EP 64: Audience Choice of Topics

Cold water doesn’t mean quiet water. We open the lines for a live, no-frills breakdown of early-season tactics that actually catch in back bays and coastal inlets, from snap-jigging for March stripers to building fluke bucktails that look right where it counts—viewed from below. I share the exact lure sizes, colors, and retrieves that keep bites coming when temps are stubborn, plus how to rig a simple teaser system to target weakfish and fluke on the same drift without retying. If you’ve been wondering how small to go, how fast to move, and how high to fish in the column, this is the practical guide you’ve been asking for.

We also talk shop beyond lures. Natural hair versus silicone isn’t a fashion debate; it’s about breath, profile, and how well scent sticks. I explain why brown paired with white can close more fish in clear and dirty water alike, how to choose bucktail weight without pounding bottom, and why scents should be used as much to mask gasoline and smoke as to attract predators. You’ll hear the old-school WD-40 stories, then get modern, dependable scent habits that work in current and hold up over a full drift.

Community sits at the heart of our time together. I share why we’re stepping back from a Discord rollout over new verification demands and exploring safer options that respect your privacy. We address the Potomac River sewage disaster and its downstream punch to the Chesapeake’s ecosystem and fishing economy. And for Jersey anglers, we clear the air on a rumor about Surf City Bait & Tackle—new owner, same bait shop, keep supporting local. Looking ahead, we’re planning more Fat Dad Fishing party boat trips, and I want your picks for species, ports, and captains.

If this helped tune up your spring game, follow the show, share it with a fishing buddy who loves details, and leave a quick review so more anglers can find us. Have a guest or topic you want to hear? Reach out—let’s build the season together.

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Transcript

Solo Show Kickoff & Format

Rich Natoli - Fat Dad Fishing 0:00

Maintain contact with that lure. What you don't want to do is pull it so that it keeps rising up much further than where you end the lift on the rod. You still want to maintain contact because you're going to get the hit on the drop. Hello and welcome back to the Fat Dad Fishing Show. My name is Rich Natoli, your regular host. Tonight's going to be a little bit different. It's going to be back to way back to when this first started as a solo show. And uh it's just gonna be me and all of you in chat and watching live. And uh really what we talk about is going to depend 100% on what all of you have to say. So any questions that you have in the chat, I'm going to be living in the chat tonight. Uh, I'll be happy to go through everything that I can within reason, of course. And uh yeah, any topic is open. I do have a couple of things that I want to talk about to start off, just to kind of get us kicked off, some things that I've been uh kind of following, thinking about, and just a couple of things worth mentioning. Before I get into that, want to go through the sponsors to start. So the first one is our the pillar of our sponsors, Great Bay Outfitters experience Great Bay. So Great Bay Outfitters in Tuckerton, New Jersey on Radio Road. It's a place that I go to for everything kayak related. If you want a new kayak, it's native, it's old town. If you want a used kayak, he's got the whole slew of them as people come in. They're on a consignment, he sells used kayaks. If you want to power up a kayak, if you want to put uh you know, power for um a motor on there, he's got it. He's got the skiffs, he's got the crescent, he's got everything you need. So make sure you make the trip in there, support the local business. Uh, Paul has been a great supporter of this channel and the show. And uh, you know, besides that, he's just a great guy. Uh and he'll share all the fishing information and help you out with anything that you need. So great bay outfitters. Then we have Quad State Tune. Kevin Driscoll is the guy there. Kevin will set you up if you have a Toyota truck, uh, Forerunner Tundra, um Lexus 460, 470. The Tacoma. I always forget the Tacoma. If you have a Toyota truck and you want to have some optimization done on the engine, that's where this tune comes in. Kevin will set you up on that 48463-35975. If it's not something that you should have, he will tell you that. And he will tell you to save your money. If it's something that you will benefit from, he'll talk about that and get it done for you. And then we have real estate me, Southeast Pennsylvania is where I currently hold a license, manage an office in Bluebell, Pennsylvania, also out of Colleggeville, Pennsylvania. And I cover the entire southeast of Pennsylvania, all the way, believe it or not, out to York County. I have multiple transactions out there, Lancaster County, but really everything centers around Montgomery, Chester, Berks, and a bit of Bucks County as well. So that's really the heart of what I do. If you need help anywhere else, let me know. I can help you out still, even if I'm not your actual agent. I can get you in touch with somebody that I trust and in most cases people I've worked with. So give me a call. Number is 267-270-1145 Natolirealestate at gmail.com. And let's talk. And I do want to say I've gotten multiple people that have reached out that watch this podcast. And I I truly appreciate it. One was actually a referral, and then the other two were people that just watched the podcast. So I appreciate you putting that trust in me. Look, that's how I pay my bills. So, you know, I appreciate everything from everyone, any business that you send my way. Uh, with that said, I'm gonna jump into this and you can start, you know. Look, if you have questions, put them in the chat. If you don't, that's fine. Just hang out in the chat with each other. A couple of things I want to bring up. The first thing is probably the least important, but very frustrating for me. One of the things that I've talked about and we've talked about on here is I want to have Fat Dad Fishing not be the biggest podcast in the world, not be the biggest live stream or anything like that. I don't need tens of thousands of people. I don't need to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't need to make anything. But what I do want to do is make sure that we have a community that supports local businesses and really helps the sport to flourish. And I do believe fishing is a sport. And part of that is a community. And I think that we've got kind of like a different crowd than some of the other channels out there. You know, joke about it in the past. I'm not out there floating around on some type of an inflatable unicorn trying to make it all about me and trying to get the clicks and the views and all that stuff. And I'm not pretending I'm better than other people. I'm just trying to facilitate interesting and hopefully entertaining and informative conversations about fishing. And I've seen a lot of people make connections that met each other and now fish together or text, you know, because they met through this and some of the meetups we've had and the chat really is where a lot of people have come together. So I wanted to kind