome. Yeah. Uh just a big collective group of anglers and different people showing up and um helping keep playing their place. What they have.

SPEAKER_07 35:37

You know, we have keeping National Day of Conservation for Mossad properties every year. That'd be a great project for some people to do. I hope some of them are listening. Or for us to do.

SPEAKER_06 35:47

Yeah. So we talk spring and they're and they're shallow, they're spawning, and and you're you're saying the latter part of the spring, they start easing out of the shadow shallows. Summer, they're going a little bit deeper. What about fall?

SPEAKER_03 35:59

So our lake in the fall runs out of oxygen most years because it's quit raining. Um, there's no inflow of water coming in, and there's so many fish living in it, they start using up all the oxygen. And so the fish have to go, they have two options. They can push upwards towards the river where they may get some inflow to find oxygen, or they can sink down deeper into the channels to find oxygen there. And so two falls ago, we had a really bad drought. I mean, it got super dry. I was catching crappie 30 to 35 feet deep. Wow. That was just the only thing left in the lake that had oxygen for those fish to live in.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

And was there a structure down there?

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Or they just chilling, not really, just kind of hanging out.

SPEAKER_04 36:37

Survival mode.

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_04 36:39

And then no wonder nobody could find them until we started getting more advanced technology. You know, a huge lake like that. Yeah. Um, and then them holding it.

SPEAKER_07 36:49

Yeah, it makes me wonder what happens in a private pond, you know. And I know that's a whole nother topic, and I know generally speaking, you shouldn't put them in a smaller pond. They'll get so overpopulated, not saying you can't, but um wonder what happens though in that situation, because I worry about that kind of stuff. I do have one of our ponds I built that is pretty much an oxbow that, you know, to be natural, and it has crappie, a pretty vibrant population and all. And it's not, but it's not super deep. It's got some depth, but it's not like that. I wonder, do you run a risk, you know? Because I know lakes turn over.

SPEAKER_03 37:23

Yeah, I feel like you would definitely be at risk of turnover. Yep. Just depending on how many fish you were housing in that lake.

SPEAKER_06 37:30

So at some point in that fall, when you start getting the rain, does it the oxygen water uh oxygenates and you need a good wash.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

I mean, it's got to be a pretty good rain, but you get that first wash and it picks all those fish back up. And so then all winter, those fish, you know, they don't have to go back down. They've got oxygen throughout the column. Um as it starts to get colder, the fish will start slowing down a little bit, but they're still catchable. Um, they won't really lock up until the water gets 35 degrees or so.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

No, man.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

And if it gets down that low, they they'll shut off to where they're just not gonna eat. It's a dormant fish at that point.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

And it's gotta be cold for the water to be 35 degrees in Jackson, too.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

We we get it from time to time. I've been out there some days where you never make a crappy move. Uh-huh like you won't do anything.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

So you fishing when it's cold. We fish all year.

SPEAKER_06 38:17

So when you're terminant tournament angling, so you might go to say Iowa or South Carolina to a tournament. Do you and do you take the same how long does it take you to kind of figure out the the water there?

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Typically, if I'm gonna travel, you know, farther distance, I'm gonna give myself three to four days um to trying to get a kind of get an idea. I'm going into it, fishing it how I know, you know, crappie act, but then you get into different regions of the country and you start getting thrown some curveballs. Um just fish live in different areas, I guess, um, from what you're used to. You get like, let's say Lake Cumberland. I went up there a couple years ago in Kentucky. And Ross Barnett, the deepest spot's 42 feet. Well, I get up there and it's 200 feet of water. Wow. And so you're just, you know, in shock trying to figure out where these crappie are even wanting to be. Um, so you know, that kinds of stuff definitely takes some time to break down and figure it out. You probably ain't got a cane pole that'll reach that deep either.

SPEAKER_04 39:15

Gonna run out of line, man. It's not too different from you know, go into a new area that you've never hunted before, especially out of state, you know. Can throw you for a loop.

SPEAKER_06 39:25

What are some of the better crappie lakes around the country?

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Grenada, you know, everybody's heard it, everybody knows it. It produces big fish every year. Um, but I really enjoy Texas. Texas has got a lot of water over there, and they've got some really good fisheries. Um Lake Fork would be one that I could name. Um, there's a couple others over there that are good. Um let's see. What's that lake? Is it Lake Weiss that's between Alabama and Georgia? Alabama, it's good. Um there's there's good crappie water all the way around the country. Um I'm lining a trip up right now to go to California next January. And there's supposed to be some big fish out there.

SPEAKER_06 40:04

You know, our friends end up in Minnesota, they catch a lot of crappie. It really is.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

I've been watching Minnesota for a couple of years now, and they're definitely catching some. What's the what's the world record black and white crappie right now? The world record white came out of Enid. Or the the world record came out of Enid below the spillway in the 50s or 60s, I think it was. It was five pounds eight ounces.

SPEAKER_07 40:28

That's a big crappie.

SPEAKER_06 40:29

Yeah, there was recently a fish caught in Tennessee, though. I saw that five pounds seven ounces. And it came out of a pond, Toxie.

