From One Generation to the Next

On this episode Brother Safari fields questions from two up and coming outdoorsmen, Liam and Ethan Cord,  These young men are eager to listen and learn from Brother Safari as he shares from his wealth of fishing and hunting experience.  Whether you're young or old or somewhere in between, we hope you take a minute to tune in as well.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Welcome to the Outdoors with Brother Safari. On this episode, Liam Ethan, my two sons, join us as we engage Mark Morgan Sr. aka Brother Safari with questions about the outdoors, hunting and fishing, particularly. Here's a question for you, Liam. Did you learn anything?

SPEAKER_00 0:37

I did, and I hope whoever's listening will learn some tips and tricks too.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Well, there you have it. We hope you stay tuned as we head into the great outdoors with Brother Safari. And on this episode, we actually have two special guests joining, Brother Safari and myself. They're both my sons, Liam, Carl, Kord. Liam, you want to say hey?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Hello there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

And my other son, Ethan Asther Kord. Ethan, say hey.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Hey there.

SPEAKER_03 1:20

We're so glad they're joining us, and they're going to be learning from one of the greats in the area of fishing and hunting, specifically fishing. Brother Safari, on this episode, we're talking about your training and your learning how to fish at a young age and learning from some of the other greats who preceded you.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yes, absolutely. I learned how to fish initially with my granddad. My granddad was very instrumental in my outdoor career, um, both hunting and fishing. I fished with him more than I hunted with him. I never got to hunt with him. Um he talked about hunting a lot, never, but I never actually got to hunt with him. And I missed that, but uh you know, God's plan. He's he lit the fire still burning today some sixty years later. So that's good.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

What is your earliest memory fishing with your grandfather?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Earliest memory fishing with grandpa was in um St. Petersburg, Florida. St. Petersburg Bay, and uh we caught uh sea trout filled the boat up. Literally. And then we had to take and clean all those fish. And so on the way home we lived on a on a culture. Not a cul de sac, really. Divided road. There's grass in the middle and you know and neighbors on both sides. But we went down through there as we got back and it said anybody wants fish, come help us clean them, and they did. And we fed the whole neighborhood. Wow. Yeah, the fed over two party two hundred sea trout that day. Wow. It's back before, I guess before limits. I don't know for sure what was going on, but I know that we stopped short of sinking the boat. But it was pretty close.

SPEAKER_03 3:11

Were they tasty?

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yes, they were. Um very tasty. That was one of my early memories of fishing with grandpa. And then I started fishing for myself. Um back then we had our bicycles had headlights with a big battery pack in them. You know, you put the D batteries in there. Well, I took my batteries out and put replaced it with a stick around a fish line and and a hook and a half a piece of bread. That way I could fish off any ri any water source I came to with a hand line.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

When you were catching these fish at a young age, were you learning how to clean and fillet?

SPEAKER_02 3:51

I did watch, yes. They wouldn't let me help fillet, but at that age, but I was probably seven or eight then.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

You were probably taking notes, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Learning how to I was watching what was going on very good. Yeah. And uh watched the guys down at the dock down there. Those guys were good at filleting fish.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

They would actually do it on the dock there as they caught 'em?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah. Well, um not as as they caught 'em, but when you came back in, a lot of the guides and that they just fillet the fish for their customers right there. You could see them walking as you're walking down the dock, see the different boats, and see what people caught. I remember seeing a um Oh my, I lost what it was. It was a sea saltwater fish that resembles a bass. A grouper. That's what it was. Yeah. Structure wise, it looks like a bass, only just huge. And I remember I could put my head in the mouth of this one that was laying there.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

You gotta be kidding.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

No. Wow. As a kid, I could put my head in its mouth. I thought, man, that I think it's huge. And it was. I mean, it was big even for an adult, but for a seven-year-old to have a fish that you could stick your head in its mouth is a pretty big fish.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

That's a big deal. Wow. In your younger years when you were catching fish uh with your grandpa, was there ever a fish that was just too much for you to reel in and you had to get grandpa to help?

