Untamed Pursuits
Embark on a wild adventure like never before with the groundbreaking podcast, "Untamed Pursuits."
Join the intrepid duo of renowned author and outdoor enthusiast, Ridr Knowlton, alongside the seasoned professional fishing guide, Jamie Pistilli, as they traverse the globe in pursuit of the world's most exciting fishing and hunting destinations, and the fascinating creatures that live there. From the lush rainforests of the Amazon to the icy depths of the Arctic Circle, each episode promises heart-pounding encounters, captivating tales, and invaluable insights into the natural world.
With Ridr's profound storytelling and Jamie's unparalleled expertise, prepare to be transported to the front lines of adventure, where every roar, splash, and rustle ignites the senses and leaves listeners on the edge of their seats. "Untamed Pursuits" isn't just a podcast—it's an adrenaline-fueled odyssey that will redefine your perception of nature and leave you craving more. Buckle up for the ride of a lifetime!
Untamed Pursuits
Episode 5: Dr Sean Landsman
How does the thrill of catching a gar compare to the wonder of tracking a muskie's movements in the wild? Join Jamie Pistilli and Ryder Knowlton as they share their latest angling adventures, uncovering surprising walleye behaviors and highlighting the excitement of reeling in smallmouth bass. We then dive into an enlightening conversation with Professor Sean Lansman from Carleton University, who discusses his pioneering muskie tagging project on the Rideau River and a joint conservation effort focused on muskies and sturgeon in the Petawawa River. Together, we tackle the pressing issue of hydroelectric dam developments and their potential impact on these vital fish species.
Ever wondered how a childhood passion for fishing can evolve into a dedicated career in fishery science? Sean Lansman takes us through his inspiring journey from Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, to his current role as a fisheries researcher and professor. Hear how his academic path, shaped by an undergraduate degree in integrative biology, a master’s project on musky catch and release, and a PhD focusing on the effects of dams on fish movement, has fueled both his scientific and conservation efforts. Lansman's story exemplifies how a deep love for fishing can lead to impactful contributions in the realm of fishery conservation.
What are the best practices for ensuring the health and safety of fish during catch-and-release? We explore this topic in depth, sharing essential tips such as minimizing air exposure, wetting surfaces to protect the fish's slime coat, and employing techniques to shorten handling time. Sean Lansman provides expert advice on safely handling and tagging large fish like muskies, using tools like foam-lined holding troughs and chemical anesthesia.
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Speaker 3:Welcome to this week's episode of Untamed Pursuits on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast. I'm your co-host, jamie Pistilli, here with my trusty sidekick, ryder Knowlton, down in beautiful Carolinas. Ryder, how are you today, jamie, I'm doing great, I'm ready to go smallmouth fishing. We got a few more weeks for that, but muskie just opened. Garb been biting Walleye. Have been on fire this year. Really.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's been great and they're acting weird again. But I'm not going to give out my actually I can give out my tips, because by the time this airs it'll be last week's news. So fish are like in two to four feet of water. I so fish are like in two to four feet of water. I've been catching walleyes super shallow in the Ottawa, which is strange. But little jerkbaits and stuff rip them around the weeds and it's like I'm pike fishing. I was pike fishing and then I realized that walleyes are stacked up in the shallows right around the weeds.
Speaker 4:How cool is that? Oh, that's very cool. Now, when does the gar kick in? Because I know you've been, you've been promoting some, some trips, even given away a couple of trips I've been seeing and when does? When does the kind of the hot time for that kick in?
Speaker 3:That's been. Now too, it's been. It's been a great year. I've already voted several 50 inch fish and there's more to be had. I saw the fish that I've seen in the last three years. It is. I need somebody with a good camera lens to be there when she does hit the net, but very shy and very large.
Speaker 4:It's so cool. You know we down here in the Southeastern US you know we had kind of our trophy season, if you will, for smallies is really March, maybe April, mostly March, and then, you know, as you get into the summer you get more of the topwater action, some terrestrials. You still can catch some really nice fish, not necessarily targeting the giants that you might in the spring. But you know your numbers go way up and you can have some big number days, especially when you're throwing flies up top, super fun. And I know I've got some groups put together for July and August, you know, as we kind of get into those months. But I've been seeing your promotion picks man for up north and I know you're getting into the exciting time of year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just about to head out flying up north doing a little walleye fishing in northern Quebec, some big pike too. So I'll be bringing up some musky baits and slaying some walleyes. So they'll be bringing up the fish, crust seasoning and a little campfire walleye action. So cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know, this week we got a. We got a great guest. You know, part of our show is we talk conservation and we talk to those who love fishing and really understand fishing. Well, I can't think of a greater guest to talk about conservation and understanding fish movements and everything fish. Please help me. Welcome Sean Lansman. He's a professor at Carleton University and he's got a million stories and probably five million banks of knowledge. So welcome to the show, sean. Thanks guys, happy to be here. So, sean, you're quite known for your Rideau River muskie tagging project and over the last little while you guys have been working up on the Padua system for both muskies and sturgeon. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, sure, for both muskies and sturgeon. Do you want?
Speaker 5:to tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, sure. So about two years ago we conceived a project, kind of a dual, as you said, muskie-sturgeon project on the Petawawa River, which, for those that don't know the Petawawa it's a world-class paddling destination, primarily canoeing. It's whitewater canoeing, I mean, there's a bit of flat water too, but the draw for people is the whitewater. There's some pretty serious category four or five rapids within the system, including the section that we're working in. The section that we're working in, it's one of the largest undammed rivers in eastern Ontario. It's one of the Ottawa River's largest tributaries.
Speaker 5:Back in the early 2010s, though, you know, because hydroelectric companies are always looking for the next spot to put a hydroelectric dam in, given all the energy needs that we have, they proposed to develop a hydro dam on the lower section of the Petawawa River. It would have been a run-of-river dam. So there's two kinds of dams. There's those dams that create impoundments so they hold water back, and then they've got gates and they release the water when it's needed. Then there's other kinds that are run of river and they don't. They're not supposed to hold back a lot of water. Essentially, whatever's in the river at that time flows through the turbines to create the electricity, and so there's no storing water to use at, you know, say, peak periods, for example, like you would with a more classic impoundment type hydro dam. Nevertheless, I mean, there's tons of pushback right.
