EP 62: We Can’t Fish, So We Talk About It with Captains Josh and Ben

Winter slammed the Mid-Atlantic, but we’re not wasting it. We trade the skunk for strategy with a practical guide to thriving off the water: how to rebuild reels the right way, why baitfeeder spinning reels shine for tog and sheepshead drops, and how to use YouTube without drowning in highlight reels. We chase the channels that actually teach, share a few lesser-known creators worth your time, and talk through the quiet habits that pay off big when the thaw hits.

If you fish from a kayak, this is your tune-up. We break down pedal drive grease points, hidden line traps that drain batteries and burn bearings, and the right way to set rudder cable tension when temps are bouncing. We also get real about electronics: you don’t need the newest sonar to find structure, bunker, or piling shadows. Shop the model changeover window, support your local shop, and prioritize reliability over buzzwords.

We swap stories about species diversity—thirty-plus over a season on a good year—and why keeping a sharp log matters. Last spring ran cold, and runoff held stripers back; the signs point that way again. We share a smarter timeline for the early run, perch plans if you find open water, and the simple tackle choices that make circle hooks and light leaders work. Along the way, Captain Josh and Benji deliver the kind of dock talk you want: small tips with outsized impact, laughs about octopus cameos and rogue squid, and a straight take on safety. Cold water demands partners, PFDs, and dry suits. No fish is worth a bad headline.

Ready to turn a frozen week into a better season? Hit play, grab a notebook, and set up your reels, kayak, and finder now so spring feels easy. Subscribe, share this with a fishing buddy who needs a winter plan, and leave a review with your best off-season tip—we’ll feature our favorites on a future show.

Great Bay Outfitters - Gear Up!
Your go-to shop for top fishing gear, apparel, and kayak essentials in South Jersey.

Quad State Tune For Your Toyota Truck
Custom engine tuning for peak performance for Toyota trucks. Improve power and performance today.

Richard Natoli Real Estate
Helping PA homeowners buy & sell with confidence. 267-270-1145 or NatoliRealEstate@Gmail.com

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Cold Snap And Off-Season Reality

Capt. Josh 0:00

A lot of the videos I'm watching have to do with boat maintenance and things, you know, trying to, you know, the more you can do yourself, the better.

Sponsors And Community Updates

Meet Captain Josh And Benji

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 0:14

Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. I'm your regular host, Rich Natoli, and tonight we're we're gonna have a show. I think we're gonna talk a lot about fishing, but um we're gonna continue the theme that the weather sucks. And uh we're kind of in a position where even a lot of the unless you're ice fishing, a lot of the freshwater guys are off the water now too. Um I was driving home from work today, and I was like, oh, I should take a picture, you know, just share it in the stream tonight of the frozen creeks that I was gonna fish for trout this past couple of weeks. And uh it's like, what's the point? Everybody sees it. All you have to do is look out the window. If you're anywhere in this viewing area, if you're anyone that watches this show with any regularity, at least the majority of you are on the east coast, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, you know what it's like. Just look out the window. So we're gonna get together. Uh, we got Captain Josh here, we got Benji from Crabin and Fishing. We're gonna talk about what the hell do we do? What are we doing right now when we're off the water? Because uh it's tough to get out there. So uh I'm gonna roll quickly towards that. We're gonna hit the sponsors real quick. We have Great Bay Outfitters, Radio Road in Tuckerton, New Jersey, experience Great Bay. Paul, his his group, um, by the way, he's hiring for this upcoming season. So if you're thinking that you might need a position and you want to work at the number one kayak shop in the region, reach out to Paul, reach out to Great Bay Outfitters. If you're looking for a kayak and you want to get on the water, I'm pretty sure the lagoon is frozen right now, so you can't get on the water. But once it's thawed out, uh, Paul will get you on the water. You can test out the kayaks before you buy them, and I always recommend that. Um, so so check that out. Quad stay tuned with Kevin Driscoll. You can reach him at 484-633-5975. If you have a Toyota truck, a 4Runner Tundra, Lexus 460 or 470, these are engine tunes that will help you to get the most the most performance out of those engines as possible. Better torque, better mileage, better shifting. If you're towing a boat and you have a Toyota, talk to Kevin. If it doesn't make sense for you, he will tell you. He will he will not tell you to buy it if it doesn't make sense, but uh reach out to Kevin. And then you have me for real estate in southeastern Pennsylvania. Primarily, I am working with residential real estate. Do some light commercial real estate as well. I actually have some listings coming up for that. But if you have anything, you need anything, reach out to me. If you know anyone buying or selling, reach out to me. My cell number is 267-270-1145. And I'm about to bring them on, but one last thing. We did talk briefly in the past about this new site that we have for the fat dad fishing community. And I did post about this on Facebook. We are going to have a Discord, well, we do have a Discord server that is going to be just for a Fat Dad Fishing group, and all of you are invited to join as soon as it's public. It is private right now. We have it set up. We've got some admins. I made the crazy decision to allow my brother to be one. So God only knows what the hell is going to happen with that. But also, Joe Billps is in there, and we can all trust Joe, I think. And we've got it set up pretty well. We also have three people coming in to test it this week and to work with us to help get it ready for a real launch sometime in the next couple of weeks. So I see a question in there from James Flynn. Do you need Facebook? For Discord, you do not. Discord is a separate application. It's pretty cool. If you've never used it, if you've never seen it, it allows, it's think about the old school message boards, but really hopped up on steroids. So you have a lot more functionality in them. You also have voice channels. So we're not going to launch with voice channels, but you'll actually be able to have conversations with people. So if you're going to be planning a trip and you want to get together with people in one spot beforehand, we're going to eventually open up voice channels. So let's say it's the trip to Kiptope, and a bunch of guys are throwing their kayaks into their trucks and heading down. You can just jump into the Discord and you can talk about the planning and the logistics when you're getting there, and it'll all be contained in one spot. So you don't have to have these big group texts going all over the place. So yeah, the the thing that Joe is saying, Discord was made for gamers, and it was, and that's actually how I originally got into Discord is for games that I play online, but we're gonna have this server, it's gonna be pretty cool. So just keep an eye out for that. So with that said, let's jump in. I'm gonna bring Benji on first. Then it's good to see you, man. Rich, what's happening? Good evening, everyone. I'm cold.

Capt Ben 5:08

I can't got that nice 22-degree weather down here in southern New Jersey.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 5:13

It's nice and warm compared to the way it was last week. And then, yeah, and then let's bring on Captain Josh. Welcome. Good to see you.

Capt. Josh 5:22

Hello, hello. Thank you for having me.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 5:25

Yeah, yeah. I'm glad that you're on. So you're a first timer here. So everybody knows Ben, right? Everybody knows Crab and Efficient. Actually, more people know Ben G than they know me, probably even on this channel. Yeah, well, you're you're the digital creator on steroids, and I'm just a dude that has a small podcast. So yeah. But Captain Josh, let's take a moment before we jump in and we start talking about what the hell we're gonna do until you know fishing is actually open and available to everyone. Why don't you take a just a minute, introduce yourself, let everyone know what your business is, where you're located, what your specialty is, and then we'll just jump in and start talking about this winter weather.

