EP 61: Fishing for Anything, Everywhere with Justin Lerner

Winter shut down the ramps, so we opened the map. We brought on traveling angler and musician Justin Lerner to chart a course from Florida inlets to Northeast canyons, with a hard left into South America where Golden Dorado blow up topwater like it owes them money. Justin grew up in New Jersey, lives on Florida’s east coast, and treats tactics like a universal language: fish the environment first, species second. That lens reframes snook as trout with palm trees, explains why reds and specks share the same points, and shows how a three-inch paddle tail can be a passport.

We go deep on bucket-list planning without the fluff—what windows to pick for summer beach snook from Jupiter to Sebastian, where to find trout in grass-rich stretches of the Indian and Banana Rivers, and when to aim for giant redfish schools in the Chesapeake and outer banks. Offshore, the talk turns to yellowfin and bigeye, translating trolling and jigging to poppers and spinning gear when conditions allow. Then we fast-forward to true giants: Columbia River white sturgeon on whole shad in 70 to 200 feet, seven- to ten-foot “dinosaurs” that jump slow enough to film. Justin also shares quick hits on Australia’s GTs and southern bluefin, plus a sleeper pick for trophy pike in New Jersey’s Passaic.

It’s not all grip-and-grin. We pull apart the water quality mess behind Lake Okeechobee releases, red tides, and failing sewage systems, and compare Florida’s proactive FWC management with the Northeast’s council tangle. The bottom line: closures and net bans can rebuild stocks, but habitat and runoff still decide the ceiling. If you’re plotting a dream trip, this conversation gives you a clear, seasonal roadmap, gear guidance that travels, and a mindset to read current, edges, and forage anywhere.

If you enjoyed this one, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a winter escape, and drop a review to help more anglers find us. What fish are you chasing next?

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Transcript

Host Banter, Weather, And Sponsors

Justin Lerner 0:00

They do get some big ones there, but they're just not on average that size. I mean, the Columbia River, your average fish is in the seven to eight foot range. And I've caught numerous nine and nine and ten plus, and then I've gotten two that were that were over 11 feet.

Meet Justin Lerner: Global Angler

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 0:22

Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. I'm your regular host, Rich Natoli, and uh it is that time of year where it's just really tough sometimes to get on here, stay healthy, and all that stuff. Uh Scotty was sick for quite a while, and uh he's not feeling good tonight either. So uh let's make sure make sure we make fun of him when he's on. Dude can't stay healthy, but he's here. He's here tonight. I was sick. I actually wasn't sick last week. I just couldn't talk. Uh felt fine, couldn't talk. And now with this uh incredible snowstorm that has hit pretty much everybody in the viewing and listening audience, uh, it's time to just talk fishing because not too many people have hit the water um in the past week. And it doesn't look like there's gonna be a lot of opportunity to hit it coming up in the next week, or at least the next five days, where we're looking at single digits overnight and so on and so forth. But this is not a weather report. We're gonna jump in fairly quickly uh because we have Justin Lerner on. And uh, if you haven't met Justin yet, he's got a lot to say about a lot of different fish in a lot of different places, and all of you that are thinking about bucket lists should probably pay attention because whether it's freshwater, saltwater, this continent or not, uh Justin's Justin's done a lot. So we're gonna we're gonna dive in and meet him. Uh Scotty is here as well. We're gonna dive in real quick with the sponsors, and we're gonna start off as always with our first sponsor ever for this show, the Great Bay Outfitters on Radio Road in Tuckerton, New Jersey. Paul and his team, look, anything kayak related, he's got a ton of boats in. I think he got a hundred plus new boats in a couple of weeks ago. I don't think you're gonna want to jump on the lagoon and give them a test drive right now, but it's one of the best things about Great Bay Outfitters. I always recommend to people if you're going to buy a kayak or you think you are, do everything you can to get it on the water. And uh, they're right on the water. He's right there. It's got a dock, it's got the lagoon. You can test them all out, see which one is comfortable for you. And we have Quad Stay Tune with Kevin Driscoll. Give them a call or a text at four 484-633-5975. And if you have a Toyota truck, so Tacoma, Tundra, Forerunner, even the uh the Lexus, what I think it's a Lexus 470 and the Lexus 460, these are engine tunes that'll work for you. If you're hauling a boat, especially, in my opinion, you'll get better mileage, better torque, better performance out of those engines. And then me for real estate southeastern Pennsylvania. I do have a network in other states. So if you have real estate needs, give me a call, 267-270-1145. And if you're thinking about downsizing, we have a complimentary webinar coming up on the 3rd of February. Reach out to me by text and I'll get you set up with that. It's all on downsizing, you know, not just how to sell a house, but really most of it's gonna be focused on what's the process behind that. So if you're like me and hate shoveling driveways, and if you have a long driveway, you might be thinking about it. So you can check that out. With that said, we are now going to jump in. I'm gonna bring Scotty on first. Scotty, good to see you, man.

Scotty Sevins 3:38

What's up, Rich? How's it going, my friend?

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 3:41

I'm excited to be back. I can talk now, so that's always a good thing. Yeah. I was telling I was telling you before I did hurt my back, which makes me feel really old. So I'm kind of getting through that. So I couldn't fish if I wanted to, but I did try to get out on the water last week and it was all frozen. So yeah, I'm off the water for now, along with 99% of the other folks. I saw a lot of the big boats go into dock, get dry docked for this cold snap coming up. And man, it's just time to talk fishing. That's all we can do right now.

Scotty Sevins 4:15

I know, I hear you. I just spent what was it whatever the day was before the storm in 10 degrees in feels like 10 degrees weather. I was out there for 12 hours covering my boat and building a circus tent and 25 knot winds, mind you, yeah, trying to wrestle this this this big boat cover onto onto my boat.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 4:40

Yeah, fun.

Scotty Sevins 4:42

It was uh it was quite a circus.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 4:44

Yeah, fun stuff, fun stuff. Oh, I want to mention before we bring first of all, Justin, just for people, I I was just looking at his pictures from fishing yesterday. I think it was yesterday. So this dude's on the water. He's in Florida right now, from New Jersey, you know. So he's got the the full range, but he's fishing Florida, so you know, we're gonna be freezing, and he may, you know, he knows what real cold is, he knows what it's like up here, but he can actually get out on the water. But I do want to mention this, and if you don't follow the Facebook page, people, it's been on there. In the last live that we did, we talked about setting up a community where everybody can get together and interact and not just wait for the live streams, right, for the chat. So we have set up a Discord server, it is private right now, so nobody can get in at the moment as we're building it out. Joe Billps and my brother Tom have jumped in as admins with me and we're trying to build this up. And we have a few volunteers of people that are going to come in and start testing it, giving feedback and everything like that on the first of February. So that's coming. And awesome. Yeah, and for people that aren't familiar with Discord, it's got a Yeah, I'm not at all. It's got a lot of features, but look, you can use it like a message board. So think of the old Bass Barn, right? You can use it that way.

Scotty Sevins 6:05

Uh uh that's yeah, that that's what I grew up on. Yeah, that's how that's how that's how I met I met some of my best fishing friends through Bass Barn.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 6:16

Yeah, and I I met a lot of dysfunctional people in Bass Barn too. I was one of them back in the day. There was a lot of that too. Yeah, the drama coming out of Wildwood back in the day through the Bass Barn was insanity, and it was so damn entertaining. I I I actually miss it. But we're gonna have our own version up there, hopefully a little bit cleaner. There are voice channels too that we'll eventually put up, but we're gonna organize get togethers and events and everything through there. So I'm looking forward to that. If anyone wants to join in on that, go onto Facebook, follow the Fat Dad fishing page, and send me a direct message. And you know, we'll get you in on the early on the early adopter side so you can help us build this out. So with that said, yeah, let's just jump in. Let's let's get Justin on here.

Justin Lerner 7:05

Justin, awesome.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 7:06

Welcome.

Justin Lerner 7:07

How's it going, guys? What's going on, Justin? I don't want to ask about the weather, but yeah.