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Nope, never had one like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

It's just too overwhelming, too much struggle.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Never had that. Nice. I'm glad for it, but uh he and if I if I had if he'd let me do it on my own. Yeah. Anyway, he'd have said either you lose it or you lose it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

He he's not jumping in and bailing you out.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Nope. When he took me fishing, he told me he said, What you catch is yours. And uh so I was basically on my own once I hooked a fish.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

What kind of bait were you using?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Shrimp. Live? Mostly live shrimp, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

And then when we ran out of shrimp on the big on the fishing trip where we caught all the fish, we started popping out fish eyes and using them. Really? Yep.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Yeah. Man. That reminds me of story where uh Jesus tells Peter to he actually did this on two occasions, um to throw his net in for a catch. And uh and they I think it's at the end of Mark one of the gospels where it talks, it gives you the actual number of fish they caught, just like you remember the number. Yep. Uh that's that's kind of an important detail.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Um yes, indeed. And that the the interesting part about that thing, that situation is that Peter was a fisherman by trade. He knew, and they'd fished all night and not caught anything. And then Jesus says, drop your net on the other side. And he didn't argue with him. He didn't say, Hey, I'm a fisherman, I'm a pro. I know what I'm doing. You know, I fished all night, it ain't happening. He just obeyed immediately. That what a tremendous um example that is for all of us to obey.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Amen. That is that is a really good word. The idea that, hey, I know better than God is just insanity. Yes. There's yeah, even if it sounds like what he's saying makes no sense, we still trust and obey, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Yes, that's right. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

That's that's a really good lesson. Good lesson for you boys to learn at a young age. Now, both of you have done extensive fishing already. Liam, do you want to talk a little bit about uh your Lake Hartwell experience? Uh Brother Safari was actually on a um on a boat the day prior to us, and then we went out, I think it was that Thursday, Liam.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Yes, you were fished Thursday, we fished Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

And just tell about how many fish you caught and a little bit about your experience out there.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

So um I so the we went out to this little cove on some somewhere on at Lake Hartwell, and um the boat number that the the entire boat usually caught um because we were on like this fishing tour kind of thing. Um the boat number, like the boat would come back with normally 20 fish, and I actually caught 20 fish by myself. And one member on our um on our boat caught this melanistic gar. Um, for those of you who don't know, they're a really rare gar, solid black, nothing else but black. And if we had sold it to a breeder, it would have been three thousand dollars in our name.

SPEAKER_03 8:49

Yeah, our uh guide was saying this was an extremely rare catch. And uh it was kind of scary when we first caught it. That thing jumped right up straight out of the water, and we didn't know what was what we were gonna see on the end of that line. And it was uh it was a unique looking fish, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, um unfortunately me and dab weren't the ones who caught it. There we had another member in our boat called his name was Ollie, and he had already caught one gar that day, but it broke right uh right before he we could get his head out of the water. The line snapped. I mean, we could see the gar underneath. Um, but then this gar that he caught, he caught that one, and it was incredible.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

It was. Uh, we actually got some footage of it, uh, some video, but uh the the guide of the boat said that maybe one in five thousand catches will be a a solid black gar like this. It was extremely rare.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

It was a once-in-a-lifetime catch, according to what he looked up. And one day I'm planning on going back and seeing if I can wrangle that one.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Catch that guy again. Great fishing story, Liam. Now, my other son, Ethan Ashercord, very proud of this guy. He's been doing a lot of fishing as well. Tell us some of the things that uh you've caught, Liam. Ethan, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

So lately we've been reeling it a lot of bass back at our pond at where I'm um working at. Yeah. And uh we in the last session we've caught 34 fish and uh just fishing at that pond. And uh we've worked hard to like figure out our fishing and uh caught a lot, and we've um what are you using as far as bait? Uh fly bait, worms, uh crickets, and just flying spinners, rooster tails, uh lots of just different baits. And we this coming summer we're going up to Boundary Waters and there's a lot of wildlife up there as far as big fish.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Yeah. What is your favorite bait to fish with?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Probably Joe's flies or spinners, Joe's flies or spinners.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

