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Eating Wild
Hosted by three hunting and fishing buddies with a lifetime of culinary experience between them, Outdoor Journal Radio's Eating Wild podcast brings folks from all walks of life to the boat, tree stand, and kitchen to tell the stories and answer the questions around the pursuit and preparation of wild fish and game.
Eating Wild
Episode 62: Jet-Lag or Hangover????
Ever wondered what it's like to encounter jet lag for the first time after a chaotic travel delay? Smash Meleca shares his bewildering experience dealing with severe weather disruptions from Nassau to Toronto, giving you a firsthand look at how unexpected chaos can affect even the most seasoned travellers. Meanwhile, enjoy stories of camaraderie and surprise connections with Bahamian bartenders who turned a stressful situation into a memorable bonding experience.
Join us as we recount an unforgettable family trip to the northern wilderness, complete with fishing escapades, nighttime hide and seek, and an exciting bear encounter. Disconnecting from city life brought fresh perspectives and surprising joys—even the kids found wonder in simple activities like frog-catching and swimming with snapping turtles. We reflect on the beauty of nature and the pure thrill of adventure, emphasizing the importance of stepping away from the urban grind.
Our journey continues to the luxurious Baha Mar resort in Nassau, where a dream of bonefishing sadly fell short. Despite the hotel’s misleading information, the culinary delights more than made up for it, featuring conch fritters and a standout burger from the Sugar Factory. We also discuss the latest culinary videos from Fish'n Canada and tease an exciting upcoming giveaway. Tune in for a rollercoaster of emotions, food inspirations, and heartfelt farewells!
Follow Eating Wild on Instagram! To reach out to the boys, drop us a line at eatingwild@odjradio.com
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Speaker 3:We are live and welcome back to another episode of the Eating Well podcast. I am your host. Smash Muleka. Co-host Christopher CJ Johnson is joining us. Chris Showtime Johnson, how the hell are you doing today, brother?
Speaker 2:I'm good man, Welcome back, I should say yeah, welcome back to you too, man.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to the show and welcome back to a welcome home.
Speaker 2:I should say right, yeah, for you it's a little bit more of a welcome home. I stayed in Canada. You were my friend. You were a jet setter. You know planes, trains, automobiles. You know I got jet lagged for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2:First time, Tell me about that man, because I've heard so much about it and my father did a lot of traveling in his earlier days with the company he worked with and he said it was always terrible and a lot of my friends, their families, would always go on vacation to like Disney and all that. But no, when my dad came home, our family vacations were north. Nothing to do with airplanes, but tell me a little bit about Jetlag.
Speaker 3:Honestly, siege, I don't even. I never even knew what it was. I always hear people that travel like a lot of my customers. When I'm on set, they're like, oh yeah, I just got in on the red eye and I'm fighting this jet lag. And I'm like jet lag. What does that mean? You're tired, you're struggling with the time difference, what time zones you come from. But when I got off the plane, cj, I got to tell you a little bit of the back story. So our plane was delayed big time over 14 hours because of the flooding that was happening here in southern Ontario and I knew nothing about it. I had no idea. Actually, at the hotel we're lucky enough to get free Wi-Fi, so I was always checking Instagram seeing how E-Dub is doing on the old gram, what Siege was up to. I knew you were away as well, but I was scrolling through and it's like Mississauga area, dundas and Mavis. Next thing, you know, it's like flooding the streets. I'm like no, not again.
Speaker 3:And a couple things came to my mind right away, because Daniel Hooks at Martin's, his house, was affected by the first flood that we had. Like we had record rain, I think rainfall in July and then when this? I'm looking at this and the first thing that came to mind was you know one, oh my God, dan's home. Two, am I going to get the fly out of here tomorrow? Because it was all like? You know, it was in the short, pearson airport. Pearson airport was getting flooded out and stuff like that. Anyways, nothing, nothing on my phone. I text my dad Everything's good, yeah, everything's fine. I looked at my, my ring for my, my home camera yeah, it was raining, but it didn't look crazy or anything. So I was kind of confused.
Speaker 3:And next thing, you know, we wake up in the morning. We had to be out of our room by 11 am. Our plane was leaving at 12, so we had to be out by. You know, even though we had to check out by 11, we had to be on our way to the airport by 8 30 in the morning and I get a text message from air canada saying your plane's been delayed 10 hours. We're like what 10 hours? We're like what 10 hours? Luckily enough, we didn't leave our room yet, like, we were still in our room and we had till 11. But you know, that's a big gap siege to wait. But you know what? We're at the hotel. Let's make the best of it. We go down. They had a couple plans for this sort of thing. That happens and you know you could keep your room for this amount of dough or whatever. You know you could change, shower and get ready, anyways long story short.
Speaker 3:we sat at the bar, and that's a shocker.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, the kids were on their you know social media iPads going nuts. They were loving it. They're sitting down, sitting outside. Andrea was enjoying it too.
Speaker 3:The sun shined for another few hours and I decided to head over to happy hour at 9 am and the bar wasn't even open yet. But it did eventually open because, I'll tell you, siege, it was a long wait and I think the jet lag sort of started. And again I didn't know what this jet lag meant. I think it sort of started by me sitting at the bar for another seven hours because it kept pushing an hour. Every every hour I'm getting updates from Air Canada your plane's delayed another hour. Your plane's delayed, oh, now it came back an hour. Now it's still, and it was all about the incoming flight from Toronto coming over to the Bahamas, to Nassau. So that plane I could check from the Air Canada app that it hasn't even left Toronto yet. So I know it's a four hour flight from Toronto to the Bahamas. So that thing hasn't even taken off yet. So I'm like well, it's at least a four hour flight to get here.
Speaker 2:So that means I'm not leaving to the airport anytime soon. Well, guess what happens? The lights turned on in the bar Siege. I wonder if this is jet lag or is hangover. I'm trying to figure out what you got my friend.
Speaker 3:Well, listen, I promised that these guys, I was going to give them a shout out on the podcast. You know me, I got the gift of Gabber and you know I was sitting down. I was the only one there. The lights just turned on. This is a lobby bar, so you could picture this lobby bar and these guys are loading their ice. And you know the people in the Bahamas man, those guys, incredible people, just incredible people. You know, I know they get paid to entertain and they get paid to, you know, but they just do a hell of a job, real high class stuff there. And I'm sitting there and Mr Dion Darvell comes, walk to me, comes, walks up. Dion, good old D comes up to me and he's like how you doing, sir, I said I had better days. Can I get you a beverage? You sure can. I ordered, I ordered an old-fashioned, okay.
Speaker 3:That's your go-to lately it's been my go-to. It's a great drink. If you guys like whiskey or if you like bourbon, an old-fashioned is a classic beverage. I'm going to be honest, siege, this guy, dion, made me the best old-fashioned I've ever had in my life, and I don't know if it was because my nerves were shot. And when the whiskey or the bourbon just you know it touches your lips and your mouth, you're just like, oh, I need this right now, cause I'm stressed out, cause, see, I had to be up at five in the morning Monday. I was feeding like
Speaker 3:450 background or 450 people. Sorry, total, that morning and a couple of my staff had that day off. So, anyways, I'm banking on coming back Sunday during the day, so that way I'm ready to go the next morning and I'm freaking out. So this drink is going down and Dion was chatting with me How's it going? Where are you from? And you know, we're just we're shooting the shit.
Speaker 3:And this guy was so cool, siege. That drink went down and his partner comes. His name was lyndon and lyndon comes over and he's like I just was overhearing, you're from toronto. I've been to canada once and this and now. So we're talking and, uh, my drink's empty. And they're like could we get you a refill? I open up the old air canada app and I'm like yep, make her a stiff one. And we started talking about gin and he's like you know, we're going to make a nice gin and tonic for you. And then they poured him this gin and tonic. And, siege, man, these guys just knew how to pour a drink. It reminded me of you when we were in our maybe 19, 20 years old when we were first introduced to a cold beverage and you came up with the flying Siege.