SPEAKER_07 40:37

Well, well, I know they I wonder if that would even count though. It should. Well, but they're still in categories. What they'll do, you know, the biologists will do if you have a smaller pond, they'll stock like um they're sterile. In other words, they can't reproduce. And so that way your population doesn't get carried away. And if you want to keep catching them, and but they'll get huge. It's kind of like the all-female bass thing. Yeah. And so uh that seems like that wouldn't be fair to compete with catching one on public water. To me, it wouldn't. You know. So who knows? I don't know. Live's go there's so many variables in all this. But I mean, it's just like putting one in a tank and feeding it a supplemental feed to, you know. It's like the slab lab.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

I mean, I'd be scared to hold a crappie by its mouth. If it weighed that much. Weighing that much. I'm scared it would just fall, you know.

SPEAKER_07 41:24

If it weighed that much, I would be worried about my world record. My world record fillet might be what I'm worried about. So I would hold him over to the boat in case he fell out. They do have such tender mouths, don't they?

SPEAKER_03 41:34

They do at certain times of the year. And then at different times of the year, their mouths will actually harden up a little bit. Okay. And so it won't be near as soft. Um, when are when are they the tenderest? Probably during the summer, post-bond into the summer. Um, they're pretty tender. That water starts cooling off and getting cold and they harden up a little bit. How about that?

SPEAKER_06 41:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:52

Paper mouths.

SPEAKER_06 41:53

I've lost a many. When I was little, my can remember my dad just you're hoisting them slow, it'd be easy, gentlemen, and they'd get off. And I told you, and I can remember a lot of that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 42:03

I got schooled on that a few times. That's where you came up, that's where all these psychological issues came from. No, I understand. From your ring or together. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

So how traumatic crappie. You use a net? I use a net a lot, but if I'm by myself, no.

SPEAKER_06 42:17

I never fish with a net. So, Laney, if he's a tournament honor, he's living off of his proceeds. He is really living off his net income.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Oh, look at you, Mr. Business Bridge. Oh, here we go again.

SPEAKER_06 42:30

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

He never it never stopped.

SPEAKER_06 42:34

It's exhaust. That was good. So Hayden, so when I Google your name and I read about you, there's there's a lot of tournaments that really don't want you to show up. Uh that's something I fought since I started tournament fishing. What? Um they don't what's going on? Are they?

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Don't even like to talk about stuff like that. It's just sad. We there was almost a fight in a boat ramp parking lot one morning because I showed up. Um it was a it was a state championship, and I was eligible to fish. I had won a couple tournaments with the trail, and you know, I'd qualified, went through the procedures to do it. And um, there were some anglers that didn't know that I was coming to fish, and it was pretty ugly. I got my boat in the water as quick as I could and kind of got out of there. Golly.

SPEAKER_06 43:23

Wasn't looking good. You know, I get that a lot. Whatever. We're having, you know, you got this archery tournament here that we were in uh that I won last year, and now they're already trying to change the rules on me. Yeah, I've dealt with all of that. I know how you feel.

SPEAKER_04 43:38

Landy, didn't you get like a close second? And I think what you set your bow up like that morning, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Yeah, no, I should have won the tournament, and there's no question about it. But I I I flopped there at the end. But I hadn't practiced at all. I didn't practice at all, but I did set my bow up that morning.

SPEAKER_06 43:55

Anyways, well, you can't you just can't, yeah. Yeah, but you can't when you read about you, there's that there's that that going on. And from what I mean, you got folks shaking in their boots out there when you show up at the boat run. There's a lot of drama in competitive fishing.

SPEAKER_07 44:08

There is a lot of drama.

SPEAKER_06 44:09

Sad, sad. Yeah, it is sad. Yep. Huh. So you've just worked hard and become a a really good crappie fisherman in a short amount of time, really. You're you're a relatively young guy. I spent a lot of time on the water in the last four or five.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

I mean, I gotta say, I want to show up with a guy at the boat ramp that everybody's scared of fishing against. I mean, I'm gonna tell you that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:32

Well, next time I come home to visit my parents, uh, I I kind of want to book a trip. How how far do you stay booked out?

SPEAKER_03 44:39

I don't I try not to stay too far out to where I can still, you know, put trips that I want to take in there and whatnot. Usually two to three months.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

And and how many customers do you usually have in the boat? Or what's up? Up to up to three. Up to three. Yeah. Okay, clients, customers.

SPEAKER_07 44:54

That's one thing I do like. I don't like the I can't stand the the issues like it just. Oh, sure. Yeah, anything. Yeah, but I have noticed, I mean, I remember like people that I was around, the avid fishermen, crappie fishermen, especially, and it seems like it emerged maybe 10 or 15 years ago, but it's pretty vibrant now, the trophy crappie guided fishing trip. And I guarantee you that didn't exist 20 years ago. Right. I mean, maybe there was one now. There's quite a bit of it. And because the the fishermen like him are so good, and because certain fisheries, I think the probably I bet you the top spot for that is probably Grenada. It is. Because I've just all the time running to people, yeah. I took my kids, we I bought them a yeah, two-day guided fishing tour. Man, we warm out. I mean, we caught one at two and three-quarters of three, you know. Yeah, I think it's so cool that probably is to that level with people.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

I really think that's cool. Yeah. I spent all spring on Grenada this year um just looking for big fish. Um, we didn't keep fish, but maybe one or two days in a month period. Um just chasing trophies.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

So is that the best time of year to try to catch it?