All right. Well, this is a great conversation, and what I thought we could do, guys, is um timeout. Okay, no timeout. We're we're good to go. What I thought we could do is have you guys ask Brother Safari a few questions. He has done plenty of fishing. You guys are just getting started in your young fishing careers, and uh it's a great opportunity to learn and glean wisdom from somebody who's been doing it for quite a while. So, Liam, I'm gonna start with you. If you had one problem or one challenge when it comes to fishing that you'd really like to be able to solve, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

To stop the line from snapping every now and then.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Uh usually if the line snaps, where is it snapping the other one? Is it snapping close to the lure?

SPEAKER_00 12:23

It's snapping more yeah, more close to the lure.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Okay, you gotta ch re-tie your lure on often. Because especially fishing where there's rocks and things, you're gonna get rough, you're gonna be your line's gonna hit the rocks, it's gonna maybe nick, put a nick in it. Just take your fingers and touch right at the ho right at where your line's tied on. Run your fingers up until you feel a rough spot. You gotta cut your line above that and retie. Retie your line a lot often if you're fishing in rocky areas, especially because it didn't take much of a nick. A lot of times, even close, a fish can nick it. You know, like that pike, that gar pike that the guy caught. Okay, he the one that he didn't get in the boat. Probably because the teeth cut the line.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

That's a good yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

And they do have some sharp teeth, uh yeah, they do, and they'll get you both ways, even with the mouth closed. If you grab that bill, the teeth overlap. I know that for a fact. Because I caught the largest one in Michigan caught in the that year. I caught it on my son's birthday, John's birthday, and uh that was a fun fish. You talk about jump out of the water. Mine jumped out of the water like a sailfish. Five times it came out of the water three or four feet in the air.

unknown 13:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

That's kind of how ours did, remember?

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Well, he he did once, like he and it was almost like it it just shot straight up.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yep, that's the way mine came out of the water. Just straight up, like here I am, you know. Yeah. And it was like, this is cool. We weren't fishing for them. We were we were trolling for walleyes. Yeah. And uh when we were when I caught it.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So with that, there I know guards jump out like that, but uh even on the Swannee, there's a lot of sturgeon that jump, and they said every year there's about 200 people that just died from boating and like back and forth with sturgeon jumping.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

That they can uh the sturgeon can actually hit a person and do damage to them.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

They're like 200 pounds, like they get up to 200 pounds. I don't know if like they're catchable. Yeah. If you've ever caught one.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

That might be the 200 number you're thinking about. 200 people dying from it sounds like a bit high, but 200 pound sturgeon. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Is that they can get bigger than that? Really? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:41

Yeah, that's they're huge.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

We saw a couple like that big jump out of the water. There was one that jumped three feet away from us when we were canoeing, and like we got splashed by it.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

No way, really. What a cool story. Well, Ethan, now with your fishing experiences and what you're trying to figure out and learn, what would you ask, Brother Safari?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

How do you keep your fish on the line?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

That's a good question. You're in control. Once you hook, once you set the hook and you've got them, you've got to keep tension on. If you give them slack, they're gonna get off. Nine times out of ten.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Why when you give them slack, why would that make allow them to get off the hook?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Well, because then they've got then they're they're in control. They can shake their head more and get that lure wobbling back and forth to get the hook loose sometimes. All kinds of things like that when they've got when you're in control. You watch the guys in on Bassmaster Classic or any of the Massmaster programs or major league fishing programs, then they keep the butt when they get even when they get him close to the boat, they're working him back and forth and back and forth with just the rod. They're trying to keep him under control until they're ready to either flip him in the boat or to lip landing.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

What is lip landing?