Speaker 5:This is again one of the most famous paddling rivers in North America, certainly within Canada and certainly within Ontario, and there's a lot of great places to canoe and kayak in Ontario. So there's a lot of public outcry and it certainly wasn't just, you know, canoeists and kayakers that voiced their concern. It was a lot of environmental groups, including First Nations communities up in that area, the Algonquins of Ontario, in particular. There was a lot of concern over what would happen to the system if this dam was installed. And one of the concerns, two of the concerns, related to sturgeon and muskie Lake.
Speaker 5:Sturgeon, in this part of Ontario, are threatened and there's very strict regulations for fishing for them In fact, you really can't fish for them, I believe, unless you're indigenous and there's active efforts to try and bring back their populations in this part of Ontario. So they're seen as kind of an iconic fish species and one, you know, very worthy of protection, again very, very important to the Algonquins of Ontario, and so there's a lot of concern about what was going to happen to the population of sturgeon in this river, which are known to frequent the lower sections of the Petawawa. There's also concern about the muskie fishery in the Petawawa, and muskies are known to be, you know, throughout a good portion of the system, both the lower section of the river and then as well as the section into Algonquin Park, maybe not up to the headwaters, but a good section of it, in particular the section of river that a lot of people canoe through and so use a lot, and so that project ultimately was shut down.
Speaker 5:The project proponents said, okay, we're gonna back out of this, at least in part, due to that public outcry. There's also some issues, I think, with sighting. There's an armed forces base very close to where the original site was going to be and so there was some. I think there was some issues with the physical location of this facility as it related to the CFB Petawawa, the armed forces base. But we decided to undertake a project to try and understand a bit more about the population of both muskies and sturgeon in the river.
Speaker 5:There's really no research that's been done on these populations within the river at all populations, uh, within within the river at all, other than to know that you know other you know than than knowing they're there. We don't really know, like, where are they moving within the river? What habitats and sections of the river are they using at certain times of the year? What's the genetic structure? So are the sturgeons significantly different from the sturgeon in Ottawa, um, or is there a lot, of a lot of overlap there?
Speaker 5:Are the muskies genetically different from fish in the Ottawa River or different from other nearby populations? Because there are some populations of muskies nearby. So we're really trying to establish kind of baseline information so that if there were potential projects again slated for the hydro projects slated for the river in the future, at least people would be able to come to the table with a set of knowledge about these two fish species in the river system. So, yeah, we started this field work last year and it's it's just been nothing short of amazing. I could I could share lots of stories about it, sean.
Speaker 4:I mean hearing you talk about all this. I've got like a million questions I could ask and they're all you know. They're all so many different related topics on this whole fascinating thing. Fascinating thing. Take us back and then I do want to dive into literally specific questions on how you might even approach your research and so forth. But take us back, tell us about what got you on this path, because what I'm hearing is I'm hearing comments about environmental impact and conservation. I'm hearing, you know, comments about the biology of the river and the species in the river, and then public policy, and then, at the end of the day, you're also a fisherman. You know what I mean and, of course, everyone you know you realize that it's all related and it's all connected. But, like, what was your path that got you to where you are both maybe in studies at university as well as just your interests of a career, and kind of, walk us through what took you down this path where you're suddenly involved in so many different related elements of this.
Speaker 5:Sure, yeah, we'll hit the rewind button. Yeah, I'm originally from Chicago. Actually, I was born in Chicago, grew up two and a half hours south Urbana-Champaign. For those that might know, that's where the University of Illinois is and two fisheries researchers from University of Illinois and the Illinois Natural History Survey were members of the club and would come and give talks to the fishing club, actually much like I do now to other fishing clubs here. Kind of interesting how that works.
Speaker 5:But my, yeah, my dad, he's like, hey, like, hey, my son, you know he's a good father, right, he goes, my son loves fishing and he loves science. Like, is there any way we might be able to get him connected with you guys and, you know, introduce him to fishery science? And I mean, to make a really long story short, that one interaction you know that my father ended up having at one meeting. He, you know, he sort of opened the door with these researchers who I'm still friends with, who I consider to be mentors to doing fisheries research. So they, they got me all these you know cool opportunities to to assist with fieldwork.
Speaker 5:They introduced me to, you know, the notion that you can play with fish and get and get paid to do it. You know you can. You can play with fish and get paid to do it. You know you can play with them, you can protect them. You can go fishing and get paid to fish as well. So it was sort of like, you know, just a dream come true and a really interesting realization for me as a young student, going, wow, like I can do this professionally as a career. Now what do I need to do to make that happen? So you know, I did my undergrad at the University of Illinois. I majored in integrative biology, which kind of takes a whole large scale.
Speaker 5:Look at biology as a topic, not just micro cellular, you know, not just the micro level, but also, you know, larger larger scale things more, ecology, that sort of thing, um, I then came to Carleton, where I'm now working, um, and teaching and doing research, um, to do my master's. Uh, so we did. Some of you you know musky nuts might, might know the, the, the name project, noble beast. So that was a catch and release project and study that was published in 2011 that I did for my master's. And then after that, I ended up going to little Prince Edward Island, canada's smallest province, home of Anne of Green Gables beautiful sand beaches, wonderful seafood Just an amazing place. I did my PhD there. I actually worked, went from working with giant muskies to working with rainbow smelt. Most of them are probably around six inches long. For that research, we were looking at the impact of dams on the movement of rainbow smelt and a couple other fish species. Now, on PEI those that aren't familiar with it it's tiny. I'm not even sure it's probably. Maybe a little bit bigger than it's tiny. I'm not even sure it's probably, you know, maybe a little bit bigger than Rhode Island, maybe I'm not quite sure it's tiny. It's really, really small. There's about 140,000 people on the island itself and the river systems are very small. In fact, they're not big enough to produce any hydroelectric power. So the dams on these rivers might only be like three feet high. That, you know, in some cases are just earthen burns, basically up to some bigger ones. A big dam on Prince Edward Island would be maybe like 15 feet tall, maybe 20 feet tall maximum, and but that got me really interested in combining fish movement with tangible conservation outcomes, concrete recommendations on how to create fish ladders and other fish passage structures to promote fish movement around dams. You know we can make other recommendations about, maybe, how to manage a dam itself in terms of, like, the timing of water releases and things like that to promote, you know, fish reproductive success and kind of long-term sustainability of fish populations. So that was a really great project that was working with Ducks Unlimited Canada. And then, yeah, and then I came back to Carleton in 2019, like just before the pandemic.