YouTube As Winter Lifeline

Capt. Josh 6:05

Well, I spent 17 years running a party boat out of Brigantine, the fish finder too. And when he decided the owner decided to retire, he shut the business down, and that's when I picked up, went out, bought a boat, brought it home, and uh started my business from there. So I had kind of had a ready-made situation, you know, of already having a name, notoriety, people you know, people already knew me. So it was a pretty easy fit. And I must say though, being on the podcast like this feels very similar, because it's my first time. Feels very similar to me taking my boat out for the first paid trip when I had people out there, you know, and well, I did it for 17 years for somebody else's boat, and I gave the spiel and I talked for you know 10 minutes and it was a big show and all. But you know, when it came down to being my boat and this is my operation and this is my baby here, you know, it was definitely nervous for me, and I had butterflies, and you know, so it was a very special feeling that I still remember now. If you hear any uh loud pops and all, it's not gunfire, I promise. It's house the house is popping with the uh the coldness, you know. We got the heat inside and the cold outside. So every so often you know you hear like a loud bang. It's just a matter how cold it is out there. But so the pontoon is a great opportunity for a lot of people to get out and fish. You know, I definitely can cater toward uh handicap and people who are less able. It's got a lot of things to hold on to, it's got a lot of seating, and it's just a super comfortable ride. It's like floating around in your living room. And you know, that the the I love taking care of people on the party boat. You know, it's trying to be a challenge to get all 40 people on the same page. It's like herding cats, you know, controlling chaos. But for the most part, I was I could get 38 of the 40 on the same page. And there's always those two people that just refuse to get with the program.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 8:05

I was gonna say, there's Benji and my brother. We'll put those two together.

Capt. Josh 8:09

I I I had one time this guy, he's fishing on the, you know, everyone's fishing with like four ounces of weight, right? To stay on the bottom. And I got this guy on the bow fishing with uh one ounce, and his line keeps running all the way down the boat. You know, and I come around, I say you can't fish with one ounce of weight, you gotta get you gotta get with everybody else, because your line's not doing the same thing.

Speaker 2 8:30

Yeah.

Capt. Josh 8:30

And, you know, it got to a point. I'm like, if you caught a shark right now, you know what I mean, or a bluefish right now, it would just tangle up every line on the I can't have that, you know, ended up cutting his line off and retying him with something a little more appropriate.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 8:46

How did he react? Or I should say, how did Ben react?

Capt. Josh 8:49

He was pretty he was upset in the moment. And look, it's 40 people, and I'd rather have the other 38 people happy and have him be uh been out of shape. And that's the way it goes, you know. But on my boat with six people, you know, it's much, much easier to keep track of, you know, keep everything at the same page. Right. You know, you don't get the tangles, you don't get all those problems. So it's it's uh it's an awesome experience.

Capt Ben 9:17

That was not me, Rich. That was that was someone else. Oh yeah. I'm I'm Captain Josh's net man when I'm on the pontoon.

Capt. Josh 9:24

So yeah. Yeah, only other person allowed to touch the net.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 9:28

Yeah, you don't want me anywhere near that net.

Capt. Josh 9:31

I I did have someone grab the net onto me this year. I'm not gonna name any names or anything, but they wanted to net a crab. And I said, no, we don't net crabs. You know, we just leave the crab be. And he went and grabbed the net anyways and tried to net the crab. Fortunately the crab was, you know, smarter and got away. Yeah. But I didn't feel it necessary what happened.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 9:58

Alright. So we're losing Josh for a second, but Ben, what do you what do you think? I gotta ask you real quick. What do you what do you think about the people grabbing the net on your boat?

Capt Ben 10:09

As long as they're handing it to me, that's fine. Um I I take all the help I can get. I don't I don't get bit out of shape by it with it. I'd rather for them to knock their own fish off the hook than to do it. Yeah, that's that's my point of view.

Speaker 2 10:21

Yeah. Yeah.

Capt Ben 10:23

Because then it's really a big laugh. And when they're you know fussing and cussing about it, I can say, hey, let me do it next time.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 10:29

Yeah, yeah. You don't have to worry about it so much. You don't have to worry about it. I always I always joke that like, don't, don't put me on the net. I'm good on a boat with a net. On a kayak, I am horrendous. I mean, it's it's a very well-known fact. I mean, it there's so much video evidence of how bad I am at netting on a kayak, but I actually can net on a boat pretty well. Pretty well. Not perfect, but pretty well.

Capt Ben 10:51

Netting on the kayak's not my issue. It's getting them in the cooler without them jumping back out, as you may recall that the season we were down behind uh the islands there.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:00

Yep. Down in my favorite area to fish. Yep. Yeah, that's the same area that we had. We had that one in the tournament go flying out. The potential well, it ended up not being a winner, but it was pretty close where where Mike had it and decided to measure it for some reason. So yeah, I don't I don't I don't quite get that. All right, Josh is back. Let's pull him back on. All right, you're back, man.

Capt. Josh 11:25

Yeah, I think so. Yep.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:26

All right. Yeah, so we're we were just talking about the netting. Yeah, Ben's okay with people knocking their own fish off the hook.

Capt. Josh 11:34

So yeah, I I prefer if anybody's gonna lose a fish, it's gonna be me. I don't want to I don't want someone else losing someone else's fish.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:42

Yeah. All right. So let's let's jump in. And you said you're you're out of Atlantic City Brigantine.

Gear Maintenance Essentials

Capt. Josh 11:49

Yeah, oh the new my boat's at the golden nugget in Atlantic City. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:53

So it's that's why I see you all the time.

Capt. Josh 11:55

Yep, right over the bridge.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 11:56

Yep. Okay. All right. Now let's jump into this because again, the weather sucks. And Josh, we're gonna start with you. I just want to kind of go around and let let's let me just ask this question to both of you. Do either of you or both of you rely on YouTube to get through the winter when you're not able to hit the water? Do you rely on YouTube at all for let's start with fishing?

Capt. Josh 12:22

Yeah, I watch some videos. My I see videos show up on Facebook and stuff, you know, and I'll go explore that way. A lot of the videos I'm watching have to do with boat maintenance and things, you know, trying to you know, the more you can do yourself, the the better. And so, you know, trying to teach myself some things here and there, doing a lot of research on products on like I'm looking to add a bimini top for this year. Yeah, I'm not bimini, I'm sorry, a teetop. So I want to add a teetop this year to help me get out of the sun, you know, in the summer. So a lot of research goes into that because there's you know thousands of different options and different you know ones available. So a lot of times it's more of a research tool. Yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 13:08

All right. So so who are who are you what are what are some channels or people that you're you're tuning into at this point of the year? Or is it just random videos? I mean, I I I go down that rabbit hole every night after my wife goes to bed. I turn off whatever's on TV and I put on YouTube and I just let it play.

Capt. Josh 13:27

Yeah, it's just random, whatever comes up, whatever I see, or whatever I'm looking at, you know, in the meantime.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 13:33

Okay. Yeah. But you're looking at boat maintenance and and things like that right now because of the time of year.

Capt. Josh 13:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 13:40

All right. Ben, what are you looking at?