Offshore Roots And Northeast Tuna

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 7:14

Well, you know what, you know the weather. You've you've been through enough of them, but you've been out of the area for a while. Yeah, and wanted to start off. So look, this is so for full disclosure for everybody, Justin and I just met about 10 minutes ago. Right. So so this is just one of those free-flowing conversations with everything. Scotty and Justin know each other through Instagram, I believe, for a few years, maybe text, but have never actually spoken until tonight either. So this is the kind of episode that I I personally love. It's just gonna be three dudes talking fishing, and we'll see what the hell comes up and you know, see what comes out of it. But why don't we start this way? So, Justin, for those that don't know who you are and what you do, why don't you give just a little bit of a background to yourself?

Justin Lerner 8:09

So, yeah, I grew up in New Jersey. Fishing's always been a big part of my life since I mean, I don't know. I was my my dad, I my first memories, my dad would take me fishing at Round Valley, I think, when I was probably no older than three or four years old. But I've been fishing fresh in salt water ever since then. I've been fortunate to I've lived lived in Australia for a bit, and I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to travel a lot to fish. And now I live live down in Florida. You know, I've always loved the east coast of Florida. It's it's it's a great place to fish. It's one of the one of the few spots where most fisheries are accessible by foot or by kayak. So, you know, it really, really doesn't get better than that. And yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 8:57

But you do a lot. Like you say you're you're freshwater and saltwater. What what do you prefer?

Justin Lerner 9:05

That's a very, very tough question. I mean, at the end of the day, I'd probably have to say salt water. But I you know, I I I like to fish and I can get excited by catching, you know, 14-inch trout or you know, thousand-pound tuna. So, you know, there there's there's pluses, pluses to both of them. I mean, I obviously in general, in the especially in the United States, I mean, your bigger, stronger fish are going to be in saltwater. Right. You know, that's not true in freshwater and other countries, but yeah, I mean, I I I love saltwater fishing. I love catching a lot of the species, but one of my one of my passions that I did a ton of living in the northeast was trout fishing. And the thing that I really loved about it was, you know, getting out in the woods by myself, away from anybody else. And it's just, you know, you and the stream and you know, solitude. There's there's a lot of very e very easily accessed fishing spots here in Florida that are all very good, but most of them you're rarely gonna be by yourself. So right.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 10:13

Yeah, and you know, it's funny. Chris Matusin is a guy that comes on this show every once in a while, and he he loves saltwater, but he is on this trout kick right now, and he drives up from New Jersey, he lives right on the coast, but he drives to Pennsylvania. Yeah, fishes the Pennsylvania streams in Chester County. I think it's Chester and Montgomery. I maybe Montgomery, but I know Chester County, and that's something that you don't quite have down there in Florida.

Justin Lerner 10:40

No, no, it's the one thing that I don't. I mean, there's some there's some in in the neighboring states. My girlfriend and I, we didn't go this fall, but we'd been going up to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. Yeah, you need there is actually some really good trout fishing around Atlanta. There's is it the it's the Chattahoochee River, it's a lower dam release, so it stays cold year-round, but there's a lot of good trout fishing there. Arkansas, again, that's a flight, but has some of the biggest wild, not some of has the biggest wild brown trout in the United States.

Scotty Sevins 11:15

So there's there's Arkansas does?

Justin Lerner 11:18

Arkansas.

Scotty Sevins 11:18

Really?

Justin Lerner 11:19

Yep, the White River and the little Red River. You'd never expect it. Yeah, but there's absolute there's fish.

Scotty Sevins 11:26

You never would have guessed.

Justin Lerner 11:27

Yeah, there's fish. I mean, the the prior world record before it was broken in New Zealand was from the little Red River in Arkansas, and it was somewhere in the 40 pound range. Just massive. But yeah, I missed my trout fishing, but you know, it's been replaced with snook and tarpon.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:47

So right. So so let's let's get you let's cock gas.

Scotty Sevins 11:52

Yeah.

Golden Dorado In Uruguay

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:52

Let's get you on level with the with the bulk of the audience. So most of our audience is from Philadelphia, New York, and then down. I guess those are the top two cities or areas. What what when you're fishing up here? If you could come up here at any time of the year and we said you have to go fishing, pick a time of the year and pick a species, what are you doing?

Justin Lerner 12:12

Oh man, that would probably be probably summer or fall tuna. I mean, canyon fishing is was a passion of mine when I lived up there. And things have ch things have definitely changed over the years. You know, it used to be different. If canyon fishing used to be better back in in the late 90s, or back in the 90s, I'd say, but there's still excellent fishing there and and you know, catching yellow fin and big eyes and you know, wahoo and all those different species. It's just, you know, I I I love to do offshore canyon.

Scotty Sevins 12:47

That that's that's kind of what I what I grew up doing offshore fishing, like in the 90s, early 2000s, you know. That that's kind of that that was my thing. That's that's really was the bulk of my my fishing like experiences was growing up. So you know, it's funny.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 13:10

It's we we talk very little about the offshore, like the true offshore fishing on this channel so far. And we're we're exp Justin, just so you're aware, we are expanding into more and more this year. But you know, my brother is in the chat, he could he could vouch for this. We grew up fishing for tuna as well. I mean, we're we're off now, not canyons. We didn't have a boat that would hit the canyons, but we did have a 24-foot grady weight, which would get us out, you know, far enough for the footballs, you know. So we're out we're out for the smaller ones, you know, a lot of mahi fishing. You know, it I even caught you know, Mahi on a fly, that type of thing. That that's what we used to do. And I I I gotta be honest, I do miss that. And I gotta say, I am extremely happy that you didn't say striped bass at any time of the year because we we talk way too much striped bass on this channel.

Justin Lerner 14:02

I I love stripers too. You know, you can actually get stripers in Florida. Believe it or not, the candle area does have them. There's some lakes there, and the uh trying to remember the name of the Apalachicola River up by when you go up towards Georgia, Lake Seminole, there's dam release there, they get big ones, and there was traditionally Gulf String stripers. Um I think they've stocked over them with the Atlantic, with the Atlantic stream, but you you can still get them there. Obviously, it's nothing like New Jersey, though.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 14:33

Right. And would you ever take time to to go for the striped bass, or are you just overwhelmed with all the other species down there?

Justin Lerner 14:40

Honestly, overwhelmed. And if, you know, I do my family's still in New Jersey, so I do go up several times a year. And if I'm gonna striper fish, it's probably gonna be in New Jersey.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 14:50

Yeah, yeah. All right, so let's let's talk a little bit about some of the cooler things that you've done. So, okay, so you fish Florida. To you, that's normal. I look at your Facebook feed and and everything, and all right, you're tossing, hey, just caught these snook, just turned around and caught these red. You know, you got everything in there, those are normal to you right now, I'm assuming. So, what are some of the coolest trips that you've taken that you can share with everybody?

Justin Lerner 15:18

I mean, just just last year I went down to the Uruguay River and fished for Golden Dorado. That was an incredible. I remember yeah, it it's incredible species. And the the the dam, the salto grande dam down there on the river between Uruguay and Argentina, that's where you're gonna find the absolute biggest of the species. I mean, you can find them in other rivers in Argentina, and there's actually some beautiful mountain stream or beautiful jungle streams that look like look like trout streams up in some other countries, but those are largely the only lodges there cater to fly fishing. So if you're a spin guy, it's not you know, it's not gonna be something that they'll allow. But, you know, and those those fish are are are good size, but they're nothing compared to the ones down in in in on the Uruguay River. I mean, they just they they hang out under this hydroelectric jam, electric dam, and just absolutely gorge themselves and get monstrous. I mean, 30s, 40s, 50 plus pound fish are possible.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 16:27

And how are you targeting those?

Australia Highlights And Tactics

Justin Lerner 16:29

Throwing lures, I mean, topwater a lot of the time. I mean, they absolutely demolish a topwater, but we caught them on just about everything we threw. I brought down soft plastics, no live bait needed, soft plastics to see how they'd love like them. And they I mean they lasted one bite. Uh Golden Dorado have really sharp teeth, and their their jaws are like a pit bull. So it's like it's like a bluefish on steroids. And you know, lures, even even like hard uh wood lures and stuff would last a couple of days before they're just destroyed. Um yeah, we're using 300 pounds.