of take that to the next level and put in a bunch of effort, you know. Joe Billps, I have to give him credit, my brother as well, and I, we've been kind of working to put together a Discord server, a private server for the Fat Dad Fishing community. But there's one thing that I don't really talk about a lot, and that's kind of like my views on certain things outside of fishing. And one of the things that I truly believe in is I don't trust, I don't trust a lot of companies. And I and I I don't want to trust the community with Discord. And the reason that I say this is they just announced that they're going to what's what they're terming something around the lines of a teenage default. So they now are going to assume that all users are teenagers by default, which means adult content, not meaning porn, but meaning anything adult that they determine to be adult content is going to be restricted. That, as we know on social media, could just be pictures of fish being cleaned, people with knives, people, you know, gaffing a fish because it's violence on some of these platforms. And in order to get around that, you can do that. Discord will consider you an adult, but you need to verify, and this is where it gets me. You have to verify by uploading a screen capture of yourself where you have to turn your head and everything so they can get a facial recognition going or a government ID. Well, Discord's been hacked in the past and actually recently, and they and a lot of that information got out and they were not very open about it. And it's just a crappy organization. We were only doing it because it was free and it has it does have really good functionality, but I'm not going to put anyone through that. I'm not going to do it. So therefore, we're pushing the community back. I have to find something. I have to find something better that's going to work. So I apologize for that. I was really excited about it. We were ready to go, essentially, with it. We had people in there testing it, and everything was working the way that we thought, but it's it's you know, we got to change it. So any ideas that people have, please let me know. You can send me an email, Rich at FatDadFishing or at my real estate one, which I check more often. Send me a text, you got my number. Any of that, put it on the Facebook page, any advice would be great. But I'm not gonna put all of you through a check of IDs at that level because I don't trust it. And therefore, on behalf of all of you, I'm not gonna allow it to happen and be tied with fat dad fishing. So that's that. So a lot of we got to start over. Oh god, we've got to start over, but that's okay. Better to start over and get it done right than to put people's personal information at risk. Next thing I do want to bring two two other things. I never do this either. This is gonna be a little bit of politics. If people are gonna get offended, it is what it is. I am throwing this up there on screen without any pro or con to this person, but the message is very important. So people that have not seen the Potomac River has been absolutely devastated over the past, I think it's like a month at this point, with raw sewage flowing into it unchecked for weeks. And when I say raw sewage, I'm talking literally raw sewage straight from the toilets right into the Potomac. It's been going on. I think last I saw, don't quote me on this, but I think it was somewhere around the tune of 19 million gallons and rising every second. So we got a lot of people that fish the Chesapeake, fish that area, and are affected by this. Well, nothing has been happening as far as as anyone can tell. Maryland has done absolutely nothing to fix it. So enter Mr. Trump, the president. He is, you know, of course, he's gonna take his shots at the governor of Maryland. So he's gonna do his Trump things, but I think the more important part of this is FEMA is now going to get involved and they're going to do something to stem the flow of sewage and stop the flow of sewage because it is absolutely devastating the entire ecosystem. So everything, everything, Potomac on down, into the Chesapeake. Think of all of the, you know, whether you like commercial fishing or not, think of all the crabs that are now in the way of this. All the the crabbers, the fishermen, the the guides, the recreational fishermen, they're all stuck. So Trump put out today that he is going to have FEMA step in, so it's going to be handled at the federal level. He seems to be good, or his administration seems to at least be good at those types of things. So let's see where that goes. Man, but that I I was I've been trying actually for the past week to get somebody that's an expert to come on and talk about it, but couldn't get anyone that was available to come on and talk tonight. And then this popped out there today at three o'clock. So wanted to share that for the people that are following it. And then the last thing, this is I'm gonna help to squash a rumor. And this goes to a local shop that a lot of people, especially those in LBI, go to, and that's Surf City Bait and Tackle. Surf City Bait and Tackle is a great shop, and it was sold. And the rumor is that it's going to be torn down. Residentials going in there, we're losing another bait shop. Well, I did what any self-respecting person should do, and I texted Bayside Dave and I said, Dave, say it isn't so. And he said, It's not so, it's just a new owner. So, yes, it has been sold. It is going to remain open as a bait shop. So, all of you that fish Long Beach Island can rest assured we did not lose another great bait and tackle shop on the on the New Jersey shore. So, everybody, there you go. Those are the things that I wanted to bring up. Pass it along about Surf City because it's also that type of a rumor that can really devastate a business. You know, people won't even look to see if it's open once everybody opens up for striped bass. So keep that in mind. It's a great shop, and it's one that I would recommend going to and continue going to under new management. So there you go. So with that said, we can jump into whatever topic you want. Just put it into the chat, and I will do my best to pull them up. And look, if there aren't any, it'll be a really short show. That's fine too. I just wanted to, you know, I just didn't want to go a week without anything, without any discussion, without everyone to have an opportunity to kind of get together. But one of the things I am seeing, you know, Carl Ward, who is down there in Maryland, he's saying pitiful response from the governor. I I do agree. Again, I don't want to be political. I see big issues with both sides. I do see bigger issues with one side than I do the other, but I hate them both. And I am not a Republican, I am not a Democrat, I am actually a libertarian. So I don't really have a dog in this fight, to be honest with you, or all the fights that are out there. My guys just always lose. So yeah, so pitiful response so far. I agree with that. I've been following some of the crabbers in the Chesapeake over the past few weeks, and it's just, it's just sad, it's depressing, and it's disgraceful that they haven't done anything of substance to fix this problem. And maybe it's just because it's cold and we don't have people enjoying the water recreationally right now, and they think it's not a big