Capt Ben 13:42

I'm yeah, I'm vicariously. I'm living through everyone out there on YouTube. I mean, somebody that I've been watching heavily the past several weeks is Joe from 609 Fishing. Yeah, one of your former guests on here. And it's because a lot of his content has recently been about white perch, which you know, this is the time of year for it. For me, if I can find some open water, you know, I'm always looking to see how to tie different rigs, how to tie, you know, setups and different deleter lines, etc. And of course, I'm always going back to my saved videos of how do I tie braid to mono? Yeah, my favorite. Yeah, get my leader lines, practicing those things. But yeah, I I I live off of YouTube. I watch more YouTube than I do live TV or any other type of TV.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 14:24

Yeah, I'm I'm just obsessed with YouTube. And what's I'm just gonna be quite honest about it. I typically do not watch fishing on YouTube because 99% of it is just I'm awesome. Look at what I caught. And for me, it's like eh, I want a little bit more out of it, a little bit more. Like, I if I could find somebody that's teaching something or doing something a lot different, I prefer that. There's nothing wrong with those other channels, it's just not what I, you know, what I'll actively look for. I I've I've stumbled across some in the past couple of weeks that I I keep going back to. Have you ever seen Bob Aquatic fishes out of New York City?

Capt Ben 15:08

I've not seen that one. I'm not familiar with them.

Capt. Josh 15:12

I think I've seen a Facebook thing on it, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 15:14

Okay, so not not a small channel, not a huge channel, but yeah, I thought it was interesting. And and this is what I think the most recent one, I think I saw it last night actually. He's fishing for looks like striped bass. He's got a big bucktail on there, and then he's got small hooks above it. So he's going, he's going for herring, and he's pulling in, dude, little stripers that are like six inches long on those top two hooks. So I thought it was just so entertaining. I mean, he's he's essentially not trying to, but he's micro fishing. And to me, micro fishing is pretty cool. It's just the stuff that you can pull up. He catches in a trap, a little blackfish, you know, things like that. But I also would have been looking at beast fishing. I don't know if you've seen that. I think he's also in New York, and then Bendit fishing. All right, so Bendit fishing uh has absolutely nothing to do with what I do because it's lake trout. And I I don't even know where I would catch lake trout, you know, or or really make a day or you know, make anything of it. But I'll tell you what, it is entertaining as hell. So if you just want to see a dude that knows what he's doing, just lake trout fishing, look that up. It's Bendit Fishing. I absolutely love that. Now, on top of that, yeah, I'm still watching Joe. I've watched way too many of Joe's videos, and I actually go back his years. There are some that of his that I just like, so I just kind of sort through until I find them. But I am also hooked on the white perch right now. And it's mainly because I know I'm not gonna get out there. Uh I'm not gonna get out white perch fishing with this weather and with this cold. So I like you said, I'm living vicariously through Joe at this point.

Capt Ben 16:53

Yeah, so many other guys out there. I I like a lot watching the younger kids. Like there, there's there's kid Kepty fishing at this point. Yes. So I I like checking him out, seeing what the little young people were doing, seeing them involved in the fishing. Another one that I enjoy watching, if if anybody's familiar with Salty Sam, he's uh he does some things around New Jersey here, southern New Jersey. And you know, I I get hooked watching him because of the way he narrates his his uh content, I end up getting wrapped up into it. But I I like watching new folks and see what they have to offer because I I don't I I'll share with you right off the top. I don't know it all and don't claim to. Every time I watch somebody, I learn something new. Every time I get on the water, I learn something new. So yeah, I'm like I said, I vicariously through YouTube. I learn so much, you know, from all the content creators out there, if they are in fact teaching, like you said. I mean it's not uh you know, some most of the Facebook reels, you know, they're so short, you don't that's really all you can do is put together a highlight reel for for Facebook, but YouTube's a different animal altogether if you find the appropriate channels.

Kayak Upkeep And Electronics

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 17:58

Yeah, I I've been actually when you go on there, the one of the things that I find to be a lot of fun is just put in random search terms. So, like do Maryland saltwater or Maryland brackish fishing, and then look for the most recent uploads. And what you'll typically find is these micro channels with like 35 subscribers. But these dudes are are running those channels like they're like 30,000. I mean, they're like putting everything into them. There are some really good gems of tiny channel, like this is a small channel. I I don't even know how many subscribers we have, it's less than 4,000 though. And these guys, you know, I remember how it was they're so much better than I was than I was when I had that many subscribers. So I I I like watching those, definitely. But Josh, you you mentioned, and actually both of you are in this position because you're both captains, you both have your own boats. One of the big things at this time of year is the most skipped thing of the year, and that's maintenance, right? So not just boat, but gear maintenance. So, Josh, what do you what are you doing right now to prepare your gear? Not necessarily the boat, but the actual fishing gear.

Capt. Josh 19:17

Well, I am you know, in December is is when I pretty much you know wind things down. I start doing fishing for pleasure in December. Then January kind of is just you know, just kind of hang out. February is when I start getting things ready that way. You know, I I bought a whole new set of reels for the tog rods. There was I like to use the bait feeders and not for the using the bait feeder to catch the tog, but it makes it easy on the spinning reels to to so when you're fishing in the holes, you're fishing around the rocks. You know, when you find a hole, it's so much easier to flip that bait feeder switch and drop your bait into that hole and then disengage it, and now you're in position to set the hook immediately. You know what I mean? So rather than trying to flip the bail over to drop it in, you can use that bait feeder to switch and and and do that, and it really is fantastic for that purpose. Now come on.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:17

Okay, hold hold on one second. Why why the hell hasn't anyone told me to do this before? Because that to me is like a I mean, you could do that for sheep's head.

Capt. Josh 20:26

Sure. Same thing.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 20:27

That would make it a lot more enjoyable to fish for sheep's head for me if I didn't have to keep opening the damn bale. Because I prefer spinning rods for sheep. I don't like using my my other gear. And I don't have a lot of good sheep's head gear that's not spinning.

Capt. Josh 20:41

Yeah, I mean, I I like I haven't thought we had six sheep's head this season, which is more than the first three years combined. So the biggest one I've gotten is 12 pounds on the boat. That's a big one.

Speaker 2 20:53

Yep.

Capt. Josh 20:54

But I don't really target the sheep's head because with five, six people on the boat, it really is hard to do that, you know.

Speaker 2 21:00

Yeah.

Capt. Josh 21:00

But one thing, you know, and I try to learn about sheep's head just because it's a new fishery and people are always asking questions. But one of the things that I have kind of seen about that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you kind of want a controlled descent in a way, you don't want it just a free fall. You just you want to spend time through the water column. And using the bait feeder to drop it, you know, you can kind of set that tension so that you can lower it, you know, without just opening the bale. So you can have it go down quickly, you can have it go down slowly, you know, and and it's a nice feature for sure. But one of the things Okuma's made a big change in how they I use Okuma reels for that, for the bait feeders. They used to have a big switch that stuck out, and people would break it because they it it would go to the max, and then they thought, Oh, it's not all the way here, so then they'll jam it all the way up. And break it. And it happens, you know, and that's just part of the business. But the new models have the switch built into the real seat. So there is a maximum, it can't go any farther. So, you know, seeing I got tired of throwing good money after bad replacing these reels as they get broken. So I bought a whole new set with the new base feeder system. So I'll be stringing them up and doing that. Otherwise, I'd be taking them apart and you know, cleaning them up, lube them up, and put them back together and do stuff like that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 22:35

Alright, so you're you're on the reels right now.

