Jesse (00:03.37)
Welcome everyone to episode 44 of the average Ontario anglers fishing podcast. This is a podcast where a bunch of average guys tell you average facts that will make you laugh in an average way. Isn't that right, Andrew?

Andrew (00:17.014)
I definitely laugh averagely.

Jesse (00:18.866)
Yeah. So anyway, if this is your first time to this podcast, welcome. Again, this is a show where a bunch of average guys that try to fish as much as possible and sometimes catch fish. But we're going to share with you what we've learned over the last, how long we've been fishing Andrew together. Anyway.

Andrew (00:32.173)
Over a decade easily. Two decades almost. Ha ha.

Jesse (00:34.258)
Yeah, well, no. Yeah, ugh, we're getting old. Anyway, this episode is pretty cool because the episode of this episode, which I'm not actually gonna call it this, but this is what I wanted to call this episode, challenging challenges that challenge anglers. That's a tongue twister right there. But we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the challenges that someone may face getting into fishing. Maybe you're just getting into it, or just the challenges of actually just being an angler.

And what we did was we asked our patreons and also some of the people on Instagram as well to send in some of the challenges that they face or maybe they think that other people may face. So we have about 10 really good ones that we're going to cover today. And I think it's going to be a really great show. But before we do that, we have, as tradition states, an interesting fishing fact. And this one is going to be done by this is new. The man with the beard, Andrew.

Andrew (01:34.069)
I'm not the only one growing a beard. Jesse is too. Good try.

Jesse (01:37.662)
Hey, yeah, it's not bad. It's not bad.

Andrew (01:45.009)
Alright, so Jesse and I, we talked before about different fears and stuff like that fishermen may have or that we have. It could be considered a challenge sometimes to get over a fear, so it kind of fits in with today's topic. But Jesse, if you had to name something that you are fearful of when fishing, what would it be? You and I share this fear.

Jesse (02:09.735)
I know exactly what you're talking about. There's only one thing that Jesse, the most manly person that I know myself is afraid of. Just kidding. There's many things.

Andrew (02:12.233)
See you down there.

Andrew (02:21.789)
He only has me as a friend, so that's a true statement. He's the manliest person he knows as himself.

Jesse (02:27.926)
The only thing that'll truly make me scared is if I'm in the water snapping turtles. Yeah.

Andrew (02:33.937)
Yep. Doesn't everyone love snapping turtles? I do, I actually think they're amazing. So I did a bunch of research on them. I did. Go ahead.

Jesse (02:37.774)
They're super cool.

Jesse (02:44.318)
I will just add one thing though. Snapping turtles for me are like spiders. I'm cool with them as long as I know where they are. Okay?

Andrew (02:52.209)
Yes, if I'm in a boat and they're in the water, I have zero fear. Like I'm just excited to see one. If I'm in the water and they're in the water, I have a bit of fear. And if I'm on land and they're on land, I just, okay, I can walk faster than they can run. So that's all right. So snapping turtles, the average size that we can encounter them when they're fully grown is maybe like 12 inches long of the carapace, the shell, is 12 inches long, plus they have the tail and they have their head sticking out.

Jesse (03:00.915)
Yes.

Andrew (03:22.477)
Uh, on average an adult weighs about 35 pounds or so, but do you know what the record size common snapping turtle? That's a, that's there's in North America, we have the alligator snapping turtle down in the States. We don't have any of those in Ontario. Thank goodness. They're huge. Uh, but we have the common snapping turtle, one of only five species in the world of snapping turtles. And we have them all over where we fish pretty much every single lake I've ever been in or pond.

I can guarantee you has snapping turtles. So do you know what the record snapping turtle weight is? It was in Quebec.

Jesse (04:01.958)
Okay, so you said they averaged 35 pounds. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna double it and add seven.

Andrew (04:04.969)
The average 35 pounds.

Andrew (04:12.406)
So that's that'd be what? That'd be 77 pounds. The record is 75 pounds. 75 pound snapper. The shell size. Yeah, the shell size. Now I've definitely seen ones that are bigger than a 12 inch shell, like lengthwise. I know even at the cottage growing up, we've seen a few and they range between 16, 17. The biggest one I've seen, I swear has got to be

Jesse (04:12.767)
Not even close?

Jesse (04:17.353)
Yeah. Whoa! Nice! Oh, my doublet thing worked.

Jesse (04:30.454)
Oh yeah.

Jesse (04:33.814)
We saw something just big.

Andrew (04:38.961)
about this size. The longest measured one apparently that I could find online was 19 inches. Now that's just the carapace, that's just the shell. Snapping turtles have the record for the turtles the longest tail any turtle has. The tails can be as long as their shell. Snapping turtle, the common snapping turtle also can with its head and neck fully extended, that also is about the length

of their shell. So if you have a 19 inch shell plus a 19 inch tail and a 19 inch neck fully extended, that's 57 inches. That's four foot nine inches long. That's a huge turtle. Now I remember at the cottage, I saw one and its head was about the size of a softball. This is a huge snapper. But that's, those are very rare apparently to get them to that size. But snapping turtles, they live about 40 years old or more.

Jesse (05:17.774)
Wow, that's scary.

Andrew (05:37.681)
In the wild it's sometimes around 30, but in captivity they can live over 50. And the interesting thing is, one of the interesting things is the scientific name for the snapping turtle, which I won't even bother trying to say, it means tortoise snake. That's the direct translation. So tortoise is a turtle, snake because it has a very long tail.

and the species of snapping turtle that we have, they say scientists claim it's been around for 90 million years. So this thing is legitimately a dinosaur.

Now the something that you and I are always fearful of is of all the things about the snapping turtle, like the spiky tail, that's cool. Huge, like inch, like multiple inch long claws, like four inch claws and stuff. Those, those are cool, but what are we scared of?

Jesse (06:22.781)
Eh.

Andrew (06:28.037)
The mouth. Yeah, the snap. Now I was curious to see, like everyone knows that it's a formidable thing. You don't want to get your hand in your mouth because you've always been told they'll snap off a finger, right? Now the bite force of a snapping turtle, common snapping turtle is 210 Newtons. Now to put that in perspective, humans, we have a bite force of 1,100 Newtons on our second molars. That's our prime spot for the most bite force.

Jesse (06:29.004)
Yeah.

Jesse (06:41.268)
Yeah.

Andrew (06:58.065)
The difference is though, snapping turtles, though it might not sound like much, they have a sharp edged jaw. So that means that their jaw that you see just comes up to a fine edge. It basically like scissors. So unlike us where we have our jaw and there's teeth and then we have whatever else in the way when we're biting, their jaw is just straight, like fixed edge is the part of their jaw and they just snap that shut. So absolutely, they have taken off fingers off people before.

That is a thing that will happen. But they don't just attack humans, that is not what they eat, obviously. But they will eat their omnivores. They'll eat anything from different plants to fish, worms, bugs, birds, frogs, even other turtles. And it's been found that they will disembodied the other turtles to eat them. So they're pretty aggressive that way. When they're in water, so this is funny because you and I both say that I don't wanna be in the water with a snapping turtle.

Now growing up, going camping, my dad, he'd see one, he would like dive in the water and swim after it. It's known that snapping turtles are actually very calm in the water. They get aggressive when they're out of the water. So thinking about, um, I was thinking about speed, like how fast does a snapping turtle move around and stuff like that? When they're in water, they can swim 12 miles per hour or 19.3.

Jesse (08:13.378)
Fair.

Andrew (08:26.005)
kilometers per hour. It's how fast they can swim. That's pretty quick. That's very quick.

Jesse (08:29.142)
Well, that's faster than I thought. Cause usually you see them and they're just like, you know.

Andrew (08:34.799)
So your canoe goes how fast, Jesse?

Jesse (08:37.795)
Miles I don't know what it is in miles, but oh kilometers I can hit like 12 13 kilometers an hour

Andrew (08:39.013)
No, kilometers per hour.

Andrew (08:43.857)
So a turtle can outpace you by like six kilometers an hour. They'll win. Yes. Now what about on land? How fast can a common snapping turtle move on land? Now, not many people may know this, but snapping turtles can run. They're still not crazy fast, they are a turtle after all, but they can run at 2.4 miles per hour or 3.86.

Jesse (08:49.066)
I want to race the turtle now. Cause you know, my canoe is actually named the fish turtle.

Andrew (09:13.141)
kilometers per hour. So running, you know, they're not that fast, but I'll tell you what, when you're six feet away from them, they can move pretty quick. A lot quicker than you would expect them to, which then becomes terrifying. Now we already talked about the snapping turtle. This is the last, most fascinating fact for me about these things. We know that they have the world record for the longest tail of any turtle. They have another world record.