deal. But we've all seen up and down the coast, you can look at the the harbors in New York that were devastated by pollution. I mean, the fact that they've been going for the past, what, 10, 15, 20 years, just trying to reintroduce oysters to clean that water up in New York is an indication. The Delaware Bay is absolutely dead compared to what it used to be. Uh for those in New Jersey and Delaware, the Chesapeake is just continually just getting bombarded. And, you know, a lot of it is the runoff from the pesticides, from the farms, everything from the lawns, you know, everybody treating their lawns with chemicals. It all goes into the watersheds, and most of it in this region ends up in the Chesapeake one way or the other, whether it's hitting the Potomac, the Susquehanna, whatever, uh, the Delaware, it's finding its way in there. So, yeah, so that's that's kind of where we are. Good to see some of you in the chat that I haven't seen in a while. I see my D I see Bill Dekaus in there. Yeah, there he is. Bill, Tad in there, James, you're in there every day that we're here. Appreciate that, everybody. Yeah, so any question that you want to talk about, go ahead and put it in there. The one thing that I'm not prepared to do is open up with any spots. So I do not have, I still haven't found the mapping stuff for the for the computer so that I could show how to find spots. So please don't ask for that tonight because I really can't do it. And here's the first question right here. All right, from Carl Ward. How would you plan to start backwater stripers in March? Bloodworm, bucktails, low and slow in the deep holes. All right. So here's here's my opinion. Here's what I plan to do as soon as I get out for stripers in the backwater. Now, when I say backwater, I'm talking behind the inlets, typically behind the islands in New Jersey, in the backwaters, inside the inlets in New York, that type of an area. The approach that I take is definitely low and slow. I am fishing artificials, and I'm going with smaller baits. So the one thing that I had great success with, and again, and look, full disclosure, it gets better the closer you get to May. It gets better and better. But what I typically use is a small, maybe four-inch soft plastic, I think a Z-Man, something like that. Three and a half up to the five inch. I do not go bigger. So it's the diesel minnow, I think it's a five inch, maybe it's a five and a half. I do not go bigger, and I just put that on a jig head. Nothing fancy. I actually don't use bucktails. I want that slimmer profile. It helps me to keep it in the column where I want it on a slow retrieve. And I use the snap jigging. So if you can find the deep holes, especially if it's during the day, look for the deep holes. And I drop into those and I snap jig. So if you're not familiar with snap jigging, that's where you are. It's called snap jigging because if you do it right, the line actually you hear a snap because it's just an incredibly fast, hard upswing and and jig, and then you just let it fall. The key to that though is when you're letting it fall, maintain contact with that lure. What you don't want to do is pull it so that it keeps rising up much further than where you end the lift on the rod. You still want to maintain contact because you're gonna get the hit on the drop. So that's that's typically what I'm doing. And and actually, here's the one thing that the last now again, I wasn't out last year. I had to take that year off. But leading up to that, in this spring, I had the most success with a greenish bait, a root beer color bait. It doesn't matter if it's daytime or nighttime, it's it was the darker baits with metallic flex in them that I've been using. I don't think there's any reason ever to think that that's going to change. It's just what works for me in the spring. It doesn't work as well in the fall, to be honest with you. I and I tend to use lighter colors in the in the fall, but for some reason it just seems to work. And I would be getting in those, looking for those deep holes, looking for those breaks in the depth. If you can find an area, again, especially during the day where they're less active, find the deepest areas that you can. If you can find an area with a depth finder that has a thermocline, that's where I'm looking. So you want to try to get below someplace where they can get below a thermocline. Thermocline is basically going to maintain a steadier, more consistent temperature underneath. Even if it's cold, it's a very consistent temperature. It's typically a little bit warmer, actually. So you can you can get into there. That's where you're gonna find them kind of stacking up during the day. At night, they're gonna do what they normally do. I don't care if the water's 40 degrees, 38 degrees, 55 degrees. Go right along the structure. That's where they're gonna be more active and just fish it normal. I fish normal speeds and everything, normal baits. But yeah, during the day, it's going to be a challenge, and it always is a challenge, at least to me, in the spring in the backwaters. Now you're heading out front in the Raritan Bay, you're not gonna have you're not gonna have the issues. Get right out in front of the Raritan River, you're not gonna have those issues right at the train bridge, as an example. I would start out in front of that before going up the river where they kind of stage inside where the the freighters and the big ships turn off and go north, just right inside there. There's a flat area where they typically have all the buoys where the where the sailboats can be moored up you know throughout the year. In that area, even though it's flat, just because of it's in between the the currents from the Rariton and the currents coming down from the north, it's this like great area where they just kind of stage in there. You get a lot of good schoolies, a lot of keeper size in there. And you'll occasionally find the big ones there. If you really want the big ones in in the Rariton area, I always recommend heading up the Raritan River a bit though. That's where you're gonna end up, that's where they're going to want to end up. So, yeah, so good first question. I appreciate that. To add to that, let's see, we have Tim Murray saying that he's gonna be using the bucktail and the SP minnow. SP minnows are great. I'm I'm not the guy that uses SP minnows in the back. I tend to be, you know, I'm a kayak fisherman, so I tend to be very simplistic in my approach because I don't like to carry a lot of tackle and I don't want to be changing a lot of tackle. And the SP minnow to me is kind of like a specialty lure. So if I'm if I'm on a sod bank, yeah, I got an SP and I got it on a rod already rigged up. If I'm in a kayak, I typically don't because I'll bring maybe four rods. I'm gonna have different size jig heads on there with different soft plastics, and I'll go that way. But SP minnow, 100%. If you don't mind changing out lures, yeah. I mean, you can't go wrong with an SP, right? Just like you can't go wrong with uh what is it? The what am I thinking? Whatever, the top water, walking the walking the dog on it. You can't go you can't go wrong with those things. And a bucktail, yeah, it does always work. I just tend to go with the the slimmer the slimmer baits at that time, especially because if if you get into a whole