Books, Podcasts, And Learning

Capt. Josh 22:39

I'm about to start. Because I'm starting with brand new ones. Oh, I still have to do well, the tog and the stripers are the first ones I use. The flounder, I'll get to the flounder a little, you know, a little bit. March is slow still. I get ready for the boat, the boat ready in March. And but for the most part in the winter, I get a lot of work done on the house. So the fishing, you know, I used to work for Carpenter and he retired. So now that he is retired, my uh my winter times are projects at home now. And uh so but just yes, the reels are the one thing that really the rods, you know, I take good care of the rods, always spraying them down. Anytime there's a problem, I send them in to get fixed, you know, get another one back. And yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 23:27

And Benji, what are you doing? Are you doing the reels too, or have you done those already?

Capt Ben 23:32

No, I I'm actually working on the reels myself. This particular tsunami reel that I have here is one that on my last trip with Joe B up to Nantucket, I didn't even get to use this because my handle broke off. So I put a nice new power handle on this, a tsunami reel to pair back up with my rod, polishing the rods up, getting, you know, ensuring I'm getting all the dust and crud out of my reel seats and so forth and so on. And just going through relining things, you know, I got some nice new spools of braid that I got to get put on these reels. So those are the things that and steps that we're we're we're working through right now in this offseason trying to pass time, because otherwise I'm just sitting here looking out the window and my covered boat with snow on it. And yeah, that's just not a whole lot of fun. So, you know, fortunately, before the snow came and before I covered the boat up as far as the boat maintenance, I know you're talking about the the tackle type stuff, but you know, I went through the the normal process. I changed out the lower end fluids and you know, flushed all that stuff out, got that done and and ready to go and winterized it. You know, I have an e-tech on this on my skiff, so real easy to do. So if and when this snow and ice ever melts, I can just pull out the outside the house here, and I can go catch some perch, come back back in the yard and and and re-fog it. It's real easy to do 15 minutes, and you know, he's he's parked again.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 24:55

So I'm I'm jealous. I'm jealous. Um Josh Josh blanked out again. Let me just pull him off here for a second.

Capt Ben 25:05

He blanked out on us again. Now the larger boat, I can't, I don't have that luxury because that's got the saltwater edition 150 mercury on it, and you know, that's that's a little more involved as far as getting that one set up to sit, if you will. But yeah, and just going through uh rod maintenance and cleaning things up. I mean, a lot of you if you if you've seen my post on Facebook and so forth, you know I sleep with my fishing stuff. So, you know, we have a very intimate relationship, and that's why it works so well for me. At least that's what I believe. So I just I gotta keep it clean if it's gonna be in the bedroom.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 25:35

That's the way it's like, you know, it's funny because you know, Scotty, I think, is the opposite. Like he always talks about he just throws his gear in corners and everything, and you know that he's gonna be like suffering when it comes time to clean it all up. I'm guessing that he hasn't done it for a while and he's gonna be behind. But I do have a question for you. You said that you are changing out your braid and you're putting new braid on. How often do you do that? Because I I'll be honest with you, I have original line on my all of my spinning gear has original line with some of the reels going back to 2017, 2018, all braid, and I don't I don't ever change it. Yeah, it's faded, but I've never noticed any issues at all with them. I know I do hose them down, you know, after well, not hose them down. I I put a good mist of fresh water on them after, but how often do you change yours?

Capt Ben 26:31

I do this every season, and just like you just stated, it's always faded, and for me, it's always weak. And when I I've lost too many fish with the braid with the lighter braids that I use, so ultimately what I do now. I may not string it all the way out down to the reel. Yeah, I'm I I I'll probably just put some together and wind on this fresh and new stuff, and then if I have to change out a reel, obviously it gets reversed, right? So I I run the new stuff on down around the reel, and then I got fresh braid out there. But ultimately, now I I use unlike unlike a lot of folks, I use a lot of my stuff for all the fishing that I do, whether I'm in the back bay or if I'm out as a wreck, I'm still using my same gear because it's what I'm comfortable with. It's what works for me. All those fish that people see me posting and catch, I'm using the same gear that I'm using in the back bays. And I'm I'm bringing in those fish, even those big ones from Nantucket. I was using my back bay equipment with that. And you know, so I'm I'm stringing out a lot more line, is where I'm heading with that. So the faded braid and and all that. Mine it runs deeper in the spool than most folks who will who who fish just the back base with it. I'm anywhere from fifteen up to thirty as far as the braids concerned.

Speaker 2 27:59

So then we're not gonna do that.

Species Diversity And Stories

Capt Ben 29:08

Oh man, that's a oh man, you talk about some maintenance. Goodness. Yeah, oftentimes it's wrapped around there more than you think. By the time you hear it, there's so much line around there. I pulled this thing out last season. I couldn't believe I probably could have wrapped one of these reels up with as much line it was around there. And I'm wondering why my batteries were running down. So I I got rid of the lead acid, I added uh lithium batteries, and come to find out it's because of the friction from all the line it was on. It was making my battery run down.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 29:49

You gotta check those, man. That'll that'll burn that thing out. I so I I'm fortunate. I'm the guy that I will spool the reel once, I will spool it all the way down so I don't use any backing, and I don't lose I you know, I don't get wind knots. As long as you spool it correctly, you don't over-spool, you're typically not going to get wind knots on a spinning reel. And I don't cast bait casters, I have them, but I don't I don't toss them. I usually don't, I do sometimes, but I usually don't, so I don't have I don't have to worry about that stuff. So I guess on the spoiled one out of the three of us, I don't have to worry about other people tangling and and all that stuff. But and look, when you have 300 yards of braid, you can go for a very long time because I only cut off you know maybe two or three inches when I retie, you know. So and I don't retie all that often either. I I've had I've had almost full fluke seasons, and this is when I was fishing two to three times per week, where I would go almost the entire season with the same leader and the same bucktail on there. So yeah, I mean, I mean, you just don't lose a lot of fish when you're fluke fishing, and I don't drag bottom, I I try to keep it above the bottom so I don't snag a lot. Yeah, so I'm fortunate. All right, so let me ask this, Ben, kayaking. What are you doing to your kayak right now?

Capt Ben 31:12

If anything, nothing, just staring at it. It's just got to cover over, just like the boat does at this point. I mean, you know, with the pedal with my propeller kayak, the uh uh what is it, the Titan, native Titan. Yeah, that one I'll pull my uh pedals out, I'll re-grease it, even whether or not it needs it or if it needs it or not.

Speaker 2 31:31

Yep.

Capt Ben 31:32

But the the Hobie that I have out here, you know, I don't have the same luxury. I had to change some pins on it.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 31:38

But that was always have to change pins on those.