Jesse (09:24.094)
Yeah.

Andrew (09:42.589)
they're the best at jumping, the best jumping turtles. So other turtles, they can jump maybe four inches. A snapping turtle, guess how high, in relation to its body size, how high do you think it can jump?

Jesse (09:47.978)
Interesting.

Andrew (10:03.121)
Like as a human, I could jump personally, maybe one third of my height. Or let's say one half of my height, I could jump over.

Jesse (10:03.802)
Ugh.

Jesse (10:08.895)
Okay.

Jesse (10:12.138)
I'm going to say 100% of its body height it can jump.

Andrew (10:16.573)
it can jump higher than its body length. So, so yeah, if you have like a two-foot turtle, it can jump over two feet in the air. How terrifying is that?

Jesse (10:20.022)
What?

Jesse (10:27.102)
My question is can it bite you as it jumps?

Andrew (10:30.801)
Yes, yes it can. So, and you and I have actually seen a turtle jump before. It was sitting up on a log and remotoring up to it. And all of a sudden you would yelled at it. And instead of what we normally saw was a turtle would kind of flop over off this log it's sitting on going into the water. This thing jumped, did a 180 in the air and then landed back in the log and then started like flipping as it fell into the water. But it jumps and like spins around on you. So even though it can only run so fast,

Jesse (10:32.507)
Okay, that's even more terrifying.

Andrew (11:00.241)
If you're going to attempt to try and pick this up, let's say you see a big snapper trying to cross road and you wanna save it, do not be surprised if this thing jumps two feet in the air, whips around, tries to bite you as you're approaching behind it. That's what these things can do. So the last question I have then. So the last question I have then is, how do you move a snapping turtle? Let's say there is one crossing the road and you wanna get it to safety.

Jesse (11:17.39)
Well, congratulations. Now I'm more scared.

Andrew (11:30.385)
What is the best, safest way to move the snapping turtle? What would you do, Jesse?

Jesse (11:36.822)
Well, the I have picked them up a few times I actually picked one up that was fair size Oftentimes you see people pick them up by the shell But because their neck is really long. I assume that if you hold it too close up It could probably just reach back and bite you. I've seen people pick them Yeah, I've seen people pick them up by the tail but that seems possibly bad for the turtle just like holding it up by its Full weight on his tail. I think the best way to move a snap control is literally not to

Andrew (11:39.966)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (11:51.557)
If you grab the left and right hand side of the shells, they can get you.

Andrew (11:59.526)
Yes.

Andrew (12:06.829)
So there are a couple ways to do it. Um, there are some kind of expert level handling methods to literally pick up a turtle. It's best not to, not with the common snapping turtle. You'll see down in the States that the alligator snapping turtle, they'll grab, they'll wrap one hand up right behind the head, hold onto that shell and hold right above their tail in the shell, lift that thing up and the thing cannot bite them. Not the case with our common snapping turtle.

When you try and get your hand up over the top of that shell, there's a very good chance they can still get their head around and bite you.

You can grab just kind of above the base of the tail and kind of lift up on the backside and maybe drag it across the road that way. You don't want to grab onto the tail, like he said. But again, you're still putting yourself in danger because by the time you're going, trying to grab the thing with the tail and it feels you touch it, it can jump around it, but you. So they say the best method to do it is, let's say most commonly for doing this is because it's on the road, you've pulled over in your car. So take out one of your longest car mats that you have, set it on the ground in front of the turtle.

take a long stick and kind of prod it or poke it or move it onto the car mat. And then you can grab the edge of that car mat and drag it across the road and just kind of dump it off at the side. That way you don't actually have to touch the turtle and you should be far enough away that it's not going to be able to bite you still use caution if you are unsure of how to move it, just leave it. Uh, if you are comfortable doing so, then say the turtles, but hope that tip helps.

Jesse (13:35.058)
And then I guarantee some guy will be like, it works great guys. He puts up his thumb, but there's half a thumb there. Ha ha ha. That was very interesting. I actually, I find snapping turtles fascinating. I just don't like the possibility of getting any dangling body parts bit off when I'm swimming, but hey, they're cool. I think we're gonna have to make that a series cause that is not even close to all the snapping turtle facts you can come up with.

Andrew (13:39.381)
..

Andrew (13:48.819)
Yeah.

Andrew (13:54.329)
Yeah.

Andrew (14:03.405)
No, no, I didn't even get into their actual snapping speed and whatnot.

Jesse (14:08.718)
Hmm, part two coming up. Turtles are the new loons. I'm gonna give you an interesting fishing fact rating of 96%.

Andrew (14:11.133)
Hehehe.

Andrew (14:20.802)
How did I lose that last 3% or 4% I should say?

Jesse (14:25.658)
I'll tell you later. I'll counsel you privately. So anyway, thanks for that. The interesting fishing fact is a really cool segment. We like to do it.

Andrew (14:27.157)
Okay.

Jesse (14:34.09)
almost every episode because it's topics and interesting things that we ourselves find intriguing. It's maybe something that you haven't thought of before or you just didn't know. And we can all learn from each other. And me and Andrew, especially Andrew loves doing the research. So we're gonna find these little juicy, interesting facts and hopefully during the segment, you're just nodding your head going, interesting. Or maybe you're like, I already knew that, but still funny. But anyway.

Andrew (14:55.293)
Hehehehe

Hehehe

Jesse (14:59.906)
Back to the main topic. Before we get into our main topic, actually, we would just like to thank our Patreon members. Our Patreon members are a bunch of cool guys and girls who shoot us a few bucks every month to help cover the costs of the show. So if you enjoy listening to this show every single week and all the effort that we put into it, make sure to check out the link in the bio or the show notes below for our Patreon account to help support the show.

We also thank you for leaving a review. We had a lot of them recently. We really appreciate the reviews on Apple and Spotify as well on YouTube as well. So this week's episode, our giveaway partner is our buddy, Beeline Bates. We actually did a giveaway with him last year and it was a fantastic one. This one's a little bit different and it's way better. So...

Andrew (15:47.693)
Hahaha

Jesse (15:48.078)
Frank at Beeline Baits, he's a super nice guy. I've talked to him many times. I'm hoping this year that I'm finally gonna meet him. Like I'll see him at one of the fishing shows or something. But he makes a lot of cool baits. In fact, I grabbed some right here. These are the coolest baits that I think he makes. He makes a lot of cool ones, but I know Andrew will probably agree with me on this. But I know this is, if you're listening to this on an audio podcast, you won't see this, but I'll do my best to describe it. Look at these swim baits.

He makes these big like six inch swim baits. They're like big bass, pike, musky, even big Wally would smash this. He has fantastic, like, okay, I don't know cause I don't legit pour baits, but you see a lot of people make baits, but he has some really, really good patterns. Just patterns that you're like, that looks really good. Not just good, like a lot of baits look good, but you know that it's a fishy color. Like it's a color that fish are actually gonna want to smash. Super natural colors.

Andrew (16:31.827)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jesse (16:43.006)
I know it's ice fishing season. I'm showing you big, like, you know, big bass from baits right now, but I'm just showing you some of his cool work that I have right here. But the cool thing about Frank at Beeline Baits is he also makes a lot of ice fishing baits. So our giveaway this week is actually gonna be if you're interested in ice fishing, I know a lot of you guys and girls don't like ice fishing or you don't get out enough. Definitely the giveaway is basically gonna be ice fishing baits, but if you don't ice fish, talk to Frank, he'll hook you up with something else. So that's the giveaway.

sponsor of this week, we're going to talk a little bit more about that after. So we're going to get into our main topic here, which is challenges. What was it? Challenging challenges that challenge anglers. I'm going to have to rename it that when you're listening to this podcast, the title is probably going to be different. But I thought that was pretty funny. I like to make the title slightly comedic at times. So the first one we had, again, we reached out to our Patreon members. They kind of get top priority because they're the ones supporting the show. We're going to answer their questions first, and then we're going to go to other forms of social media. So.

kind of a mix of those two. So if we didn't get to your question, we'll try to get to it in the future. Unfortunately, these podcasts, we don't want to ramble on too long. Me and Andrew could talk for hours and you guys would fall asleep, but we try to keep it to an hour. Yeah. Andrew could talk about the Paku, which is the ball nipping fish. Oh yeah, gross. Anyway, so these are challenges. Like, Andrew, what would you say? Would you say fishing?

Andrew (17:53.689)
And not just about snapping turtles either. We could talk about anything.

Andrew (18:02.471)
The ball nipper.

Jesse (18:12.439)
is challenging to get into compared to other sports.

or hobbies.