Scotty Sevins 17:04

It's incredible. Yeah, they've they've always been a bucket list of mine, too. Just anyone I've ever talked to that has caught them just says there's there's nothing nothing compares.

Justin Lerner 17:16

Yeah, they're they're incredibly strong, and you know, just their willingness to slam artificials and pretty much anything you throw at them is just you know, it's just amazing.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:28

They look like the what do they call the the what is it, Arapaima with it with the teeth?

Justin Lerner 17:37

Oh, you're thinking, are you thinking of Pyara with uh it's got like those the the teeth are like they're like crocodile teeth on it, right?

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:46

Yeah, I mean they're they're they're I mean they're they're oversized.

Justin Lerner 17:51

Oh tiger fish, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:53

Tiger fish. I I've never even thought about catching one of those.

Justin Lerner 17:59

Yeah, they do they do look very similar to that. They're they're very similar. It's it's funny because a lot of they're they're adapted to live and feed in a river. You know, tiger fish are a riverine species too, and they they look s I mean superficially they look like like big thick salmon and trout too. You know, these are all species that have been.

Scotty Sevins 18:19

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.

Justin Lerner 18:21

Yeah, they're all species that have they almost look like a Go ahead, Scotty. Yeah, sorry.

Scotty Sevins 18:30

No, I was gonna say they they almost look like a a giant salmon or a giant golden trout with teeth.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 18:38

Yeah, I I don't know, man. Yeah, they're beautiful.

Scotty Sevins 18:42

Always been a bucket list of mine. Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 18:46

So so okay, so you're down in Argentina, you're fishing for these. Did you go down specifically for this species, or were you down there just doing different fishing? And is this something that you know, a big topic? I keep getting questions about this, you know, the bucket list trips. Is this a bucket list trip? Is it worth doing, or is it like you do it when you're down there for another reason? It's it's really a day, or is this something that you can like really jump into for a week and have fun for the whole week?

Justin Lerner 19:12

I mean, I would say bucket I I went down there specifically to do that, you know, that general area. There's not a believe it or not, there's not a ton of other species. I mean, the one other big species to catch there is the Surubi catfish, but we we didn't get any on our trip. I saw saw a couple rise to the surface and roll, but yeah. I mean, it the the guides are limited. There's river plat outfitters that I fished with. That's pretty much, I think, the only operation right now that's that's able to fish that area, and they do four day trips, you know. So you you don't really have the ability to go down there and fish one day, but you really wouldn't want to travel all that way and fish one day. You know, the the river conditions and whether the dam's generating electricity or not and and water's Flowing through can affect how good the bite is. So, you know, you wanna you wanna spend a few days.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:05

Okay. Now, now let's talk. Now you you used to live in Australia, right? Okay. So I'm I am personally extremely interested in Australia. You know, you especially the salt water. When when I was growing up, you'd see every once in a while the you know the the Saturday morning shows and and somebody would go to Australia and it was freaking amazing. Yeah. What what area of what area of Australia did you spend most of your time?

Justin Lerner 20:35

So I uh I was mostly in the central east coast, so Brisbane area. Okay. I did do a lot of traveling and fishing around the country as well, though. So I've experienced a number of different fisheries there. Not enough. Right.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:51

There's plenty more, but and what what were you what was your favorite to target in the Brisbane area?

Translating Techniques Across Species

Justin Lerner 20:59

In the Brisbane area. So the Brisbane is kind that area is kind of subtropical, so you can catch GTs. I used to catch smaller GTs from you know from in in the lagoons and the estuaries. We used to go out and jig Pacific Yellowtail, which were a lot of fun. Um though those were probably my favorites in that in that area, but there's there's numerous other species to catch. Uh there's a lot of good offshore fishing there, billfish, tuna.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 21:29

Yeah, and that's the that's one thing I I wanted to ask about. So you've done a lot, a lot of offshore. I mean, when you're talking thousand-pound tunas, you've you've hooked into them and everything. You know, most people have never gotten a sniff of them. Have you have you gone after them with any like alternative approaches like fly fishing or spinning, you know, not not necessarily the thousand pounders, but or have you gone strictly for the billfish and these larger offshore, you know, with the traditional trolling or jigging?

Justin Lerner 22:03

I mean, most of it was traditional trolling and jigging. I have caught I have caught bluefin and yellowfin on poppers and and top waters, so that's you know, I mean, that's that's super exciting as well. But yeah, a lot of a lot of the trolling, jigging, chunking, you traditional northeast stuff.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 22:21

Gotcha. And so it translates. If it's if you're catching tuna on it here, you're gonna be catching tuna in Australia the same way.

Justin Lerner 22:31

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can certainly do that. They they do, you know, there's there's a lot of yellow fin around the country, and then along the southern part of the country, southern half of the country, they have the southern bluefin tuna, which is a different species than what we have here. They don't get quite as big, they only probably about yeah, 300, 350, 400 pounds maybe, but they do have some really good fishing for them out of like Melbourne, Tasmania, the southern part of the country. And they do guys do go out and catch them on on spinning gear, you know, especially now that spinning gear is really, you know, advanced come a long way. Yeah, I mean the first the first tune I caught on spin was with Dom Petrarca up in in Massachusetts, and I think that was uh that was 2009, and it was like you know, the rod was like a broomstick and it was uh Van Stahl. But um but yeah, I mean you know, and any any of these these techniques is really translatable across wherever those species swim.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 23:35

You know, I I find it really interesting. We talk about this on the show from time to time. You you get these species, and even if it's not the same species, right? But you get like say a weak fish versus a speckled trout. Yeah, people think they're I mean, they're not even closely related, they just look they look the same or very similar. And and what you find is people fish for them differently up and down the coast. And an example, two examples sheep's head fishing. If you're in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, you got the bottom sweeper type of jig. And it's been we've been fishing that for a very long time up here, but it didn't make its way south where there's more sheep's head for quite a while, at least in in it it didn't grow in popularity until probably six or seven years ago. Yeah. And then on the flip side, uh you got the popping cork, which I'm I'm sure, you know, I'm sure you have one, whether you fish it or not. You have one and you know it works. And it's difficult to find somebody in Rhode Island that has a popping cork, even though they fish for striped bass. You know what I mean? And and we don't we don't even use the same tactics in the United States, but you're saying we could use the same tactics and probably much of the same tackle across the globe.

Florida Inlets: Snook, Reds, And Trout

Justin Lerner 24:51

Yeah, I mean, it's so a few different things. So even if you're talking about the same species, I mean, we've seen it, you know, for for decades they fished those, they trolled those mojo rigs for striped bass down in the Chesapeake area. Nobody ever did it in the northeast, and then they brought it up there, those fish are eating. I mean, it's gonna work, and and and a lot of my approach to fishing is fishing more the environment than it is the fish. And I'm gonna tell you right now, snook fishing is pretty much identical to trout fishing. Uh really, yeah. They both what they really yeah, yeah. I mean, for the most part, most of the spots that I'm fishing for snook are inlets, you know, the the intercoastal waterway or the estuaries of the Indian River. And they're doing the same thing. Trout, when trout are actively feeding, they're kind of hugging the bottom and and looking or or you know, looking, just waiting for stuff to drift by, and snook just do the same thing. They set up. So if you think about presenting your bait in the same method, you know, it's it's gonna be successful. You know, people people use a whole different whole different suite of of techniques for species depending on where they live, but ultimately I think that A, they're you know, the different techniques are gonna work. It's it's all about presentation, but you know, that you can look for fish that occupy similar environments and they're probably going to respond the same as you know other fish that live in that type of environment.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 26:27

All right. So so compare, all right. So I've never targeted a snook. I just never have. The only times I've fished in Florida, I was north of where you should really be spending your time targeting them, you'd get a lucky catch. So compare that now to redfish. Okay. So what are you changing between the redfish and the speckled trout when you're out there fishing? If you if you know they're both in the same spot. Or even or the snook. If you know they're in the same spot and you want to target one or the other, are you doing anything differently or is it the luck of the draw?