Capt Ben 31:41

Yeah, that was something that was done prior to the close of the season. But uh yeah, with the Titan, I just make sure I repack it with grease and ensure that they're stored properly as far as uh the those components are concerned. But outside of that, I really wish there was some some sort of I I want to go out there and just buff it and shine it up, make it look real pretty and nice, but otherwise, you know, it's just sitting there staring at me like, man, I wish I could be used.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 32:04

So I've got mine, I've got mine in the garage. The garage is heated, so every once in a while I'll turn on the heat, even though it's 10 degrees out, and I'll just go out and just mess around with it. So I've cleaned the drive. You know, I've taken, I haven't taken it all apart because you got warranty issues then, but I've re-greased everything. I made sure everything was clean, made sure there was no line in the in the drive. But you know, old town drives don't really require much maintenance on them. It's not like a Hobie where things bend. It's either it's working or it's absolutely catastrophic failure when you're talking these pedal systems. But my big thing right now is I'm looking for a new fish finder. And I do want to tell people if you do need a new fish finder, now's the time to start looking because you're gonna start seeing over the next 60 days these sales. I am gonna tell you, even though I just said that, don't go buying from Bass Pro. Go to your local shop and buy. But you can get a good sense as to what's gonna happen to prices in local shops when you look at some of these bigger retailers as they uh as they retire older models. And I'll tell you what, for what the fishing that I do, you don't need a new fish finder with the latest technology. I mean, you're fluke fishing, all you need to do is see the structure. You're not seeing the fish anyway. If you have side scan, you can use side scan that is 10 years old at this point. You're still gonna be able to see the bunker moving by if you're if you're if you're fishing for striped bass, you're still gonna see the sheep's head on the pilings. And I could tell you that because I have like a six-year-old fish finder on mine and it still works. The only reason I need to replace it is it doesn't the temperature doesn't work anymore. So, well that and I broke the transducer three times. Um, the problem is I'm not using like you're using a better fish finder than me, right? I mean, I'm in a kayak. It's it's I think it was when I got it was five hundred bucks. It's probably a hundred and fifty bucks at this point. It's a it's a nine-inch low rance, whatever the model was. And what's that?

Capt Ben 34:38

Oh dear lord.

Bookings, Discord, And Plans

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 34:41

It's a low rance, it's a nine-inch screen, which is nice. It's got the triple shot, so it's got like the side scan, the down, and and all that stuff. It's got the maps. But I I did break the transducer three times, and I I just uh marine welded it back together every time, and it just stopped. So now this past summer, as an example, the temperature behind Brigantine when I was fishing in the middle of summer was only around 16 degrees Fahrenheit, apparently. So apparently that's never gonna work again. But it's it's about it's about time that I get a new one anyway. So I'm I am doing that right now, and I do need to fix my steering cables because those things have never been adjusted since I bought it. And boy, do they have play in it now. I mean, there is like it's they're so loose. So those are things if you're a kayak fisherman, I would suggest looking at those. Just keep in mind you don't want to tighten them necessarily and loosen them now, but just kind of put them on your list for when the temperature increases because they do expand and contract with the temperature. So you don't want to be like tightening or loosening cables now and expecting them to perform the same when it's 75 degrees or 80 degrees later in the year or 100 degrees.

Capt Ben 35:54

I ran into a problem with over, I think we were Seaways Stone Harbor, was out with Ray B on the kayak and started raining on us, and I'm out there just spinning in circles because my my rudder tights. Yeah, it was too tight. I couldn't spin it, it wouldn't turn. I'm trying to get back to the dock. I mean, it's raining, cats and dogs, and I just I can see it, and I just can't get there because I'm going in circles. So ultimately, yeah, I I figured all that out, loosened it up and and and took the the slack out of those lines. And oh my gosh, man, that would that was miserable. That was so miserable. They're laughing at me.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 36:29

I I can picture Ray's face, by the way. I I can picture what he was what he was looking at you and saying under his breath as as he's watching you. It must have been entertaining. All right. There are a couple other things that we have to hit. Now, I don't know if either of the two of you have anything to say on these, but there are a couple of things that I want to share in these categories that are directly fishing related. The first one is fishing books. Do either of you read or listen on Audible to fishing books at all? No. Okay. It's always, it's always it's always a crapshoot as to whether, and a lot of people say they do, but they don't. Ben, do you you read any fishing books?

Capt Ben 37:15

I have not read, I own them, but I haven't read them on the book. Yeah, in all honesty, right? I have I have two of Nick Hanicheski's books that he was kind of up to sign for me. And then I have one of what is it, Christine the Flounder or whatever, to John Skinner's book.

Speaker 2 37:30

You know, yeah.

Capt Ben 37:32

I I I opened the preface and might have gotten through that, but to sit and read about it, it's just easier for me to flip on YouTube. And you know, that's my audio book, if you will, as far as concerned.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 37:45

So some of these are available on Audible. The first one that I'm gonna say was written originally in the 1600s. It is a great book. It's called The Complete Angler. Complete C-O-M-P-L-E-A-T. It's by Isaac Walton and what's the other guy's name? Cotton. His last name is Cotton, I think. It is an it is a good book. It's from the 1600s, was when it was originally done. But they keep re-re re-releasing it and it's on Audible. I think it's there's different versions on there. There's like a six-hour one, there's like a nine-hour one. If you're just if you just want to listen to something with fishing, it's it is interesting to see the things that they were talking about back then, you know, hundreds of years ago. The other two, Saltwater Fly Fishing by Joe Brooks, another old book. I think this is from like the 40s or the 50s. That's a good one. I don't think that's on Audible. I read that a long time ago, and I don't actually don't even have a copy. But if you can find one, that's a good book. But here's one I I almost want to smack myself for saying it because I'm not the biggest fan of this guy. How to How to Think Like a Fish by Jeremy Wade. Jeremy Wade, to me, I I don't know if I like him or not. Like it it all depends on what I'm watching him do, but it's a really good book. It is it is a really good book. So I I do recommend that. And that is, I believe, on Audible too. And I think it's actually him narrating. So those are three that I would say, but out of all of them, just for the the cool factor, I I think the complete angler is is definitely definitely one to check out. Definitely.

Capt Ben 39:29

I mean, I I watched it, what is it, River Monsters, Jeremy Wade. I don't know if I could get I don't know if I if he's doing the if he's doing the voiceover, I don't know if I can get past that.

Runoff, Stripers, And Timing

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 39:40

You know, the thing about him that I found really interesting is and it always annoyed me. You know, you watch River Monsters, and he always has that big conventional setup. Yeah. And he's throwing this like monster gear and he's catching these tiny fish, right? I mean, I know he's going for the monster, and he actually talks about that in the book, and he talks about why he does that. And he, and I and I give him credit for this because he believes to the depths of his soul that you never undergear for any fish because it's not fair to the fish. That it's going to kill the fish, it's going to overwork them. And you owe the fish for in return for it biting and giving you that fight, you owe it the best chance at survival that you can give it. And to that, he's not wrong. He's not wrong. I mean, we've all at some point in our lives, whether we still do it now or we did in the past, we would undergear just for that fight. And we would bring up those fish after an hour. We should have had them up after two minutes. And after an hour, we let them go. And you think they swim away strong, but they're they're just whooped. And so I have to give them credit for that. And maybe that's kind of where I turned a little bit on him. I was like, all right, I'll read the whole book. So, but it it's it's a good book. It's definitely, it's definitely worth checking out, especially if you have Audible and you get the the free. I mean, you're paying for the subscription, but I think you get like four books a month, three or four books. So I have 14 saved up. So I already have this one, but I was looking a couple of weeks ago for a few other to put in there. And I I I bought a few, and I'll let I'll let people know down the road, maybe on the Discord, if there's any others that I would recommend. So all right. So the next one. What about podcasts? As Josh is gonna work his way back in. Ben, you listen to the podcast? What are you what are you listening to? Or watching or live streams.