Speaker 2:You remember that beverage and you came up with the flying siege. You remember that man? Yeah, I thought it was done. Oh, I thought I was spinning bottles, uh, you know, like tom cruise. So they got you a refill. Now, what were they pouring?
Speaker 3:you now got a gin and tonic and, uh, my nerves are shot. I'm looking, and right now, as I'm looking at my phone, the plane, instead of leaving at 12, is now leaving at 5 pm. So we got five more hours to go and I'm thinking, geez, you know we're gonna leave in a couple hours. You know I should get home around eight o'clock, nine o'clock at night. I could still get my six, seven hours of sleep. I'm good to go Monday morning. Well, siege, after that, gin and tonic was done and of course you know me, dion and the boys, lyndon, we're chatting it up.
Speaker 2:You got your own crew there. We're chatting it up.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm the only guy at the bar. I look like a raging alcoholic. Hey, well and yeah. And next thing, you know, we're doing something called a Manhattan. Oh, that's a classic, classic, right? Oh, that's a classic, classic, right. These guys, just they looked at my face. They're like this guy here. He's special. We're going to make this guy some classics and we're going to make it really good. Great drink, Great drink.
Speaker 3:Dion poured me an old-fashioned not an old-fashioned a Manhattan and I got to say it was probably my second favorite drink I had at that sitting. Okay, nice, I didn't have any more. I'm not making, I'm not here to talk about me becoming, you know, 10, 15 drinks in and I'm looped and that's how I got jet lagged. That's not the story. But let's fast forward. Let's get this moving on. I finished the old, I finished the old fashioned. I finished the gin and tonic. I went on to this Manhattan beautiful, wash it down. My wife comes and joins me. Andrea's like what's going on? I'm like this is Lyndon and this is Dion. These guys are beauties, these guys are starting a band.
Speaker 3:She's like what are you drinking? I said, well, what haven't I drank? I'm like these guys are showing me the ropes and I said can I offer you a beverage, andrea? We got another five hours to go. She's like I'm going to do myself a cosmopolitan.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:This guy whips up a Cosmo Siege that I first of all. I've seen him put the ice in the martini glass with a little bit of water, you know what I mean and he's stirring it. He's stirring it up and this glass is starting to frost and right there my mouth starts watering because it's like I know this drink is going to be ice cold and you know, my wife needed a good, stiff one, because she was, you know we're stressed out, see, do you know what it's like?
Speaker 2:you know, oh, yeah, especially, you're there, yeah, and you're there with the kids as well. So it's it's.
Speaker 3:You know, they want to get home or they want to get on the yeah, the trip's over we're, we're done, yeah, yeah, we're done at this point and uh, okay, anyways, he made her a Cosmo. And next thing, you know, I'm looking at the menu, the kitchen's open and I sent you the picture of these garlic Parmesan chicken wings. Yes, and they were. I keep saying they were one of the best, but I got to be honest, man, like we stayed at the Bahamar, we'll get into that, but these were, I mean, there were 28. You had to pull a mortgage, by the way. You had to pull a mortgage to get these drinks and the food, like we were. We're at a point where, at the end of our trip, we didn't care, we're just like whatever, let's just yeah pour me, the damage is done.
Speaker 2:Like the damage. You can't get any worse. I was the same when I went to the bahamas for my honeymoon absolutely it's just yeah at that. You just got to keep going, you got to keep going.
Speaker 3:So you got the wings. Got the wings, and the girls come over. They're like what are you eating, daddy? And Andrea, at this point, has done her Cosmo and I'm like I'm eating chicken wings. You guys won't like these. I'm like you guys hungry? She's like, yeah, we want some cheese and chips. And I said you know what I'm going to order it. And you know it was funny because Lyndon's like you know, the kids can't be around the bar, they can't come to the bar. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:They got to stay in the lobby. I said, okay, I'm going to order you guys. So I got him a couple sliders, some cheese and chips, a guac and this and that.
Speaker 2:And I start talking to Dion and he's drink. What are we doing? I said let's do a dirty martini with uh, what kind of james bond like okay, dirty martinis. You're doing now man, holy.
Speaker 3:I said you got the blue cheese stuffed olives or what, because I'm not driving. I ain't driving for a while, we're taking a cab and we're hopping on the red eye, let's go. Uh, you made me a dirty martini. Unfortunately they didn't have the blue cheese stuffed olives, but, uh, extra dirty, nice and salty. That was my last one siege. That was my last drink, because andrew ordered another cosmo and we were just, we were feeling loopy and at this point now I felt like I was on island time again. It took the whole stress out of me. I'm not here to promote getting hammered or drinking or any of that, but jesus, siege it was. It got worse. Like it did, it got worse.
Speaker 3:We left the airport only to find out that Air Canada was delaying the plane another four hours. And at this point we were like, what are we going to do? Like what are we going to do? Our bellies are stuffed. The boys took care of us Again. Shout out to those guys Dion and Leon, yeah, took you know, took care of us. And we get to the airport. Now it's you know, the sun's down, we're all depressed and stuff. We get to the airport.
Speaker 3:Not only did we have to move from terminal. Guys, if you're on Air Canada flight 1942, you're starting off at A8. Next thing you know, you're at E67. Next, I felt like I was playing bingo and every five minutes they're changing. So you know, all the people from Toronto were getting up or moving over and still I had no real idea why all this was happening.
Speaker 3:And I put two and two together, with the social media posts, with the flooding and stuff, it just so happened that Pearson Airport had a couple runways or a couple sections of the airport that were flooded out. They had to drain out all the water and planes couldn't land. So there was a backup of planes. So that's why our plane had trouble taking off from Toronto to come pick us up. But we got on the plane and when we landed siege, I couldn't walk. I stood up and I couldn't walk and I'm walking out of the airport sorry, out of the airplane through the tarmac and Andrew's like you, okay, and I literally I lost feelings from my knees down and I Googled it because I was like what the hell is going on? Did I fall?
Speaker 2:asleep.
Speaker 3:And it was jet lag. That's what it was. It was jet lag, and it's real, and I felt like I couldn't walk until the next morning I woke up and I was like, is this going to be gone? And, needless to say, I still came into the shop on three hours of sleep and, uh, it was gone, it was away. But uh, man, that's good man, was it? That was some of the most pain I've ever felt in my life and it was. It was crazy buddy. So, uh, that's that's my story. That was the nightmare that happened. I'll get into some of the fun stuff that we had out in the Bahamas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's hear about the other stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, before we do that, man, I got to ask you. So you're saying you traveled. You didn't go far, but you traveled further than I did. If you're talking about travel time, right, you went out to, was it Perry Sound?
Speaker 2:right. No, yeah, I went to Perry Sound. We did a family trip with some other families and it was great. You know what the great thing about this trip with Stone is? Some of the kids that went with us. They don't know anything about northern area, they know city. So, to get them not a good Wi-Fi signal, they can go swimming anytime they want, they can catch frogs. They can go swimming anytime they want, they can catch frogs. They can, you know, swim with the snapping turtles. You know everything right. So it was really good as kind of like an outsider looking in and seeing how much these kids were really appreciating it.
Speaker 2:Just, you know, to unplug, and I think we all get caught up in the city life, just to unplug. And I think we all get caught up in the city life, and I know you and I know it's our getaway, for us. We plan to do it three, four times a year. But for people that haven't done that before, it's really cool to sit back and see it through their eyes. And yeah, man, it was good, I fished every morning I got. Man, it was good, I did, I fished every morning, I got. You know, you name it. But yeah, the bass were snapping and the pike, and so the mornings were really good when it was cool, but it were hot days, real hot days. So in the afternoons it was all about finesse presentations, you know net rigs and like little plastics like that, and they were snapping. So I did try to chase the lake trout.