Andrew (18:18.725)
I would say yes. It has its own. Like definitely the answer is yes, but it may not be for the reasons that people think of. Like if you want to go into any other hobby pretty much, you have designated areas you can go and do it. You want to go play basketball? You go to a local basketball court that they have set up. You want to play tennis? Do the same thing. You want to play golf? You go to a golf course. With fishing and again in most of those places if there's specialty equipment

When you're going to the places where you can, you know, play it, oftentimes they'll rent the equipment out, you know, squash, racquetball, even golf. Like you can go rent your equipment if you want to try it out, skiing, snowboarding. But for fishing, I don't know of a place for you to actually go and rent unless maybe, you know, a pay to fish pond or something like that, but where can you go and rent some fishing gear without actually getting a guide for the day?

Jesse (19:14.251)
Yeah.

Andrew (19:14.589)
You know, where you can actually get some, get to do stuff. So there's a bit more of a learning curve before you can actually get out there and start to do it and a bit more of perhaps upfront costs than, than might be expected as well.

Jesse (19:26.418)
Yeah, so say like, for instance, say you want to like your hobby is skateboarding, you can buy a skateboard and maybe some safety equipment. I don't know if people use that. It's not like an old man. Make sure you wear your helmet, but you could be out, you know, skateboarding. I don't know much skateboard costs, but like, you know, you could be out the door for a few hundred bucks and have a nice skateboard and some stuffing and have your hobby. But fishing, the other hand, it may seem, I think a lot of people think just from watching, you know, fishing shows or looking on Instagram that you need all this equipment, but we're going to talk a little bit about that. Like what

Andrew (19:35.317)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Jesse (19:54.646)
What are the challenges like you may face like looking at these things like Instagram, fishing magazines, fishing shows, like do you need all that stuff? Like that's a challenge I think for people that are getting into the sport. So we're gonna cover about 10 or 11. I think we have 11 here. And the first challenge that I had a lot of people say, one of the challenges, finding places to fish. Like Andrew said, like if you play basketball, you're obviously gonna go here or you can even like, you know, play in front of your house if you live on a side street, right? But with fishing,

Andrew (20:21.429)
Hehehe

Jesse (20:24.134)
it may sound a lot easier than it is depending on where you live. Now, if you live in like Northern Ontario or even like two hours north of, you know, the lake, like out of the GTA, there's probably a lot of places you can fish. So this is probably going to be more for like people that live in the city. But like Andrew, like how easy is it to fish in the city?

Andrew (20:39.538)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (20:44.025)
There is a lot of opportunities everywhere. So as long as you have public access to an area, or you can get permission to fish an area that gives you access, the hard part is then combining that with, is it a good area to fish?

Jesse (20:46.891)
Yeah.

Jesse (21:00.274)
Yeah. But at the same time, compared to like up north, there may be spots that you think you can fish, but you can't fish. You know, it's like, oh, no fishing here, or this is this is private property, or there's signs that say no fishing. So like, I find like, if you live up north, or you live out of the GTA, like this is an Ontario fishing podcast. So if you're listening from the States, like the Toronto area has more than 10 million people in it. It's packed. There are creeks that run up, there's the lake, there's a bunch of ponds, there's, you know, some of the quarter lakes are still like

out of the GTA, but they're close. There are a lot of options to fish, but at the same time, you are limited compared to someone that lives up north that has, you know, I drive five minutes down the road and there's three boat launches, you know. So it can be definitely challenging.

Andrew (21:40.917)
Mm-hmm. As, as an example, like I used to live in Coburg, Ontario, which a lot of people from the city would recognize. They love going to Coburg beach. It's cool beach. The difficult part is trying to fish anywhere on the waterfront is next to impossible because you have beachfront. There's nothing there. Uh,

you know that fish are going to hold a structure. It's okay. Where's the structure that I have access to? Well, you can walk along the whole, uh, boardwalk area. There's a whole Harbor there, but all of that is bylaw, no fishing from the property. So even though you have access there, there are times there's no one around. It's not a danger to do so, but it's still against the bylaw to do it. And you'll look down in the water and you see tons of fish, but you know, this is, there's no other really area, unless you're fishing in the creeks there.

Jesse (22:28.651)
Yeah.

Andrew (22:34.141)
that is public access to good fishable water from shore, it's not available.

Jesse (22:40.662)
Yep. So I think a lot of times you compare your circumstances or other people's circumstances to your own. So like, a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I fish, you know, I just go fishing every day before work, or I fish all the time, but they live near a lake, or they have that circumstance. And you may live in say, like a place like Andrew's talking about where there's only like one or two places to fish. And one of them you can't fish because it's against the law. You know, so

Andrew (23:06.111)
Yeah.

Jesse (23:08.154)
Sometimes if you fish and you're getting into it, just realize that maybe where you're living, there isn't as many opportunities close to your house and you may have to drive or put more effort in to get to places that are harder to get to or farther away and fish less. So you may not be able to fish every day. You can still fish. There's still opportunities out there, but you may have to focus your time more on

putting a little more time and traveling to these places or getting to these spots to actually get out fishing. So you shouldn't really compare yourself to others. Everyone lives in different areas. I know a lot of guys that live up north are like, oh man, I fish all the time. I live like right by the lake. But if you live in say like Toronto or Scarborough or something like that, you may not be able to get out fishing even like once a week. It depends on your circumstance. We're going to get more into that later, but finding fishing locations can be hard.

But even if you are someone that fishes regularly every weekend, you try to get out, you know, spring, summer, fall, finding locations, you look at a map and you're like, wow, Ontario has so many lakes. You know how many there are, like there's a bunch of cortholakes down by us. There's lakes everywhere. You zoom in on the map and boom, like thousands and thousands pop up within driving distance of your house. And you're like, where do I fish? Like, what do I do? What what what's one thing that you would recommend to do if you're trying to pick a lake?

Andrew (24:25.013)
So the first thing is, it depends on if I'm fishing from shore, or if I'm planning to bring a canoe, or if I'm planning to launch a small boat. If I'm going backwards in that list, if I'm going to launch a boat, then the first thing I look for is can I find any boat launches. If it's any canoes, if I want to get to a lake by canoe, it may be easier to access because then I can start looking at the beast surrounding, rivers flowing into it, so maybe there's no access on that lake itself.

might be all cottages around it or something like that. But maybe there's, doesn't mean the lake itself is privately owned, it's just the property around it, there's no public access to. But sometimes you can get in upstream on a creek and take your boat in if the river's big enough. So then you start looking for any access points you could drop your canoe in off the side of the road or something like that. Or even then from a shore fishing perspective, taking a look to see if there are any, if there are boat launches, great, that's public access to water.

Sometimes just even any regular park, they have access on the waterfront. And as long as there's no sign saying there's no fishing or a bylaw in place, you can fish from those areas. It's public property. And again, you can also fish the rivers flowing in and out of rivers or fish rivers flowing in and out of these lakes that maybe a road passes over. So you have fish off the bridge or close to the bridge. But again, stay alert. Some of those bridges, they'll have no fishing signs on them.

Jesse (25:53.962)
Yep. So there's, there's plenty of opportunities for people to find lakes. And we talked about this last podcast, but like how to find lakes to fish. And we talked a bit about some of the apps that we use, um, to find launches, to find lakes like this and where to fish in those lakes. So if you didn't listen to last week's podcast, I highly recommend that. Cause we kind of went more in depth about how to find these launches in places like that. So definitely there is a lot of opportunities in Ontario, finding places to fish.

I mean, you can talk to people to like make friends on Instagram, we're going to get more into that after but like you can find places to fish. Fishing though, you don't expect people just to give you their honey holes right away. When you're finding spots like we all went through this, like I've been fishing my whole life, you have to sometimes waste time finding spots or finding spots that are terrible that you're not going to go back to put in the steps, find the spots, or put in the time out on the lake, or driving finding these spots. But

you can do research and you can find good fishing spots. There's like, we live in Ontario. This isn't like, you know, Arizona where there's like seven lakes. Like this is Ontario. We have like over a quarter of a million lakes. Like there's tons of them. So like you can find them and guess what? Most of them have fish in them. A lot of fish.

Andrew (27:07.013)
The other thing I'd mentioned too is thinking of what you want to fish for. So just an example with Jesse and I, he grew up fishing for a stream trout and steelhead and doing the salmon run. That's what he fished for because living down, you know, closer in the GTA, growing up there, he's fishing the local Harbor, fishing the rivers coming in and out, whereas I have never, I had never done that. I've never fished for steelhead. I'd never fished for stream trout, never fished for salmon until

I had a car pretty much and could drive down to meet Jesse. But where I lived up by Lake Simcoe, I would go ice fishing for perch all the time. I would go fish small local streams and be catching, you know, creek chub or catching small, you know, small mouth rock bass and stuff that were native to the creeks. So things like that, there's a variety of options for available to you. So it may not be if you're looking and seeing, I love seeing all these steelhead guys.