lot of bunker in there, I I like the lower profile because it kind of stands out. Dart spins are also another good one. That's Scotty would be all over that, although my former co-host Ed hates them. I love dart spins. My only problem with dart spins is I tend to lose them and they're not cheap. So yeah, yeah. So that's that's what I'd be looking at. There is a comment in there for people that aren't waiting. I I do want to share this one. You know, the the comment white perch, when the ice moves out, shall I look near the salt line or up the river a little bit? So I tend, you know what, I I'm not sure to be honest with you. I used to know the answer to this, and you've totally surprised me. I I personally would be down a little bit close. The colder it is, the the closer to the salt. So it all different just because the ice moves out doesn't mean that the water is any warmer or any colder. That's kind of the way that I look at it. The the colder it is, the closer to the salt I go. And I've had a lot of success, but I don't know if there's, you know, when I say I don't know the answer, I don't know if there's a biological answer. I just know what I do. And what I do is I move down to to to try to find that salt line, which can make for a long trip. I would just, you know, just be cautious with the ice because ice is great at, you know, if you're on a kayak, so it's it's really it's really easy to capsize with ice. It doesn't take much to kind of high side you, but I would kind of follow it down if you want to wait until it's you know, if it's moving out with the tide, try to try to follow it down and stay as close to it as you can. Because generally speaking, I go for the higher side. Salinities with the colder temperatures. Yeah, and if anyone disagrees, feel free to jump in. I just know that that's what I've done and I've been successful. It doesn't mean that that's right. I I never claim to be, no matter how many white perch I've caught, I never claim to be the the authority, the authority on them. I kind of use them as a, you know, tide me over until striped bass opens, and then quite frankly, I use striped bass to tide me over until fluke opens. Yeah, so there we go. Any other questions? Make sure you put them in there. Let me see if I missed any. Odd comment in there. I'm not even gonna say what it is. Oh, he's got a okay, you got a boat. You don't have to worry about capsizing. Yeah. One thing I do want to say, I you see me looking around. For some reason, it's only displaying some chats to me. And I have a second screen that I'm able to see. I don't even think all of the rest, but some of them. And I think it's the the whole issue with who's on a phone and who's on a computer or a TV. I think they're kind of coming in separately, but I'm pretty sure that I'm actually still missing, or I may be missing a couple others. Yeah, so so that's where we stand. So while we wait and see if anyone else is going to ask any questions, let me just add one uh one other topic I wanted to bring up. There have been requests for more fat-dad fishing kind of coordinated trips on party boats so we could get more people together. I mean, for those that weren't there and weren't aware, we literally sold out the entire Osprey for a talk trip, had a blast. A lot of people had fun. Wasn't the best of days, but it was a productive day on the water, and most people got to catch at least something. And there were a bunch of keepers in there as well. So the plan right now is we are going to do that. And I want to hear from people your feedback on what species and what areas we should go in order to do this. If it's up to me, I mean, I may just pick a marina somewhere with a with a boat that I know is good, and then I'll find out that most people are coming from somewhere else. So I I don't want to do that. So again, put it on the Facebook page, send me a message, you know, put it in the chat, and I'll go back and try to document everything. But let me know any boats that you recommend and any areas or any species, any time of year, and I'll try to accommodate that. Next question: What's your favorite fluke jig from Bowtie Killer 545? This one's easy. I prefer to use a bucktail for fluke. I've always preferred to use a bucktail for my entire life before it was a thing. And I think it was honestly, I think it's because that's just what my brother and I learned to fish on for everything was a bucktail. We used literally used it for everything. The ones that I like are no longer being made. They were made by Captain Hanks. They were made to my design with Ed. We worked together and came up with an awesome design. I only have a few of those left, so I'm actually out there looking for specific ones, or at least for somebody that will make them, or maybe I'll just go out and buy something to make them. But the one thing that I would say is when you're picking, for me, from my standpoint, when I'm picking a bucktail off the shelf for fluke, I'm looking at profiles. And most people look at the profile from the side, and it does need to look like a fish from the side, right? It needs to look like the the target species that you want it to look like. So it should have the nice shape to it when looking from the side. But I put a lot more stock in how it looks from the bottom and from the top, mainly, well, the top a little bit, mainly from the bottom, because the fluke is looking up at it all the time. And it's and even when it comes over top, it it just kind of has to curl over to the side. It doesn't look straight down on it. So I the way that they were tied, just a little inside baseball here on the Fat Dad lures that that Ed was making, they were tied with bulk in certain areas that gave it a beautiful profile from underneath. And it just turned out that the most popular of the two was the one that was tied that way. So it was the big head was the most popular. And it just so happened that that's the one that was tied that way. The other one was not tied with the same pattern of bulk in the fur. The next question that goes right from this that I saw pop up is natural hair or synthetic? Natural whenever possible, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not saying that silicone doesn't work. If you just want to use, you know, the ball jigs with the silicone skirts, those do work. As a matter of fact, I used those for years before I met Ed and had a lot of success with them. They do work. I don't think that they work nearly as well, though, at least for me. I don't think they look as natural. As long as you have the right rod in order to get the action on that lure, I go with the natural all the time. And here's the one thing that that most people will think is weird. My favorite color beside white, white is by far my favorite. And I will get some with white and pink, I will get some with white and chartreuse, but my favorite color is a white and natural brown. So the brown part of the tail that nobody wants, I want that. And one of the reasons is there is research that was done that underwater, as a fish approaches a lure, certain colors change to a different color when it gets closer. So let's say it's, and I don't know if this is one of the colors, but I think it is actually pink. It looks pink from 10 feet away. So the fish is coming in, it's 10 feet, it's pink, it's