SPEAKER_03 46:07

If you're looking to catch a you know, a fish that we would hang on a wall in here, it would be February, March most of the time. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

And why is it that way? They're they're getting ready to spawn and they're at their heaviest weight. They weigh the most. Gotcha. They're full of the most. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 46:21

Yeah. Well, when you read it, uh Mississippi is a heck of a crappie stuff. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. They've done a great job. And so I, you know, it just w can we we kind of started off talking about this as a tool, but if as long as harvest rates are monitored and uh I mean, we all know that cropping can overpopulate a a a pond a pond. And I assume the same thing could happen with a a lake if the if people aren't taking enough out.

SPEAKER_08 46:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:46

If if if if the if the biologists within that that are working that waterway will manage what's being harvested, this could all I mean these guys can work together and make it better. For sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Yeah, and the thought of the advancing technology making us make better management decisions for the resource, you know, is is exciting. Sure.

SPEAKER_06 47:07

And I'm picturing biologists, I mean, I would think that someone like you might could even uh show them how to use these live scope to inventory the lake, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

I've asked biologists several times if they're using it. You know, are you using live scope? And the answer's always been no. Um, why they're not, I'm not sure. Because it, you know, it's it's a great surveying tool. Yeah. They probably will at some point. I would think so. They move a little slower than the old private.

SPEAKER_07 47:34

There is, I'm sure, a big benefit to uh doing a census like with the shocking boat and all. Then you lay your hands on them or inspecting, you know, the health of them in some ways and stuff too. So I get that.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

The fishermen out there have uh ability to report, you know, better information uh than it has in the Well I mean you think the other thing on a d a really deep lake like that, it's gonna be s really hard to shock up a a sample size representative of what's going on there.

SPEAKER_03 48:02

With the crappie, they only come shallow for maybe a three-week period. So you would have to hit it right then.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

Is there a certain water temperature that you're you're monitoring trying to boy, if it gets to 69, I gotta go? Or is what is there what triggers that spawn? Is the moon playing a role? Length of day mostly.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

Photo period, just like everything.

SPEAKER_06 48:22

Just like turkeys.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Yeah. And deer.

SPEAKER_06 48:24

So it's not a water temperature thing.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Not always. Now water temperature can definitely speed it up a little bit or slow it down. The moon phases can definitely, you know, maybe make it happen a week earlier because the full moon hit. But at Ross Barnett, it's April 15th. That's the peak of the spawn every year. Well.

SPEAKER_07 48:41

So is there that's also the peak of another time of goblin. Pretty close, pretty close. I always said the first week of April. Um is there isn't there like the the the hatches from year to year are not real consistent? They're not all. And you'll have a bad year or two, and then boom, you'll have a big one, isn't that kind of how they go?

SPEAKER_03 48:59

And that yeah, and that depends on the lake. Like the Grenada and these lakes up here, the water fluctuates so much level-wise. And so it could be time for those fish to spawn. They all run into spawn and then you get a big rain, and the lake comes up five feet. Right. Well, so every one of those nests got washed away. And so you have a bad spawn that year. A lake like Barnett, it stays a constant level. Those fish kind of get to do what they want to do, and there's, you know, it shows because there's a lot of fish in there.

SPEAKER_04 49:25

So some of those big watershed lakes that you know you've you've been fishing. Um is there you know I we used to always complain about when they would let the water in or out uh during duck season. And we're like, you know, they're they need to be managing this better for us, you know. But uh is there anything like that has to do with fishing that it's kind of the same way with the water levels, but I mean, those weren't built for recreation.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

Yeah, um it's for flood control.

SPEAKER_04 49:56

And so you just are whatever card you're dealt, you're you're willing to adapt to that. Fish the conditions. Um have you ever experimented with uh the weighed fishing that folks are doing? I do I do it some during the spring.

SPEAKER_03 50:10

It can be a lot of fun. Um being right there eye to eye with them almost, you know, a 10-foot jig rod in the woods, yeah, and you catching him right here. That sounds like a lot of food. Almost like ducking timber hole. And it's the meanest crappie that you'll put your bait in front of too that time of year. So he usually tries to take the pole out of your hand.

SPEAKER_08 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:33

So you ever go along with that live scope and you see a couple of look like big largemouth laying up against a log? Do you ever like tell your clients, hang on one second here, let me drop a.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

I I play with the bass a little bit. Not a not a lot, but I do a little bit. Um fish a few tournaments during the summer. Um, just kind of my slow time of year. So I'll jump in some tournaments here and there and fish them. So, how many tournaments do you fish in a year? At one time I was fishing 30-ish. Wow. Now I'm down to probably less than 10.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

That's a lot of fishing tournaments.

SPEAKER_06 51:06

So let's so if you're uh help me understand what you think would be an ideal boat for a a guy who's just maybe like Lanny or Dudley or myself. Just a couple of yourself. A couple of people in the boat. Would it be a 14 or 15 inch up football? Oh, it's big or not.

SPEAKER_08 51:24

That's pretty much a rib.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

I'm gonna say the ideal crappie boat just to start, um, would be probably an 18-foot aluminum boat somewhere in there. That's what I started in. I fished out of two or three of them before I got my first fiberglass boat. And it's a good starting point because it's a big enough boat that you can get on big water, but you still kind of have to watch your weather to make sure it's not gonna be super rough out there. But I would say that would be That's a pretty big yeah, 18. Pretty big. Yeah, what size motor? I think most of them have a 115 or 150 something.