But guess what? I live by the coerthas and I can't drive very far. Well, there's no steelhead there. So you gotta figure out what can I fish for? Well, let's see what's around you. So if you are trying to get into the hobby, see first maybe what's accessible, what form of fishing or species is accessible around you. Because the more accessible it is, the more likely you're gonna be able to actually get more invested and enjoy it more.

Jesse (28:28.33)
definitely. So we're gonna get into the second point is one challenge that many anglers face especially in our area I would say is fishing pressured lakes. Now I know we talked a bit about this last year because like me and Andrew we fish a lot of the Cortha lakes because like we said

They're within an hour, hour and a half of our house. And for us, like on a weekend, if we're just fishing for the day, we work full time, we have other responsibilities on the weekend. So if we can get out for one day, we can't drive legit three, four hours to a lake fish and then drive three or four hours home. That doesn't even make sense. Too exhausted, too much, you know, we're not 21 anymore. So we're gonna drive to these lakes, usually the Cortholakes, but generally in the summer, they're pressured, really pressured.

And what I have started doing and this is a tip, if possible, and I know like we discussed just before, like, you can have the most drive in the world to go fishing. But if you have to work and have a nine to five, you can't fish, you got to go to work. Okay, that's the reality of it. Some guys are like, oh, man, I have so much drive, I fish every day and blah, blah. That's cool. I'm glad your circumstances allow that. But in reality, most people, that's not even an option. You got to go to work. But if you can take off a day,

Once in a while, not all the time. What I've noticed is like, I fish this one quarter lake on the weekend, hammered boats, jet skis, you know, pleasure craft, like pontoon boats everywhere, guys fishing like crazy. Every spot you hit, that's main, like main lake points, they've already been fished probably five times, 20 times before you've got there, right? There's 50 boats anchored everywhere. But if you go on a Friday, Friday morning before the weekend, there's no one out there.

Maybe like one or two boats, that's it. Just like cottagers. There's no one out there. But on the weekend the next day, there's like everything. So if you are living near one of these lakes or that's the lake you wanna fish, you decide to fish and you really wanna fish that, take a vacation day.

Jesse (30:34.214)
if possible and fish not on the weekend. I know that's like, that's a cop out answer for sure. But I've had some of my best days, especially muskie fishing in the core those on like, Friday, I used to have Mondays off Monday is not the best day I find because the fish got hammered all weekend long. And they're just like, you know, shell shock. But Friday before the weekend, that's the day, take that day off for any day like Wednesday to Friday, that would be the first step if you can do that. But like Andrew said, sometimes you can't do that.

Andrew (30:37.817)
Absolutely.

Jesse (31:02.946)
You gotta go to work, right?

Andrew (31:03.333)
And something else to think about too, if you want to get into fishing, because you're seeing these fishing shows, you're seeing these other videos being made by people where this is their, their job to create this content, to put it up there. I just think of the fish in Canada guys, like they've like the best fishing show out there, but they fish only mid week for that show. That's their nine to five. That's, that's their five day a week. They go, they do a shoot. They're not fishing it on the weekend. They're going up and they're driving up.

Jesse (31:23.908)
Yeah.

Andrew (31:32.081)
Monday or early late Sunday or something like that. And they're fishing it all midweek. So this stuff, they're gonna have a better opportunity. And not to say they never go out fishing on a weekend, but if you ask them, like, would you rather try and shoot a show when there's a bunch of other stuff in the water and you think you're gonna catch your best fish on the weekend or midweek, I can guarantee you what the answer is gonna be.

Jesse (31:54.59)
Yeah. So again, the whole thing of your circumstances different than other people's. So if you can't take a day off and you have to fish on the weekend, which is for the majority of people between the ages of say like 25 and 55, that's probably what you're going to have to do.

Andrew (32:10.013)
The lakes are busy because everyone's in the same boat. That's why the lakes are busy on the weekend.

Jesse (32:14.866)
Yeah. So if you do have to fish on the weekend and you're fishing pressured water that's getting hammered and you have to fish that lake, the next point we're going to say is don't fish those lakes. But if you have to fish this, these lakes, you have to finesse and Andrew's a pro at this. So give us some of your finesse tips. Let's just say bass or just in general, what are you going to do to finesse some bites?

Andrew (32:33.672)
Yep.

Andrew (32:36.989)
So first of all, I can fish the same techniques that everyone else has been, but just downsized. So instead of fishing, you know, a full size, you know, Lunker Hunt Frog or your Scum Frog, whatever, go down to the Pocket Frog, go down to a more finesse style topwater, fish the same areas, fish the same way that everyone else is just with lighter gear or lighter baits. Even going down to Dropshot or Nedrig, everyone's throwing.

you know, five inch wacky worms and I go and I throw in a, a two and a half or three inch Ned bait, I'll probably get bit a lot faster than me just throwing yet another five inch wacky worm. So downsize is, is key. You can still fish the same areas. Even downsizing doesn't mean that you have to get rid of all, you know, go full BFS and get rid of all your heavy gear. Like you can still catch, uh, you know, with a heavy action rod or medium heavy rod, you can still fish those, those weed lines, still fish those weeds.

with the frog topwater, just make sure that it's heavy enough to be able to cast it still and fish it with your regular combo.

Jesse (33:40.094)
sure. And I think if you look like downsizing is like the main thing you're saying. I think if you look at kind of the trends in bass fishing in Ontario, like I don't care about the stuff down south, like in the states like Bassmaster stuff, irrelevant to hear generally, like, if you live up here and fish like, say the corthas, like we said, I don't really care what's happening on Okeechobee, like that has nothing to do with me. You know, it's irrelevant.

But if you see the trends in Ontario fast fishing tournaments, you notice what these guys are fishing. They're fishing, it seems like every year the baits are getting more and more finesse. Like it's like, drop shot's always been a huge thing up here in Ontario, but you notice like a lot of these like small little like plastics with little like tentacles coming out of them and little like finesse baits and tiny like compact jigs and stuff like that to catch these fish. Like

They're fishing smaller and more finesse and stealthy presentations. And those are the guys that are literally cleaning up and winning these tournaments on like Skugog, you know, Rice Lake, places like that. It's not like back in the day where they're just like flipping a big black and you know, blue jig with a big pork rind on the back, you know, it's the opposite and still catching big fish. Another tip.

Andrew (34:47.501)
And even like you said, sorry, go ahead. But I was going to say even like you were saying with the drop shot, I remember drop shotting before you'd be throwing on a three or three and a half inch paddle tail on a, on a hook. And then the guys older going on three inches and they're going on a two and a half and under two inch now inch and a half drop shotting, like even micro baits on a drop shot. Now. It's like you said, they are, they're going smaller and smaller. Finesse is changing what that word means every single year. So

Jesse (34:50.72)
Okay.

Andrew (35:16.429)
it may be going a bit smaller than you than you think.

Jesse (35:20.526)
Definitely. And like I mentioned before, if you had to fish these pressured lakes, finesse. Another tip would be not to fish the heavily pressured lakes. You may have a lake that we all do it. We have a lake that we like, oh, it's a really good musky lake. Let's go. And you go and you don't catch anything several days in a row. But maybe fish other lakes that don't have as big of a, maybe they're not as legendarily as good as some of the other more popular lakes.

Andrew (35:38.406)
Yeah.

Jesse (35:47.874)
But when you get to those lakes, there's way less people fishing. And I'd rather fish on a lake. That's not as good with way less people on it than a lake that has technically better fish in it, but there's like 500 boats in there. So that's another tip. And my last tip would be fish at night. Night fishing is awesome. And no one does it. Very few people do it. I caught my biggest large mouth at 11 PM at night, 6.4 pounds, large mouth. Have not caught one that big since.

Andrew (35:59.391)
Yeah.

Jesse (36:14.558)
at night in a super heavily pressured area in the corthos. It's not like, I know a lot of people fish till they can't see like, oh, it was 9.30 and we're still fishing. I'm talking like 11, 12, 1, 2 a.m. in the morning. Make sure you're safe. We're not gonna get into the boat safety of fishing at night, but like make sure you have all the safety equipment and lights and everything, but.

You can fish those same spots that get hammered throughout the day and those bass or musky or walleye or whatever you're fishing for bury into the weeds or bury into structure. They come out to feed at night. And you're out there now with your baits right where they're swimming and you catch giant fish. It's really and it's really exciting unless you see a big snapping turtle. Then it's terrifying. All right. The next point is a lot of people may find it challenging.

Andrew (36:53.75)
Yeah.