Speaker 3:I was going to ask you because you mentioned it in our pod right. We said you're going to be going out there and you're going to try it. So what's the result?
Speaker 2:So I'm never really on lakes that have lake trout. So this lake is. It's a small lake and it can get up to 65 feet, so anyone knows the foreskins. We really don't fish anything deeper than 15 feet, right? So, uh, I was, I was marking on my my electronics at 45 feet. Uh, there was fish, there was arches and you know, anywhere between the 40 right on the bottom. So I spent a good four hours just doing all different like kind of lake trout presentations, kind of like bigger tube jigs and everything. And I find and the beauty part with this, tony, is I'm fishing by myself. I'm listening to the podcast, it was great. I caught up on you know diaries and then the ugly pike and you know, and I was even listening to Jerry a bit I'm thinking about picking some mushrooms on the shoreline it was a good time but so I'm listening to the podcast and then I finally get a good rep at like in the 45 depth and I got it halfway up and then it was gone.
Speaker 2:I was devastated because I don't even care if it was a small lake trout, I don't care if it was a small lake trout, I don't care if it was like, who knows I could be, it could have been a bass at that, I don't know. But I can't say a fishing story and say, yeah, I got three or four of them, but no, I did not. I caught everything else in abundance, but that lake trout I still need to. I need to call up Dean.
Speaker 3:I was going to say Dino that Instagram post he did when he was like oh, I just missed him.
Speaker 2:Oh, amazing, next day.
Speaker 3:Were you using your electronics, though, like were you marking fish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was marking fish. I don't have the live scope in there. I'm not a hater on it. I'm not a big fan of it myself. My boat's equipped where if I do want to get it one day, I will get it. But to me I just like using my gut instincts. I don't hate on it by any means and I get why people use it. But yeah, I was marking with like traditional uh garmin units without the live scope. I was marking arches and it was so funny to him because I would see it was a lot like lake lake st claire, where I would see uh clouds of bait right and then you'd see the big hooks behind it just like st claire, when they're, when they're feeding on the shad, so I was dropping tubes and bouncing and yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:It was uh, I'm really curious what I had, but unfortunately I didn't get it. But I had a lot of good time and, more important, my family had a fantastic time. They were doing the hide and seek in the nighttime fireworks and fires.
Speaker 3:That's the best part of it all Sleepovers, it all sleepovers, and that's that's, that's the, that's the old recipe for, uh, for having your old cottage getaway going up north and and and you sent me a video siege of it was a rainstorm. You said it only rained a little bit while you were there and you sent me a text and it was like you guys had a visitor, didn't you? And I had. I showed it to, I showed it to my wife and she actually freaked out and she's like is that real? I said, yeah, I think it's real, but I think it's just a harmless little video. What was that all about?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's really crazy Tone, you would have lost it. So there's a dumpster that you use there and I'll show you the picture, but I'm going to put an Instagram clip on this. I'll show you the picture, but I'm going to put an Instagram clip on this. So, on the dumpster, I might be wording it wrong, but it says make sure you lock the dumpster each time because bears will eat your kids. I kid you not, that's what it says on the sign. So, anyways, I think it's a little overboard because, like, I mean, everyone in the camp's talking about this sign, and so, anyways, long story short, short. We did see a bear. Uh, we were, uh, we were doing some errands and we pulled off the side of the road and we saw a bear, and it was. It was probably only about a kilometer, two kilometers away from the camp. So I got footage of that and, uh, yeah, I'm gonna put that together, but I wish you were there for that I would have friggin long.
Speaker 3:I would have put that car in drive and hit your knee and say step on the pedal, mister, let's get out of here. It reminds me of that movie with with john candy.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean and the great outdoors, great outdoors, yeah, man, and then I think one of his buddies puts on the bear costume, pretending he's the bear or whatever. But I'll tell you right now it's it's. It's always been a fear of mine, but you know now it's now starting to come, become comical. To be honest, everyone has a yeah it's, it's I treat.
Speaker 2:Uh, no, don't get me wrong. Black bears can do damage to people in ontario, for sure, right, but I really treat them, like in ontario, as big raccoons, man. They're just getting into garbage, they're, they're like you know, they're not grizzlies. On the other hand, you'll see this munchie cake run fast. I don't mess with grizzlies.
Speaker 2:Grizzlies is not, it's not. But black bears to me. Like I said, I consider them as big raccoons, but it's funny, a little off topic, but with the bears. There's a store down the street and the owner, he feeds them too. He feeds them like five o'clock every day and he brought my wife and kids went and he was feeding them sugar cookies and they would actually and there's a good size.
Speaker 2:It was a juvenile, it was like a teen bear, it wasn't a cub and wasn't like a bigger one, but they would get up on their hind legs. He would get them to stand up and then he would feed them the sugar cookies. They come every day to his place. They're so tamed Like they're, so they're used to it. Right, they're just the food there and I don't know if he's supposed to be doing it. I'm not going to name the name of the store, but he's a real bear lover. And uh, shout out to that guy and uh, my kids that made their trip. They're not as scared as bears now when they see them eating sugar cookies yeah, I mean that's like going to the petting zoo you know, yeah, exactly doesn't freak you out.
Speaker 3:These bears are a little bit more tamed and you know it's funny because when I was younger we used to go to Parry Sound too and there was the dump there off of the bunny trail and we used to go to Bear it was actually called Bear Lake in Parry Sound and we'd go to the dump to dump out all the garbage and it'd just be loaded with bears and people would be there with cameras. At the time Nobody had phones, everyone had their little digital cameras in there.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:People were taking pictures with their disposable cameras and their digital cameras and you know, there'd be bears all over the place just eating through the garbage, right, yeah, that's the closest I've ever come to a bear. Again. We've never, we've never done the hunt siege. I know, you know, next week we're, you know, just just fast forwarding, just quickly Next week we will be getting into the hunting talk. It's, it's almost that time of year. See, it's actually getting cold in the mornings. Now we're what mid-august, and I got back from bahamas and it was like 10 degrees this morning and right away the first thing I thought of was big bass and waterfowl.
Speaker 2:Let's go what is that? What is that? One song, who's that one? Everything big, hail or hair done, nails done, everything big, yeah, like I can't, I remember, but that's what I think of as the fall. Everything big, because everything we talked about so many times the muskie chomp, the smallish chomp, the ducks fly, the geese fly, the deer come in, it's just. You know what the good thing is too.
Speaker 2:And no offense if any of our listeners are like pleasure craft boat people, or you know we love, we love those people, but nothing beats the, even the kwarthas, the muskokas and all that. When they're all gone, and it's just anyone that's out there, it's, it's die hard. So you know what I mean they're anglers, they're hunters, they're, they're not there to be pulled around on a tube. Or you know what I mean they're anglers, they're hunters, they're not there to be pulled around on a tube. Or you know water skiing. I do that too. I pull my kids all for hours on the tube in the summertime. But it's go time, that's what I tell my wife. It's go time. And when the fall comes, the steam's coming off the lake. Yeah, oh boy, the rainbows and lollipops and the juice boxes come out of my boat. And the only thing in my boat is like hook sharpeners, duck calls, and you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you got the bluers everywhere and you're just all fired up. This is my favorite time of year. See you next week, our next episode. We have a couple of guests that we've been talking to trying to line up. It's been tough. Oh yes, you know. Hopefully things slow down for Hookset Martins and getting Top Dog Lou back on the program regularly. It'd be great. The boy's joining us and I think the timing will be great. But you know, just talking about this time of year gets my blood going and I'm excited to fast forward to next week because I can't wait to talk about it and our listeners too. Like let's get some DMs going. I would love to hear what people are doing for their prep, because that's what we're going to be talking about for the next few episodes. Siege, oh yeah, you know we're hoping to get on a few guests to help us out with that, but you know you had a great trip.