Capt Ben 41:41

I'm gonna be honest. I I've yet to figure out how to navigate the podcast. I I pulled down uh a couple of those apps. I tried to catch the uh multi-species podcast. I I I I don't I'm like an idiot when it comes to it. I can't figure it out how to find them when they're live. I can't find them in the library, so I'm not as astute on uh the podcast education series as I probably should be.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 42:04

Okay. I I I listen to them all the time. I mean, I'm a realtor, I'm I'm in the car all the time. So I'm listening to a book, I'm listening to a podcast, and if I'm listening to if I'm listening to something, it's either real estate and business related or it's fishing. Most often it's fishing. So I've kind of run through a lot of them. You know, you you got the local ones, you got the New Jersey multi-species, you've got Tide Chasers. But I actually the one the ones that I really like are more of the the national ones, the bigger ones, the captains collective. Don Mace, I think was the one that turned me onto this years ago. Just a bunch of captains down south that get together and they just talk fishing. And I'll tell you what, they're hilarious. You can tell that they're friends, they all fish the same areas, they're making fun of each other. And if you ever just want to spend some time feeling like you're hanging out at the dock after a day on the water, that is a great one. The Captain's Collective guidepost is another good one again, down south. So it's not necessarily a clean translation to our area, but it's uh comes Josh. Oh, you lost me?

Capt Ben 43:28

Here we go. You lost me? He's back.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:32

You're back. Everyone can see everyone.

Capt. Josh 43:34

We're all back.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:38

All right. I yeah, it must have just dipped me out while Josh came back in. Josh, we're just talking about podcasts, and I mentioned do do you listen to podcasts at all for fishing?

Capt. Josh 43:48

No, not particularly.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 43:50

All right, so write these down. Captain's collective. That's that's your type of people, the captains. They just get together after the days on the water and they just start. Talking about you know BSing each other and talking about what happened on the water. The guidepost is another good one. And one Joe Sermely, I don't know if you guys know Joe Sermely for Cut and Retie. He was he was really big on meat eaters. He's been on a lot of podcasts as a host. His things, if you've never listened to cut and retie, I I recommend it. And I recommend that you listen to multiple episodes because you're gonna have to, it's all inside jokes and everything, but you become you you understand what they are after you listen to a few episodes. But he is a he is hilarious. He's a local guy, actually. He's he's in Bucks County, PA, and he fishes for everything and uh all over the place. He'll he'll travel the country to meet up with guests and everything. So cut and retie. Bite me is a good one. It's Texas fishing, but boy, is it fun to listen to at this time of year. And then Fish Nerds. You guys have had to listen to the fish nerds at some point. Somebody, somebody in chat, please tell me that you that you guys have listened to some of these podcasts. Because are really good podcasts, they're really well done, and some really entertaining people on them. So tell us some of the platforms that we can find these on, Rich. So all of these, so anyone that isn't sure how to get to a podcast, it's similar to how you get to the audio only version of this. You can go to Apple Music, you can go to Amazon Music, you can go to Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, they're all going to be up on almost all of these, right? And you just search by the name of the podcast. So if you want to find Fat Dad Fishing and you want to listen to it in the car, it's literally this with a little cleaner, cleaned up audio, a little bit of editing, repost it. So you just go in, you put fat dad fishing, you subscribe or you subscribe or follow, depends on what they they call it on the platform. And then whenever you log into that app on your phone, it'll just show the newest episode, and you could choose to listen to it or skip it or whatever you want to do. It doesn't necessarily download it, it's just there for you. You can stream it. Yeah, so it's it's as simple as that. So put on your phone, put Spotify on there, Benji, and and just start looking through and do a search for some of these things, and you just get to pick the episode and play it. It's that simple.

Safety First In Freezing Conditions

Capt Ben 46:32

So I don't know about Captain Josh, you know, again, tonight we're talking about what we do in the wintertime when it's cold, you know, other than re re up, you know, re-up our our tackle supplies and you know, in New Jersey and in what about three, four weeks now, we got striped bass coming back in. So I'm making sure I got my circle hooks and things of that nature. But you know, the the the other thing that I do, you know, as as a as a still a new captain, I don't know if Captain Josh is doing this, so I'm gonna try and see if I can fish it out of him, right? Since we're fishermen. Yeah, I've been doing a lot of SEO education as far as my website's concerned, so a lot of uh internet type stuff and marketing sides of things from a fishing perspective. And also researching fish, you know, a lot of you out there on Facebook, you've seen some of the informational posts I've been putting out just about the different fish that are out there that we may not be thinking of. You know, get a lot of feedback, particularly Billy Ackerman, one of uh your viewers here and podcast listeners. You know, he said, you know, just from seeing those posts, he's like, Man, there's a lot of fish I hadn't haven't caught yet. I said, Well, that's a good thing. I'll keep putting those things out.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 47:40

So I I love when you post those, by the way. It's it's good information. And like Billy said, there's a lot that people don't realize are there. A lot of people think New Jersey has no fish.

Capt. Josh 47:54

I I run a first fish contest on the boat for the season. So whoever catches the first of every species of fish wins one of my special edition hats. And the only way you can get the hat is to win it one way or another. So for the first fish, I mean I typically catch 30 different species of fish throughout the season. And you know, it's a lot people don't realize, like you said, that there's so many different things that are there at different times of the year. So I'll have customers, you know, that want the hat and they'll be like, well, what's what's still on the table? What can you still catch? And I'm like, well, this time of year you got this and this and that, you know, but if you wait till October, these become available, you know, and if you you know, different times of the year that way. And but there isn't quite a lot of diversity. And I can recall one time on the on the party boat, we were fishing off the steel pier, and it was some bachelor party. And we caught 13 different species of fish in that one trip.

unknown 48:56

Wow.

Capt. Josh 48:57

Fishing off including a grouper, a little baby grouper.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 49:00

Really?

Capt. Josh 49:01

Yep, fishing right off the steel pier like that. And it's funny because the guys in the bachelor party, like, wow, this is fishing? This is great. And it was it was dropping reel. I mean, he just caught different stuff every time he dropped it down. And I was like, Yeah, it's it's not always like this, but yeah, this is a great day. But you don't realize, like, yeah, there's so many different things you can catch. You know, there's there's uh four different species of stingrays. You know, everybody focuses on uh you know on the counters ray that they all catch, but there's there's three others that you generally catch. Um I have to say though, this year, this last year was one of my lower seasons. I don't know that I broke 20 species last year.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 49:44

Really?

Capt. Josh 49:44

Uh yeah, it was there's a several lot of different fish I haven't didn't catch. Some like a like a lizard fish, you know. Yeah. No lizard fish this year, no pig fish this year. You know, it's just yeah from year to year you see different things, but this past year was a down year for that. I didn't really I didn't give away as many hats as I would have liked.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:07

Did you get any any butterfly rays?