Jesse (37:01.782)
with the cost of equipment, we kind of got into this before, but things we know in this economy have gotten ridiculously expensive, like really expensive. Like, what's one example you thought of like the last time you're in the fishing store and you looked at it and you're like, they cost that much now? Like, what was the last thing?

Andrew (37:19.449)
Just a basic like husky jerk. I remember those things were like $5.99 You know like if the hot that the premium repalas were seven bucks apiece and now I remember x-raps came out. They were seven bucks or $7.99 or something like that Now you go to buy an x-rap that are almost 20 bucks

Jesse (37:25.088)
Yeah.

Jesse (37:30.797)
Yep.

Jesse (37:39.114)
Yep. Or even a pack of sinkers. Remember like the split shot sinkers you get, the water gremlin sinkers? And it was like, I remember 99 cents. 99 cents or maybe a dollar 20 or something like that for a pack. Yeah. You go.

Andrew (37:44.051)
Either way. Yeah.

pack of hooks. Like...

Yeah, you go get a pack of hooks and like, oh, I just want to do some wacky rig fishing. We'll get a pack of octopus hooks and you're going to be spending, you know, eight bucks for five hooks. It's like they're hooks.

Jesse (38:05.138)
So anyway, everything's getting expensive and like rods and reels same thing. Like every year you'll notice like, oh, like this company that this reel and it costs this much. Well, we upgraded it this year and it's basically the same thing anyway. And then they're like, oh, it also costs $50 more. It's like it's the same thing. So I think that's one thing. If you're just getting into the sport, you don't have to spend like, like we said, if you're watching fishing shows, you know, YouTubers that are pushing product.

Andrew (38:19.795)
Hehehe

Jesse (38:31.582)
Instagram guys

Andrew (38:52.212)
Yeah

Jesse (39:00.182)
Just remember, if you're getting into fishing, or if you're into fishing already and you're just looking to buy more gear, you don't need to buy super expensive stuff. I know a lot of people say, well, that cheaper stuff, it doesn't last. It does. Like how much cheaper stuff do you have? Like stuff is pretty well built now. Like $100 rods and reels are way better than they used to be. You know?

Andrew (39:23.265)
Now that being said, if you're talking about cheap stuff and you go to your local, well, Walmart down in the States is completely different than Walmart up here. But let's say, you know, Canadian tire, your, your regular box store. So we get a combo and you buy the combo and it's like on sale for 30 bucks. Yeah, it's not going to be a great combo. You're going to go spinning reel and with the bail closed, the handle is going to move forward and backwards about six inches, but you know, you can still catch fish on that, but at the same time.

I would go on the lower end, but if you actually go to a tackle store, buy, you know, a rod they have on sale, it's, you know, half price, regular 60 bucks. Now it's down to 30. And then you get a, you know, a cheap, you know, but good brand name spinning reel and you spend 50 bucks on that for under a hundred bucks. You get that spooled up still and you have a combo that combo will, that will last you for years now, especially being the average fisherman. You're not putting it through its paces like a tour tournament guy would where he's fishing, you know.

full long days every single day, 300 days out of the year. Yeah, I could see it not lasting long for one in that case. But if you're fishing maybe a total of two weeks over the course of the year, because that's how many vacation days you have, it'll last you years.

Jesse (40:34.834)
Yeah, exactly. So like, same as like with tools, like me and Andrew both work with tools for living. If you buy a tool that's professional grade, but you're a homeowner. But say, say you're a DIY person, and you just do little projects in your house, and you buy a DIY tool, I'm not going to name the name, but everyone knows what it is. That tool will probably last you for years and years and years because you only use it once or twice a year.

Andrew (40:43.997)
You gotta be careful what you call my fellow employees. Ha ha ha.

Andrew (40:56.834)
the

Jesse (41:02.594)
But if you hand that budget tool to a professional, they'll probably break it in a few weeks or even a day because it's not meant to handle that abuse. So same thing is if you're a tournament guy, you make a living fishing all the time, you have a fishing show, that high end gear may be essential for you and worth it in the long run because it'll last. But if you're just an average Joe like me and Andrew, you can get away with reasonably priced gear. And again, reasonably priced is gonna be different for everyone. Like someone might say, I would never spend a hundred dollars on a fishing rod.

And someone else would say, I would never spend $100 in fishing, that's not enough. So buy the best gear you can afford. We always say that in the podcast, but I've noticed for me, what I've noticed about myself is I've bought rods from $850 all the way down to 30 bucks. And I'll tell you the best price point, if you're just getting into fishing rods is that 70 to a hundred dollar point. Like if you can spend a hundred dollars in a rod, that's where you start getting a really nice, sensitive rod that'll last you and you'll be happy with. Same with spinning rails. Once you spend that a hundred dollar point,

You go from a cheap reel that like Andrew said, it's wobbly, it's kind of sketchy when you're rolled in. Once you get something about a hundred bucks and you reel it in, you're like, that's not bad. And then as your passion develops in the sport and maybe you get a little more money, you may want to buy some nicer gear. Not that it's necessary, but it's more enjoyable, right? Like Andrew recently bought a nice, really expensive reel last year. And like, what do you think about that?

Andrew (42:10.143)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (42:24.697)
Yeah. So it's, it's a BFS reel. It's amazing. I love it. Do I need it to cast the baits? No, like I could go and buy a $30 combo spinning combo and cast the same baits on it. But for my enjoyment, I know I, I love having this totally geared towards finesse presentation BFS rod and reel. So I love using it. It increases my, my desire to use it and my enjoyment while doing so. So for me, I

Do not regret that purchase whatsoever. But again, necessary? Absolutely not.

Jesse (42:58.398)
Yeah. And I think a lot of anglers too, to jump into lures, cause I know a lot of people like, you look at this wall behind me, it's full of lures. You don't need a lot of lures. The older I get, the more I realized that you don't need all this stuff. Even like pros, they'll be like, they have all these different colors and all these different sizes because money's on the line for them.

You know, the difference of like catching a fish that's one pound bigger than the last one could be a hundred thousand dollars, right? But for the average guy or girl out fishing, that stuff doesn't really matter. Like obviously you'd like to catch a bigger fish, but at the end of the day, if you don't, you're not going to lose a hundred thousand dollars, but

Andrew (43:34.453)
And even those pros, you talk about them having like boxes and boxes of gear. But for me, like my boxes of tackle look completely different than what a pros does. A pro, he has seven baits, but he has 50 different color combinations of them. For me, I have 200 different styles of baits and I have maybe a few of them that I like. I have a few different color combinations of, but again, the pros.

they have these baits because if they snap off, if they, you know, the color, the light changes differently in the sky, they're fishing different type of weed or whatever, different lake, they're gonna go to a different color but the same bait or fishing slightly deeper water, just different weight. That's all they're changing a lot of the time. It is very minute changes. But for the average person, like you said, it's like, yeah, you could just have the same baits they're using but only have two of each.

Jesse (44:25.138)
Yeah, yeah, you don't need to go crazy. And the best way to find out how much money to spend or what baits to buy is talk to someone that's experienced in fishing. You'll notice a lot of the people you'll say, like I talked about, we got into muskie fishing like maybe five years ago and I just started going nuts buying all these muskie baits. And I started talking to like very experienced muskie anglers.

And I was like, I have all these baits like what in there like you don't even need all that. You need like this, this and this like four or five things and maybe get a few different colors of each. That's it. That's all you need. And we're gonna get more into that about like how to choose a presentation. But don't go nuts with the lures. Talk to some of this experience that will give you good tips. As talking to a salesman about like what you should buy is on. I was gonna say it depends on the situation like some of the tackle shops, they're good guys, they're not going to make you buy more stuff. But talking to salesmen, that's like going to a car dealership and being like,

Oh, you know, like, I have a whatever budget, like what card you recommend, they're obviously going to tell you to buy the more expensive one, right? So do a lot of research before you go buy the stuff. Or else you'll go broke. Alright, one of the other challenges that I've personally heard a few people tell me, and a lot of people said is they find it challenging, finding fishing friends that are just as obsessed as them. Do you find that a challenge, Andrew?

Andrew (45:47.905)
I'm not trying to find anymore because I get to fish with you. So the cool thing is if you have someone, if you have one person to go fishing with, that's great. There's gonna be some days still you have to be on your own, but a lot of people like you said are having a hard time finding that just one other person that shares that passion. So I'm fortunate and I have some other friends I'd like to take out when I can. But yeah, you don't need, you know, dozens of fishing buddies to be able to enjoy your time on the lake with one other person.

Jesse (45:51.647)
Aww.