Speaker 2:I got a question for you before we get off topic. Everyone's sliding in the DMs. They want to know about the bonefish in Bahamas. We're not letting you off the hook on that man. I pumped it up, so tell us.
Speaker 3:I pumped it up, siege man it's not the lollipops and rainbows and everything else you just mentioned because I actually had a really bad experience with it, and I'll tell you what happened the whole time. Um, we were going to Nassau. We stayed at the Bahamar, which is a beautiful new resort and casino. Um, you know, I I'm gonna tell you this right now if I had to spend my own money, siege, I would probably have never went there. The fact that I had my aeroplane points again, I have aeroplane points here with my business I was able to fly and stay at the hotel for free and all we had to do is pay for our food. But if I looked at those prices and how much it would have cost me to fly there and stay one night at that place, oh my god, you need mortgage after mortgage. I'm not here to, not here, not to.
Speaker 4:Uh say don't go there.
Speaker 3:I mean if you could afford to go to an absolute beautiful place like the pristine place, like just out of this world beautiful place. And I've stayed at Atlanta's Paradise a few times with my wife. We went for our anniversary years ago and it's you know, going to the Bahamas is great. But one thing, siege, one thing on my bucket list everyone we talked about it with the Ugly Pike Boys bucket list fishing for me was fishing the flats for bones. And uh, the very first thing I did when we checked in is I went right over to the information center in the hotel and I said, hello, I'd like to book my fishing trip please. She's like, okay, yeah, we different options. And she opens the book and every picture she showed me was a picture of a boat 34 foot boat, 60 foot boat, 40 foot boat. How many guys do you want? And I'm like no, no, no, no, I don't want to go deep sea fishing, I don't want to go offshore fishing. Been there, done that. We do it every year, florida Keys, bishan and I said I want to fish the flats, I want to catch bonefish. Whether it's on a fly, whether it's on a spinning reel, don't care, I want to fish the flats.
Speaker 3:She looks at me, siege, and she goes oh, we don't do that on this side of the island. I said I beg your pardon. She goes you're in Nassau. She's like if you want to go fish the flats, you need to take a flying plane and go to the other side of Paradise Island. I'm like, excuse me, I'm like this is insane. Like how is this possible? Nassau is an island in Bahamas. It's surrounded by water. Go over the big bridge. You're at the you know Atlantis on Paradise Island. It's impossible. Like I got to fish bones. Like you're breaking my heart here. This is exactly what I was looking to do. And she basically said the only fishing that they offer is offshore fishing in the boat. You know the guides come pick you up and it was $1,200 US Per guy. Well, no, for the boat, because you can have up to six dudes on there. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean, but I'm by myself.
Speaker 3:My kids aren't going to come with me. Andrea's not going to come with me.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 3:Siege. I was destroyed. I was literally the first thing and Andrea looked at me. She's like you, look like you just lost your child and I said you know what I'm because I've been talking about it on the pod. Siege is getting DMs smash. You know people are giving you advice for me.
Speaker 2:You're taking screenshots and sending it to me. You know, which was pretty cool. I was texting you from Parry Sound each morning. It was on the water. I'm like how's the bones, man? Where's the bones? You're like don't talk about it, you know.
Speaker 3:I was absolutely curious, I'm hearing this for the first time too, to the listeners.
Speaker 2:He didn't let me know. He said we'll talk about it on the podcast.
Speaker 3:I had to tell you the story I had to tell you so. But listen, man, I listened to this. The second last day I went on my phone. I was sitting. It was burnt to a crisp. By the way, it was so bloody hot. I saw that we went through four or five canisters of the spray sunblock 100 proof. I didn't even know that existed, but they sell it there for 30 bucks and we went expired.
Speaker 2:Man, it was probably because I saw you. You show me pictures of you, man, you were. You were right, as it could be.
Speaker 3:I was like sebastian the little mermaid.
Speaker 2:I got murdered. I didn't think italians burn like me, man they.
Speaker 3:You were like red, I was ripped and I'm gonna tell you, man, I was, so I had my t-shirt on anyways. I googled, uh, bone fishing guides in bahamas, just because I wanted to see what was going on. You know, I listen, I trusted the lady that was at the information desk. I I didn't think I my heart was broken. Siege, there was probably 10 or 15 guides that bone fished the flats out of Nassau. That popped, no, I called the very first number. I hit Right now I'm boiling, okay, I hit the first number.
Speaker 3:Guy guy picks up right away. How hit the first number. Guy guy picks up right away. How you doing, sir? I said how you doing, sir? I said, listen, I'm staying here at the baja mart you offer bonefish. Um, you know fishing from this side of the island. He goes absolutely. I'm like, oh my lord, here we go, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna end up going to jail, I'm gonna lose my mind into the lobby, I'm gonna go crazy on this lady because she just literally broke my heart and and then afterwards I found out it's because they're trying to sell Siege, what they're trying to do.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:They're trying to get you on their boats for $1,264 US, which is like $5 million in Canadian money. And at the end of the day, I understand that smart enough siege, which is I'm kicking myself in the ass, because if I was smart enough I would just google it. If I had top dog lou with me. I'll tell you right now, because the same thing happened to us in the florida keys. We were looking for a mustang. There was a flood. What a story.
Speaker 3:You heard it on one of our earlier podcasts he was on his phone working his phone and we made it happen. Next thing, you know, we're cruising down i-95 with the top down like vanilla ice in 93. So yeah, next thing you know, um, I'm calling this guy and this guy says I'm booked, I'm booked, I'm booked. Next guy I call oh, my boat's getting repaired. Next guy call siege. I went down the list, I called all these different guys.
Speaker 3:Finally this guy picks up and I just said this is my last resort. He says hello, look, I'm staying at the Bahamar. I need to go fishing the flats for bones. I said can you pick me up at this hotel? Can I go fishing the flats? And he says I could probably do it for an afternoon, for three hours, that's it. He says because I have a client, they're wrapping up around one o'clock. He says I could pick you up and we're gonna go. And I'm not gonna mention his name. He's, he's, uh, he's one of those guys that doesn't have social media. Siege, he does his reviews. You can look him up. Um, I could probably share that, but, like I, you know he did, he's one of the guys that doesn't care about. I was on a pod, a host of a podcast, I'm a chef yeah, he didn't even care was this guy who was just like been guiding for over 40 years in the Bahamas.
Speaker 3:And I said, okay, well, how much? He says are you good with 200 US? I said, buddy, I'll give you 300 US. I don't even care at this point, no doubt. And he's like okay, I'm going to pick you up. Be ready at two o'clock because it's about a half an hour drive. So this guy picks me up and I didn't know what to expect. He says what do you want to fish? I said I want to fish for bones. And you know I'll fly fish, I'll cast. He says well, the tide is in. So he's like the tide is coming in, so it's high tide right now, which is obviously when you're fishing the flats. You want low tide because that's when you get those shallow waters and those fish come in to feed High five. They move out and the bigger fish come in, like barracudas and jacks and stuff like that. So timing is the worst time possible. You can never go for bones. So we ended up getting to this one spot near where the cruise ships you can see all the cruise ships around. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Really nice area and you could tell this guy was just rushing me to get onto the water. You could tell this guy was just rushing me to get onto the water and we're in high tide and all he had was light spinning reels and the water was murky. It wasn't as crystal clear siege. I had this whole thing in my head. I'm going to go fish the flats, Henry Wash, Chuck, fins and skins and you got this beautiful, clear, clear water and I got a guide up top pointing, cast over there and you know, know, it's all rainbows and lollipops, while it was totally the opposite.