Justin Lerner 27:00

I mean, it's luck of the draw where I live. So I I'm I'm in Jupiter now, but I was in the Port St. Lucie area. And unfortunately, long story short, years of releases from Okeechobee killed that the Stewart area, that Indian River, that part of the Indian River used to be flush with giant sea trout and lots of redfish. Seagrass died off because of these releases from Okeechobee. So you have to go further north for more consistent sea trout and red fishing. Where the it doesn't affect the snook because the snook have a different life history, they're not relying on the seagrass harping either. But if if you're if you're fishing in an area where snook and redfish are both prevalent, you can catch them. I mean, pick your pick your poison. They will eat paddle tails, they'll both eat paddle tail swim baits. I mean, they'll both eat you know, a jig that looks like a shrimp, they'll both eat topwaters. When I lived up in Tallahassee, we used to fish a gulped shrimp on a jig head about 20 inches under a popping cork and just pop that along. I mean, Snook will hit that too, sea trout. So, really, I mean, if if they're both in the same area, and a lot of times both, you know, in a lot of these spots, Snook and Redfish are going to be in the same area up along the mangroves and up on flats in the river, and you can catch them, you know, you can just throw uh throw, you know, like a three or four-inch paddle tail and you'll catch them both.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 28:24

All right. I freaking love that because I have I have been telling people when I catch specks and I catch redfish, I'm not changing anything. It's the same spot, it's the same ambush spots. Now, I do find that if I get a really shallow point, I find the redfish up closer into the weeds, right? Than I will it's the specs. The specs, you know, typically for me, they'll sit more on the drop, you know, even if it's only a five-inch drop, they'll sit more there. And the redfish will go right up and sit in the weeds. Yeah. But for the most part, you're talking about the difference of three feet, you know. So on a cast, you're you're covering both. You're getting into that weed line and you're pulling it out. And people told me I was nuts and that it that it was stupid. I was like, no, there it's I I catch them both in the same spot, which is why when I make a trip to North Carolina and I'm fishing the Pamlico Sound, I have spots that are points next to channels that I catch both. I mean, I just look for that because then I know I can catch them both there.

Justin Lerner 29:28

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, a lot of the spots I fish in the Indian River, you know, those those flats and stuff up next to the mangroves. I mean, you'll see, you know, there'll be a red there, and you'll see a snook there, sea trout. I mean, and you'll catch you catch all three species in the same day because they're all hanging out in that one.

Scotty Sevins 29:47

Can can I just uh interrupt real quick? So the Indian River is huge. So my uncle actually lives in Vera Beach. So when I go down there, a lot of times, I'm I'm grateful that he lets me stay there. So I I kind of fish that that Vero area, Sebastian Inlet. I'm familiar with some of the the backwaters behind Vera Beach through there, through the Indian River. What what part of the Indian River do you do you typically fish like when when you're snook fishing? So down there or like the red.

Justin Lerner 30:28

Yeah, so so the the snook mostly down by mo actually pretty much Jensen Beach to Fort Pierce, just because it's close to where I live. And I looked at Fort St. Lucie and it was right there. But I do go up. I mean, I have friends in North, so I do go fish the Vero area too. Sebastian Inlet's great, it just gets crowded. You know, we I used to fish that.

Sheep’s Head, Tog, And Mixed Bags

Scotty Sevins 30:52

So I I love Sebastian Inlet, actually. And that is that's like one of my that's one of my like must-stop. Like I always like to dedicate a couple of days to fish there, but it's a very, very overwhelming and difficult inlet to fish and fish properly, you know what I mean? With without like losing tackle, you know what I mean? And the and the the water just like rips through that through that inlet. But my first snook that I ever caught was actually in the in the Sebastian inlet. Yeah, it's a great live lining crooker. Yeah, it is.

Justin Lerner 31:36

Yeah, I mean the the shame about snook fishing anyway, especially inlets, is that you're gonna lose a lot of tackle. You know, it's there's no way around it. Yeah, yeah.

Scotty Sevins 31:46

Yeah, I think uh Fort Fort Pierce was the other inlet that that I I fished a lot, and I was lucky enough to get my second snook. Actually, my my personal best snook came out of Fort Pierce and at nighttime.

Justin Lerner 32:03

Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, really, pretty much any of these inlet, any of the inlets on the east coast, even as far as Navril, but you know, from Sebastian South, there all of those inlets will hold snook, all of them will hold tarpon. You know, it's pretty much Sebastian North where you're gonna consistently get redfish. But but yeah, any of those, any of those.

Scotty Sevins 32:25

Okay, so Sebastian and North North it is where you're you're gonna find redfish at then, huh?

Justin Lerner 32:34

Yeah, there and north. I mean, it it recent winters it hasn't, it's a wintertime thing, and recent winters it hasn't been as good as it really was. Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 32:45

I mean, I've we love the cold.

Justin Lerner 32:47

Yeah, I've heard I've heard from guys that it's been it's been slower. Like I said, it it gets crowded there, so I I tend to avoid it, but it it's a fantastic anybody that's down in the area, it's a fantastic inlet to fish, and there's plenty of fishing access, which is another good thing. But I mean, we used to go up there in the early 2000s, and you know, you could go up any random night, late night tide, and you know, be you and a couple other people fishing there. It was great.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 33:16

Um so let's let's do this. All right, so you fished, I assume, the entire east coast.

Justin Lerner 33:22

For the most part, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 33:24

Okay. So let's go by species that people may want to target and give your top location that you go, not a spot, obviously, but like what town would you go to and when would you go to it? So let's start off since we just ended talking. So Snook. Let's start with Snook. Where would you? Obviously, we're talking Florida, but where in Florida would you go? Somebody and what time of year would you go for somebody that just wants to get on some snook?

Justin Lerner 33:50

So, I mean, if you just want to get on snook, there's a lot of options. The Gulf Coast, a lot of the beaches there. I mean, they'll just load up on the beaches in the summer. On the east coast, I would say Jupiter to Jupiter to Sebastian, anywhere in there is the best area. But I mean, you can find them. They'll be on all of the beaches on the east coast, you know, from they they they do get further and further north now that the waters are a bit warmer. But I mean, I would target anywhere from Fort Pierce south, any of the beaches on on the east coast in the summer, or you get numbers of fish and you'll get big fish too.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 34:30

Okay. Now, now let's skip directly into the speckled trout. Speckled anywhere on the coast.

Justin Lerner 34:36

I mean, speckled trout would really, I would say, your best bet. I so your best bet for bigger fish would probably be the east coast up around up from Melbourne through the Indian River, the Banana River, those areas from north north of pretty much from you know the Melbourne area north, the the Gulf Coast, Tampa Bay, all the way through the panhandle has fantastic speckled trout fishing. You know, when I lived in Tallahassee, the areas along the panhandle there that are just flush with seagrass have just tons and tons of sea trout.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 35:14

Okay. Now let's say a non-Florida location for redfish.

Justin Lerner 35:22

I mean, I without question, the Chesapeake Bay area in the late spring, summer, the biggest, you know, uh, with the exception of maybe late fall, uh late fall in in the outer banks, you know, the the Chesapeake area just has huge numbers and just massive fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 35:42

Right.

Justin Lerner 35:42

Giants.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 35:43

Have you fished the the late season run of redfish in the in the Chesapeake?

Justin Lerner 35:51

I actually haven't.

Sharks From Shore And Giant Encounters

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 35:52

Okay. Not the late season. We had a guest on here before and we talked about that. And it was and went on a trip too. Yeah. It was insanity what we did for that. And then we we actually didn't end up getting any on the trip, but the entire process was it was impressive. I mean, we were put well over a hundred and some miles on the boat, yeah. Just chasing schools and then you know, using the electronics. That was interesting. The other part is in the spring, though, you're talking more down near the the southern bridge, is right? Yeah, yeah, right at the mouth.