Capt. Josh 50:10

No, that's the one I didn't get this year, is a butterfly. Nope.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:14

Those I'll I'll tell you what, I caught one in my life and I caught it from a kayak. Wow, and I caught it in and Benji. I will show you exactly where I was. It was 14 feet of water at the intersection of three channels, so it was not a good spot to be with a thing that was probably six plus feet across.

Capt. Josh 50:36

Sure.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 50:36

It took it took almost an hour to get it 14 feet up, and it was one of the things I should have just let it go, but I it wasn't really even fighting that hard, it was just kind of sucking into the bottom and just sitting there. But I was able to let the current kind of drag me up over a sandbar, and it finally came up close. I just wanted it to be close enough that I could cut the line real close to it. That thing was massive. That was insanity.

Capt. Josh 51:04

The last one we caught was off the jetty toggon.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 51:09

Really?

Capt. Josh 51:10

Yeah, I don't know. Somehow came in and and you know, they swim by and they'll snag the line. Some of the guys, some of the guys like to cast out, you know, rather than drop it straight down. So that guy on the bow casting it out off the point, you know, he's he's some swims by, so we're in 40 feet of water with current. So that was but again, I I got the heavy gear for that, heavier, so we we got him to the boat you know, fairly quickly.

Capt Ben 51:37

You gotta say you gotta watch when you're kayak fishing with Rich because he's a shark magnet, so you have to be careful with him. Now Captain Josh. Captain Josh, on the other hand, if there's a fish out there to be caught, he's gonna catch it. I mean, I've seen this guy, he's even his on his pontoon boat, he's he he pulled up a uh an octopus. I've never seen that before.

Capt. Josh 51:58

Really? Yeah, I got an octopus togging, yeah. Yeah, off the jetty there. And you know, I put it, I you know, took it off the hook on the boat there, and it was crawling around on the bow, you know, and I figured, oh, it's gonna find its way out. Because I I took the front door off the pontoon so for the uh trolling motor. Yeah, he'll find his way right out the uh right out the front there. No, he wants to go into my battery compartment. Moving him out with my foot, trying to keep him out.

Capt Ben 52:26

That was probably one of the most interesting catches I've seen an octopus. I've never seen one in person, but when he pulled that up and had the video, it was just outstanding to see that. Uh a real life octopus.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:38

So I've I've never caught one, but I do know like you do not want that going anywhere near anything on your boat that it can get into. Like the build, especially.

Capt Ben 52:48

Especially with wires, I'm sure.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 52:50

Yeah, once it's down in that build, you're like done. And no, I've never I've never caught an octopus. I I've never tried. I don't want to. It would be cool, but I don't want to. I would probably be I would probably be the oh hold on. Just have to Josh just muting your mic for a second while it the sound catches up. Uh I would be the guy who catches the octopus, and I would be really nervous about grabbing that octopus. You know what I mean? For no reason except for that I watched all the old movies where the octopus just devours a person hole.

Capt Ben 53:28

I think they shoot, I think they shoot ink too. I wouldn't want to be an inkberry.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 53:34

Hey Josh, you're gonna have to you're gonna have to reconnect. You you've got you got a background sound there going. Yeah, they shoot ink. I have been shot by ink before by squid. I think it would I or no, maybe it's just water. I maybe it's just water. I've been hit in the face by by water from squid, but yeah, there's something about an octopus I'm not a fan of. I don't like eels. Not afraid of them, but I I would rather not have to deal with them, to be honest with you.

Capt Ben 54:02

It's like double dare, you get slimed by the eels. Uh I I had a customer over there. We were fishing in uh Josh's neck of the woods, and uh you know, obviously I've seen them, I know what they look like, but I've never seen a squid come up on a hook while I'm fishing. And I had a customer pull one up, but it was it was I don't know, it was just weird, struck me as weird. So that was the that was the catch of the day. He would that probably would have got a hat from Captain Josh.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 54:25

Uh I I definitely want to go out squid fishing. I definitely want to do that. Yeah, I don't have I don't have the right gear for or hooks for it, but I definitely want to go out squid fishing. I've definitely caught squid, but I haven't hooked the squid. The squid that I've caught have just held on to baits when out tuna fishing where you're reeling up, they follow it up and then they just grab it, and you're able to just kind of swing them into the boat. That's the only time I've ever caught squid. I've never actually done it by targeting squid yet.

Capt Ben 54:56

Yet. Yeah, this was definitely by catch. It was all by accident. I'm sure because we were out in uh again, Captain Josh's neck of the woods, and we were fluke fishing, and he came, brought his uh line up and he had a squid on it. I said, let's I said, get that took her over here so we can put that whole thing. Let's let's hook it right. Fluke could tear it up.

Capt. Josh 55:14

Oh, that was that was you, yeah, yeah. I think uh I think a shark took it or something happened like that.

Capt Ben 55:21

I'm not sure what got it, but yeah, Captain Josh took my my striper. Uh I was posted up on the corner. He comes flying past me and says, Hey, watch this. I'm gonna go up here and catch some stripers up in this creek. Uh, he had a couple women fishermen on there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's laughing at me. He says, Watch this. I'm gonna go up here and catch a striper. And 30 seconds later, boom, the girls are on the boat yelling and screaming. He's got a 30 plus inch striped bass on. We're posted up on the corner as Fat Dad taught me to do. And he pulls up in it, and Josh pulls up in the uh creek air and catches a striped bass.

Capt. Josh 55:57

That was in two two or three feet of water. Three feet of water.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:02

That's the way to do it. Yeah, make us both look it makes us both look stupid, right?

Capt. Josh 56:07

Yeah, that was probably one of the funny, the best uh best little things there. Literally literally the within 30 seconds, the fish was on there.

Capt Ben 56:15

That was we're catching skates two at a time. He pulls up and catches the target species. That was great. He was shouting back and forth. So we have a blast out there on the water. I love that.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 56:27

We're we're coming up on the hour. There are a couple things I wanted to share in the from the chat before we go. The first one, tune in tonight because of Captain Josh, Christmas gift to my family, brother, and three nephews was a trip on the Jenny Lynn. We're all looking forward to it. That's from Forgiven Adventures.

Capt. Josh 56:48

Oh, we were out in the ocean. That was one of the best striper trips I've ever had. We were out in the ocean just clobbering them every cast. I mean, they were under the boat, they were swimming by the boat, you could see them. It was insane, insane. And uh three kids.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:04

Those are the days we all want.

Capt Ben 57:05

I like that one from Tom Natoli. We absolutely are.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:10

You know, I can't I I know my brother well enough to know that I should just like skip the stuff that he that he puts in here. Oh, here's here's a good one. And actually, Eric, I I gotta get back to you. But besides Fact Dad podcast, Mill House is far and away number one podcast around. That is another great one. So look up Millhouse. That that is easily a top, I it doesn't even matter who you talk who you talk to. It is as far as fishing podcasts, it's gotta be a top three in the world. It it is an amazing, amazing podcast.

Capt Ben 57:44

We'll give them a listen. That's for sure.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 57:46

Yeah, it it's worth it. I mean, it's just so entertaining, there's so much informative, you know, episodes and everything.