SPEAKER_06 51:56

That sounds like a lot really, that's a lot bigger than I was expecting you to say. I thought you'd say like a 15-foot 25.

SPEAKER_04 52:02

You get out on that. Rollett is white capping and a storm.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

He's not out here in the waterway. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

He's not running a river somewhere that runs north and south. Get away with something smaller. But I mean, you take Grenada, it's 40 something thousand acres. You take Barnett, it's 33,000 acres. Well, a lot of places.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

I've heard horror stories of my buddies out there, you know, just having to watch the winter going up there to fish and can't fish because of the wind.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

They sink they sink a lot of boats on Grenada every year. Yeah, Big Dave had a good story in this spring.

SPEAKER_02 52:31

Yeah, sure did. Big Dave's a big crappie fish. It can get scary out there quick. After his nursery responsibilities.

SPEAKER_03 52:38

I'm fishing out of a basically 23-foot fiberglass boat um with a 300 on it.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

That's a big one.

SPEAKER_03 52:44

Woo! But fish in big water, and I, you know, I try to fish every day, no matter what the weather's doing. Um, I need a big boat that I can get out there in. Saltwater bug ever hit you? I've had one person get seasick in three and a half years. I mean, do you like to saltwater fish? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I thought you meant like seasick bug in the rough water. 23 feet. Woo, that's a big thing. Yeah, I try to saltwater fish every time I get a chance. Sweet. Um, it's a lot of fun for sure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 53:12

What else? Not a lot more complex, too. What do we need the ways of the bay?

SPEAKER_04 53:18

But I mean, what'd you do, Mitchell? Uh so have you seen, like in your tenure as a crappie fisherman, have you seen the popularity of it just almost explode? It's exploded within the last five years, I would say. Okay. For sure. Uh do you think there will come a time where there's going to be so many people crappie fish fishing that it could potentially affect the resource? I mean, I you could let's face it, everybody likes to eat crappie and catch a limit. Um do you think there's a chance the limit may ever dwindle down to like two or three fish and then it's bad. Then you're just catching to release, you know.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

I wouldn't think so because crappie are so prolific in their spawning activities. Um, I mean, a female fish can hold 20 to 50,000 eggs. And so let's say 10% of those make that's still two to five thousand eggs.

SPEAKER_04 54:13

Yeah. I mean, you you said yourself earlier that you know it it almost seems like it's gotten better.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

I've been watching, you know, a lot of the lakes in the state of Mississippi over the last five years just kind of monitoring it. And um most of them are still, you know, doing good. Um the Delta lakes over there, the flood several years ago, it kind of churned all that up and mixed it up. So those, you know, you can't really use as a sample. But they're coming back. Um, those fish are they're growing and it's it's looking good up there.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

Well, we've always talked about what prolific, how prolific crappie are in private ponds. I know.

SPEAKER_07 54:47

That's why you gotta be careful. You gotta be careful with them.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 54:49

You have to fish, catch a lot of fish to keep it in balance. Um, I noticed when they wanted to put uh the lake I talked about, we did was like uh it was long and skinny, it was really pretty. I love the place. Bobby's been there. But they were wanting to put stripers in there to keep them in check more.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

Keep the crappie in check.

SPEAKER_07 55:07

That's right. I may have been.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Yeah, I think you think I fished it. Maybe. Yeah. When'd you go? Uh somebody took him. Oh, okay. John? John? John took him.

unknown 55:19

I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 55:19

Was it a fish wars episode or something? Who knows? It could be a different lake.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

Yeah, you're talking about it. It sounds a lot like a lake I fished.

SPEAKER_06 55:26

There's no boat ramp. You just have to kind of back in and there's no boat ramp.

SPEAKER_07 55:32

We'll confirm that later. Yeah. I've been promising to take him there. We have a buddy in common that's ask me to be. You won't be in there April 15th. No, nothing live to tell about it. Maybe February. Fall, yeah. Yeah. February. It's kind of January, February. I wouldn't really care that much, you know. But March and April.

SPEAKER_08 56:01

Off limits. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Yep. But no, in the smaller lakes, um, they've they've got some hybrid fish out now that, like you said a minute earlier, um, they they're not supposed to be able to spawn. And so they've mixed a white crappie and a black crappie and done some different things, and it's a non-reproductive fish. The biggest fish I've ever caught was a state stock. They had named them the Magnolia Crappie. That's kind of where that came from. Um, it was created in a lab in Enid Mississippi, and they started stocking their state lakes with these with this fish. And so they quit stocking those fish in 2014, and I caught this fish in 2022. So that fish was eight years old, and it was 394 19 and a half inches. Just a huge fish. And there was several of them in there. Um, I looked it up that same day, and the state record for the magnolia was like 360 or something like that. And so I was holding a state record fish, um, questioning whether or not I wanted to call the department because I knew I had to say the lake name, you know, if if I um turned it in. And so I chose not to turn it in. Uh, just to, you know, try to save the lake. It was so small if five boats got on there, it would have been overfished. Yeah. Um ended up catching like 13 or 14 three-pound fish out of that lake in a couple years span.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Well, a lot of people, you know, they kill a big deer and just won't enter in the books because they don't want, you know. Um, it took me two years to want to post the fish on Facebook. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:23

Yeah, somebody would analyze the trees in the background. Oh, that's that's somebody. I do that to Bobby all the time.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

You see the picture, he's like, no. Zoom in. You're not looking at the fish. No, I'm looking at what's behind you. People.