Justin Lerner 36:26

Yeah, I think that yeah, like I'm not as well versed in that fishery, but I'm pretty sure I have friends up there and stuff. It's it's I think it's the May through the summer time frame. I mean, I used to go up there uh in July and and sight fish cobia, and the cobia fishing there is just outstanding from May through September. And you can you could probably do both, but they you know they see massive, massive schools of giant red fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 36:51

Oh, I I gotta get out there again. It's been way too long since I've been for this. All right, let's make a let's make a little bit of a switch. We're bringing further and further north. I'm I'm gonna assume. All right, a boring fish, but the flounder. Where are you going for flounder?

Justin Lerner 37:07

So I actually don't target flounder that often. But I mean, I just judging by what other people what I've seen from other people, I mean, I would say Nantucket shoals in the summer.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 37:20

Yep.

Justin Lerner 37:20

You know, that's just where they seem to get the the absolute massive fluke.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 37:26

And you're you're not fishing. Okay, so you don't like you don't like fishing for flounder. Is it because they're not as exciting? Like what what would keep you from targeting flounder?

Justin Lerner 37:35

I don't know. I mean, I just I just have you know, I have other other species that I'd prefer to target. I mean, in the summertime when I was living up in New Jersey, the summertime if I was doing, you know, if we were weathered out or if I was, you know, gonna do freshwater, I did a lot of pike fishing. Uh and if I wasn't doing that, then it was offshore, you know, tuna and tuna and billfish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 37:56

Yeah, I got you. I I I kind of got I think into I I'm addicted to fluke now. Um I can't I can't get enough of it. And it's more it the one problem that I always have is you're not gonna get the exciting fight out of it, you know. So for me, it's really exciting to get the bite and get the hookup, and then it's much less exciting when you land it because it's like uh it's not it's not the biggest fish. It's you know, you you know pretty well where it's gonna be at the maximum size and and weight and everything like that. I just love the hunt yeah for it.

Justin Lerner 38:32

Oh, absolutely. And I mean, everybody, you know, everybody has has the things that excite them about fishing and the species that excite them, and you know, it's just it's just a personal thing.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 38:44

Yeah. Have have you gone for sheep's head up here?

Justin Lerner 38:47

I haven't. I have to do that though. Um, so I've caught a ton of sheep's head, I've caught a ton of them in Florida. Um they're obviously much more common down here, but you just you you do not see the size that you see up north with any irregularity.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 39:03

Yeah, I find that is an an interesting one. I personally don't like sheep's head fishing because I don't have the patience. Scotty's like the opposite, you know, kind of addicted to it. I I just don't have the patience for sitting next to a bridge piling or on a rock for that for that long, which is which is odd because tog fishing, I could do it all day and just be happy the entire day. So you haven't gone. Are you going to be coming up and fishing for the sheep's head?

Justin Lerner 39:31

I have to arrange to do that this summer. Okay.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 39:34

Yeah, I I would I would suggest it. I have caught double digit size. Actually, my first my first sheep's head ever was a double digit, so I was kind of spoiled, I think. Yeah, you know, talk about a fight.

Scotty Sevins 39:47

I I I kind of got spoiled myself with that too. I mean, there was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears that I put in trying to dial in that fishery, and my first sheep. Ted was a 12-pounder. And everyone was like, like my my close buddies and mentors were like, dude, that that's incredible. And it took me two years, two years to get anywhere close to to actually hit that not that 12 pound number again. So I kind of got I kind of got spoiled and and lucky with with my first sheep being that big. But yeah, I was lucky.

Sturgeon On The Columbia: Gear And Fight

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 40:33

I I was gonna say, I I got lucky because I didn't do anything to dial anything in. It was, do you want to go sheep's head fishing? I said yes. Let's test this new tackle. I said yes. And we got some crabs off the beach, and we got some. I had for fluke fishing some sand fleas. So I had sand fleas too, and I think that's what I caught them on. And we it was a few years ago, maybe three or four years ago. I don't I don't remember maybe three years ago, but we were literally there, and the first one that I caught I now look listen, I say it's a double digit because it obviously was, I think it was 29 inches. That was huge.

Scotty Sevins 41:16

29 inches, I I measure and tag a lot of fish, but 29 inches is a is is a huge sheep.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 41:24

It was huge and had half a tail. The top of the tail was gone. So and whenever anyone posts picks, I look and see it. Does it have a half a tail? So that was the first one. The second one was I think 25 inches, and the third this is all the same day within an hour. And then the third one was probably, I'm guessing, around a seven or eight pounder, so it was a good size, and then it was like, I'm done.

Scotty Sevins 41:48

Yeah, 25 inches is a ri is a really big fish still. I I would say 25 25 inches here in the double digit rain for sure.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 41:58

So it was close. I I don't know if it was over. The first one was clearly over. So, Justin, where what what's what size do you are you typically getting when you're I'm not I know you're probably not targeting them, but what what size would you expect to get down in your area?

Justin Lerner 42:15

I mean, you get a lot of like 15 to 20 inch fish, and then you'll get some up in in into the mid-20s. I mean, I caught one in government cut off of Miami that was probably eight pounds, just estimating on a whole blue crab, a whole live blue crab fishing for a permit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, like that, like a anything over 20 inches is a real nice fish down here. And I I don't know if I've you you just don't see the the giants, and that's it's it's the same for a lot of species that you do uh towards the the edges of their ranges, you're gonna see that you're gonna find the biggest individuals.

Scotty Sevins 42:54

Yeah, I've I've always I've always said that same thing, Justin. The the biggest of any species will always push their migratory range the furthest, you know? Like uh like even like uh great whites and even grander Makos, uh, for instance, because years ago, Mako fishing, like that's kind of what I grew up doing. Like a lot of those really, really big Makos, a lot of those were were much further north than you would expect to find, you know, your your typical Mako shark. So it's it's pretty it's pretty amazing the the way the the the migratory patterns of each species kind of goes. You know, especially.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:43

So Jesse, do you do you fish for shark? Yeah.

Justin Lerner 43:48

I do I do from time to time. I mean, Florida is blessed in the fact that you know, most of the you can catch massive sharks from shore. You can catch, I mean, you could drop a bait, you know, off a beach and you know, catch huge tigers, huge hammerheads. Along the panhandle during during the winter and early spring, you can catch Makos, and they have been getting some great whites from shore there. Um I don't do a ton of it. You know, every once in a while I'll just I'll just you know go down to the beach and drop a bait off there, mostly, mostly catching, you know, big lemons, bulls, or or black tips. Yeah, believe it or not, I I wanna I I've caught hammerheads, but I want to kind of I I I want to avoid catching them from the beach because a lot of them they stress out really easily, and a lot of these bigger ones do die after release. Yeah, so you know, but I I do yeah, from time to time I like to go, you know, just out to the beach, you know, put a bait out and sit back and wait.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 44:50

Yeah, what's that called, Scotty? Ghetto sharking?

Scotty Sevins 44:53

No, no, that's that's a little bit different. That that's that's what I used to call up by up by me. But yeah, I I still love I I kind of grew up like I said, make of fishing, shark fishing offshore, shark fishing. That was that was a big thing for for me growing up. But what where do you have uh just out of curiosity? I I've been seeing a lot of great whites caught from shore recently. Do you know anything about that or where they might be coming from? I'm just I'm just curious. Is that well thing right now, or are they catching them more like in the South Carolina range or Georgia?

Justin Lerner 45:38

I the ones from shore are coming from the panhandle of Florida, and then there was one guy that posted one from the northeast that I'm pretty sure he just went up to Cape Cod and did that. Um I I don't know, I'm not entirely sure the legality of it. No, I think protected statement, you know. I mean, down down in the panhandle, I mean, they do get them, you know, it it they do get them in the winter, but I mean I don't ever say that you're actually targeting them more so than any other species because of course you know you you're guys are you know, there's a handful every year that are caught and released, and there's a lot of guys that are shark fishing.