Jesse (46:17.578)
Yeah. And how would you find fishing friends? Yeah, it can be like, so say you're just getting into fishing. And and like I said, Oh, talk to someone who's more experienced. They're like, Well, who do I find? How do you find people? Well, there's tons of ways to find people like fishing, like, you should be you not always but like in my family, everyone fished, right? Obviously, I fished like, I find needed advice. Like I talked to my grandpa, I talked to my dad about fishing, right? Like, if you're just getting into fishing and knowing your family fishes, you may be like, well, who do I talk to? Right?

Andrew (46:18.345)
but it can be tough.

Jesse (46:46.666)
So one great way we talked about it a bit last week is social media. If you're social on social media, there are people out there that'll be more than happy to give you tips. I mean, like I don't want to toot our own horn, but like, I'm always happy to tell people on Instagram, like from the best of our knowledge, again, we're not pros, but we've been fishing many years. I'm always happy to tell people like, Oh, like this is what I would recommend. If I was in your situation, I would buy this and this and this, or these baits or fish this area. You know what I mean? You can find people like that out there.

Andrew (46:46.782)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (47:14.557)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (47:17.05)
And how many people have you seen on Instagram? They're like, oh, I met this guy on Instagram. And then we became good fishing friends. Like we started talking, we met up and went fishing. Not sketchy. You shouldn't fish with random people, you know, you'll end up in a, in a, some weird back of a van or something, but.

Andrew (47:27.889)
Yeah. You don't, don't put on a Craigslist ad. You'll get catfished in the wrong way.

Jesse (47:37.723)
But you can find friends and meet people that share the same passion as you and there's tons of people out there that love fishing in Ontario so it shouldn't be a big problem. So definitely try that out. One

Andrew (47:49.309)
Another option is go up to that guy that you see fishing on the pier and be like, Hey, can we go together sometime? You can be like, yeah, let me tell you about that. Yeah. And you'll talk about the guy from Napoleon Dynamite and you're like, there's my new best friend.

Jesse (48:15.424)
Yeah, you'd

Jesse (48:29.362)
Figure it out yourself like that doesn't happen Maybe if you're in a sketchy neighborhood But from my experience most of the guys and girls that you meet that are fishing off a pier As long as you're not being super annoying They're more than happy to help you out and net a fish for you And if you don't have a net, so if you're friendly people will generally be friendly back

Andrew (48:43.056)
Mm-hmm.

And if, and let's say you own a boat, then it's going to be a lot easier for you to find a fishing buddy. Cause everyone who shore fishes, they'd love to be on a boat. So, you know, don't go up and just pick up the first person you see fishing in the boat launch, but you know, if you're talking to them online, like, Hey, I got a boat, why don't we head out? We can actually get in the water and fish in the spots you'd love to fish. And we'll just, you tell me where to go. And that like.

Jesse (48:55.169)
It's true.

Andrew (49:13.185)
I can tell you, even Jesse and I, if we get invited out to go on a bass boat, yeah, we like to go on a bass boat. That's something that I've only ever been on a bass boat like once or twice. So it's, it's always exciting. So those guys who, you know, they're also maybe looking for a fishing buddy and they can get someone who can go out in the boat and help share the cost and the fun out there on the water. That's, that's a match made in heaven.

Jesse (49:19.753)
Yeah.

Jesse (49:23.563)
Yep.

Jesse (49:35.594)
Definitely. So we're going to have to kind of go through these. We're, we're kind of rambling over time, but our next one is, um, conditions and wind, so that's a big challenge for a lot of people I noticed like a lot of times. This is like the classic, right? You work all week and the weather is perfect. It's like, Oh, I should be fishing today. Like how many times have you said that when you're at work, you look outside and you're like, man, I should be fishing today. It's so nice. And then when the weekend comes. Yeah.

Andrew (49:38.301)
Yeah.

Andrew (49:59.075)
all of 2023.

Jesse (50:01.922)
The weekend comes absolute trash. Like the weather's just like unfishable, super windy, just raining buckets. That happens a lot, unfortunately. But the conditions, especially the wind, if especially you are a small craft angler, you fish a canoe, a kayak, a small tin boat, the wind is bad. Like you look at the wind, you're like, I can't fish. If you have a bigger boat, you might be like, ah.

Andrew (50:04.332)
Yeah.

Jesse (50:30.346)
It's just gonna be uncomfortable out there, but you can still do it. But if you're in a kayak or canoe, that could kill you. So that can be something that really, that really sucks, right? Like how many days have we had fishing trips planned and we looked at the wind up and we're like, ah, it's gonna be like 45K winds and we had to cancel. Yeah, it happens.

Andrew (50:37.374)
Yeah.

Andrew (50:49.605)
Yeah. And the cool thing is like the couple of things I've mentioned on that topic just briefly would be, uh, like we talked about before, there's get a, get a weather app, a wind app that will show you not only how fast the wind is, when it's expected, but also which direction it's going to be coming from. All those factors can help you determine where is going to be a safe place. If there is one to go on that lake or even what shoreline you want to fish or what area you want to hit, which area might be more sheltered, but there's been many times where Jesse and I, we've.

You're down to all where we can't go out in the canoe because it's 30 per hour, 30 kilometer per hour winds out there, but instead we'll go fish for some stream trout in the summer. So it might be, you know, last minute change, but we'll still go out fishing, which had to choose a completely different version of it, maybe.

Jesse (51:24.93)
Yeah.

Jesse (51:35.35)
Yep, for sure. And again, the wind is a challenge, but unfortunately it's not a challenge that you can just be like, well, what can you do to stop the wind? You can't, you just have to adapt, like Andrew said. The next one is, we kind of covered this a bit, so we're just gonna go through this quick, is a lot of people find it challenging to find the time to go fishing. And again, like we mentioned, I know a lot of people are like, oh man, if you have enough passion, you'll get out all the time and stuff like that. Well, let me tell you some things that make that not possible. A,

Andrew (51:42.517)
Hehehe

Jesse (52:04.414)
work, most people have to go to work generally at least five days a week, oftentimes more. Family, kids, health problems, other responsibilities and obligations. Like for most people, you don't have a lot of free time. That's not complaining. That's just the reality of living in 2023, 2024, especially if you live in like the city, not a lot of free time. So what we do is we really, me and Andrew will oftentimes sit down like as fishing buddies and be like, all right, what do you want to do this year?

And we plan the year literally six months in advance. We'll be like, okay, I want to do a walleye trip this weekend. I want to do this weekend. And we literally map out like generally what trips we want to do, what camping trips, and then we try to stick to that and we book everything around that. So say we have a trip like, you know, walleye opener the weekend before that. I'll make sure that I'm not fishing so I can get all the work done so that the next weekend I'm a hundred percent clear to go, right? So I know that really depends. Like Andrew's on call a lot, which

Andrew (52:57.767)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (53:02.034)
really messes with phishing schedule too, which is another work thing, right? There's nothing you can do about that. So.

Andrew (53:05.969)
Yeah. And the schedule changes all the time. So it's not even something I can always plan for.

Jesse (53:11.442)
Yeah. So in reality, like, it is a challenge for sure. And I think the biggest challenge about that, because generally, there's nothing you can really change about that. I hate when people are like, well, just get another job. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna do that. Great. But the biggest challenge is more the mental side of it, right? You want to fish, but you can't. So you really have to just try the hardest you can just to be content with the days that you can actually get out. And really those days that you can get out, make sure that you're prepared, you're ready to go.

Andrew (53:22.31)
Yeah.

Andrew (53:27.494)
Yes.

Jesse (53:40.923)
You have everything you need to have a good, successful day on the water.

Andrew (53:44.933)
And even if it's not what you were expecting, take even like last year for us, there's a lot of tough days in the water. We still enjoyed our time out. I still don't regret going out because even on those tough days, look at it. You learn from it because you are becoming a better Angler. Even if you're not catching things, you're learning things still in the day. So even, even then don't get discouraged if, if you have a year like us where it seems like everything was against you. And even the time you did get out, it sucked overall for weather and whatnot. But.

Jesse (54:12.246)
That was last year.

Andrew (54:13.877)
You know, we still had, you look back in the year now, we had an overall decent year.

Jesse (54:17.866)
It was decent. Yeah. Some years are better than others. And that's where I'm going to kind of melt this one into the one of these other points of the mental side of fishing, dealing with the mental side of fishing. So same thing, like, you have to deal with the fact that maybe you can't fish, like, as much as you want. Is there something you can do to change that? Maybe not. Maybe you can't because you know, you have, you know, family and children at the time, or you have some sickness or something like that, or you can't change your job.