Speaker 5:But I've been an angler my entire life. So my, uh, I guess my perspective and my approach to doing fishery science is always colored by my first passion, my first love, which was fishing, um which I, you know, I think I caught my first fish when I was four years old. So I've been, you know, I'm, I'm that's almost 40 years. Uh, 40 years later I'm still fishing, um and yeah. So you know, over time it's just grown into trying to combine these two passions of fishing with fishery science and the whole, you know, pursuit of academic science. How I got to this place now and got really interested in fisheries conservation Again, it really just stems from loving to fish and having that as my number one pastime.
Speaker 5:I was always the weirdo growing up surrounded by cornfields, not a lot of water, and most of the water in Illinois they're impoundments.
Speaker 5:There's rivers and there's natural rivers too, but a lot, you know, they're impoundments. There's rivers and there's natural rivers too, but a lot of it's they're impoundments and so there's just not a lot of water. To drive, you know, to the nearest, like pretty good, very, you know, I'd say to the nearest good muskie location in Illinois from my hometown is about an hour and a half Lake Shelbyville, and there's some other smaller ones nearby, but they weren't as consistent producers. But I was always the weirdo that really liked fishing. None of my friends fished. I knew of one other guy that was maybe about as obsessed with fishing as myself, and that was it, whereas I think if I grew up in Ontario or Minnesota or virtually anywhere else, I would have been, you know, surrounded by, by, you know, kids my age, that you know were were fish nuts, um, but that just wasn't the case for me. But I stuck with it, stuck with the passion and turned it into a career. So here I am, talking to you guys.
Speaker 3:So, sean, based you know from the studies that you've done um has that made you a better angler from the knowledge that you acquired?
Speaker 5:Yes, yes, and I won't say no, but I definitely find myself more confused when I'm out on the water. You know, there's certain things that we know to be true about fish and fish behavior and fish, say, sensory systems, and you know a lot of a lot of that information is is really valuable to um, to understanding how to approach. You know, catching fish Um, it certainly made me a more informed person when it comes to, like, handling fish. Um, that's definitely, you know, having some, having having done studies myself and and being steeped in the academic literature, um, you know you're reading information from different species, or you know, maybe, the species you're pursuing.
Speaker 5:You're sort of putting the piece together and I know from like a handling perspective, it's made me, I think, a better fisherman, but then there's things that we don't know from a science perspective that are.
Speaker 5:you know many people would die on that hill, so to speak, in terms of you know what they believe to be true based on experiences they've had on the water. And you know, one of the big ones for me is the impact of the moon phases and just the moon itself, like majors and minors, and moon overhead, moon underfoot, that kind of thing which, from a scientific perspective, in freshwater there's very little strong evidence. Some might argue, and I might be even one of those people, that there's really little strong evidence. Some might argue, and I might be even one of those people, that there's really no strong evidence to suggest that the moon has a really tangible impact on fish catch rates. There's some associative evidence, some correlational evidence, but even those studies come with major caveats.
Speaker 5:But if you talk to any anglers you know they they'll tell you that the importance of the moon is like it doesn't matter if you're fishing in saltwater. Or you know the Chalk River here in Ottawa, which is this tiny little river system, you can basically cast across it. Um, that it matters. Uh, whether it's, you know, full versus new moon, or you know, moon overhead, moon underfoot, majors, minors, a lot of anglers will tell you that it's super important and I have noticed in my fishing that it's hard to ignore. There are times when I look back I'm like, oh wow, yeah, I did catch that fish on a major. I mean, there's also lots of times where I catch fish and they're not on the majors minors, and some of that, I think, has to do with just the time that I'm able to allocate to fishing, especially these days with having a kid.
Speaker 4:You know. But there's a practicality though, right. I mean, like what I'm hearing you say is, at the end of the day, you're a scientist, you're also a fisherman and there's a connection there between the two. What's so interesting? Down here in the southeastern US, one of the groups that gets a lot of support and I'm really supportive of these guys is Bonefish and Tarpon Trust. You might be familiar with that group. They do a fantastic job of promoting clean water in the Everglades and understanding the dynamics of clean water and how it just flows through the entire ecosystem and affects everything the domino effect.
Speaker 4:But one of the great things is, you know, their team is led by a guy named Aaron Adams, and Aaron is a fisherman. You know he's a brilliant scientist and he's a go-to guy in the world of tarpon permit and bonefish, but he's also, at the end of the day, just a super tuned in, really skilled angler, and I think I gotta think that there's a practicality of that balance, you know, and it also. I just also think that there's a practicality of that balance, you know, and it also. I just also thinks that. I think it makes it more relatable. I think, you know, as a scientist and as a conservationist. I think your message is heard, maybe more effectively, because, at the end of the day, man, you're just a fisherman too, you know, and I think people can relate to your messaging and maybe even at a, you know, more understandable level, because you're you're at the, you're also out there trying to protect the very waters you love to fish.
Speaker 5:Yeah, totally, and I mean the one word that comes to mind a lot and it's it's a feeling that I get as someone that has an academic background but really at heart it's just a fisherman. I just feel humbled a lot.