Banff Side Trips And Jersey Pike

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 46:18

Have you ever caught one? Not a great white, no. Yeah, me either. I actually I don't think I've even seen one. I used to do a lot of a lot of shark fishing. That was pretty much all I did for a few years. Actually, when I was in college, we would go out, and I'll tell you what, talk about like the the border of a range of a species. I saw we had in our slick a a hammerhead that was it was scary massive. We're in a 24-foot boat, and this thing must have been 14 to 16. I mean, it was it was massive. Yeah, and what I thought was interesting, and I it it came up in the slick, and unfortunately it was perpendicular to us, so we didn't, you know, we we didn't get the great view at first, but you know, it's easy to tell the fin. It's the easiest shark to identify besides the thresher. So it comes up and we're like, oh, hammerhead, and we're waiting for it to turn and it never turns, but we're watching it, and then we noticed two small fins coming straight up the slick. It had babies with it. I didn't know that they traveled together, but there were two small uh small, meaning they were probably five feet each, and they came and they were hitting the chum bucket. And unfortunately, this was pre, you know, cell phone days, right? They're hitting the chum bucket, we're throwing, you know, we're throwing the the chunks out and they're eating them as the as the big one just circles the boat. It does one full circle and it gets a little bit closer, and they just dive and they come up next to it and they leave. Uh yeah, it blew my mind, but it that thing was massive. It was it was so big. And think about this. I'm in college, like you want to catch the biggest thing. We had like wire line, we had everything, and we're like, pull those deep lines in if that goes under. There's no way that we want to even hook this thing because even if even if we somehow hook it, we're gonna kill it trying to get it in because you know the rods, they're big shark rods, but it's not not for a you know 12 plus foot fish, right? And then and then the other thing that we were concerned is it would pull so much line and then break that it would be trailing you know 200 yards of line and wire behind it, so we didn't do it. But I I I that was off in New Jersey. It it was out at the 28 mile wreck.

Justin Lerner 48:37

Okay, right.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 48:38

It was it was insane. Or no, it was the misty blue. Sorry, it was the misty blue. I couldn't believe it. That was that was the biggest one that I've ever seen, and it was a hammerhead of all.

Justin Lerner 48:51

Yeah, yeah. No, they're they're they're very cool.

Scotty Sevins 48:54

I wanted to ask you, Justin, uh, because I know that you have experience with this, so this I've always they've always been a bucketless fish of mine, and I've always had a fascination with them. And I just found a dead one floating this fall. Actually, it was like no, it was December. It's sturgeon fishing. I I know that you you've caught some monster sturgeons, and I believe that was probably the West Coast where you caught them. What can you tell us about that? How how was how's that experience? It's an amazing fishing. I think it, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've seen you in the water with some absolute dinosaur sturgeon.

Justin Lerner 49:42

Yeah, I mean, so the sturgeon we the Atlantic sturgeon we have on the east coast don't don't get quite as large as as the white sturgeon. The white sturgeon is the second largest only to the beluga sturgeon that's in in Russia. Um we're fishing whole uh so there's actually in the Columbia River over on the West Coast in Oregon, there's there's American shad. We use whole American shad for bait, and you're just fishing heavy gear, 100-pound braid, and you're fishing the bottom anywhere from 70 to 200 feet of water in that river. Wow. And you know, certain times of year when the flow is right and you know, the shad shad are running and and spawning and dying, the fishing can just be be incredible. But they're they're a super hard-fighting fish and they they jump. And the great thing about when they jump is they're slower to come to the surface. So if you're filming it or if you have a camera, you can you can get a chance to to get that shot because you'll know exactly when they're gonna be popping out of the water.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:49

They're a scary fish to see jumping, though.

Water Quality, Okeechobee, And Red Tides

Justin Lerner 50:52

Yeah, so the the Gulf Sturgeon in Florida, there's on on the what's the name of the river? It's a very famous Suwannee River, do have warnings in the spring when they're coming up to spawn because they're jumping, and there's been several significant injuries from people driving boats or jet skis and just happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah.

Scotty Sevins 51:13

Interesting. You see that. I have no idea that you saw them up in uh Florida, really.

Justin Lerner 51:19

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, Gulf Sturgeon. You know, they're they're just like the Atlantic and the shovel nose up in New Jersey, they're they're endangered, so you aren't allowed to target them. And if you catch them, you're not supposed to take them, you're not allowed to take them out of the water.

Scotty Sevins 51:34

Yeah, I get it. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 51:37

We had uh we had a day striped bass fishing up in the Raritan Bay. So right at the you know, right at the Hudson. And the Hudson is known for you know the Atlantic sturgeon. And I'll tell you what, it scared the hell out of us. This thing came out of the water. It was massive. And it it and it was it was near kayaks, right behind, I should I shouldn't say right behind. It was probably 50 to 60 feet behind a kayak, and it was as big as the kayak, it seemed like it wasn't really, but it seemed like it was, right? That thing came out of the water. It's as startling, if not more startling, than when a Mako comes flying out for no reason. You know, Makos will just they'll just come out of the water for no apparent reason. This thing, and it got air. Uh, I was like, that is insanity. And of course, you know, a couple of the guys are like, well, I'm gonna fish for it. No, no, first of all, no, you're not. Yeah, uh you you can go over there and think you're fishing for it, but you're not gonna catch it. Yeah, man, that is it, that is a scary fish to come out of the water, even in a boat, and on a kayak, it just seemed to go that much that much higher. But talk about massive fish.

Justin Lerner 52:45

Oh, yeah, really massive. I mean, some of the biggest ones that I've caught, I've caught two. I've caught, you know, the the the Columbia River has the biggest. So the Fraser, do you have the Fraser River, the Snake River, which is actually upstream of the Columbia River, and the Fraser, the Snake River, and the Columbia River to target them. The Fraser has some of the most beautiful scenery, but the fish, they do get some big ones there, but they're just not on average that size. I mean, the Columbia River, your average fish is in the seven to eight foot range, and I've caught numerous nine nine to nine and ten plus, and then I've gotten two that were that were over 11 feet, and one of them jumped like watching uh watching a horse come out of the water. That is incredible.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 53:35

Absolutely crazy. What what are you? So what are you doing that you can go anywhere? Like you fish all over the place. What do you do you do anything else or are you only fishing all the time?

Justin Lerner 53:45

Uh I fish, I play music too.

Scotty Sevins 53:47

But I was gonna say he's an incredibly talented musician and guitar player. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. I actually I'm I'm a fellow musician and guitar player as well. But yeah, I watched some of your some of your stuff, and that's it's it's you, you, you're you're you you're multi-talented. You really are. Well, thank you very much.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 54:12

Yeah, I got no talent in that area. I have a harmonica. I can't play it. I accidentally ordered it. I was I put it in my cart as a joke on Amazon, and I accidentally ordered it. My wife's like, what the hell did you get a harmonica for? Like, she's she's afraid I'm gonna start practicing. Like I accidentally got it and it's it's like ten dollars and not returning it.

Justin Lerner 54:34

Yeah. Got the kids in lawn track. But yeah, I mean, I I do a lot of traveling to fish, and then when I go on vacation with like we went last June, went with my girlfriend and her family to Banff National Park and you know, do a little research there. And you know, I saw that that's where bull trout, you know, there's some good bull trout fisheries out there, species I've always wanted to catch, so had to, you know, take the time to put in a day or two of fishing while I'm out there.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 55:05

That's great. My my son decided just he and his friends right out of high school decided they were going to Canada to Banff. And I was like, first of all, you're idiots. There's no way you're gonna pull it off. They did. They actually slept in a U-Haul van so that they didn't have to pay for a hotel, so they slept in a U-Haul. But I I of course investigated, like, you know, how safe is this and everything. And when I saw the fishing that's up there, I was like, oh my God. And my wife said, you know, we got to go to Banff someday. And I'm thinking, yeah, I gotta go to Banff someday because I mean you you wouldn't think it, but I mean, it's it's a beautiful area, first of all, it's what draws everyone. But oh my god, the the fishing up there is amazing.