Capt Ben 57:55

I saw a comment in there from your brother. I think he was talking about your mama. They might be fighting words. I don't know.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 58:00

He said he said, listening to me in his car, it would be like listening to our mom punishing him. He's the baby of the family. He didn't get punished but once in his life. That's it. That's it. And thankfully he doesn't have a microphone because he'd start dishing on all the things that I got in trouble for. All right, and here is one, Ben, for you from my brother. Are you booking crabbing trips yet for 2026?

Capt Ben 58:25

We're open for bookings for crabbing for sure. Absolutely. Crab and fishing.com. You can book your trip or send me a send me a text, 609-431-007. Okay.

Capt. Josh 58:40

Double team.

Speaker 2 58:42

Double seven teen.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 58:45

All right. And then and then Josh, are you booking trips yet or is your schedule up?

Capt. Josh 58:49

I have not posted, I have not made this schedule live yet. My usual, I'll do that by around this time of year. I start to get that up there. And then the bookings will be for April and Flounder, spring and the flounder season. I don't open TOG up until later in the summer. You know, and I don't open the Fall Striper up until later than the summer as well.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:11

Okay. All right. So you're you're you step through the year instead of booking it all up front.

Capt. Josh 59:16

Yeah, yeah. Just because it gets too cluttered on my on my website as far as different trips available.

Speaker 2 59:24

Okay.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:24

And what is your website?

Capt. Josh 59:25

Fishwithjosh.com. Very easy. Fishwithjosh.com.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:30

All right.

Capt. Josh 59:31

And the number is 609 400-1015.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 59:36

All right. So everybody go back and listen to this for those numbers and everything.

Capt. Josh 59:43

So Ben, Ben, if you want to go perch fishing, you know, you're worried about finding unfrozen water. I just bought a flamethrower. All right. So, you know, I can be on the bow of the boat there and I can clear a path. It goes to 4,000 degrees.

Capt Ben 1:00:00

Okay, yeah, it's probably a little hotter than the one I ordered. I'm waiting for it to employ.

Capt. Josh 1:00:05

Mine's coming tomorrow. My garage is detached in the back, and I can't, it's where all the fishing stuff is. I can't get to it because I have uh all the snow and the ice. And so I plan on tomorrow going out with a propane tank and just setting fire to the yard. And so I can be on the bow of your boat there, spraying away, you know, clearing out uh clearing out a path for you.

Capt Ben 1:00:30

I can relate to that. I can't get out my back door right now because the patio is the ice that got under the patio raised it up, so I can't get out the back door.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:41

All right, so let me just hold on one second.

Capt Ben 1:00:45

But my phone number is is cooler than yours. That you can't beat that 0017. No.

Capt. Josh 1:00:50

I don't know. You gotta dial it on and put two O's and a zero. A two O. Oh no, you were right. Yeah, I'm sorry. Double O seventeen. Yeah, yeah.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:00:59

Double O seventeen. Yeah, close enough, right? Close enough. All right. So listen, also, again, I want to remind everyone, we're gonna have this Discord server going. You guys, if you want to jump in, it would also be a spot where you can you know let people know what you got coming up and availability and all that stuff. So we're gonna post more about that coming up. Both both of you, thank you for coming on. I appreciate it. Hopefully, we can get through this crap weather. It's supposed to suck again this week with two small potential snow episodes coming through this week, but it's gotta get better soon. And my biggest fear right now is the start of striped bass season because we're gonna have all this runoff. It's gonna be too cold. It happened, what, three or four years ago, where it just destroyed everyone. The the the pre-fishing for striped bass was going crazy, and then we got this cool down and it just shut off for like the first two and a half weeks of the season. So I'm a little nervous that we might be looking at that if we can't get rid of all this runoff, because this runoff in Pennsylvania that's gonna work its way down to you, yeah, it's gonna be significant.

Capt. Josh 1:02:07

Well, this past year, the spring was very cold. That water was cold, and the striper season was was lagging, you know, because of it.

Capt Ben 1:02:15

So here's a better one. I usually go out on that first day, but I don't think I'm even gonna attempt to go out till third or four last week of March. It's just I don't know.

Capt. Josh 1:02:26

I'll have the boat in the water in mid-March, but I my first trip's gonna be you know April 1st. I I don't start till April.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:02:35

All right. I'll be fishing as soon as I can. It'll probably be starting fresh water, but then you know, before I load up the kayak and hit the water, you know, down there. But we need some of the ice to go away. You've got people ice skating on wildwood beaches and the Delaware Bay beaches. What's funny is people think that they're actually skating across Delaware Bay. And I've seen a lot of people online going crazy about how they should be wearing life jackets, but really they're skating on like an inch of water on the sand. But social media never disappoints, man. I I'm just having so much fun watching all of this stuff go on. So that's another way that you can spend your your time when you can't hit the water, just laugh at the people that think that they're out, you know.

Capt. Josh 1:03:18

Well, with the kayaks, if you guys want to get out there, you could probably retrofit them with some with some skates, you know, making yourself like like you know, you have the ice sailing boats. You could put uh a couple of blades underneath there instead of a paddle, put some picks on there, and you can slide yourself out and put the pedal pedal wheels on the back and we'd be like tanks.

Capt Ben 1:03:38

I I like I like your thought process on that. But uh yeah, another thing that we do in the winter time, you know, as you get ready to close Rich, is I'm looking at my logbooks because I'm looking at those uh temperatures for last year, and like Josh said, it was a cold start to the season, and it wasn't this cold outside. The water was cold. So yeah, I already know. You already know what that's going to do to the water, it's gonna push it back. That's why I'm I'm aiming for probably late March before I even get started.

Closing Thoughts And Next Week

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:04:06

Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll get there, we'll figure it all out together. Um, we're gonna get back into some more targeted fishing things. Hopefully, there's something that's gonna be open and fishable. Because literally, right now, unless you're ice fishing, there's really not much that's even fishable or safe for fishing. Uh, you know, you talk about the kayaks. I actually saw a video uh over the weekend of a guy who took his kayak out in fresh water and he was breaking ice with the kayak. And he actually ended up uh capsiding because you you can't really they're little plastic boats and he high-sided it and he went in. Now, look, it didn't matter because he was in a creek that was about two feet deep, so it didn't really matter to him. He just stood up and dragged it back to shore, and his day was done. But you know, people do actually go out on the I mean, we see people dying every year.

Capt. Josh 1:05:02

Well, people see that and not know, you know, necessarily too.

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 1:05:06

Yeah. Yeah, this is just the little creek um that he went out on. But you're gonna see perch fishermen getting stuck um and getting in some dangerous situations. So I I would just leave it at this. I don't think there's anything wrong with going fishing right now. If you can do it, you can do it safely. I would say if you're a kayak fisherman, please make sure you're going with at least one other person. Dry suits are non-negotiable at this point. Uh, all that good stuff. And if you think I'm a dork for saying it, I I don't care. Just put it on because someone's gonna have to identify your body, and uh it's probably not the way that you want your wife, significant other mom or whatever to remember your bloated dead body because you couldn't put on a life jacket and a dry suit. So I'll leave it at that. Guys, thank you for coming on. We'll be back next week. Got another episode, just gotta get it confirmed, but we're we should be lined up pretty good for the next few weeks. Um yeah, and just like I ended last time, I'm gonna say it, but I I don't necessarily mean it unless you could do it safely. But uh yeah, till next time, get out there, get on the water, and get some tight lines.