Speaker 3:It was like fishing the french river when it's all chocolate milk. That's what it felt like. Oh no, and um, next thing you know, he's like, okay, we're gonna be using live bait and this and that and open your drag, keep your drag open. So that's what I did and hooked into my first bone about 20 minutes in and your rod is screaming and it's great. But I'm going to be honest with you, buddy. I got about 11 to 12 fish. I got a couple kudas, smaller kudas, a couple reef fish, yellowtail snapper, which was really odd because usually you get those on. The reef Guy was cool, gave him a nice tip, took me back. It was a three-hour fishing trip. But I'm gonna tell you something, brother. I felt like I was fishing crappy or perch, or perch, yeah, and it was a bass hitting your light gear when we're, you know we're fishing crappy and all of a sudden, you know, largy comes out of the blue.
Speaker 6:Yeah yeah, just rip and blue and you're just like okay, we know this isn't a crappy.
Speaker 3:That's what it felt like. So, siege, I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to go out and on the limb and say that the experience for me was not what I expected. I think if I would have done things differently and had more time to find the proper guide and planned it more properly, maybe even from here I booked it from here, but I was kind of skeptical doing that. I was just thinking of heading to the hotel and booking it through the hotel and it did not make me feel like this was a trip of a lifetime that I had in my brains.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you why because I've been blessed to go to the Florida Keys year after year with my cousin, couple years, uh, fish on to Ganya obviously he's the captain of the ship. Coach Luis Top Dog Pereira came with me a few years back. Uncle P, the boys were. We go out reef fishing, offshore fishing again, fish and fire was a cool experience for me. That to me, siege, is bucket list fishing. And the fact that I got to do that so many times because and I'll tell you what the difference was you don't know what you're going to catch. First of all, when you're out in the ocean you can drop down ahead of a Bonita fish and hook into a massive Mako shark or kingfish or all these massive fish on just little shrimp. You just don't know what you're going to get. And you know the fight is there. You lose a lot of fish because, again, you don't know what size, what you're targeting.
Speaker 3:To me, siege it changed me a little bit. It wasn't the experience I was hoping for, but I'm just speaking for myself, because you got a lot of DMs from guys that were saying Smash is going to catch him on the hair and this and that, and it just wasn't there for me, brother. And then you know hooking into a bonefish it's amazing, but it's like catching a two, three-pound largey in early spring when you shouldn't be catching two. You know two-pound, three-pound largey because you're targeting crappy. But it to you know two-pound, three-pound largey because you're targeting crappy, but it so happens that those largies hit and it's just rip and drag and breaking your ultralight rod. And that's what it was like Siege. It just was.
Speaker 2:It was yeah, I don't know what to say Two things that I think would have been better for you. You went going on a family trip, so obviously you didn't do a lot of research Like our fishing trips. When we go on fishing trips we got it dialed in where we're going to stay, who we're with. But, like I mean, you know, you're going with your family. You wanted to go bone fishing as a perk by being there. You're going with your family. You wanted to go bone fishing as as a perk by being there. And uh, I think if you were going as, uh, if you, you, if all four of us were going we're going for a bone, we would have made it work. And I think if you were in those shallow waters, the clear water and sight fishing for them, I think that would have made your trip. But but, hey, man, you got your, you know.
Speaker 2:Got the bucket crossed off, got the old action box, yeah, and now you can just upgrade from there and you got a line wet, you know, and you ate some great food. Yep, conch fritters, the conch fritters were amazing.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's their local, the bohemian food.
Speaker 3:And I got to tell you guys the food in the Bahamas and food. And I gotta tell you guys the food in the bahamas. It is being so close to the united states siege like they're. They're miami is. You know you can get there in those the the boys at the bar were telling me they go to fort lauderdale all the time to party. Uh, it's an hour and a half on on one of those can of meringues that fly. They go like I don't know 140 knots or whatever it is, and then you can go on those cruise, those love cruise boats that take six hours to get to Miami. But the point is is that they don't even bring their food in from the States, being so close. They got, they raised their own cattle, they got all the seafood you could think of, like bohemian lobster tails and fresh sea scallops, and even the oysters.
Speaker 3:Like I, the first night I was there I dove into some bohemian oysters, which was really, really good. Baked clams I went and had baked clams you don't get that often, I love baked clams Went over to Carmine's down at the at the Atlantis Paradise, and I got into some baked clams. I mean again, the food experience in the Bahamas I would say is is top, top notch. You're always going to get a good meal.
Speaker 4:Um, I had the best burger of my life. I sent a picture.
Speaker 3:You posted it right away. That was from the sugar factory, the world famous sugar factory um locations all across the world. And uh, it was an eight ounce uh wagyu beef burger smothered in melted queso and bacon bits, loaded with jalapenos, jack cheese, mesquite mayo and tomatoes and bacon. And it was insane.
Speaker 2:I'll repost it again. And in the amount of cheese that's dripping, I wish I saw a video of you actually consuming this burger. I have it. How could you not get messy? And I love it. I love messy food. I love chicken wings the saucier the better. But for our listeners to paint a picture, it looks like the burger is a volcano and it's erupting. Cheese Cheese is just blasting over the bun, dripping over everything, dripping over the fries. And I do have to. I've been to the Bahamas as well. We should be sponsored by Bahamas right now. It's top notch. You pay for it, but it's top notch and the food is so good. And, yeah, I'm glad you had a great trip. Man, don't let the fishing experience bring you down. It was more of a family trip and you popped, I popped.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was good, man. The weather was great. We're lucky. You had some good weather too. Yes, really good, and it's all about the stories and the memory siege. So you know what I think you're right the next time I go, I'm going on TV all the time, man. I know it exists, I know it exists in my brains. I know I'm going to get to experience that Again. I got to remember that people are, you know, the information that they give you. They're, you know, looking out for their team. They're looking out for their job and their businesses. And I get it. And you know she basically broke my heart. But I can't have all this hatred because, at the end of the day, I had a really, really great family trip.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's awesome, that's great, but we're going to take a short break. Siege, we got some other stuff happening on the other side of this break. Big winner, winner, winner. Chicken dinner we're going to talk about Mr Traeger, winner from all the way from Winnipeg, winnipeg, manitoba.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm going to do a call out right now. I know we're going to get into the winner. I'm calling out Ontario residents Right now. I'm calling you all out, all of our listeners, because everyone that wins our dress is always Alberta and I have nothing. Listen, I love you Albertans, I love you all BC, I love you all, but Ontario, what's up? You know all of our prizes.
Speaker 3:What's going on, man? The shipping costs are going through the roof.
Speaker 2:No, we love the love for everyone. We'll get into where the listeners from are the big winner. But Ontario, you've got to step up your game. That's what I'm saying. Step it up.
Speaker 3:Let's go. We'll be right back after this short message.
Speaker 6:How did a small town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? I'm your host, steve Nitzwicky, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the Outdoor Journal Radio Network's newest podcast, diaries of a Lodge Owner. But this podcast will be more than that. Every week on Diaries of a Lodge Owner, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people, share their stories of our trials, tribulations and inspirations, learn and have plenty of laughs along the way.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile we're sitting there bobbing along trying to figure out how to catch a bass and we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing a fishing show.
Speaker 6:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more fishing than it was punching.
Speaker 1:You so confidently.
Speaker 6:You said hey, pat, have you ever eaten a drum? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast that's right. Every Thursday, ange and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know, there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 3:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.
Speaker 6:From athletes To scientists.