five feet, it's pink. As soon as it hits three feet, it changes to like an orange. It's not really what it changes to, but as an example, it changes to orange, which can cause it to shy away because now what it thought it was going after, this pink target, is now orange and it it it spooks it. So they don't get that initial strike. But the research, the same research that says that has shown that for the vast majority of species, I'm not sure about fluke in particular, brown does not change. So when they come in, they see brown from 10 feet, they're gonna see brown at six inches. So it's the same consistent target all the way in, and I love using that. And I I worked with custom bucktail makers even before Ed, and I always requested brown. And the one guy who's really excited, he's like, Great, I've got all this brown that nobody wants. He was like, I'll just throw that on there. I'm like, Yeah, just just do it because it works and and I like it. With that said, again, I start with white, but then I'll go with brown natural first. The only synthetics that are not, you know, silicone I already talked about. I do also like some of the mirror flash in there, the flashaboo, those types of things. If you if you do any tying of flies, you know what those things are. But just a little bit of it, just enough to give it a little glimmer. So it looks like some scales are mixed in with that natural. That to me is is darn near the perfect lure for fluke. And again, it's not incredibly bulky. It just needs to have the bulk in the right spot to get the right profile from the right angle. And if you're going to make your own, test it. Put it in the water. And if you have a GoPro, put it on the bottom and just record it as you pull it over top and see what that profile looks like. Because what it looks like in your hand when you tie it is what it is not what it looks like when it's wet and it's it's being jigged through the water. So do the research on it. But I'm very, very big on profiles. So long answer to what is a pretty simple question, but I'm gonna go with the with the bucktail every single time. After that, I do love for teasers for fluke. I I do always use a teaser. I use very sparse teasers. One of the best teasers that I use actually kind of looks like a cinder worm. And it it almost it's almost feels like a Chanel. They don't make them anymore. They I think it used to be made by Orvis, and they they don't make them anymore. I can't find them. I have one left. I'll show you, I'll show it sometime on here what it looks like. But I I use a black one and a brown one. The brown, well, I used to use a brown one, don't have any more left, so I only have black left. But that's the second one that I would use for fluke if I'm not gonna put a natural bait on there or not even natural, a scented bait like a a gulp, you know, because you can't put it on there. It's literally a fly. All right. S bucktails. Yeah, I liked SNS. I think SNS is a little heavy for me. Yeah, that was put in there as a recommendation. Again, I try to go with local local jig makers. So I'm I don't have really the experience that other people have with the big brand names. I only buy them as backups. I have S and S bucktails, I probably have about 30 of them. And I I don't know that I've used any in the past five years, four years. I've only used them as an emergency when I run out of other, you know, same weight bucktails. So I can't really speak to those that specific brand. Magic tail ball jigs, James Flynn is mentioning. I do use Magic Tail, and I use those again as a backup before S. Magic Tail, uh, they make some good things. Allen's, they make some really good stuff, but yeah, I do I do have a bunch of Magic Tail as well. The ball jigs is that's exactly what I have, but they're my backups. So, you know, while I have used them, I don't know that I've paid enough attention to say, you know, do I recommend them or not? As far as from Bill Dekus, Bill, you and I have to hit the water. Enough of you being silent and having fun with grandkids. What weight do you prefer on your bucktail? All right. So for me, I think that we have, and I think I included have overthought the weight thing on bucktails for way too long. I use what I need to get to the bottom and to hold close to the bottom. I don't like to pound the bottom, actually. So I don't need it to maintain contact with the bottom. I just need to be able to jig and drop and know that I can feel the bottom if I want to. In the backwaters, so anything that is under 35 feet generally, I'm trying to start with a three-quarter ounce. So if it's five feet, I'm probably using a three-quarter ounce. If it's 35 feet, I'm trying to use a three-quarter ounce. I will go up to a one ounce or a one and a half. It all depends on the rod that I'm using. I do have rods that won't really work a heavier bucktail well because it's it's too much flex in the in the rod. But try to go light. I just get really lazy and I don't want to keep changing out the hooks. So I typically start with I uh not typically, I always start with a three-quarter inch. So early season fluke as an example. I'm probably going to go out on opening day, Avalon, Stone Harbor, Cape May County, somewhere in Cape May County. Maybe I'll go out up in Atlantic City. I typically stay in southern New Jersey, though, as much as possible. So you know the kind of areas that I'm going. And I'm always starting with the three-quarter ounce. I do have half ounce. I use those kind of as an emergency too. Maybe I'll use those if I'm casting across a two-foot flat and I'm retrieving, but I try not to use those very often. I find that the the half the half ounce with the currents that we have in the backwaters, it's not enough when you're throwing on a gulp, something that has some bulk to it, because the current just picks it up too easily and swings it where I don't want it to go. So yeah, again, a long answer to a simple question. I'm going to start with the three-quarter in or three-quarter ounce, and I'll move from there if I have to. And then has anyone taken Ed's designs over? There's a company that pirated the fat dad big head, actually. They they took it. I I had a guy show it to me in person, and he said that he bought Ed's design from somebody else, and it was cheaper. I said, Oh, that's awesome. I looked at it and we put it in the water, and it is not the same. So it's yeah, it had the same jig head, which is essentially the glove jig. It had the same head, but it did not have the same tying. So it did not have the same profile at all. It just looked like a pretty crappy attempt to do what Ed did. I mean, if you want to steal somebody's bucktail, it's really simple. Just buy one and take it apart and see how much fur is in what spot and how it's tied. Uh, anyone who's who's tied flies knows that you can you can literally count the hairs and you can see exactly where it's tied. It's tied on the side, it's tied on the top, there's an under, it's tied under, it's tied over. All those things. These people didn't even have the decency to rip it off correctly. So yeah, that's the only one that I found. As far as I know, he did not share the design with anyone, which I'm kind of happy about because he and I kind of worked hard on getting those right. I I could make them, I just hate making them. I