Andrew (54:22.559)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (54:45.302)
Be content with fishing when you can and try to make the most of it. Don't compare yourself to other people that can fish all the time. Like, we're all jealous of people that are like, oh man, I fish like four or five, six times a week. I just go fishing here and there and blah, blah. That's great. But like, there's nothing I can do to change that right now. So like, just be happy with what you have and find times like we said before, like maybe your fishing trip isn't.

driving hours and fishing a lake or doing all this it might just be like after work grabbing a carcrod and a can of corn and fishing you know the river mouth near your near behind your house or near a park for like an hour after work and that's all you got for the week that's still fishing it's still fun

Andrew (55:22.633)
Mm-hmm. Take, you got to spend time with the family. Go out for some, you know, bullhead catfish. They're all over the place. You can catch them anywhere. But yeah, take, take the time and fish for what you can. Even you're going for sunfish something with the kids or even just on your own, just to get some fishing under your belt. It like I just did, it doesn't have to be a huge thing, but that can help get away those kind of mental blues that easily build up after not fishing for a while.

Jesse (55:48.722)
Yeah. And I say, add one thing into this topic is dealing with the mental side of fishing. If you're someone who is more competitive, say you try to fish tournaments or you're trying to like, you know, always have like really good days in the water, that doesn't always happen. Like fish, the thing with fishing is you're dealing with a living animal that's unpredictable generally.

It's not like basketball where if you're shooting hoops, you can practice shooting hoops and eventually get them in every time. Fishing is not like that. You could be like, oh, I always catch a bass at the stock. The bass isn't there because it's a living animal and decided not to be there that day, you know, or it's decided not to bite or whatever different factors. Fishing is not the same every time you go. But you shouldn't always expect to have the best days ever. They're not always going to slam them every day. What do you think?

Andrew (56:35.737)
Absolutely. I agree. But like using that illustration of playing basketball, you can, you can practice and it can, with the controlled settings to be able to improve the same thing with fishing, just because you can't get the same results, you can't guarantee results doesn't mean that every day you don't go out, you can't improve. So let's say the fishing slow, but you know, you can still keep fishing, but also learning the technique, learn how to walk the dog, learn how to be better at that for work on your casting accuracy.

work on, you know, other things, you're still have a chance. Every single one of those casts to be catching a fish. So it's not like you're putting you're wasting any time and now you're gaining a better skill so that you are becoming a better angler. So next time that maybe the fishing is better and now you're absolutely sniping underneath those docks and your fishing is actually better than it would have been had you not been out that day.

Jesse (57:26.314)
Exactly. And again, like we said before, don't compare yourself to others. There's guys out there and girls that are just hammers, just natural, like hard work on their part, but also like just natural ability. Don't compare yourself to be like, well, that guy went out and he slammed like all these huge bass and blah, blah. That's not you. Unfortunately, like some people will never get to that level. Try to improve constantly throughout the years.

but also understand that you're not gonna be like, you're not gonna pick up a guitar and be like, well, I'm gonna be as good as Eddie Van Halen in five years. Like, no, sometimes you could practice your whole life and never be as good as him, because he has natural talent, that's the difference. So just be happy with yourself, only compare yourself to the way that you fished last year. Try to improve on yourself, you will get better, but just don't expect yourself to just be like, oh, I...

Andrew (57:58.053)
Yeah.

Andrew (58:10.429)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Jesse (58:15.678)
I started fishing or I've been fishing 10 years, I should be winning tournaments at this point. Who cares? Just fish and have fun. Fishing is about having fun. Do that. It's cool. There's probably all these pros listening to this being like, that is absolute terrible advice.

Andrew (58:22.503)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (58:29.246)
And, and that's how people are listening to two average guys on an average podcast and not listening to the pros talk about their $150,000 bass boats right now.

Jesse (58:37.97)
Yeah. All right, another challenge we're gonna have to, I know we could do a whole podcast about this, but we're just gonna briefly cover this one. A lot of people, and I had like multiple people say this, that the challenge they think that a lot of beginners have is not knowing what knots to know, like fishing knots. What is your thoughts on that, Andrew? I know like Andrew's a knot guy.

Andrew (58:42.269)
We are. Yep.

Andrew (58:54.248)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (58:59.337)
For me, I practice and know essentially three knots now. That's all I need to know. I have the improved clinch knot. That's for when I'm tying it on monofilament or fluorocarbon. If I'm tying my braid to a leader, I have my all-bright knot that I like. It's easy to tie. And if I'm tying from braid onto a snap or anything like that, going straight braid to my bait, I will use the three-tag knot generally.

So that's pretty much the three knots. I know a few others that I'll throw in. There are some crazy knots to tie into your leader, but they're, they're not necessary. You can still get out there. And when I'm on the water, I knowing and practicing those three knots are now prepared for whatever I come across that day. So it doesn't take a lot to know those, but you don't, don't feel the need to have to know all the knots that are out there. It's like, what's the difference between the polymer and the Rapala knot and clinch knot or improved clinch knot or what's. You don't need to know all of them.

Jesse (59:45.067)
Yeah.

Andrew (59:59.245)
Just know, you know, do some reviews and what are there's some good ones. If you can tie the knot well, it's going to work better than a knot that's super impressive, but you can't perfect every time. I trust the knot that you can actually tie properly every single time.

Jesse (59:59.296)
Yeah.

Jesse (01:00:13.394)
Yeah, it's true. You only need to know a few knots. Like Andrew, like when it comes to me, like there are certain knots that are better for different materials aligned. So like, for instance, like the polymer knot is probably one of the most overall best knots to learn because it deals with fluorocarbon pretty good, braid good, monofilament good. Say like the Trilene knot though, sucks on braid. It'll just slip right out. So like Andrew said, there's...

Andrew (01:00:36.113)
Yeah. And the trailing knot is the improved clinch knot too.

Jesse (01:00:40.582)
Yeah, the improved clinch knot. So oftentimes, there's other knots that are better for certain things. And then when it comes to connection knots, like when you attach braid deleter, if you're at that point when you're doing that, people will be like, oh, you have to know the FG knot. You have to know this knot. And they're complicated. They're good knots, but they take like three minutes to tie. And they're hard to see if you did them right.

you could learn the crazy Alberto knot in like five minutes and it takes literally 20 seconds to tie and it's almost as strong. So like, don't go crazy with the knots, learn a few basic knots and like Andrew said, learn to do them 100% correctly and that'll be better than doing, like so many times when I was learning the FG knot, which is a great knot by the way, I'd be tying it and you'd finally tighten it and it would just be like, and just come apart. I'm like, okay.

I just wasted five minutes of my life and this knot sucked. But when you get it good, it's good. But like, make sure you know how to do the knots properly. The last thing you want to do is set the hook and just have your leader or your knot just slide out because you were a moron. But yeah, knots. We'll do another knot episode. That was a popular episode last year. We went into a bunch of different knots. We're gonna deal with this one pretty quick. A lot of people find it challenging to decide what strength of line to use. And that's actually a really good point.

Andrew (01:01:25.141)
Thanks for watching!

Andrew (01:01:29.045)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (01:01:35.929)
Yep. Been there.

Yes.

Jesse (01:01:53.25)
I think that was the morning voice that commented that one, our buddy. It's hard to know that, especially because in Ontario you're fishing for so many species and if you will look at information on YouTube or Fisherman on YouTube or fishing shows, you'll see that there are a lot of different species that are fishing in the same area.

they all have their own personal preference. They'll be like, oh, I like 30 pound braid for this. And the next guy's like, oh, I only use 65. You know, like, it really depends on that. And like when you're finessing, like Andrew's like, oh, I used to use like this six pound braid. Now I've gone up to 10 because six was too thin. So I think it really comes down to a lot of like trial and error, but to be at a basic point, generally, if you look up like a technique, say you're like, I fish a lot of wacky rig for bass.

If you're just getting into it, the way I would look at it is, I would look at rod specs designed for Wacky Rig. And on the rod, it would be like, generally it would say something like, I don't know, 10 to 20 pound line. So you're like, okay, I'm in that kind of area there. So I'd probably look and be like, well, I want to throw a braid, so I'm probably going to throw 30 pound braid because it's not too thin. And then I'm going to attach a 15 pound leader onto it or a 12 pound leader or as 10 pound. I wouldn't-

Andrew (01:03:02.325)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (01:03:08.458)
put something thinner than that. So like looking at rod specs will really, for the species that you're fishing for, will kind of really help to give you an idea. Another good way to find it is just ask people. A lot of times like you'll be fishing on the pier and you'll see some guy just casting a spoon with just super thick lines coming off. And you're like, what is that? And it's like, oh, it's like 30 pound big game. Like that is the thickest line I've ever seen anyone cast, you know? So you can be like, hey, like I, you see these guys, like I used to work at a tackle shop. I've seen so many people be like,

Andrew (01:03:24.981)
Thanks for watching!

Andrew (01:03:31.703)
Oh, yeah.