Speaker 3:To chefs Marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 1:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3:We are back, siege, we're back and you know I was just thinking about what you were saying about. You know, people from Ontario got to step it up. Here's the thing. It's pretty cool, you got to admit. It's pretty cool that we have these listeners from all over not only the province but all over Canada and even the United States. It's pretty cool that we had these people enter in for this special draw. We gave away. It was a smoker, it was a pellet, electric pellet smoker from Traeger and man Siege. It was so overwhelming that we actually decided to keep it running for another month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how many entries totaled. Like ballpark, do you think we had?
Speaker 3:on that. We're in the thousands, Like. I can't give you a specific number, but I'll put it to you this way when Dean Taylor, producer Dino, they were out filming Fish in Canada with the boys Viola and Mr Pete Bowman Bullrod, they were going out to the Northwest Territories the day after we launched the Traeger giveaway on the Fishing Canada website and Dino said he posted it that we had 1600 entries that morning he said. The next morning he woke up they were packing to leave. We were over 3000. This is less than 24 hours, so you can imagine two months and you noticed our Instagram was also popping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is popping and yeah, you never know what you're going to get. On these podcasts and the whole network, there's always giveaways and listen in for the bonus codes and always enter on the Fishing Canada website or, I believe, our next one. While we'll get into that, that'll be Instagram only, but I want to congratulate right now, mr. I'm going to butcher his name, by the way, butcher it, butcher it. His first name is Brian. I got that covered, man, I can tell Brian Now we got Zagazuski, zagazuski, zagazuski. Yeah, so that's quite the name. It sounds like it's hard to fabricate it, but the spell, his last name is Z-A-G-O-Z-E-W-S-K-I. So he is. I believe you said it was Alberta.
Speaker 3:Winnipeg Yep. From Winnipeg Alberta.
Speaker 2:Go.
Speaker 1:Jets.
Speaker 3:Go Jets, go Blue Bombers. And here's the thing to win something like this Siege, you know, fish in Canada is always giving away unbelievable stuff from Garmin units to you know. Just go on the page, check out their contests Like it's incredible. But for us, as the Eating Wild podcast, I think this was the biggest giveaway we were able to do and, um, you know, it was pretty cool knowing that we had thousands and thousands of entries. So, um, you know we're, we were pumped up to give that away and we extended it another month. But we move on, siege, we yes.
Speaker 3:And we got some other stuff that we're going to do Instagram only. I'd like to take this second to talk to you about our fillet knives, inventory count, siege, we are down to our final. I'm going to say six Ecos and six of the Angler Pros and we just sold three more today. And again, folks listening, listen, we're not knife salesmen. This is not anything that we're here to try to sell you. We're just trying to get you the best tool in your hand for cleaning some fish. Hookset actually, I talked to Hookset about this and he mentioned to me he's like Tone, he goes.
Speaker 3:I heard the podcast, you and Siege, when you guys dropped the fillet knife and he goes, man, you were talking about it and you were talking about cleaning other parts of not only fish. What else does it do? And he goes. You lost me there. You lost. You know. See, hook's head will always give you his, his honest opinion when it comes to um. You know, listening and talking about the podcast and I'm going to take this time to talk about that because I did clean different types of meat with the Angler Pro.
Speaker 3:I actually cleaned strip loins. Craig cleaned strip loins with it. Uh, we cleaned, uh, we butchered chickens with it Whole birds size barbecue. So you're looking at two and a half pounders. This thing went through siege like butter. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:And here's the other thing too, about cleaning other parts of game or beef or whatever. It stayed sharp. It stayed razor, razor sharp and it just so happens that you know, it's one of the biggest tools in my not only my tackle box siege but in my kitchen right now. Like, if I'm going to clean chickens, I'm pulling that knife out because the smaller birds it's nice to use a smaller knife. Again, I'm talking angling pro here and it was cutting through the skin, not going through the bones. Again, I don't want to go through bones with this knife.
Speaker 3:We talked to Mike from Cocution. He said you know, if you're going to be getting into some hard bones, some bigger fish, use that beat up knife, get into the skin. But when you're doing your finesse cooking and your finesse cutting siege, these knives are going to perform and to answer. You know, not only it wasn't a question, it was just more of a comment from Hookset. Yeah, you can definitely clean different animals with this. You can. If you're at the hunt camp, you pop your first doe or buck, whatever it is, use this knife, use it, foresse, go through and, and, and uh, you'll see siege that this, these knives, are the real deal yeah, I love them, man, I'm a big fan of them.
Speaker 2:I like them both. Uh, I'm leaning towards uh. For myself, I like the echo fillet um, that's that. That's my preference. Now it's obviously a little bit more pricey, but you can't go wrong with it either. And they got the Eating Wild logo. And then everyone that purchased them from us. I'm shocked because we I'm not shocked, but it's just the fact that we appreciate the support, and if it wasn't for all you guys I know this is sounding cliche we wouldn't be here. But yeah, thank you so much to everyone that purchased one. And then, if you're thinking about purchasing one as well, slide into the DMs.
Speaker 2:I feel bad to our listeners that don't have Instagram. You can always send us an email as well at theeatingwildpodcast at gmailcom If you don't have Instagram, because I find that we push people to Instagram a little too much and there's not a lot of people that use it, or there is a lot of people that use it, but there is a lot of people that still don't. So feel free to send us an email and we'll let you know the quantities of how much we have left, and then stay tuned. Stay tuned for more exciting stuff from Cucushion. I know we talked to Mike on the podcast. There's going to be a down the road a hunting knife that I'm really excited about.
Speaker 3:We're working on that. We got to get the boys involved on that one.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So you know we always have some good ideas and that's how things are made thing. I will like to also add um, just some, just some. Housekeeping. Siege fish in canada launched a couple videos. Um, oh, beautiful videos, beautiful videos. We, I gotta say something. I gotta say something. I've lost almost 25 pounds since we shot that. I'm pretty happy about that, I'm gonna be honest, because I watched it and was like jesus. Is that what I look like? Maybe camera does put on some actual pounce.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm going to defend you. I'm your agent as well. I'm always your agent. Antonio, everyone knows it was the wintertime man. You're a bear.
Speaker 3:I was a bear, I was going into hibernation, but when it's swimsuit season.
Speaker 2:Antonio just gets chiseled like Chris from the ugly pike man, he's ripped man.
Speaker 3:Chris is another animal. I got to find out what he eats, man, because I'll tell you, maybe I just got to train harder like Frank, but I'll tell you, man. We launched Dino again from Fishing Canada and Volva came over to the shop, the Eating Wild headquarters, Gourmet Craft and Catering, and they wanted to film a venison burger, which I did venison sliders, and it was the last of. It actually was the last of the ground that I had from the deer that I harvested my buck with when I was there with Lou and Gags Johnny I call him Johnny the first first um deer that I've ever popped in my life and that was the last of the mints that I had.
Speaker 3:And, uh, it was perfect timing because dino came and he's like you know, I really want to do a nice clean video of a venison burger slider because I feel like this is something that people don't do properly and that you watch all these different videos on youtube and it's just some look great and interesting but a lot of it is just butchered up and you know. So I did something, I did something very classic, but, you know, with the smash flare, and they put it up on the fishing Canada website. You can check it out, and they just dropped the second video of the on Lake Ontario salmon that I did with Chef Craig. Everyone's heard Chef Craig on this show and to me, CJ, it was our first time doing Lake Ontario salmon and he paired it with a beautiful risotto from the mushrooms that we got given to us from the boys from Art Salads at Bondi Produce.
Speaker 3:We had porcini, we had oyster, king oyster, you know all these different mushrooms. It was insane and that video has just been released on the Fish and Canada website. So check out that video and I'm going to tell you it was really fun to film those. But the most exciting part is that we're getting thousands of views on YouTube, which is pretty crazy. I'm not surprised.