Speaker 5:I'm humbled at the stuff that I don't know and you know I'm, I'm, I'm happy to know the things I do know and I, you know I enjoy doing podcasts like this to share that information, because I believe that I have a duty to share that information. But but at the end of the day, I definitely feel very humbled by all the stuff I don't know. And I know for me personally and I know that most of my colleagues feel the same way, especially those that themselves really do love fishing is that it's really important to listen to anglers. You know a lot of the research that we do is based on angler observation or is sometimes in response to angler concerns, like they want more information about something. And so you know we'll work together anglers and scientists to devise, you know, a study to address those things to. You know, glean something new, learn something new about a fish and its behavior and maybe how to apply that new information to a conservation issue. Or, in some cases, you know we might be testing.
Speaker 5:You know an anglers or angling group you know theory about, you know some fisheries conservation issue that might have some population level implications that might need to be addressed, whether that might be. The group that I work with right now isn't doing any forward-facing sonar work, but I know that there are other groups that are doing it. But if, say, muskies Inc and Muskies Canada came to me like they did in Muskies Canada in particular in 2008 and said, can you help us? You know, establish, you know the science on catch and release for Muskies, you know, and whether or not it works, you know, a lot has changed since the last kind of formally published piece of science in 1980. You know. So, prior to this project in 2011,.
Speaker 5:You know nothing had been published on Ketterly's muskie angling since 1980. It's a long gap and a lot had changed from, you know, 2008 to 1980. And so you know, working with anglers to address concerns like that is something that I love doing and, yeah, it's as you said it's. You know there's a practicality to being steeped in fishing while also being a scientist. I think it just makes me a more informed scientist to be really connected with the community, and I mean you know. I also know too that if you know if there's any budding fisheries researchers out there that are also are anglers listening to this program.
Speaker 5:If you have yet to go out and search for jobs, one of the first questions you may get and you are likely to get at some point in a job interview is do you fish?
Speaker 5:I got it the first job that I was hired for out of my master's, the guy that would then become my boss. He asked me he said do you fish? I said yeah, oh, yeah, I've been fishing since I was four years old and he's like great, excellent, okay, next question, but later we were talking, you know he he wanted to know that I fished and what I fished for and what my fishing background was because that's really important for me to able to connect with anglers. And if you don't have that connection with the group of people who are trusting you to help them understand more about a fishery or correctly manage it, your message may not get through, if they don't view you as being somebody they can trust. And one way you can achieve trust is to be able to kind of speak the language, so to speak. And the only way you can achieve trust is to be able to kind of speak the language, so to speak, and the only way you can do that is to you yourself be an angler.
Speaker 3:So, Sean, in terms of catch and release, what would be? I guess we have. You know, not every listener of our show is an expert, so what would ideally be the best way to properly catch and release a fish?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so when I had this conversation with the anglers, I often reference something called the Keep Fish Wet organization. It's also kind of a movement. I'm not quite sure offhand it's keepfishwetorg, it might be something like that. You can check hashtag keepfishwetorg. It might be something like that. You can check hashtag keepfishwet. This organization promotes three main principles. One is to minimize air exposure, one is to minimize contact with dry surfaces and one is to reduce overall handling time.
Speaker 5:The number one thing that we can do to stress fish out is to hold them out of the water. You know they don't breathe out of the water. There's some exceptions Lungfish can breathe out of the water and some fish can live out of water for some period of time. But you know most fish have to breathe underwater. They have to get their oxygen underwater. So if you take them out of the water, obviously they're not able to do the gas exchange. They need to get the oxygen in their system to fuel everything, and so it really becomes critical to minimize the amount of air exposure that you impose on a fish. The caveat to that is there's like 32,000 fish species out there and virtually every single one of them is going to react differently to being held out of water for, say, the same amount of time. Some will be, you know, totally resilient to it. You put them back in the water and they're like they're totally fine, their stress holes are totally fine. And others, you know, you know they might die. You know some fish you look at them funny and they keel over. Others, you know you can I mean you can do just about anything to them and they're super resilient. But minimizing air exposure is super key.
Speaker 5:The keep fish wet movement recommends 10 seconds or less. I'd say you know a good rule of thumb would be you know kind of the length of time you can hold your breath. Rule of thumb would be the length of time you can hold your breath. Minimizing contact with dry surfaces really refers to doing your best to not drop a fish onto carpet or some other dry surface maybe like the vinyl flooring that are in a lot of boats. Now If you're going to measure fish out of the water and you put them on a bump board, for example, or some other measuring device, it would be best to wet that device first. So if you've got a bump board, you can stick it in the water, soak it, put it back on, grab a cup, fill it with water, throw it on the bump board. You're just trying to minimize sloughing off the slime coat of the fish, which is the fish's first line of defense to any pathogen, you know, any disease, virus, bacteria, whatever that might get into the body. So it's a really important, you know, function has an important function for the fish. And then the other one is to reduce overall stress, and so you know that one you can do things like instead of, you know, messing around with your long nose pliers and popping a hook out. You know that's being really stubborn. You know, maybe you reach for the bolt cutters and you clip the hook just to, you know, get that fish unhooked, try, and you know, then get the hook, point out if you can. But that helps expedite handling. That helps expedite handling, you know.
Speaker 5:The other two would be this is one that I try and preach now, after I don't know years of not really doing it this way. I now put every muskie that I catch, I put it back in the water and you know if I'm going to get a release shot, I might get like one release shot or two of me just kind of holding the fish there, but once that's done, I just let the fish go. I just stand back up, take my hands off the fish and just let it do its thing. If the fish is upright it's fine. The likelihood that a fish is not going to do well if it's not upright is not very high.
Speaker 5:I mean, delayed mortality can certainly occur and in some species it might occur more than others, but chances are. If that fish has its equilibrium, it's going to be okay. But if you continue to hold on to that fish, I mean it's like you know, it's like your kidnapper has their arm around your you know your shoulder. It's just like hanging out with their, with their hand on you, for you know the entire time that you're, that you're in their possession, right, like it's just. It's such an uncomfortable experience for you and it would be a really uncomfortable experience for the fish as well. So just let them go, put them back in their environment and they'll be okay. You know what's cool though is.