Jesse (01:03:38.258)
Oh, I want this real spool. And they're like, I want 50 pound braid on it. And it's like a spinning, like a small walleye size spinning reel. And you're like, oh, what are you fishing for? And they're like, oh bass. It's like, okay, where do you normally fish? And they tell you, and you're like, you don't need 50 pound braid. That'll break your rod, right? So I get it, it's hard. But there's lots of information out there. Like Andrew loves research. Research, there's so much information. If you type out like on Google, like what line should I use for this? Endless results.

Andrew (01:04:06.437)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. My, what I would add is, is two things. First of all, we had that line episode. So if you want to learn more about the qualities of the different types of line, I think it was episode three or something was, was about line that we had last year. Uh, there's a lot of reason into that, but for me personally, if I'm going finesse, I like to have 10 pound. I like to run braid pretty primarily unless I'm doing my trout

Jesse (01:04:07.73)
endless.

Andrew (01:04:35.849)
I'll run braids, my main line, and I put on a leader of either monofilament or floral. So for my main line, I'll usually run a 10 pound for finesse, 15 pound on a regular duty spinning rod, a 30 pound if I'm going up to a heavier spinning rod. And then we're running between maybe 30 to 50 on a bait caster. If I'm using that for like flipping and heavy cover, that's pretty much all I use for braid on my main line. And then I'll that way, when I go to these other

Like if I'm going to change my, what line weight I want on the presentation, because I have braid in the main line, I just tie on a leader of, I want seven pound test on this because I'm, you know, drop shotting or five pound test. And, oh, now I'm going to fishing over here. I'll put on a 10 pound leader and tie it on. So that way I don't have to change our main line ever. And braid lasts a long time on a reel. And then I'm just replacing short lengths of leader for whatever is best suited for that day fishing.

Jesse (01:05:32.902)
Exactly. And like I've, I do the same thing on my spinning rods. It's just like for me, it's like 10 pound braid. 10 pound braid is actually a lot stronger than 10 pounds. It's if you look at the package, I was like 10 pound, it's like breaking strength 15.8 or something. It's like, okay, that's not going to break. But I think the main thing that people do wrong when they're starting out from just the stuff I noticed when I worked at a taco shop is people generally want way heavier line than they need. They'll be like, oh, I'm fishing for salmon and they want me to put like

Andrew (01:05:41.833)
Yeah.

Andrew (01:05:58.622)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (01:06:01.858)
50 pound braid on the reel. I'm like, you don't need that. That's like 65 pounds of strength for a salmon. Like you need not even 20 even. Yeah.

Andrew (01:06:07.865)
Yeah. 12 pound mono is great. That's a nice heavy line for salmon fishing.

Jesse (01:06:15.262)
Yeah. So again, like we said, there's lots of information. The best way, if you're just getting into it, go into your fishing shop. Don't go to like Canadian terror. They probably won't know anything. But if you go into like one of your local fishing stores, those guys and girls are super knowledgeable. They'll, they'll hook you up. They have sometimes like real, uh, the spooling machines and they'll just spool it right up for you. And you're going to have to do it. They'll do it nice and tight and it'll be awesome. So definitely check that out. So that is the episode for today. Before we finish, we're going to talk a little bit about the beeline baits giveaway. So again, Frank.

Super nice guy, really like him. He makes really cool baits. I'm gonna link his Instagram below and you can check out some of the baits that he makes. I feel like a lot of these bait makers, like I notice, they become like crazy. You ever notice that? They start off pretty chill and they're just like, oh, I'll just make some of these stick baits or swim baits. And then it just becomes an obsession. They start buying all these different molds. And eventually it's like you look through their Instagram or their website and they're like, what the heck? Like they have.

Andrew (01:06:59.957)
Absolutely.

Jesse (01:07:14.238)
everything just like random stuff and all these different stuff and then they start like getting into like painting them too and doing different pores. Beeline Bates is that guy. He okay, maybe he's not

Andrew (01:07:21.909)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (01:07:25.113)
He's gotten very good with his pouring patterns. Very good. Like.

Jesse (01:07:28.542)
I'm, I was gonna say I'm surprised. I'm not surprised. Like the guy's good, but like some of the stuff I look at, I'm like, I don't know how that works. Like I had to look up how they do like the multi-thing pours cause like I had no idea, but super good stuff. He has a really, a big selection of ice fishing baits though. All like the nice little stuff for like perch and wall and stuff like that. Really good stuff. So we'd like to thank him again for being the giveaway partner for this episode. And if you're interested in supporting a local shop,

Andrew (01:07:34.805)
Yeah.

Andrew (01:07:38.537)
Yeah.

Jesse (01:07:55.914)
We would really appreciate it if you do. Again, we're not affiliated with Beeline in that way, but every sale you get will go directly to him, which is exactly what we want. So definitely check him out. Everything's linked below. And if you do want to buy some stuff and send it to us, no, just kidding, don't do that. We have so much baits. But anyway, we thank you guys for listening to this show. This is a bit of a longer episode, but hey, we enjoyed ourself. And you learned a little bit about my arch nemesis, the snapping turtle.

Andrew (01:08:05.621)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (01:08:11.997)
Ha ha

Andrew (01:08:25.496)
Hehehehehehe

Jesse (01:08:26.678)
But before we go, we just have a few housekeeping things. I forget what they're called. Housekeeping? Yeah, yeah, let's call it that. Yeah, housekeeping.

Andrew (01:08:33.373)
Yeah, it's normally what you call it. I'm not saying it's correct, but it's normally what you call it. Ha ha ha.

Jesse (01:08:38.502)
It is called housekeeping. So again, we would like to thank all of our Patreon members. We really, really appreciate if you are a Patreon member and help us basically pay for the show because there are expenses to producing this weekly show. There's a lot of like programs and stuff like that we have to use to edit and upload and host the podcast as well as equipment and stuff that we have to buy for the, to run the show. So we do appreciate you helping us cover some of the costs for the show.

If you would like to do that, if you're not doing that already, the link below inside the show notes will take you right to our Patreon page. And you can help us out by buying us a cup of coffee every month. But me and Andrew might have to share, so be generous. Just kidding. But we do appreciate all of our Patreon members. Every single one of you, we really appreciate it. We also appreciate everyone that leaves a review. And if you're listening to this and just enjoying it, we appreciate you listening to this. We do have a little bit of news. I just wanted to toot our own horn a little bit.

So we took off about what five weeks, six weeks at the end of the year last year. So we went straight through every week since like February. So we took off a few weeks before season two. So when season two started, our ratings were really bad because we hadn't posted in five or six weeks. And I was kind of like, oh man, it's gonna take a while to get back like where we wanted to be. And the ratings have a lot to do or the rankings have a lot to do with like, individual downloads, reviews, all those.

Andrew (01:09:40.498)
Yep.

Andrew (01:10:05.685)
how much those companies push our podcaster will feature it in the search engines as well. It changes where that where it shows up and how soon it will show up and you're scrolling down a list.

Jesse (01:10:06.018)
those metrics.

Jesse (01:10:11.199)
Yeah, exactly.

Jesse (01:10:16.198)
Exactly. So I'm always like watching the rankings, not that it really means anything, but you always see like at the top in the Canadian wilderness top or the category, which is what our podcasts and most fishing podcasts and hunting podcasts are rated in. So that category is all fishing, hunting outdoors, horseback riding, mountain climbing, everything outdoors in all of Canada. So we've had such good support from you guys listening. We're actually generally after we release our podcast a few days after we're in the top 10.

Andrew (01:10:35.957)
Thanks for watching!

Jesse (01:10:45.674)
in all of Canada, which is fantastic. Actually this week I looked at it, we were number four. It's like meat eater, meat eater, someone else, average Ontario anglers. That was awesome. Then I looked again, we were down to 19. I was like, dang it, just kidding. Cause it changes throughout the day, but no. I think it updates like maybe once or twice a day. But anyway, it was really good to see us in the top 10. Up there were some of the big dogs. That's amazing. We really appreciate your support. Like

Andrew (01:11:01.799)
Every minute it's like, update.

Andrew (01:11:06.353)
Yeah

Jesse (01:11:12.842)
You don't know how much that means to us because like we put so much hard work into this podcast and I know we get a lot of messages from you guys saying like how much you enjoy the show, which is great. But seeing it also in the charts as well is amazing. Super cool. So we do appreciate that. Before we end this episode, we do have the quote of the week and to handle that the man with the beard Andrew.

Andrew (01:11:24.149)
Thanks for watching!

Andrew (01:11:34.549)
Don't be afraid, you can outrun a turtle.

Andrew (01:11:42.673)
I guess I have to stop it.

Jesse (01:11:43.106)
Can you?