Speaker 2:I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised, and the reason I'm not surprised is because, to our listeners that haven't seen Antonio cook, or the way he explains it for guys and girls that don't cook too much, like myself, I consume, but I don't manufacture the product. Antonio really dumbs it down but at the same time he uses simple sliders. Everyone can relate to sliders. He doesn't come in with some of this artsy-fartsy $100 meal and it looks like you got acorn on your plate. You know what I mean. So everyone can relate to venison sliders or Ontario salmon or whatever it was it's. You really are relatable and don't get discouraged, because he really walks you through it, and I will send the link to both of them on the Instagram account.
Speaker 3:Thanks, buddy. Yeah, you know what. Here's the thing, siege, when you're in the kitchen and I always stress this man, and again, I'm not the best. I will not say that I'm the best chef or I'm the best um at this, and I'm that. Here's the thing I love what I do, I'm passionate, I love what I do.
Speaker 3:Every recipe that I create comes from my head and my heart, and and the thing that I want people to know that, when they see me doing these things on camera or they hear me talking about it on the microphone, is that it's a blank canvas man, and I always say paint the picture, paint your perfect picture and have fun with it. See, cooking is fun, Whether you fuck things up or you or sorry, I just screw things up or you overcook something. Listen, I overcook stuff all the bloody time. I'm a professional, it's what I do for a living. Um, we make mistakes, but then you learn from it and then you, you regroup. So when you're watching these videos, recreating them is is awesome, but don't be shy to throw in your own little pop, you know yeah, a little salt bay on it.
Speaker 3:Do whatever you want, put your own flair on it. You don't like a certain spice or you don't like a certain thing that I'm doing, change it up. But you know, take it for what it is and use it as a base, Use it as a color on your paintbrush. You know, figure it out and have fun with it, because that's all we're here to do. Siege, we're just here to have fun and take people for the ride of what we do and what my profession is, what you do, what we do together, me and us and the Foreskins, and have fun with it, and that's all we're here to do folks and send us your pictures.
Speaker 2:If you recreate any Antonio's dish, send us your pictures and, at the same time, if there's a dish that you're looking you would like to see Antonio, do send it in because, yeah, because you're our listeners and and we'd love the feedback if there's something that anyone really wants Antonio to get his hands on, and I'll shoot it over to him and next thing you know, we'll pop it on YouTube we're gonna pop it on YouTube and listen.
Speaker 3:We're we're gonna do a giveaway siege before we end this episode. We gotta talk about it. We got we're gonna be doing an Instagram only Siege Before we end this episode. We got to talk about it. We got to. We're going to be doing an Instagram only, instagram only. And because we're on the topic of food and we're talking fillet knives, we're talking this and that. I know you got something up your sleeve, mister.
Speaker 2:I don't know what we're doing for this giveaway. To be honest with you, I was getting the question of the week all right. To be honest with you, I was getting the question of the week all right. You tell us what. I'll roll it on Instagram, but this is organic, as can be. What is our giveaway?
Speaker 3:Antonio, we talked well listen, we did talk about it. You're not remembering the conversation Siege, because we were saying after the Traeger, we got to give away something that we've had, we've banked, We've had this thing in our hands for ages. A new car.
Speaker 4:A new car.
Speaker 3:No, we have a beautiful. We have a beautiful eight and a half inch chef's knife, handmade from Kakushkin, who was our buddy, mike, who is also our teammate when it comes to our fillet knife and siege. I think we got to throw in, we have to throw in the eco. We got to do it, we got to give away, we got to give away this eco knife because we gave away. Remember, we ran a contest, a short contest.
Speaker 2:I lost my mind.
Speaker 3:I was like who's going to make the best schnitzel sandwich? And next thing, you know, your DMs are popping, popping and we had a beautiful, a beautiful sandwich that was was dropped on the on the instagram and we threw I I thank you for the patience, by the way, because we're both away on trips, yes, but we did end up getting that knife in that, that winner's hands and, um, I'll be honest, I I felt like oprah then and I feel like oprah now. I think we got to throw in the eco model. We got to get that the higher end model of the uh, eating wild filet knives and I feel like Oprah now. I think we got to throw in the eco model. We got to get the higher end model of the eating wild filet knives, and I'd like to pair that with an eight and a half inch Japanese knife made by Mike from Cucution, and that's what I need you to get on the Instagram. You don't have to do it today, siege, brian just won the bloody smoker.
Speaker 3:Let's let this marinate for a few days, but we'll let people know when this I'm sure people are going to know when we drop this giveaway and we're going to run it for a bit and I'm excited. I'm excited for people to get these knives in their hands because I just you know the way I am, siege, I got pumped up when it comes to talking food and talking anything kitchen related. So I think it's going to be a great giveaway and, again, mike has been doing a lot of work for us. Huge shout out to him, man.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, he's a busy guy.
Speaker 3:He's got some things going on, family things happening with him right now and the fact that he still took the time to join us a few weeks ago on the podcast was great.
Speaker 2:And he delivered with those knives and we can't wait to see the, the hunting knife you heard it here first folks instagram giveaway for two kakushin knives, with one eating wild signature echo filet, and, uh, it'll be posted after this podcast, so it will be instagram only, like antonio said. So your odds kind of go up, right, because there's, there's, it's not going to be as much, so make sure you jump on that, and we can't wait to put that out there in the lucky winter, maybe from Ontario.
Speaker 3:Maybe from Ontario. Are we giving away? Is this Instagram One Siege? Is this nationwide? What's happening?
Speaker 2:You know what? I'm opening it to everyone, even if you, even if you're from the States, go ahead, we'll. We'll bring it to, we'll ship it. Man, I got connections in the shipping world, so do you. And you know, if you have an address and you win it, we'll ship it to you.
Speaker 3:That's music to my ears, brother. Well, we got a question happening.
Speaker 2:Question of the day we got a question of the day and let me see this is from a female listener. We love the females listeners. This is from Brenda Strickland and she's from Stony Creek. Well, there we go. That's Ontario, right there you go. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:She says, hi, fellas, she goes. Let me first tell you I am a new listener to your podcast and I'm literally hooked. New listener Tone. We love the new listeners, right, we love our OG listeners? We do. But yeah, thank you so much. She's a new listener. She says fishing, hunting and cooking. You really can't go wrong. Good point. My question is I harvest fish that are traditionally, when I consume, consume them. I only consume the fillets only. Am I missing out on not consuming the entire fish? I see some dishes on social media with entire fish cooked, including the head, and I have to admit it looks delicious. Thanks, brenda, ps. Oh, you'll love this part. Here we go go. Ps, keep popping. Lol. So she must have went back. She obviously didn't just listen to one of her podcasts, if she knows the popping.
Speaker 3:So thank you so much. We always said new shirts coming out soon. Pop and cook, yeah, no doubt. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2:Stay tuned for yeah, definitely off topic. I'll let Antonio answer that question momentarily. We will be having some merchandise coming soon, uh, new merch and all that people been asking a lot about merch and and yeah, we will have new merch. So go ahead, antonio, you answer this, uh, from this lovely lady brenda I'd like to say thank you, brenda, for taking the opportunity to uh reach out to us and, uh, with a beautiful question, because this is a great question and my God and I'm excited to answer it.
Speaker 3:So here we go, here we go. One thing, one important thing Siege is type of fish. Okay, and the reason why I say that is because there is a lot of meat. Actually, one of the biggest kept, best kept secrets, which is not even a secret anymore, really, you see it all the time meat, actually one of the biggest kept, best kept secrets, which is not even a secret anymore, really, you see it all the time, are the cheeks you know you get those big walnuts you pull those cheeks out.