SPEAKER_04 57:35

Well, I mean, you you have to ask yourself, who am I doing this for? You know, and uh it it makes sense. You don't want to have 20 people show up there the next weekend.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

You got to keep the resources a problem.

SPEAKER_04 57:47

I mean, you want to share, but I mean, I guess you just have to decide where to where to draw the line on that, and every person is different.

SPEAKER_07 57:54

Takshi, you got another question? Oh, I was just in general, like uh as opposed to jigging with a long, you know, casting, like you said, sometimes you'll find a school and you'll get you know 30 feet away so you don't disturb them in cast. What's a couple of your top lures and colors for casting?

SPEAKER_03 58:12

Um, I throw Bobby Garland makes an itty bit, and it's an inch and a quarter bait, and it has a little tail on the back of it that never stops swimming the whole time you're reeling it. And I love casting that bait. I mean, it does really good. Um, depending on what I'm doing, I may cast two jigs if it's a big group of fish, or I may just cast one that's a little bit heavier if I'm throwing it single fish.

SPEAKER_07 58:33

So when you're throwing a jig, how do you play it?

SPEAKER_03 58:37

Come, you know, when you as you reel it in, how do you you're watching your water clarity and seeing how far those fish can see? And so, like Lake Cumberland, like I mentioned earlier, those fish could see ten feet. Wow. And so I'm keeping it way up above them and watching, you know, pulling fish way up out of the group. And then as it gets dirtier, you're you know, you're having to get closer and closer to that fish for him to be able to recognize, hey, there's something to eat.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

So do you cast when they're deep?

SPEAKER_03 58:59

I mean, you you can. I mean, you can you can get a little heavier with your jigs and get them down there to him.

SPEAKER_06 59:04

Yeah. So I think Toxie's asking, because he's not using a live scope, I promise you. He's asking when he throws that jig out there, does he just slowly reel it in or does he twitch it? Or does he is there any play there?

SPEAKER_03 59:17

And that's something that's weird. Used to crappie fishing, you jig, jig, jig, jig. I mean, you're moving your bait, bumping your bait, and then you get a live scope and you see a fish react to that, and he freaks out and he runs off, and you're like, wait, hold on a second. That's what we've done forever. And so it's more steady, slow, you know, just a natural um up and down, up and down, up and down. But it's weird. So I have a pier at a lake house, and every time I walk down there to crappie fish it, I'm jigging my jig around, and that's like the only way I can get bit. But you turn the live scope on and it's slow and steady, just take it away from him. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 59:50

It's pretty weird. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 59:52

That's interesting that you can see their reaction and adapt your technique. You can definitely read the fish based on that. And I I bet it's really fun to watch one come up from 10 feet and take your bait.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:06

I was sitting way back off of those fish, probably 40-50 feet, and throwing a little bit of light jig and just letting it barely fall, fall. Then he would see it. When he saw it, you could stop. I mean, you could start reeling, and he would come, come, come. He might follow it 30 feet before he made it to the bait to eat it. Is smaller by visibility then? Sounds like smaller's better. For me, I fish small a lot of times. Um, until you get into really muddy water, and then you have to start getting bigger. Just to where they can locate, you know, that there is something there to eat. You cast him with just a light spinning rod. Seven foot light. What test you usually use? Yeah, it depends on the water clarity. Two to six. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:47

Oh, that but that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:49

Two pound, two-pound gets interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:50

Yeah, with a three-pound fish. Wow. That does sound fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

I've caught a three-pound fish on two-pound line. Um, you just really have to play the drag and let that fish basically on you for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:02

You know, there's a guy, Toxic, uh, you know, Sarah Parvin is trying to grow these big brim. She does grow a big brim. There's a guy, I won't say his name. I've been begging him to come on our podcast and talk because he's trying to do the same thing with Crappie in a pond. And uh, but he won't he hopefully I'll get him over the edge here on one of the things. Is he branded his lake like the slab? Not yet, I don't think. He's a really interesting guy. Super sockalade. I think Taki makes him nervous if I that's so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:32

I'm trying to figure out what angle you're not really.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:36

I've got one more question, too. Like in today's weather, I thought about it today. So, and maybe the answer is different depending on the size body of water it is, but I'm thinking about you might just answer this for bass fishermen. And you know, I fish, you know, some private pond stuff and all. But when you're fishing and then it rains real hard, and then it stops you get back out on the water. Is there anything to the like where water's pouring into the lake? You know, I'm not saying your water level went up yet, but you're in right after rain and you got stuff draining. Can you catch fish there? Well, they they aggregate around that sun? I would say so.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:15

Just curious. A lot of times we're out in the middle of the lake more so, so we don't get to see that.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

But um, you always hear about like rising, not tide, but uh rising. Yeah, where the rise river rising or do you generally have a better day when the water is coming up fast or slow or coming down fast or slower?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:33

Crappie crappie don't like change. Okay, they really don't. They want it to be stable. And so if you get a crazy, you know, rise in water, it may take them a couple days to kind of get back right. And if there's moving water, those fish are looking for slack water. They're gonna find an eddy or a break or something to get in. They're not gonna sit in the current for very long, at least. And they like pretty days too, don't they? They do. Yeah. They do. But you can catch them, I mean, you can catch them in the nasty rainy conditions.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:01