Speaker 4:You know they've posted photos today, whether you're on Facebook or Instagram or and I love to see it in the you know. You know, in all the fly fishing magazines now are pictures of the fish being held in the water. It's now the cool shot to have. You know what I mean. It's definitely the photos being held in the water. It's now the cool shot to have you know what I mean. It's definitely the photos that are getting the attention, or the photos.
Speaker 4:Some are the release photo, like you're talking about, sean, but others are just, hey, man, we never pulled it out, like we got the fish, we got the hook out. And the actual you know, I hate to say it, but the posed you know, the posed trophy shot is two-thirds of that fish is in the water and, you know, maybe even sometimes the head's already gotten back in the water, and so it's cool to see just, you know, just those types of trends happening that are also, you know, supporting what you're talking about. But you know the other things I thought were so interesting. You know your Instagram. Well, what is your Instagram of folks that are interested in following you? By the way?
Speaker 5:It's at Sean Lansman. There's a caveat, though I have a very love-hate relationship with social media, so right now I'm taking a bit of an indefinite break from social media and Instagram, but I have like. My account is still active, so you can check it out. It's at Sean L.
Speaker 4:Well, you've got some great photos and two of them that caught my eye that are, you know, related to what you're talking about, you know, as it relates to safely handling fish and how to properly handle fish. I thought it was interesting how you referenced, you know, given the size of a muskie. A muskie is a big fish. A muskie is a bulky fish and there's length and girth to it. And I thought it was interesting how you talk about literally some of just looking at the anatomy of a muskie, how, holding it certain ways parts of its belly you might actually be hurting the fish.
Speaker 4:And then the other thing that I thought was so cool that is related is, as you guys are doing your work, one of the questions, you know, some of our listeners may have as well how are the scientists, how are you guys able to hold these fish while you tag them? And what I thought was very interesting is seeing your system where you're running fresh water through the gills of the fish as it's, you know, as maybe you're inserting a tag. And what it reminded me of is some of those videos you see of the great whites where they're literally now raising the great white, you know, on a platform, putting a hose in its mouth and running fresh water through the gills constantly while they're working on it. Kind of walk us through you know the anatomy of holding a big fish like a muskie, and then how you guys actually keep it healthy while you're doing your studies, and how you guys actually keep it healthy while you're doing your studies.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, you know, when you start dealing with large fish like muskie, they require a certain level of handling care that maybe you wouldn't necessarily have to get away with with a smaller fish Muskies. When we hold them, we generally don't want to hold them vertically, Um, so interesting, there's actually not a lot of of science on on this. If I recall, there might be like one study on baromundi and um and skeletal, like, uh, you know, bone, bone and spine damage and jaw, um damage from fish being held, uh, vertically out of the water. I think there might be a study on using things like boga grips and other lip grip devices on on bone fish as well, Um, and and what that can, what kind of damage that can do, um, in some cases. But uh, uh, generally speaking, we want to try and and support the fish's weight, um, as much as possible. You know, with bass and like I'm guilty of this too large mouth and small mouth, bass will just, you know, lift the fish and hold them out of water, like you know, like this and with one hand. You know my other one, my other one's waving at the camera and you know, but what you're doing is you're putting a lot of stress on the fish's mouth and then it's, and then its back is bending down like this, with gravity.
Speaker 5:When a fish is in the water, it's fully supported by, uh, by, by the buoyancy. You know that that's that's offered by by water in their own bodies. And when you take them out of the water, you know, gravity takes hold, it's pulling, it's trying to pull everything down. So imagine now if you had like a 30 or 40 pound muskie and you're holding it vertically and all of that, the internal organs and the connective tissue is wanting to, you know, to get pulled down by gravity. And so that's when, if you then hold it horizontally like this, you can prevent, you know, maybe some, some stresses on connective tissue within the body and certainly spreading out the weight of the fish so its entire body mass isn't being supported by just one spot on the jaw. Which is what happens if you hold a fish vertically like this, either holding it like a big bass by its lip, or if you're a muskie fisherman or you know, pike or some other similar species, and you slip your hand kind of under the gill, under the operculum. You know, if you just hold a fish like that, all of its weight is right on this one point where it's coming into contact with your hand. So those are, you know, those are some considerations we have to make Now with regards to handling fish for tagging.
Speaker 5:You know, we we have animal care protocols that we have to get cleared with um, with our institutions as researchers. Um, and you know, one of the best practices, um, when you're, when you're doing tagging work with fish, and when I, when I'm talking about tagging, I'm really I'm referring to like surgically implanting tags in fish or maybe sometimes externally affixing tags to the outside of a fish's body. But what we do, especially when we're doing surgeries on the fish, we put them into a holding trough. That trough is lined with foam, like a camping pad or even a yoga mat, and so it's nice and cushioned. We're running fresh lake or river water into the trough and then we might have like a separate pump that takes the used water and dumps it back out into the lake, so there's kind of a flow through system of fresh water. Sometimes, depending on the situation, we might not have that flow through and so we get fresh water. We might have a bubbler in the trough to provide extra oxygen. And you know, sometimes, depending on conditions, we might have somebody that else in the boat that's has like a little, a little cup and it's just exchanging water, doing like a little brief water change periodically as we're working on the fish.
Speaker 5:And, um, some people will use like a chemical anesthesia to to work with the fish, um, uh, to fully anesthetize them.
Speaker 5:Um, there can be some complications with using anesthesia, as there is when, if we were to undergo surgery, it's probably one of the more riskier elements of having surgery is just the anesthesia part.
Speaker 5:And so lately what our research group here at Carleton has moved to and a lot of other people are going this direction as well is electroimmobilizing the fish.
Speaker 5:So if anyone has muscle aches, they might use something called a TENS unit.