Speaker 3:There's scallops freshwater scallops, are you nuts? So? So, brenda, you know if you're going walter fishing and you want to, you know you want to utilize more of the fish instead of the fillets. Pull those cheekbones out. There's, there's videos on YouTube on how to do it. The first time I've actually seen it, siege was gags years and years ago when we caught Walters, and he's pulling the cheekbones out, and not cheekbones, just a cheek meat, and those there were like little scallops. And I think, siege, that's that's actually something that I would like to do on camera for people. So I'm going to reach out to Dean Taylor. Obviously, dino's listening to this, he's the producer of the show. Dino, let's get that camera rolling and let's get some Walters in the boat and do some Walter cheeks, because I'm telling you, siege, they're literally.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you've had them, if your old man Johnson has prepared you before, and my dad actually, when I was a kid on Lake Erie we got Walters and he was telling me about the cheeks. But I thought my dad he's always using me as a guinea pig, so I thought he was like kind of hazing me. He was telling me about these cheeks and he just said they tasted like so good man, he wasn't kidding and I think a lot of people don't know that. So I think that would be a great, a great idea for you to do in the future.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, I'd love. I'd love to do that. But one thing I would say when you're cooking a fish whole, can you eat the heads? Of course you can. I think smaller fish.
Speaker 3:So, for instance, and and you know, the Dan and and Lou would would definitely touch on this, because the Portuguese, my, my mother, my stepmother, who loves doing the barbecue sardines whole, it's one of those things. You eat it with cornbread. Lou does it all the time Lou brings up those whole. We've done it in Port Perry, we've done it at the hunt camp and you cook those sardines whole and you cook the hell out of them and a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of cornbread and you can literally consume it whole. The bones just literally snap. You know you pull the spine right out. That's obviously you don't want to consume that. But the bones are small enough in the head where it's just crunchy, it goes down nice.
Speaker 3:A lot of people too, siege, love frying their pan fish whole, because if you do cook fish at a certain high heat with oil, it actually softens the bones up where you can actually consume it. It's not dangerous, preferably. I don't like doing it, but I have seen people do bluegill whole. I've seen them do perch whole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen them do crappy perch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen him do crappy. We there, taro murata, who are our great buddy taro. He brought some crappy into a, a restaurant, which I'm not going to say this is legal to do these days. He must have known the people. You can't just bring in fish from the store here in ontario but from the lake and say, here, cooked this for me. But obviously he knew the people there and he made a little clip of it and they steamed the fish whole. I don don't know if you've seen it, I did see it and we asked him too.
Speaker 2:We asked him what's your favorite way to have crappy and he said steamed hands down. And I was shocked because I always know the traditional way that we do it with crappy tacos. But to hear that people steam the fish, that's very interesting. The one question I had for you with the the fish, so with the fillets, obviously you can either uh, pan fry or deep fry them the traditional way, but with a whole fish, with the head and everything you kind of have to, I think if it's a bigger fish you'd bake it right, would that be the the norm?
Speaker 3:yeah, you can bake it. Um, there's, there's different ways of doing a seed. You could do it on the barbecue as well, again, wrapping it in foil and covering it and letting it go. Here's what I would say to Brenda. If you do want to utilize a whole fish, I would still pull your fillets. I would still pull your fillets and enjoy that on a separate occasion. What you want to do is you want to save. Obviously, you want to gut the fish. You don't want to keep the guts and stuff, but save the head, save the tail, save everything, and make yourself a fish stock. Okay, use the head, use the bones, use the skin, because that's where all the omegas are, that's where all the nutrients are.
Speaker 3:On fish, if you are into your health, and when you boil that out and I'm not talking so it's different than when you're doing beef bones, chicken bones you're making a chicken stock, beef stock, and I learned this. I learned this especially and I learned it with lobster and shrimp. When you're making those lobster broths to make lobster bisque, or you're making the shrimp broth to make a shrimp bisque, or even just a seafood stock in general, you only need two hours. You only need two hours because when you're cooking bones from an animal okay, siege, huge tip here In order for you to pull out all those, all the bone marrow and all the flavor out of those bones. They're quite big, you know, cow like, the bones are huge. I ordered. We used to get beef bones for free. We don't get them anymore. You got to pay for it. But you know, when you're, when you, when you're cooking out these beef bones, it's overnight, like we do. These stocks sometimes see each that go overnight and that ensures that we're pulling all the marrow and all the flavor out of these bones. But you got to think about it. A fish bones, they're so tiny, they're so thin, you don't need to like. Two hours on a simmer is all you really need. Put it with, uh, we call it the holy trinity. You got celery, carrots and onion, a fresh bay leaf. Roast your bones first, if you want, if not, throw them right into the water, bring them to a boil, then bring them down to a simmer, add a little bit of salt. Um, I'm telling you right now, siege, you can make at least out of one, say, I don't know, eight to ten pound salmon. You could probably make a good six, seven liters of stock and I'm going to tell you this right now that stock can go very, very far.
Speaker 3:You want to have soups. You want to make a chowder, clam chowder. You want to do Boston or New England, whatever clam chowder. You want to do the right, the red. You want to make a risotto. You want to do a seafood risotto. You want to make a risotto. You want to do a seafood risotto. You want to make a seafood pescatori tomato sauce. You got a homemade, healthy broth, no msg, low sodium. You're going to make it yourself and I'm telling you for me, brenda, that's the way you want to utilize a whole fish that's a great question.
Speaker 2:It is a great question. I thought about it myself when I watch. Uh, these shows like alone and all that stuff. When they're harvesting their fish, they just cut the head off and they'll boil down the head because it has the most calories, but then the rest they kind of just stuff it. Like you said, they gut it and then they'll stuff it with, like you know, any kind of like herbs or whatever. You see a lot of people stuff it with like lemon and then they put it on the. But yeah, that's a great question and yeah, keep those questions like that coming in. And if I haven't read your question yet, don't worry, there's no stupid question and we'll eventually get to it. We're getting so many. But thanks again, brenda, and we will keep popping.
Speaker 3:We're popping, we're popping and we're going to pop out of here Siege. Yes, let's pop out. We had a great episode today, man, and I'm excited for next week. We got again. We're going to be talking hunting, prep for hunting. Yes, we're going to hear what's going on up north at the camps. Hopefully we got a here and uh, we're gonna.
Speaker 2:we're gonna talk popping popping and and we get a lot of requests from a certain the best fishermen in the mma we got a lot of so we always said we're always going to do checking with the champ.
Speaker 2:We have not forgot that segment. We're just he is busy, he's busy, the champ's popping on the water and popping in the octagon we have. If anyone saw the news recently, he's part of the Eating Wild team and we're going to have him in studio soon to talk more about that whole thing and catching up with the champ and yeah, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 3:He is the best fisherman in MMA and he might even be one of the best fishermen that I know. This guy popped two skis on the Niagara Bar last night. Like he texted us. He's like hey, guy's just been out for 40 minutes Next thing you know he's texting I think he was texting you pictures of his skis.
Speaker 2:He's the hardest. He went from a shore ninja assassin to now a boater and he is I think a lot has to do with his age, he's got the time and he goes out for two hours and then he goes to train in the MMA. So our listeners, we've had a lot of questions about him and he is a very interesting fella and we fella I sound like my grandpa.
Speaker 2:You sound like old man, johnson, yeah he's an interesting fella, that young chap, holy Christ. But yeah, yeah. So anyways, I'm his agent now too. I'm not only Antonio Malecka's agent, I am Cody Kovanchak's agent. I'm just joking. Let's wrap this up, man, let's wrap it up, I can.
Speaker 3:Let's wrap it up I can't stop. Oh, buddy. Well, listen man. It was great sitting down with you. This is Smash Muleka for Showtime Johnson, catch us next week, coach, start that tune. We're out of here. Fish on. Enjoy the rest of your week, folks, ciao.
Speaker 1:Get the net, We'll be pulling our fish and we'll be serving them their favorite dish. All the feeling screaming reels on fishing fire.