It's interesting that how uh how you've gravitated to crappie because you know, there's this fishing is is so much fun. And there's so many fish to target, but it's not a lot of people that just say, okay, I'm a but crappie is my my thing. I'm I'm kind of interested in how you pick that. It's I'm not really sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:19

Uh you know, I fell in love with the crappie.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:21

We're all programmed, I mean, as a child in different ways going through. And if he grew up in Brandon, Mississippi, he was not only his family, but he was surrounded by the noise, the papers, the talk. I mean, it's just it's such a big sport and such a big following where he grew up. He just I feel like he just kind of got programmed on top of, then he got great access from his family. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:46

Um, so you do this for a living. Um, and there's a lot of good fishermen and fisher women out there. Um what's the difference between just doing this every day or whatever for fun and then and then taking people out every day? Um, I I know there's you know, there's folks that that would like to do what you do, right? But what are the things that you know, maybe once you start doing it for a living, you figure out, you know, maybe this isn't something I want to do, or what what are some of your challenges? I'm gonna say you really have to love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:20

I mean, you have to live with the fish basically. Um it people get burnt out regularly in it, you know, just from the day in, day out grind. And I get asked probably twice a week. They're like, You've got to be tired of it. And I'm like, No way. Every fish is as fun as the first one. And you just, I mean, I've just chased it for that's cold.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:40

That's what's driving you right there. Well, so obviously you're you must be pretty good around people because uh we have a lot of fun on the boat.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

Um, we we like to cut up and laugh, and we try to make it less about a limit of fish, and we want to make it more about hey, let's have a good time, let's have a you know, enjoyable day on the water today. And if we catch 10, oh well, it was you know a tough bite.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:00

Yeah. You know, I hear a lot of guides, fishing guides, talk about they uh that they people uh that they really don't even know, open up to them and you talk about things on a boat that you wouldn't necessarily talk about anywhere else.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:12

Interesting conversation that happens. You just never know. Like you said, I mean, you get all walks of life, and it's a lot of fun. I've met some great people, uh, made some lifelong friends from you know fishing.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:23

Dudley asked you earlier if you ever you and you said you took a guy back to the ramp. What happened? I mean, we're not gonna say his name. No, Bobby, don't pull it up. Yeah, we're marked our time cooking.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:34

Let's just say we had a difference in opinion uh with some things and it didn't work.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:40

It's really smart. Yep. Yeah. Um and here we're getting maybe getting a little personal here, but uh folks need to know these kinds of things. If you take somebody out on a boat and they have a good time, they like you, all that good stuff. What is a fair way of of tipping a guide or an outfitter? What's what's common?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:01

I don't know. I don't know. It changes. Um you get so many days that you get nothing, and then you might get a day that's great. Um if I clean fish, I feel like you know it should happen more so because I'm doing that just, you know. Um I don't know. So there's no standard like a I kind of just I mean, my rate is my rate with no tip on it. I've had a good day. Okay. Anything extra is extra. Okay, that's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:27

That is a good question because you always feel like you're and don't be afraid to ask, you know, don't don't be hesitant to ask how that works.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:36

I go on some trips when you go, you get ready to tip, and I'm like, I don't really know, you know, what I'm doing here, but yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:43

I guess based on your experience. I tell you the whole tipping thing right now for everything is kind of confusing to me. I'll go pick up a pizza at Domino's. And they want you, yeah. And and it asked me about tipping, and they're standing right there looking at you, you know. Here.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:58

Uh or didn't I drive up here and pick this up myself? I even ordered it myself online.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:02

Go get a Coca Cola at a basketball game, and they show you the card machine, and it includes a and they're they're asking for a tip. Yeah, really. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:12

Hashtag awkward.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

Yeah. What do you do there? I don't know. It just depends on what kind of mood I'm in. I know what Blandy does. He gets the no-tip. Whatever.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:25

Uh I take care of the you talk about squeezing the penny to Lincoln Hall or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Good service, I think you should tip for sure. You know, the people that just expect to get tipped tipped or tipped, you know, I'm I'm like, uh, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:39

Well, I mean, I just also, if you've been fortunate in life and you you're sitting there, think past that, being tight, and it's like this person's really working hard and nice and sweet, and they need the money probably more than you do, just give them extra. You know? Well, my sister if you go up more than is expected, you kind of gifted them something beyond the money, you know, making them feel special. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

Well, my sister was a server for many years, so I got a good respect for you. And a bunch of friends have too.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:07

So yeah. All right, look, let's uh we got a trivia question just for you that we picked out. Mitchell, who's uh Mitchell, who's kind of new in our podcast world, he's uh been here a few months, but he's making his mark around.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:19

He came up with this trivia question. So let's turn it over. Well, the winner of the trivia question is Wood Duck 1414. Uh one four, one four.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:30

Let me tell you what he's won. Actually, look here. We've got a little we've got a little deal with bones. They're gonna for the next six weeks.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:37

Our trivia winners are gonna win a pair of those are definitely not out of my closet because I haven't had a pair of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:42

Yeah, so these are bottomland, like little. How would you describe these Dudley? Little loafers.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:47