Speaker 5:If you've got aches on your shoulder, you put these little pads on your shoulder and you turn on a device and it sends little electrical impulses to your muscles and it's supposed to loosen those up. You can use the same system on fish. You can put these little pads on the fish or you can even hook the electrodes up to gloves that have a little bit of metal fibers running through the gloves and you can touch the fish and it's immobilized. The major benefit of that is when the surgery is done and you take your hands off the fish, the fish is ready to go and you put them in the water and they're gone. So the recovery rate is almost immediate. But yeah, we do have the. We also have, you know, water flowing through the mouth of the fish. So we'll put like a little tube in the mouth of the fish and again, that's that fresh water that gets pumped from the lake or the river like directly into the fish's mouth and it passes over the fish's gills constantly.
Speaker 3:I think we need to contact Dr Ho to see maybe if they want to sponsor the show.
Speaker 9:What brings people together more than fishing and hunting?
Speaker 7:How about food?
Speaker 9:I'm Chef Antonio Malacca and I have spent years catering to the stars. Now, on Outdoor Journal Radio's Eat Wild podcast, luis Hookset and I are bringing our expertise and Rolodex to our real passion the outdoors.
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Speaker 9:You're going to flip that duck breast over. Once you get a nice hard sear on that breast, you don't want to sear the actual meat. It's not just us chatting here. If you can name a celebrity, we've probably worked with them and I think you might be surprised who likes to hunt and fish. When Kit Harrington asks me to prepare him sushi with his bass, I couldn't say no. Whatever Taylor shared and wanted, I made sure I had it. Burgers, steak, anything off the barbecue that's a true cowboy. All Jeremy Renner wanted to have was lemon ginger shots all day. Find Eating Wild now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 6: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.
Speaker 10:That's right. Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.
Speaker 6:Hmm, Now what are we going to talk about for two hours every week?
Speaker 10:Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 9:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch. Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 10:We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garth and Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists. But now that we're reforesting and letting things freeze.
Speaker 9:it's the perfect transmission environment for line to see To chefs. If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
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Speaker 6:Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside.
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Speaker 3:So Sean up in the Petawawa system. This is such a loaded question. How many fish did you guys tag? And if somebody is paddling and fishing in that system, what do they do if they do catch a fish that has a tag on it?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So first major shout out to my amazing two graduate students that I co-supervised with my colleague, dr Steve Cook at Carleton. So the two students that are leading this research are Katie Cunningham she's a PhD student and Aaron Wilson, and they're both taking different chunks of this larger project. So Aaron was focusing on a little lake on the Petawawa River system called Lac Travers, and this is. If you Google Lacactra Bear, there's Lactra Bear, algonquin Park or YouTube it. There's lots of videos of people fishing for muskies on this little lake. What's kind of interesting about this lake is that it's small but it kicks out like tons of small fish, like I've not caught as many 20 to 28 inch muskies in my entire life as I have at lacto-vera, fishing it for you know, a handful of times last year, for maybe like a grand total of two weeks I had the same experience up there.
Speaker 3:We did a I'm one of those youtube videos I did the kayak fishing show and I think we caught eight in a day, which is crazy yeah it, it's wild.
Speaker 5:Um, the lake is full of a lot of small fish, uh, but it also has really big fish, like you know pretty um a credible documentation of very large, like trophy class fish as well, so it sort of spans the gamut. So aaron, aaron aaron's doing work there. I think she's tagged 21 fish last year. Our goal is 25 above 30 inches, so not just like any size fish, we want them 30 inches and above 30 inches, we believe, is the cutoff for sexual maturity. In fact, it's probably a little above size for sexual maturity. So hopefully, by catching a 30-inch fish, you're guaranteed to be catching and working with an adult rather than, like you know, mixing in some juveniles or sub-adults into your analysis, which can influence things, because sub-adults might behave differently than adults. So we've got like 21 fish there that are tagged and they have the like internals. We surgically implanted acoustic transmitters in them, uh. But they also have a Floyd tag on on the outside of the fish and, assuming it hasn't fallen off, like if you catch a fish and you see that Floyd tag, um, there there's a phone number and an email address that you can use to contact us. You might have to scrape off algae that tends to grow on those tags. So sometimes people just miss them because they're very they should be gray or white, if I remember right, but sometimes over the course of a year they get covered in algae and so some people miss them because he just, you know, just blends in with the fish. Some very astute observational anglers might look at the bottom of the fish and see like a scar on the fish and go what's that? But yeah, so there's a little phone number and an email address for people to call us.
Speaker 5:We've got then Katie working on some other parts of the river as well and I think she's tagged. I think, all told, we have probably like 35 fish caught and they just actually they're up on Black Bay on the lower Petawawa River right now and they just tagged another two yesterday and they're still working away today. So we've got, you know, close to about 40 fish that are tagged on that system. So it's super cool. This is work that's done in partnership with Muskies Canada and the Canadian Wildlife Federation. It's been a really amazing project. Tons of support. The park Algonquin Park like loves what we're doing up there and they're super, just super grateful for all the information we're learning about sturgeon as well.
Speaker 3:Did you guys have any sturgeon anglers on your team, or was that a new species for everybody?
Speaker 5:Oh no, yeah, I don't. I've caught short-nosed sturgeon before, Aaron, I don't think Aaron's ever caught a sturgeon before. Um, Aaron, I don't think Aaron's ever caught a sturgeon and Katie hadn't caught a sturgeon, Um, so like they were a brand new, I mean, I'd never touched a lake sturgeon before. Um, I've, I've caught a shortnose sturgeon on a hook and line and I've, and I've handled really big Atlantic sturgeon and uh, uh, there's a commercial fishery on the St John river for them and I've I've accompanied the um proprietors of that commercial fishing business, um, when they go out and catch and catch sturgeon and to bring back to the processing plant. But you know, so we, we handled some that were like nine feet long, huge fish, Um, but I'd never touched a lake sturgeon before or worked with them. So these, these, this was like a new experience for all of us and we, we had no idea.
Speaker 5:so the only information that we had was, like one you know observation of them somewhere in the system, uh up in algonquin park, and a couple of observations and you know some like yeah, you know, I think people have seen them over here. Um, you should be able to find them, but, like I don't know, not a lot of people knew about them, including the park itself, and so first time we went in there we set gill nets to catch them, and sturgeon are really resilient and capable of handling, you know, withstanding, you know, long periods of time in a gill net. We're setting them and then checking them every three to four hours, except for an overnight set we do.