Justin Lerner 55:48

Yeah, yeah. I mean, incredible trout fishing, and there are some spots for big pike, you know, and it's easy to get to. You fly into Calgary and it's like an hour and a half drive. It's yeah, you know, beautiful area, just tons of cool stuff to do.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:02

You just gotta watch out for the bears.

Scotty Sevins 56:04

Gotta watch out for the bears.

Justin Lerner 56:06

Yeah, yeah.

Scotty Sevins 56:07

So that's it's funny. You you mentioned pike. Pike was actually the next thing that I wanted to bring up. That was something that that would that was another one that you kind of had like a niche for, or that you were extremely good at. You used to get some monster pike up in Jersey. You know, I I I would see a post and talk about it. I mean, some absolutely some pike bigger than I've ever seen in my life.

Fisheries Management: Florida vs Northeast

Justin Lerner 56:41

Yeah, Jersey, believe it or not. I mean, most people wouldn't think of Jersey as a great pike location, but um, Passaic River just has some absolute giant fish and some really, really good fishing. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a few lakes that are really good. I mean, Spruce Run has them, and Pompton Lake used to be really good, but they started weed killing it, and that kind of destroyed that fishery.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:06

So I heard about that. So I I was asking about pike, and I was told that that used to be awesome, but they didn't know why it sucked now. So now we know.

Justin Lerner 57:15

You know what? Anywhere, I mean, and this is my opinion, because they do it down here in some lakes, and the peacock bass fishing just drops off. It seems anywhere they go, anywhere people they go to weed kill, it just the fishery crashes. It's just yeah, it's not good anymore.

Scotty Sevins 57:33

Yeah, I I think uh what was it two winters ago when I was down in Florida, they had they had opened the Okeechobee locks and had let all the water out.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:46

And it's the worst.

Scotty Sevins 57:48

During the time that I was there, it killed the fishing, like in the Sebastian area. And it basically, like almost the whole month that I was down there, it was even affecting all the uh the fishing, I believe, in the keys, if I'm not mistaken. Like, uh am I am I wrong in that that that when they opened the gates that it that that some of that runoff even uh affects the fish down there? Because they were having problems with like a lot of the sawfish uh around the time that swimming in circles and a lot of fish getting sick.

Justin Lerner 58:28

So that that actually that's a little bit separate. The West Coast, you'll see you'll notice uh they do a lot more releases on the west coast, and it just causes these massive red tides that kills everything. I mean, I can't I can't believe this has been a problem for 30 years, and they still have done nothing about it. And whenever they open those gates, I mean what'll happen in the Indian River is in the Stewart areas, you'll start this if they if they pause those releases for a year or two, the seagrass starts to grow back and everything starts to come back, and then they just do the releases and it kills everything again. But down in down in the keys, that was, I believe that that was that was traced back to because of the super high water temperatures we've been getting over the summers, that it's a species of of dinoflagellate, very similar to uh ciguatera, which is uh the type of poisoning that you can get from fish that's caused by this dinoflagellate. And that that that I think was the issue.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:31

So just to frame it out for people that aren't aware, when we're talking about releases from Okeechobee, we're talking about when they're opening the gates and letting that fresh water run out.

Justin Lerner 59:41

Yep. So you have you have agriculture rich, yeah, yeah, nutrient rich uh not agriculture rich, you have nutrient rich fresh water uh getting dumped right into warm salt water, and that triggers these algae blooms.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:54

Right. So you get the algae bloom, you also get the drop in salinity that rushes down and it's shocked. It basically shocks everything in its way, but all that algae comes pouring down. There are also some places where they quote unquote accidentally overflow the untreated waste from time to time. I believe that's Tampa Bay area has that.

Justin Lerner 1:00:16

Yeah, so any, you know, any septic system. And then, you know, you have a lot of people living on the water and they allow them to fertilize their lawns and all that. If you have waterfront property, you shouldn't be because all of that goes right into the system, causes, causes these algae blooms. You know, there's a number of different effects from it that just destroy everything. I mean, traditionally from Lake Okeechobee, the water would flow south through the Everglades where it gets filtered and then goes right down into Florida Bay. And they started doing sugar agriculture, sugarcane agriculture south of Lake Okeechobee. So they, you know, I I don't know exactly what the deal was, but then they they ended up basically taking the water from Lake Okeechobee and diverting it to the Calusahatchie River on the on the west coast and St. Lucie on the East Coast. And it's just it's the worst thing.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:01:07

Yeah, and and it's it's amazing when you think the this is a topic that I tried to get somebody on, I think it was two years ago, to talk about in detail what what's happening in Florida because here's the way that I look at it there is no state, maybe Texas, maybe, that that focuses on fishing as much as Florida and has the power that Florida anglers have to uh manipulate uh their legislators into doing what's right. And they can't overcome this. I mean it the this stuff just keeps happening, and it's scientifically shown to be destroying the the ecosystem, and they can't stop it. It's insanity. Yeah and yeah, I tried to get a guy to come on and it just it just never lined up. But the Okeechobee thing was was the thing that he was most he's like, this is literally the most controllable thing, and we're diverting it into these areas that we know can't support it, but we just do it on purpose anyway. Yes, you know, there are options, but they don't want to mess with certain business concerns, but they'll wipe out populations of fish, and it's just it's well, it's disgraceful, really.

Justin Lerner 1:02:20

And it's I mean, and you know, the state relies heavily on tourism, so who's gonna want to go to the west coast when the beaches are loaded with dead fish and dead animals and such and and it's hazardous to humans. When these red tides happen, I mean it can cause respiratory issues. You know, it's it's just tragic.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:02:38

It's it's depressing because you know, you look at you know, you look at Maryland. Maryland has a lot of clout, but they don't have enough, you know, they can't overcome, you know, omega, you know, and everyone else around them's trying to help and it's not working.

Scotty Sevins 1:02:54

Yeah, that's a that's another thing that's that really gets me going. Like I I I can see Justin getting like you know, like not triggered in a way, but you're very passionate when you talk about the whole Okeechobee thing because it it truly is destroying like the ecosystem and fisheries. And I feel that same that same way about the omega boats. I mean, I feel like I saw a direct impact this year, especially from the omega boats and what they did this year to the bunker populations. I I saw I saw a deck a direct direct reflection on that on this fall because of what the omega boats did above us with the bunker. Yeah, and there's a shame.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:03:48

And it even goes further. I mean, you look at the Delaware Bay, that used to be a Mecca, and it's dead, and it and a lot of it is because of Pennsylvania and all the runoff that comes down out of the river into there. You could see I'll put it up on screen from James Flynn nine million gallons of raw sewage released into the Potomac in the past week.

Justin Lerner 1:04:07

And it's actually so the yeah, the other problem with Florida, you're having a lot of raw sewage problems down in Fort Lauderdale and a lot of those areas. My friend Jeff Maggio, he's he's lunker dog on social media, brings a lot of attention to it. But the other issue is that a lot of people that are elected into positions in Florida are developers and they're literally developing every single square inch of land they possibly can along the coast, and they're doing so without regard to the infrastructure, without regard to the roads, to you know, do the sewer systems and all of that, and it's just causing massive issues.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:04:46

Yeah. I mean, it's happening all over. I mean, you can even look fresh water if you look near so look, I I live near Limerick, Pennsylvania. So there's a nuclear power plant, which is pulling water out of the river. Now they're gonna put now they're putting data centers in, which is going to like take even more water, and they're not gonna be a closed system, which means they're gonna put that heated water back into the thing, and it's just it's ridiculous. And it's the and and here's the thing nobody wants it around here, the data centers, and it's gonna pass. And it's gonna pass because the limerick, the the limerick people and the fish and game and fish and game of all or of all, it's not fishing game, it's one of the uh one of those departments, right? That's supposed to take care of the the land. They're going to give it up. And there's nobody can stop it because it's just a it's an agency, it's not uh, you know, it's not Limerick Township that's doing it, but it's going to be in Limerick Township. And I don't know, we could we could go for eight hours on this topic, but it's it's not getting better. And it's it is scary. It is scary to me every time I see these things, especially Florida, because Florida had they're they're the they're the heavyweight champion of fishing as far as the amount of backing that you have, and then the amount of organizations that are pumping money from the recreational anglers back into fixing this, and they can't even fix it. Yeah.