Um they're awesome. Uh I was an outdoor sole on it. Somehow my daughter ended up with a pair of those. She wears them around the house everywhere. Gotta have hold the bottom of them up. Yeah, that sole is legit.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:02

Very, very small. Really legit camp slippers, house flippers, so to speak. You can wear it. What size are those? Yeah. Did you 13? That's the main thing. 12's a day. We'll see about that. So uh, but but they're called the bones. I think you can go to bones.com probably. B-O-N-Z. B-O N Z. And they're all in bottom land. They've got flip-flops. They look so comfortable. And they are. They are. I've tried to do it. Oh, you have a pair of pair. Oh, yeah. My old daughter got me a pair for Christmas. Oh, I'm sure. Good album. Good album. Yep. Okay, let's uh so bones, thank you. And we'll be for the guys. If y'all leave a review, you got a chance to win some of these cheers. Yeah. All right, here we go with the manly footwear.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:42

So the trigger question is which crappy species has fewer dorsal spider members? What did you just say? I'm from Alabama, Bobby. Come on, Bobby. I grew up saying that.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:58

Yeah. Leave him alone. Unfortunately, Bobby. Looks like you look like he's.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:02

He's really young, but he fishes a lot.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:04

Yeah. Probably more than you do, believe it or not. Probably does. That's so trauma. So much drummers drama queen, Bobby. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:13

Sorry. Which crappie species has fewer dorsal spikes?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:19

So a white crappie has five to six and a black crappie has seven to eight. That's right.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:24

He nailed it. Hey! Well, there was a big hesitation. He almost got millionth of a second, he hesitated.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:31

Bobby, I bet you say pecan. Did you say pecan?

SPEAKER_07 1:10:36

No, please not.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:37

Pecan. Pecan. Caramel? Coramel. I don't know that one. I get twisted around on that one. Yeah, that's true. Well, so you know your stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:45

I I study fish for sure. Yeah, you can tell that. Yeah. Every now and then it's though it's weird because you'll catch one that let's say it has five dorsal spines, but it has black specks down the side of it. And so somewhere down the line that fish got crossed. And it's some of that hybridization. Wow, interesting. Dudley loves those hybrids. I'm so interested in hybrids.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

Anything that's unique, you know, we're going to be interested in. I think we should do a speaking of, I'm cutting Bobby off. I think we're going to have an excellent acorn massed crop. Well, I tell you, it has to do with rain in the spring. And so I am praying that uh we're going to have a good selection of hybrid and you know our favorite regular oats as well next year.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:31

So cross your fingers. I'm such a fan. Yep. You know, some of the ones it's not enough to be really prolific, but some of the ones we planted over the years are starting to produce, which is really exciting. Yeah, it is neat.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

Very much so.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

And right now, a bun, yeah, y'all brought up nurseries. You know, a lot of the we've got a lot of inventory available. A lot of most of it is available for pre-sale right now. So if you order now, it'll ship uh in mid to late September. But you do need to go ahead and get your order in because we do have limited inventory on everything. That makes a lot of sense. We grow such a great tree. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:07

That was a tree in the business. The best there is. The best there is. Yeah. So Glenn Garner texted me the other day and said his sawtooths are loaded.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:13

And you know they have a well, they had a complete failure last year for whatever reason. Everywhere. You couldn't find them. And I I knew, I mean, you know, I was yielded Dudley always, but I knew they were going to just super, you know, be prolific.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:28

There's so many phone calls about that. Um, and best I can tell, like three people had one tree that that, you know, out of everybody I talked to.

SPEAKER_07 1:12:38

It had to be that sudden massive freeze thing. I can't figure out what else it was. Yeah. They would cause it across. But anyway, we regressed. Sorry, Hayden. We'd talk about trees all day long.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:48

So, Hayden, uh Mitch, I'm looking at both y'all. Let's do a let's do a little television show with with Hayden. Mitch, you're your loved fish. You be the guy. Go in bed with him for a day, and let's learn about. I want to go. Let's learn about I I'm gonna probably go when I can tell you. Here we go. I'm always getting bombed. But we need to do, I'm just kidding about me, but we need to do one with him.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:10

I'm down as long as I can bring a fly rod. Oh, I have two or three guys that fish with me yearly um that bring a fly rod, and that's all we use.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:17

Hang on, right up Mitchell's alley. All right, so we're gonna set that up. That's cool. It's been really interesting to get to meet you. Yeah, 100%. Heard so much about you and your uh your talents. I'm just I'm amazed that you're so young. Yes, sir. And you're so good old Mississippi. You know, you've learned you've learned it fast, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:36

Well, what we learned one thing for sure is that the above all of that, I mean, he man, he processes information and he retains it. But the key above all, is he and he said it, he loves it so much. And we talk about maintaining your sense of wonderment, and that's for everything. He's never lost the wonderment of catching his first one a long time ago. He still has maintained that. That makes all the difference in the world. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:00

Yeah. You know that do you have like a website or a Facebook page people can follow or anything?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:06

Um Hayden Jeffries Fishing. I post on there regularly. Um is that where they can find out more information about booking with you? Yeah. Send me a message on there. Do you ever do tutorials on LiveScope? There's a lot of videos out um on YouTube in different places. Um I'm actually in the process of trying to start getting more of that out. I think you'd be good at that.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:26