hate it. I hate tying, I hate tying. So yeah, no one, no one's picked it up yet. I say fortunately, fortunately and unfortunately, I would really love to have more of those, to be honest with you. Half ounce, the the point being brought up, half ounce is usually where the hooks get small too. It depends. So the Captain Hanks, they didn't, they were still really good size. But yes, you get the standard when you go with these large companies, once you get down to the half ounce, especially under half ounce thing, you get a whole different weight to those hooks, and they tend to bend out. And as we all know, when you're fishing for fluke, especially in let's say New Jersey as an example, New York, Delaware, when you're fishing for fluke in May, you're you are going to hook into some really large dogfish. I mean, big, like almost three feet, and they will bend out those smaller bucktails just real quick, and then we get into the cow nose rays, and they will bend those small ones out as well. They will not bend out a three-quarter ounce if it's got a good hook in it. And again, I guess I was spoiled. Ed had really good hooks in his, so I didn't really have to worry about that so much. All right, let's see. Carl's inviting me to go down and fish early April, April, or March. That's when they actually get on the fluke. For those that haven't followed Carl anywhere, he gets some really nice fish down there, and I get really jealous. And he likes to send me messages, you know, and it's always what do you think I should do? And then it's followed with like a full deck of fish, and I'm just sitting there, like, yeah, well, you should do is just invite me. Let's see. I'm just gonna bring this comment from Joseph Kylie. Early spring, we like to fish grass flats in the back bay that warm quickly in the sun. Worms, bugs, shrimp, and other food become active, and bass will eat them up. He likes incoming tide. So that's interesting. So, Joseph, uh, okay. I agree with all of that. I hate incoming tide. I hate incoming tide just because the cold water coming in there. I love when the backwaters for striped bass, especially. Well, I'll I'll even lump the fluke in there. When those flats heat up and then they start to, and then they you get the outgoing, and that starts to funnel out through those channels. That to me is what wakes up these fish. So you get kind of like this confluence of like really good stuff happening. So you've got all of this stuff like the worms and the bugs getting washed out, and then you have the warm water going with it, and that can really kick off a bite. That's a personal preference, though. Oh, then the last thing is as the tide goes out, there are less places for the fish to be. So it's just kind of like a war of attrition. They could be in these two square miles. Well, by low tide, they can be in one square mile. So it's like it just increases your chances, or maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just the lazy, you know, let's get lucky type of fisherman. But I agree with everything you said. And I would say I I like the way that you said I like incoming tide, which means that's your confidence, confidence tide, and you can fish that well and you got that dialed in. I'm the opposite. I have the outgoing typically dialed in, and that's just where I'm more comfortable. But it's a good point. Those grass flats, if you can get back in those grass flats, if you got a boat that can reach there, if you can wade there, if you can get a kayak back there. I like what you're saying with the worms, the bugs, and the shrimp. When those start getting active, man, those bass are going to go crazy and they're going to congregate, and you're going to catch some big fish. And I'm talking, you know, 30, 35, 40 inchers in two feet of water, as long as you get those grass flats with that stuff coming out. That's a that right there is a great point. Back to the bucktails from Bill. Do you add anything to your bucktail? Plastic, squid, etc. So I do add something all the time. I almost never fish a naked bucktail unless I'm fishing for bluefish, because I just don't think anything else is necessary. So I will always add something. I love adding gulp. I will I will almost always try to add something with a scent. So if I add a soft plastic, I'm putting a scent on that soft plastic. So if it's not a gulp that comes with it, and I'm using a Z-Man, for example, I'm going to put something on there that's going to really work. I used to like the salt strong stuff. I forget what it's called. And I've changed that. I actually went and did a comparison. Actually, it was this summer, and one of the few times that I went fishing, and it was totally outfished by shutter oil. I just put shutter oil and I caught bass. I was catching and I was catching fluke on it. So shutter oil or something like that is going to work really well. Procure. Yeah, Dr. Juice. Okay, it's no longer available. It's probably good. Yeah, and it's stained everything. It's just stained everything. But go with the ProCure. And ProCure is easier. Shedd oil can go bad quick. So go with the Procure. You can almost not go wrong with the scent. I don't care what you're fishing for, the scents are so good. And the one thing I will say: even if you don't believe in the scents working to attract fish, and I and I'll say I'm kind of with you, I don't know that it necessarily attracts fish, it will mask the scent of you and your gear on what you're fishing with, on your terminal tackle. So for example, and I think I've mentioned this before in other live streams, but if you have like me, you keep all of your fishing equipment in a garage. And unlike me, if you keep your lawnmower in there and your gas tanks in there, that gas is in the air and that will get into the soft plastics if they're exposed. If you have one just, you know, rigged up, just ready to go, so you can grab the rod, it's already got your soft plastic on it. It's getting on the line, it's getting into the line. They can sense that. They do not like it. There are certain sense that they do not like. If you smoke in your garage and you keep your fishing gear in there, stop it. Either move the gear somewhere else or stop smoking in the garage because nicotine is a repellent to fish. It is an absolute repellent to fish. So if you dip tobacco and you take a pinch, you put it in, and then you change a bait, you just screwed yourself. So at the very least, you use the scent to hopefully try to mask some of that stuff. But there are a lot of scents that are just not good for fishing, and we never even really think about it. So just, you know, just be careful with that, that kind of stuff. But nicotine is definitely one that that sends them away. Gasoline is another one. They do not like gasoline, and they they probably won't bite and hold as nearly as well on something that has that scent really locked into it. All right, let's see. Next question. All right, Joe's telling me he has a few of those fat dad jigs left, so I've got to try to get them. Get them from him. Shatter oil, yeah. Shutter oil used the comment in there, used to remember buying the shutter oil in Fortescue in the 90s. There's so there's the really thin shutter oil, and then there were, yeah, there were these, there were these oils that were like, it was almost like a