Speaker 5:But I think the first net we set when we went to pull it, there was sturgeon. It's so cool Like no way. And then I think we got to another net, the next net, and there was a sturgeon and what we thought was going to be maybe like a monumental task ended up actually being pretty easy. And I, you know touch wood that, you know we it's. It's easy again this year, but it really didn't give us as many fits as the muskies. Muskies are a terrible fish to work with. From a science standpoint, they're hard enough to catch under normal conditions. But now, when you're trying to add in the pressure of like, we need to do some like meaningful science with them and we need a certain sample size terrible fish to work with.
Speaker 4:All right. So I've got to ask you. Well, first I have two questions. One's going to be a fun question that Jamie and I love asking all our guests, but my lead-in is going to be I do want to ask you why sturgeon? Is there a study or a scientific belief, or do you have a belief on what drives sturgeon to jump? Because it is such an interesting animal, it's such a fascinating thing.
Speaker 4:My experience is limited to, you know, the various sturgeon we get in some of the Southern rivers. You know in the US, but darn it, if you literally won't be out there fishing and suddenly you know what looks like a four-foot alligator will jump out of the water right in front of your boat, clear it like a Spanish mackerel. And it was a darn sturgeon. And then my other question is going to be Jamie and I, you know always, even when we're not doing the show and we're just gabbing, you know we always talk about what our fantasy bucket list trips are fishing trips. And as a fisherman you know you mentioned Bear Monday, obviously Australia. So you know what are on. You know, if you had to pick two or three man of just your dream trips someday to grab a rod and go explore fish. What would those trips be for you?
Speaker 5:So we want to start with that one, or we want to start with the jump.
Speaker 4:No, I want to know why sturgeon jump first, but then I definitely want to hear your bucket list.
Speaker 5:And I don't know what it is about them. You know down your way, ryder. Are they the green sturgeon or Atlantic sturgeon?
Speaker 4:Oh, you know I don't know the answer to that. The bucket list trip Jamie and I talk about, of course, is the Frasier, but you know the ones. My experience with them has been limited. You might know the answer from. I'll tell you that, the habitat that I've seen this.
Speaker 4:So we have some slow moving backwater in the southeast that is fascinating for giant catfish and I know it's not the sexiest fish in the world and I'm a fly fisherman and so it's one of the few situations where I'll roll over into heavy tackle. But you know we have rivers systems. You know the Santee Cooper systems in South Carolina, where it's you know you really are. You know you've got a chance to hook into a 60, 70, my best ever is an 86 pound blue catfish. And then further down into the slow waters of South Georgia you get into the Altamaha as you work your way towards Florida and you get into a predatory catfish.
Speaker 4:You know the blue catfish, of course, is eating, you know, effectively, you know, dead bait if you will. But the flathead catfish, you know, is an actual voracious predator of live panfish, which I know you also are interested in, and so it's been on those trips when I've been down there, you know, exploring the Altamaha looking for the giant flathead catfish. You'll be out there and all of a sudden you'll see a three, four foot sturgeon. Just leap six feet out of the water, right in front of your boat, and you're sitting there looking for a, you know, a 45 pound, 50 pound flathead. So I don't know that. I know the species, but that's that's. That's when I've seen them and it's amazing to watch them jump.
Speaker 5:Yeah, they jump constant, like almost constant, not constant. I mean, that was a bit of hyperbole there, but, um, they jump a lot on the Ottawa river. Um, it's a just a regular occurrence to see multiples jumping on, say, an eight-hour trip on the Ottawa River. So there's, I think, two hypotheses. One is that they're trying to dislodge parasites when they're jumping out of the water, like that. The other one, and the one that I, I want to, I really want to, like I, I, I believe in this hypothesis, maybe more so because I just I think it's so cool is that it's a form of group communication. Oh, interesting, jumping out of the water and then splashing down, you know, and that's registering sonic. You know it's registering, like you know, sound waves underwater, registering sonic. You know it's registering, like you know, sound waves underwater, right, right, and you know what it is. They might be communicating. I'm not entirely sure on that. It might have something to do with. I'm here, can you hear me Splash?
Speaker 4:Almost like whales. You could almost compare it to what they wonder if whales are doing.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't think they're like actively producing, you know, sounds like some fish, like drum croakers, things like that will actually produce sounds. Catfish too, as a form of, as a form of communication, fun fact for all your listeners did you know that fish fart? And it's not just you know, farting.
Speaker 4:You know, see, hey, jamie, that's the kind of quality information that you get on Untamed. That's the kind of reporting we're doing bringing fun facts to our listeners.
Speaker 5:Some cheeky scientists, I guess, was listening underwater when they were swimming around herring schools like Pacific, I think, and Atlantic or at least it's been demonstrated in these two and heard all this like ticking. And then these herring would swim by and he was seeing little bubble trails coming out of their butts. And you know he's a scientist and he had some recording equipment and he, like, took it underwater recording equipment. He took it out with him and determined that their, that herring release bubbles out of their anus as a form of sound production. And so he calls it this is the cheeky part he calls it fast, repetitive ticking farting oh that's fantastic.
Speaker 4:Oh geez, I'm going to have to use that after wing night. All right, Elias, tell us about your fantasy trip. I know, Jamie and I.
Speaker 5:the Fraser River has got to be up there somewhere, but pick, give us two or three of your all-time bucket list want to do fishing trips Amazon River with my dad for peacock bass. That's up there, probably number one, yeah, hmm. Number two might be Mongolia, but not for what you might think, not necessarily for Taman. I'm actually interested in the Amur pike, which is a little known isachid species. Pike species Looks is colored like a Great Lakes muskie, so they have like white background. They're not green, white with dark spots, interesting, but they've got the red. They've got the red lobed. You know very rounded fins and you can catch them in a lot of the same places as Taman. But to me the Taman would be the bycatch, not the other way around. Interesting, yeah, and you know, it just sounds like such a cool place to be. You go stay in a year, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I have like a dream fantasy project where I hook up with some lodge up there and we, you know, we do some science related project on Amur Pike.