I would think people would might even book a trip just to learn for to spend a little time with you to teach them how to run their own. We do that a lot, for sure. For sure. I'd be I'm gonna coach Jeffrey's. Bobby's gonna book a trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:39

I'd love to go with you, I would. Now he's gonna have his own axe with him, so just be careful. This has been fun.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:44

Do you ever have that happen? What's oh yeah. Oh yeah. Do you do you turn around and say, please don't do that? That's why he got dropped the guy off the boat.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:52

I mean, it's that's probably par for the course, you know. That's part of it. Take people to your spots, and then a week later you come back and see that guy in their own boat in your spot.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:00

For sure. I I took a guy to a brush pile one day and he he beat me to it for three weeks straight. I finally got I finally gave up on it. I said, Well, that's what this guy wants at his spot.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:12

That doesn't seem like that. That's cool. You got that attitude, though. You know what I mean? There's other fish to place the fish. Yeah, just move on. Yeah. How about that?

SPEAKER_07 1:15:19

He's a lot nicer guy than you would be as a guy. Yeah, no doubt about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:23

I mean, there's there's some good videos out there of people losing their minds. Yeah, Bobby would never last one this morning.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:29

You can never be a guide because you'd be always so paranoid they were going you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:34

I probably would. I probably would. You're right. I need to work on that. I need my therapy sessions. I need to work on that.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:39

Yeah. I'm glad you're seeing a psychologist.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:42

Mitchell, have we covered everything?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:44

I think we have everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:45

Yeah. So, guys, the the uh the the television show is about to start back the first part of July. It'll be on the outdoor channel Tuesday night. Magazine's in route. That's right. The summer issue looks really good. Looks good. Uh, we did not mention the peanut patch beyond the stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:02

I was just gonna say, I mean, you're on your way to go fishing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:05

Nothing better in the boat than those things. And have y'all tried these buffalo ones? We tried them yesterday. They're delicious. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:11

Hey, and you like boiled peanuts? I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:13

Yeah, we're gonna hook you up, buddy. The peanut butter.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:16

Man, I bet every gas station around Grenada, Enid, Sardis, all of those lakes have peanut.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:24

It really is the perfect outdoor snack. It really is. Yeah. So hot and spicy, buffalo, original. I'll quit talking about them. All right, guys. This has been fun.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:32

Hayden, yeah. You got any questions for us?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:35

Yeah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:36

You ever watch our television show? I do. Hey! Watching it for a long time. That's like third or fourth person. You ever listen to our podcast? I do.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:43

Look at this. We're killing it today.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:46

He uh it looks like he kills a good deer every year.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:49

Yeah. So we'll take a turkey hunt, but I I have seen some.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:54

I kind of grew up with bucks. I grew up deer hunting until um fishing really took off, and then there was a couple years there where I didn't hunt. I was just really, you know, fishing, fishing, fishing. And uh kind of the last couple years I've gotten back into it. And this year I killed the biggest deer I've ever killed, and it was awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:10

So there you go. Do you think listening to our podcast helped you kill that deer? Maybe it didn't say.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:17

It has been fun though, you know, getting back into hunting. I kind of went into it with a different mindset. Um, I'm now looking at the trophy side of it. Don't know when I'll ever kill a big deer, but now I'm looking, you know, I'm I'm actively chasing one. Yeah. Um, so it's been fun to study them and watch them and try to learn the behaviors. And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:34

I don't think I'd want him studying and watching and being after me after seeing how good he is on those crappies.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:41

I think if he makes his mind up on something, he's gonna do it. Yep. All right, Hayden. You've been a lot of fun. Good luck in your career. It's it'd be a lot of fun to watch where you go from here. You're just so talented and so young. Thank you. All right, Lanny.

unknown 1:17:56

Bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:57

You got anything else? I think that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:58

Yeah, Dudley, what about you? Well, I was just gonna say uh me and little Dud are gonna come fishing with you sometime.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:04

There you go. Yep. That's your stomping ground, anyways. Yep. You know, he was Mr. J A, weren't you? No, no, okay, Mr. Jackson Prep. Oh, sorry. I get all messed up. Evidently there's a difference. Yeah, evidently there is a different arch rival.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:21

Arch arch arch. Sorry, I apologize. Now, Toxia, what's going on in your world these days? I hadn't seen you a bunch. Are you getting ready to plant uh duck groceries or what's what's going on?

SPEAKER_07 1:18:32

Uh we are protecting a sunflower field, and we've sprayed some clover and done a little bit of careful bush hogging, but we haven't done much at all. It's tough to get out in the field right now. Nothing much you can do. I've I'm I've got a really good-looking garden as far as anything outside and my own. You ain't ready to make it. We're keeping the bills paid and the lights on around here. Thank you. I bet all the tomatoes are cracking from all this remote. You know, uh the fungus blights are worse than ever. So, you know. And uh the the deer, unfortunately, I've got I end up I've got the garlic. I have nothing gallagher found. I'm actually going to do that today. There you go. There you go. Because I didn't think I was gonna need it, but it looks like it just it's too much work.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:19

You know, when they find it, they tend to come back. That's what I'm fixing to do today. All right, guys. Wait till it quits raining once you get shot. Why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Mitchell.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife magazine, and don't miss the Monte Oak Properties Fistful of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Guster.