sludge. Those were great. The problem with some of these more natural things is they do wash off really quickly. So, and that's one of the good things about gulp. It it does wash off over time, but it never truly comes out of there, there's always some in there. There. There's always some inside of it. But some of these things that you just put on the outside, they can totally wash off. And these plastics are not made to absorb these scents. So you have the gulp baits, they are. They're made to absorb these water-soluble scents that are in them. But these other things, like Z-Man, it is not made to take these scents. So you like a lot of people throw their soft plastics in with their gulps. It does nothing. As soon as you put it in the water, it's gone. Because that you know the gulp juice will not adhere to it. It's not going to do anything. It may stay on for 30 seconds, maybe if you're lucky. But some of these other things like Procure, you can bring it up, you know, 20 minutes later of tossing it around, and you can still see the little shimmer of the oils coming off of it. So keep that in mind as well. Let's see. WD40. All right. Old school. I remember the old guys using WD40 back in the 80s. This is from Skyline Tree LLC. A hundred percent. So we used to this man blast from the past. In the 80s, when we would go fishing, you know, I was I was a kid, I was in high school. So we would go fishing, and I go out with my grandfather, maybe my dad was there, my brother, uncle, you know, all that stuff. But I was the guy in high school, so in college, so you know, the young guy or one of the young guys, so I had to clean all the crap up at the end. And that meant I had to clean the rods. And we used to use WD40 on everything, like the entire rod. We'd just spray the entire rod. We'd spray the line because we thought that that would help. And yeah, I mean, it was literally on everything. And it didn't matter if it got on stuff because we we figured it helped. Now, there are people today that believe it works. I do think that it at the very least it doesn't hurt, but we also would put it on sometimes in the squid. Like we'd use natural squid and we put WD40 on that as well. So I don't know, man. It it seems because it is a petroleum product, I believe that it shouldn't work. But I can tell you in the 80s, we caught a hell of a lot of fish, and there was never any indication that we should stop doing it. So, man, we used to have my brother actually just put it in the chat. We used to have literally cases of WD-40 in our garage, and I and we just had these piles of rags, and they were the WD-40 rags. So we literally cleaned everything with it, all the rods, whether it was tuna gear or mahi gear down to bluefish, surf gear, and fluke gear. Everything was just drenched and dripping and w the whole garage smelled like WD-40. Yeah. You'd open the the door to the house and it would just kind of waft in. Yeah. That's funny. I I remember that. And I again I haven't seen any research on it. I don't know if we were wrong or right, but it didn't seem to hurt at all. Let's see what else. So this is so participation trophy fishing. Does deer hair hold them better if using like a zoom fluke? Always notice that they're gone after a cast or two. So you're saying that you're you're losing put this in chat. You're losing the zoom on the bucktail or are you losing the hair off of the bucktail? Because there's two different things there. The first thing is if you're losing the zoom, I would say it's the hook. I don't know why you would be losing the the the zoom. If you're losing the deer hair, it's just poorly tied. You should not be the deer hair is pretty strong. Oh, okay. So the scent, okay. So he's asking if the scent is held better by the deer hair. So the scents are like shedder oil is held better. This is non-scientific, but it it will hold better to a natural substance that can absorb it like the deer hair, as long as you don't put a finish on it. Some of these guys actually put like a coating on their on their bucktails when they're done. Like they spray that this gloss finish on the the bucktails and it gets on the hair. You don't want that, you want it to be all natural. I actually again, so this is my weirdness. When I do tie my own, I actually don't epoxy the threads, and I don't epoxy any more of the fur than I have to. So if I I will put epoxy at the collar, and then I will try to leave thread that is not epoxied because when I put a scent on it, I lift up the hair and I put typically it's it's not shatter oil, it's typically procure. I'm lifting it up and I'm squeezing it into there and mashing it into the fibers in there that are really close and compacted, and it seems to last quite a while. So I I do think that deer hair holds it better. Try that with this silicone skirt, and it really doesn't work very well. It it'll it'll come off in the current very easily. But if you have a a bulky area on a bucktail and you can get that thick procure in there, it'll typically last longer. So I would definitely recommend doing that. Yeah, and I think let me just go back and check. I'm sorry for the the wait here. I think I saw something about weak fish in here that I missed. Yeah, sorry, I it's tough doing this alone and not having anyone look. But I appreciate everyone kind of hanging with me as I try to do this. I do not see the weak fish one in here. I I thought I saw weak fish. Oh, here it is from Carl. Okay. How would you target weak fish in coastal bays and inlets this year? So I am going to be targeting weak fish this year. I love weak fish. There are plenty of them around as compared to years past. I don't keep them unless they're going to die, but I am going to target them. So the way that I like to target them is I like to so I'll give you a general outline of the places. Now, first of all, everybody knows if you're going to fish a jetty, like the the current breaks around jetties are outstanding for them. So I'm not going to talk about that. In the back waters behind the inlets, I'm looking for the merger of two currents over a sharp drop. So it's it's very similar to what you're going to look for for a fluke, but you're fishing up higher in the column. So what I do when I go out for a multi-species day and I'm targeting weak fish and I'm targeting fluke, I will often, instead of having the bucktail on the bottom and going up around 12 inches, you know, to put the dropper for the teaser for the fluke, I'm actually going up maybe two, three feet above that. And I'm putting a larger teaser with a soft plastic up there. So I can still fish the bottom for the fluke, but I'm also fishing about three feet higher in the column for the weak fish. And I will typically find it, let's say, in a marsh system where you have a smaller creek that's running. And I'm not talking about a self-contained creek where it just goes up and ends. I'm talking about a creek between a flat and a major channel. If you can find one of those on the outgoing where the water's coming out of the flat, it's coming through that small creek and it's emptying over a dramatic drop. That's where I'm fishing. So I'm fishing the fluke, I'm going up onto the top area and I'm dropping it down all the way and I'm walking it down that ledge. And I'm walking it down again for the fluke because they're