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Lip landing is grab by the lower lip and pull him in and yank him. Well, you just yank you grab him by the lower lip with your fingers and pull him up in.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

But but the the goal there is keeping that tension.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah. Right right up until then. Right up until you got a hold of it. Even then, they've got a ride, you've got your ride in the air keeping tension when you pull him up next to the boat or you can grab down and grab him with the lower lip and the boat.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

So with that, like when you even have a tight line, like they say that bass have like they jump and spit the lure out. I've had that happen once, but like we didn't have loose line on them.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

So that so you're saying they grabbed hold of the bait, but it didn't actually hook.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

No, it hooked them, but they and we were reeling it in and then they jumped out of the water and like it spit it out.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Probably didn't have him hooked to it. The second thing is when they jump like that, you can keep them from jumping by sticking your rod tip in the water. Hold the pressure down so he can't jump.

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Ah yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Watch any of the pros, they're gonna once they get one on and he starts to jump, they'll stick their rod tip right down the water. So they sometimes have to ride the water and keep him down there.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

It's it's I guess the the idea is almost like you're putting your head, you're forcing his head downward.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Yes, that's the whole idea, keep him down so he can't jump. That's now that's a good tip when they jump, they throw their head back and forth. Yeah. And if you've got like a um like a Texas rigged worm, yeah. Texas rigged worm, or you've got a loose weight, that weight goes sliding one way and then he's going back the other way, and he's just pulls it right out of the hook right out of his mouth.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

When it when it comes to hooking a fish, brother Safari, where is the best place for the hook to sink or to to engage the fish?

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Down in the mouth, inside, not outside. You don't want to catch him in the lip in the lower jaw too much because lower jaw is pretty hard. Upper jaw is also hard. You want them to get it in the mouth so you can get him in the tongue area or something like that for to get them in the boat better.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So we were on the James a couple last summer we were on the James and I caught a carb but it I had a green tube on and it like caught it by his upper eye.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Yeah. He was swimming by and you set the hook in him.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

He was just checking out the the bait and it it got in it hooked in his eye.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Well, once we pulled him in, he was dead so carpet.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

That's usually the way you catch carpet.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Really?

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Yeah. Unless you're fishing for them on purpose. If you're bass fishing, typically if you catch a carpet's because you fall off bait.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

Interesting. And they just come close to the bait out of curiosity.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

So not not always. Sometimes you put the bait where they're at.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

And then they just stumble upon it or just come across it.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Well, they're just swimming or staying in the stationary and you're bringing a bait across. And then you can go over and hook into them.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

So the uh the um park that I caught, like, it was I had a green tube on, so I like left it sitting, and then I went up to uh get a new bait, and when I came back it was like hooked on. So like I think it might like cart bottom they eat the bottoms. So I think it might have been like he thought it was grass or grass or seaweed.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

When you say green tube, what are you referring to?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Green tube. It's a it's a two-type lure. It's hollow. It's a rubber lure, it's got two fringe like on the tail of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Then you can get twisters that are like twos about that big up in Virginia, but that's the only place I've seen.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Cool. That's really cool. All right, here's a question for everybody fishing from the shore or fishing out of a boat? Brother Sorry. Out of a boat. Ethan.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Out of a boat. Out of a boat.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

All right, you guys all agree. Why is that? Why is that better?

SPEAKER_02 20:34

More versatile you can reach more water. You're pretty limited when you uh have to fish from shore.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Personally, it's because it can get I can get my rod out deeper, I mean my line out deeper, so that way I can get have a better chance of getting a fish when it's deeper. Um normally when I'm at shore it can't I can't see where the water drops off or the thing drops off, so I'll probably be like fishing like two inches of water and I'll even realize it.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, I would say fishing off a boat works well because it's fun when you don't see the fish and you catch one.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Okay, when it comes to fishing out of a boat, still or trolling?