Speaker 5:The third one is that's a tough one. The third one is that's a tough one. You know I've seen some pretty insane footage of giant trevally just crushing topwaters in like gin clear water and like right next to the boat and they're super aggressive and guys are, you know, reeling as fast as they can to keep the topwater away from the fish and they can't even reel fast enough. Those look insane. But I think that you know. Maybe a more attainable third would be like a fly-in Northern Canada walleye pike trip. Oh yeah, my wife's grandfather used to work for De Havilland, so the Beaver Airplanes. He used to be a mechanic and work on those, so there's some, you know, there's kind of a family tie to those planes as well. I just think that would be super cool.
Speaker 4:It's so funny. You say that you know, as we talk about all the different places and I'm with you on the GTs. You know, I've actually got a group of buddies. We're working on a trip to a place called Cosmo, which is the very, very southern parts of the Seychelles. So there's a video out there of the giant trevally coming out of the water and actually eating airborne seabirds.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:I mean, these are just incredible predator fish and of course you know, and then crashing up in the shallows and what's amazing about trips like that is that that just becomes part of the adventure. You know the whole half of the adventure is getting there and you look at some of the routes you have to take, you know, to actually even get out to the Seychelles. And now they're finding cool species. You know milkfish and other fish. You know around Qatar that you can tie into a trip like that. It's just an incredible, incredible opportunities to take one species and tie it into a two or three species destination, like you're talking about with Mongolia. But what's funny is, with all these amazing places, jamie and I, you know, gab on about this endlessly but we always come back to like for me, man, I just want to get a big brookie up, and you know, and and Northern Canada somewhere. And it's like you're saying at the end of the day, how do you beat a fly in pike trip in Canada or something like that? You just can't beat it, you know.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's some. I mean we're really fortunate in North America to have you know whether you know we're talking the States or up in Canada, we're just so fortunate. I know people that have moved from Europe to Canada. There's a guy here in Ottawa who moved here with his wife because he loved the fishing here and the opportunities to catch all sorts of different species. There's some stricter catch and release regulations in Europe than we have here in North America, but suffice to say we have some just absolutely extraordinary fishing both in the United States and in Canada, and you know, mexico included as well.
Speaker 5:I mean, my dad did a trip to Lake El Salto a few years ago for bass and he said that was just phenomenal. But yeah, we have some really amazing opportunities here.
Speaker 3:So, sean, we could keep you here all day. Well, I got one more question. We'll have to have you back on. It's always a wealth of knowledge. Now my last question do you think we're taking catch and release too far? Do maybe a lot of the over? I don't want to say over talk about it, but the focus on catch and release does that often lead to extra regulations? I'm looking over at the Ontario government for the proposed yeah, I mean that's a good question.
Speaker 5:I think that's a fair question to be asking that. I don't think that we're being too crazy about it. I mean, catch and release is a conservation tool. Catch and release works and it is a viable conservation tool that can lead to improved fisheries.
Speaker 5:Sometimes, like here's what I first thought when you said that is that I think sometimes the angling community can be um a little, um overly vocal about, like about handling, and to the point where I worry that some because I see like comments online, you know a young lad, you know who's just caught his first fish or first of a particular species and I see it's a lot of muskies and maybe doesn't know how best to handle the fish and people just glom on and you know they're they're. They're glomming on, they're coming from a good place. You know like good intentions, which is to you know they're glomming on, they're coming from a good place. You know, like good intentions, which is to you know to try and promote better handling. They're not doing it, I don't think in a particularly constructive way and I worry that sometimes, you know, the really vocal catch and release community can sometimes be a little off-putting to those that are interested in getting into the sport of fishing and you know, maybe at first they want to get into fishing because they want to eat fish. You know, maybe they're reconnecting with, you know, something that they used to do as a kid with their dad or their, you know, their grandfather or grandma or whomever it might be, mom, whomever and you know, maybe it's for a real practical purpose. I mean, there's food prices are really expensive now.
Speaker 5:Maybe some people just want to go out and, you know, catch something local and reduce their food bill. You know, but if they're being, you know, blasted constantly for harvesting you know, legally harvesting fish or, you know, maybe not handling them as well as they could because they're just new to the sport, I worry that that has long-term implications for people staying in the sport and if that leads to reduced numbers of anglers, that leads to reduced support for fishing, that leads to reduced revenue from licensed sales and, you know, taxes on fishing goods and things like that, that can then support real conservation efforts. That's where I would encourage people to just, you know, like, just recognize that people are learning and you know people are at different stages in their fishing journey, um, and and you know to be trying to approach communicating with people that maybe you know clearly are lacking some information about, say, how to handle fish and just do it in a way that's respectful and calm and constructive. Um, that's that you know. I see again.
Speaker 5:I see this in the muskie community a lot and sometimes I worry about the long-term implications of that.
Speaker 3:Oh, that catch and release, like you said, it does work and there are different stages we're at with their angling and release. I think the good thing is we're talking about catch and release and best practices, and thank you so much, sean, for coming in and sharing some of your knowledge. I know you got so much more to share, but thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Sean, Great guest man. Thank you so much. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 5:Super fun, thanks, an hour flew by, it was great.
Speaker 3:Just like that. Thanks again, dr Sean Lansman, carleton University. Always a pleasure. Thanks, guys. And that concludes another episode of Untamed Pursuits on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network. I'm your host, jay Rusilli, here with Ryder Knowlton. I'm just checking to see if you're awake. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4:I wasn't paying attention. Was I supposed to say something there?
Speaker 3:Cheers everybody. Tight lines Thank you.
Speaker 8:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Gerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 8:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's, under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places and meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 7: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 6: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 10:My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in all those bass in the summertime, but that might be for more fishing than it was. Punching you so confidently, you said hey.
Speaker 7:Pat, have you ever eaten a drum? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.