Scotty Sevins 1:06:14

I I gotta I gotta tell you though, I really wish that the FWC and Florida in general, the way they manage their fisheries, and and I could be wrong, it's just from my viewpoint, I feel like they really manage a lot of their fisheries very, very well. And I wish that New Jersey and some of these northern states would take a cue from Florida, you know, in in the way we manage our species up here, you know.

Justin Lerner 1:06:50

Yeah, so it's more you know, there really isn't Florida, Florida, and you're a thousand percent right. So I did I worked as a marine biologist for the FWC for a few years. Did you really? You know, Florida, yes, so Florida has the FWC as the body that directly manages fresh and salt water resources, you know, pretty much hunting, fishing throughout the state. You know, New Jersey, a lot of the Atlantic states are managed via these fishery management councils. So there isn't a specific body that's specifically managing, you know, the state waters in New Jersey. And in some in some cases, the councils make sense because of the overlap uh in species distribution. But yeah, Florida does in an outstanding job of of managing their fisheries, they're very proactive, they're very, you know, the regulation, there's they're they're very conscious of of user conflicts, they're very conscious of protecting angler anglers' rights, and you know, but they also will step in when you know there's there's an issue and they don't wait. You know, when there was back in 2013, I think it was, there was a a like a week-long cold snap down here that got into the 30s, and it caused mass, you know, the west coast that's shallower than the east coast, it caused massive kills of of fish, a lot, you know, mainly snook. And you know, they immediately fishery shut down, no keeping snook for not shut down, you could still fish for them, but no keep, you know, no harvest of snook for X amount of years, and they built them up. You know, they were very proactive. There used to be, they used to allow gill netting for mullet in and in the inshore estuaries, which gill nets will select for a size of fish, they don't select for species. So, you know, it it was took a big uh the inshore fisheries took a huge hit from that. They in the 90s they banned those gill nets and everything came back. They they do a fantastic job of managing fisheries down here, and they don't get enough credit for it. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of a lot of, you know, there's always going to be people complaining about it, you know, that that they they do heavily regulate the reef fish species, but the truth of the matter is species like Grouper and Snapper, if you don't manage them pretty tightly, I mean, guys down here in a lot of areas, they're very accessible. Like you can go out and you can clean out a reef pretty easily, and you can you can really put a hammer down on those on those slower growing reef species.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:09:29

Yeah, yeah, and I think that FWC is a great organization, but it's they still don't have the power to fix the the real things. They manage the fishery, but they can't do they can't really do much about anything that's affecting the fishery. And that that's where I was going with that.

Scotty Sevins 1:09:45

No, they don't I was just speaking more in terms of like I wish that New Jersey would like I guess take a take I I I don't know. I I wish that our fisheries were managed more the way that that the Florida fisheries were to protect their precious resources. I mean, up up here, really salt water inshore wise, like we don't have a we don't have many things to fish for up here anymore. You know what I mean? Not not in the way that Florida does. And I I guess more what I'm getting at because it's something I'm passionate about, but it just it really like I guess burns my ass about the New Jersey not protecting the sheep's head, you know? And you know, that I I I it's like it's it's a fishery that is we we are we are lucky to have, and it I feel like is already in trouble. And and I we we we can't we can't get the the state or the the the councils to do anything to to protect it, you know what I mean? And I I I think it's a I think it's a shitty.

Closing Notes And Upcoming Guests

Justin Lerner 1:11:08

Yeah, I mean honestly, there's you know, so our whole lives, you know, the the thought was always, you know, it's commercial fishermen that do the damage, not recreational fishermen. And for for a while that was largely true. But these days we have more rec, I mean, there's so many people recreational, recreationally fishing that it needs to be, I mean, that really needs to be taken into account. Uh you know, I mean, just you know, the the people think about themselves, well, I keep a few of these fish a year, okay. Well, then multiply that by the thousands and tens of thousands of boats up and down, you know, it it's it's something that you know really needs to be taken into consideration of what's you know what's acceptable and what and and some species I don't even know if if they you know I I don't know how they have the stock delineated for sheep's head and how they do the stock assessments, or even if there is a stock assessment, some species they just you know they don't have a thing to do it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:12:12

No, but I I believe for the past couple of years they've been talking about taking a look at Sheep's Head. I don't I don't know where they are with it, to be honest with you, but I agree they should look at it. I'm always the one that says let's get some stats before we get some regulations. Yeah, but they're taking a long time, I guess is Scotty's point. We could have had those numbers.

Justin Lerner 1:12:35

Yeah, I mean the you know, a big problem with it is funding. You know, marine fisheries it takes you know, it's been taken a hit after hit, you know, and and it's it's tough to get those studies done. But yeah, I mean that's you know, it's things that they they absolutely need to do.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:12:51

Yeah, yeah. Well, so listen, we're we're at an hour and 17 minutes, so we're gonna have to wrap this up. Justin, yeah, I am I am really glad that you came on. It was great talking to you. Um I want to talk more. You you're an interesting dude, man. Uh like I I have so many questions, and I was trying not to go too deep into any because we could have spent I mean, I I could have spent the entire time talking about Australia. I could have spent the whole time talking about tuna. I I love the fact that you are a guy that has had the opportunity to do the type of fishing that we all want to do, right? So sitting here on a Monday night in the cold of winter, and I know it's even cold in Florida, relative, but it's still cold. Yeah, I mean, this is this is what it's about, you know, talking about these different species and something that's a little bit different. So thank you very much for coming on. Scotty, thanks for setting it up with with Justin.

Scotty Sevins 1:13:51

Yeah, I I was excited about this. I've again Justin is somebody that I've had a tremendous amount of respect for for years. And I've you know, when we started when I started getting more and more involved in this, like I I was I I always had it in the back of my head, I said I I would love to have Justin on. And just just because uh your vast knowledge of of so many different fisheries, I mean, it's just uh it's really incredible in your life experience. Um I'm I'm really I'm really uh grateful that you said yes and thankful. So thank thank you very much for for your time and coming on and talking with us.

Justin Lerner 1:14:42

Absolutely. I I I love talking fishing, so thank you so much for the opportunity. And this this was great.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:14:51

And I'll come down and see you soon. Absolutely. I'll jump on the boat. Uh yeah, I I mean I gotta get out of this weather. This is crazy. I've got I've got literally I've got my trout rods in the truck, and it's it's so iced over. There's no I picked out all these spots. I'm so excited. Winter trout, and they're all the spots that I picked are literally frozen. I'm like, well, I'm not doing this. So my I got two trout rods in the back of my truck looking like an idiot driving around in single-digit weather. But um, hey, it's gonna get better. Everyone, I want to let you know next week we're gonna have Benji on. Um, and we're gonna be talking to Crabbing and Fishing. Yeah, we we've got a pretty cool topic for that. And then after that, we're gonna kick off uh what we kind of teased back in the fall, which is let's we're gonna go into in-depth on the bucket list trips, and um we're going to have Eric Cohen on. If you're if you recall, this dude likes to go to the Amazon and likes to catch some fish down there. So he's gonna come on and talk about his latest trip. Yeah, he's gonna talk about his latest trip. Um, and then after that, we've got a couple of things loosely coming together. Um, so looking forward to it. If you have any guests that you'd like to, you know, send forward, send me an email, send me a text. You got my phone number, send me a text with their names. And uh, if you are somebody that has a pretty cool story to tell a bucket list trip, we'd love to talk to you. I'd like to get like one a month at least going because uh nobody's fishing. So we let's talk about you know things that you can do to get out on the water or plan for next year so you have that cool story to tell. We may not be traveling like Justin, but if we can do it once a year or once every couple of years, uh that's that's what it's all about, making those memories. So uh everyone, thanks for tuning in. Really appreciate it. We'll be back next Monday night. Until then, I'm gonna say it, even though I'm telling you, don't do it. Get out there, get on the water, and get some tight lines.