SPEAKER_02 21:23

For bass, it's pretty much still.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Still trolling, but if it's for bass, pretty much still.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

I like still because then because then I can reel in my rod and recast, reel in my rod and recast. I just like it better.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

And I would say for canoes, as far as canoes, like when you're paddling, just have a rod running in the back. And you when you feel one tug on it.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

With a canoe, um, have you ever caught something that's kind of pulling the whole canoe?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Uh one of the people in my group caught like a two-foot catfish. It was one of the it was one of our um directors or chiefs or whatever whatever you want to call it. But he caught a two-foot catfish and it was like tugging back on our canoe, and we were wondering why we were going slow.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

No way.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

So he turned back and reeled it in. And we ate it, and that same day we caught eight bass in an hour or so.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Other than gar, what is the most dangerous fish you can have on the other end of the line? Freshwater. Is there is there a freshwater fish that you gotta just hey? I gotta be careful this with this thing.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

A muskie, a northern pike, anything with big teeth, it's a big fish. Because they can get you.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

What about getting finned or like if they start flailing around? Is there certain fins that cut deeper than others?

SPEAKER_02 22:55

Not really. Not so much on on most of not bass or anything like that. But one of the things about muskie is if you get a muskie in the boat, he can just be thrashing around and get you hooked. I've seen a buddy of mine get 17 stitches because a muskie hook got in him and it wasn't the it was still in the muskie's mouth. No way. Yeah, because he only got one hook, one of the treble hooks, and these muskie's thrashing around. After that, he took a ball bat, knocked him, small bat, and made dispatch the fish before he brought it in the boat if we were gonna keep it.

SPEAKER_03 23:28

Yeah. What is a muskie? I've have you guys heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

So a muskie would be like like we've heard a muskie as far as being on the James River. They've been in the J there were a lot in the James River, and we would always claim we saw one like at least five foot long, but we also had an idea it was a car. But we tried catching one and it snapped the line.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

So wow, that's a big, big time fish. It seems like muskies.

SPEAKER_02 23:59

I've I've I've mounted muskies for people that have been over 50 inches long. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah, I would say they're about like it's a freshwater fish. It would be like maybe not 200 pounds like sturgeon, but they do get to like 150, 160.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

My goodness, that is a that is a massive fish, and I could see why it would snap a line pretty quick. Yeah. Sounds like a powerful fish.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Well, it's powerful, it's got the big teeth, and all you know, the line grows across the teeth the wrong way as you're fighting it, unless you get it tight. Keep it that way. And just saws it off. It just cuts it off.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah.

unknown 24:34

Man.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

They say a muskie, you gotta have a thousand casts to catch a muskie. Really? They're that. They're that they're they're aggressive, but they're that they're not as aggressive as like a northern pike. Northern pike is be similar shape, similar size, can get similar size. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

But not as difficult to reel in.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Not normally. I mean, I've got I've gotten two pike that were 43 and 43 and three quarters.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Sizable fish. Nice fish. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

And got them both in the boat without any issue.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

So that that statistic, um, it takes a thousand casts or roughly to catch a muskie. Is that actually getting them in the boat or like you can get them on the line in fewer casts, but just actually getting the fish in the boat, it takes that many?

SPEAKER_02 25:34

Well, I think it's a combination. I think I think they've just kind of grouped it all in together. Yeah. Because the muskies, it's harder to get a muskie to bite. They're more cautious. A pike. Northern pike seem to be more vicious and less cautious. I mean, you can throw just about anything in a pike, especially in Canada. They don't see too many lures, and so everything else anything you throw out there is different to them and they're gonna hammer it. Give it a shot. Yeah. I mean, to catch thirty pike in a day in Canada is not a big deal. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Are they a good eating fish?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

Yeah. If you take if you know how to fillet them, you gotta take the Y bones out.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

What are they? Y bones.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Y bones are the bones that it's a actually forms a Y and uh down the fish. You just gotta be careful of them and make sure you if you take a normal fillet, you're gonna get all the Y bones left in the meat.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

Yeah. Which uh makes for a unpleasant eating experience, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

Yes, sir. But you can grind it up. I've heard I've heard you can grind it up, and the those bones will grind up down small enough that you then you make patties out of it like you would like a salmon patty or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Yeah. Probably get some nutritional value out of the bone.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Probably a little.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Yeah.