most likely going to be there too. But I'm also targeting the weak fish and I'm holding it a little higher up. So if I really want to target the weak fish, I'm going to put it on the bottom in maybe the eight feet of water, and then three feet up, I'm fishing for that weak fish. And then as it starts to drop, I'm not keeping necessarily that bucktail near the bottom. I'm now fishing the bucktail in one area off the bottom, maybe three feet off the bottom. And then three feet above that, I'm fishing higher in the column. So I'm fishing two areas for weak fish. Just keep in mind, weak fish also sit on the bottom. So they they will be down near the bottom for fluke. The important thing is, and I say this, even if you're only going for fluke, stop pounding the bottom. You shouldn't be dropping, you shouldn't be jigging and hitting the bottom with every drop of that jig. It shouldn't be touching the bottom. If you lose a lot of bucktails to snags, you're doing it wrong. In my opinion, this is my opinion. You're doing it wrong. You shouldn't be pounding the bottom. There's no need to. Fluke are not going to necessarily bite anything that's sitting, you know, they they don't insist on it coming right into their mouth. They will rise up, they will turn, and they will follow, and then they'll strike. So stay up off the bottom. That keeps you in the range of the weak fish, keeps you in the range of the fluke. And then if you just want to keep going, keep the same equipment, the three-quarter ounce bucktail on the bottom, a nice teaser on the top. I will go with a larger teaser for weak fish. Yeah, and just fish it that way. You can fish it three feet, you can fish at six feet all at the same time, just drifting and jigging. And then you can go back through and fish the next one at nine feet and 12 feet, or you know, nine and twelve feet, so on and so forth. That's how I'm doing it. I like to keep the same type of approach as I do with fluke. And I have a lot of success with that. Other things that you can do, I mean, there are the more traditional ways to target weak fish, they all work. I'm just saying what I prefer to do. You know, the comment in there, yeah, pink zoom. Yeah, pink zoom is probably going to be on that top, that top hook. Most underrated bait that there is is a pink zoom. When in doubt, you don't know what the hell to do, put a pink zoom on there. It's the same stuff that our grandparents used when they were fishing. Yeah, use it. If you can find them, use them and get bags of it. Not only is it cheaper than the other stuff, you know, there's no live bait needed, they may be great. It still doesn't beat a pink zoom as far as I'm concerned. You can catch anything with a pink zoom. I don't care if it's midnight on a new moon or if it's bright sunshine in the middle of July. Uh pink zoom seems to work. And for some reason, weak fish do love them. They they love the pink ones. So go with that. If you're not familiar with what that is, the zoom is the brand. Pink just means bubblegum. It looks like bubblegum, and it works really well. It's almost like a shiny bubblegum. The next question. Oh god, I wish I had a good answer to this from James Flynn. Have you found a go-to chart app or program yet? Garmin ruined navionics. Garmin destroyed Navionics, and I have not found a good replacement. I just haven't. I've tried. For me, I like to do, I don't like to be on the water and try to figure out where to go. I like to kind of know the area generally and then go out on the water and find the spots that I think I found on the map. So I spend time the night before I go fishing, well, probably the week before, all the way up through the night before, on the computer, looking at charts, looking at the contours, the all the relief maps, looking at the tide charts to see where I think the currents are going to be flowing. I look at the imaging, the historic imaging. Sometimes you can see things like wrecks that aren't necessarily showing. And I kind of pick my spots from that. And then when I'm on the water, I just use my my fish finder basically to see if the the depths and the depth changes concur with what I saw the night before. Uh, I don't like going out on the boat or on the kayak and I actually I won't. I won't pull out, you know, even when Navionics worked, I would not look at it on my phone. I hate that. It's too small. It's it's just a pain in the ass. I don't like having a thousand dollar phone sitting over the water while I'm fumbling around looking for it, jigging with one hand and trying to look at a phone. I've dropped, you know, a thousand dollar phone in the water before, well, an$800 phone in the water. So I need something, and again, if people want to share, I need something that I can do online, like Navionics used to allow. Garmin absolutely destroyed it. They Garmined it up. It is absolute trash at this point. And uh, James, actually, it is such trash that I haven't picked a new fish finder. Mine barely works, but I haven't found a new one because I don't know what map program I want to use, and I don't want to buy one until I'm sure that it's gonna work really well with whatever unit I buy. All I know is it's not gonna be a Garmin because I hate them for what they did uh to Navionics. So yeah, so that's kind of where I stand on that. I will very loudly and proudly share what I go with, and uh when I when I finally figure it out, and uh I will give you the good, the bad, and the ugly about anything because nothing is perfect, and uh I'll try to inform people as much as possible. All right, um, I think that's probably gonna do it. We're at the hour. I do have limited time that I can do these every month. Um so we're gonna kind of shut it down. This is a difficult time of the year, guys, um, for you know, thinking of the like the topics and then getting people that can come on. We're about to open up though. So uh I wanted to make sure I was on tonight and let's go through some stuff. Let's let's get some chat going, get some conversations going between all of you in the chat. Uh, I think it's important to keep the kind of community going until we can get something outside of these live streams for people to interact. Um but look, it's about to open up, and and we're gonna have people reaching out to me to say, hey, can I come on? I got something to share, and uh it'll it'll it'll pick up. It'll definitely pick up as the fishing starts to pick up. Really happy to see that we finally got the break in the weather that we need. There might be a storm coming up this weekend, but compared to what we went through, it doesn't even matter. So I'm actually I I still can't do the freshwater around me. Everything is still frozen. Uh, there is still ice fishing right down the street from me, and I'm not doing that. Uh, but we're getting there, guys. We're just a couple of weeks away from the opening of Striped Bass and uh all the competitions for the first bass of the year. Can't wait to see that. I'm gonna try to be back next week. I'm trying to get somebody to come on. Um, any topics, any guests that you want to recommend, send it over to me. So until then, everyone, thanks for tuning in then. Uh look, if you can get through the ice this week, do me a favor so I can live vicariously through you. Get out there, get on the water, and get some tight lines.