Join Jamie Pistilli and Ryder Knowlton on Untamed Pursuits as they buzz with excitement over the start of the spring fishing season. They dive deep into how mild winters and recent rains have set the stage for shad and striper migrations in the southeastern US rivers. Ryder's fresh perspectives on seasonal changes and upcoming adventures in South Florida's tarpon season will leave listeners eager to hit the water themselves. It's a captivating discussion that paints a vivid picture of the river's ebb and flow and the thrilling fishing opportunities ahead.
Finally, get ready for an engaging conversation with Seth Vernon, a dedicated guide and conservation ambassador from Wilmington, North Carolina. Seth captivates us with tales of his family's legacy in outdoor pursuits and his own journey into professional guiding. From the Everglades' unique camping and fishing experiences to the challenges posed by invasive Burmese pythons, Seth’s stories highlight the delicate balance between human activity and wildlife. Tune in for an episode rich with wildlife encounters, conservation efforts, and the inspiring story of one man's devotion to preserving nature's beauty.
Join Jamie Pistilli and Ryder Knowlton on Untamed Pursuits as they buzz with excitement over the start of the spring fishing season. They dive deep into how mild winters and recent rains have set the stage for shad and striper migrations in the southeastern US rivers. Ryder's fresh perspectives on seasonal changes and upcoming adventures in South Florida's tarpon season will leave listeners eager to hit the water themselves. It's a captivating discussion that paints a vivid picture of the river's ebb and flow and the thrilling fishing opportunities ahead.
Finally, get ready for an engaging conversation with Seth Vernon, a dedicated guide and conservation ambassador from Wilmington, North Carolina. Seth captivates us with tales of his family's legacy in outdoor pursuits and his own journey into professional guiding. From the Everglades' unique camping and fishing experiences to the challenges posed by invasive Burmese pythons, Seth’s stories highlight the delicate balance between human activity and wildlife. Tune in for an episode rich with wildlife encounters, conservation efforts, and the inspiring story of one man's devotion to preserving nature's beauty.
What brings people together more than fishing and hunting?
Speaker 2:How about food?
Speaker 1:I'm Chef Antonio Muleka and I've 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.
Speaker 4:Each week we're bringing you inside the boat tree stand or duck blind and giving you real advice that you can use to make the most out of your fish and game.
Speaker 1: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. And 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 sashimi with his bass, I couldn't say no. Whatever Taylor Sheridan 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 the.
Speaker 5:Welcome to this week's episode of Untamed Pursuits on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network. I'm Jamie Pistilli and each week we will be speaking to those who make a living being outdoors, those with many tales from the tree stand, riverbanks, lakes and ocean. On the other side of the boat, I have my trusty sidekick and co-host, avid outdoorsman and author of the the guides a collection of untamed stories, mr Ryder Knowlton. Ryder, what is going on this week?
Speaker 6:Seth. How are you doing?
Speaker 5:Oh man, I'm great Boat's out of storage. You know, if I had a step counter on I'd be 10,000 steps daily just pacing to get ready to launch the boat. But, you know, excited. We finally got some rain here. So the low water from our lack of snow has finally solved the river's issues and we're ready to fish.
Speaker 6:It's funny when you told me you were pulling the boat out, the first image I had you know, of course I'm calling from the southeastern US and the first image I had was, you know, you busting out the blocks of ice. You know from you know, your boat anchored into the dock, or something like that, do you guys? I can't imagine. I guess at this point now we're in May you're really just dealing with snow melt at all, or what are the things that? How's the ice and the snow affecting the water flows in the spring up there Out west? You know, for us it's a big deal with the snow melt.
Speaker 5:We had a pretty mild winter. We didn't almost have no snow. There was times, you know it was, you know, 70 degrees in February, which never happens. So, um, the the river levels here were really really low. But we're lucky that, uh, april showers bring May flowers and actually save the river. It's been raining here for the last little while, so the rivers are up to their spring kind of a flood, and now just waiting for it to drop a little bit so we can put the boat in and start getting out on the water oh yeah, I know you're excited.
Speaker 6:We've been, um, you know our you and I are always comparing notes on racing around trying to get to kids practices and games and stuff like that, and we're slowly starting to wrap up spring lacrosse season down here. So I'm kind of ready to hey, you know I'll be missing watching the games, of course, but I'm kind of ready to get out on the water again.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a, it's that time, and what's a? Biting down where you are.
Speaker 6:You know, so I'm calling you know, we're, we're, we're in the Carolinas, of course, and so you know my world, this time of the year and our guest is going to be able to speak to some of this too this time of the year we've got some really interesting spawning, you know, and river action that you can almost count the clock on. You know, in the southeastern US you get the early season. You know shad runs, which for us are a really cool fish. It's a lot of history to the fish, both the big white shad and then the hickory shad, and those fish are heading up the rivers, you know, on their spawning migration, some of which, by the way, take them hundreds of miles of some of these river systems, and it goes all the way from, at least in my world in the southeastern US. It goes all the way from Virginia down into the Northern Florida fisheries, you know, up and down the St Johns and then from there we start getting into some of the striper runs which you know for us are super cool, just hard fighting fish, super fun on a mid-weight fly rod, you know, if you're getting into, you know three to five pound stripers. On those, you know, a four, five, six weight is just unbelievably fun. And then in some of our, in some of our fisheries, you know we have really legit, especially some of the impounded fisheries. We have some really legitimate big fish. You know 20, 30 pounders, strike bass that are great fun.
Speaker 6:So yeah, so spring for us, you know, is some really cool. You know river fisheries opening up, just like you're talking about up north. And then, of course, at the same time, you know you start getting into the beginning of what everybody's waiting for in the saltwater world. You know where you start getting into. You know, obviously, the, you know the coastal fisheries start to come back to life. And then for us in South Florida, you get the beginning of the tarpon, really the tarpon window, which everyone is excited about down to the Keys and other areas in South Florida. So we've got a lot going on. How about you guys?
Speaker 5:We're good here, early season going to be going out for carp later today, hopefully just sit on the bank and catch a fish or two, looking forward to getting know, getting the real screaming. But besides that we got longnose gar. Next weekend we have the pike opener and walleye.
Speaker 6:so it's uh, no shortage of things to catch up here, you know you and I've talked about this before I think I honestly think one of the most underrated fish, especially in our fly fishing world, is the. I just can't imagine a cooler, a harder fish, a harder fish to get to take a fly and I know you've probably got it down to an art, but I mean do you think you have you figured out carp?
Speaker 6:I mean, I know guys have been trying to figure it out for 20 years and are still trying to figure out the science of hooking carp on fly.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was pretty lucky. Actually, carp was one of the first fish I started fly fishing to. There were so many in the river and I spent a couple of years really banging my head against the wall and you know they take pretty simple patterns and I think when you get out this time of year, right when the ice comes off, it's probably the best time. They haven't seen anything in, you know, a couple of months and they'll readily take a fly. All the bank fishermen are out chumming away right now. So it's you know they're getting the feedback on, they're eating and, yeah, they will take a fly.
Speaker 6:That's so cool. I know it's an exciting time for you. You know you're just. You know you're just getting kicked off. You know the beginning of your season and then what's so neat is you know your season evolves too. You know you. You know there's so many different species, especially up in that Ottawa river system. There's so many different species you can target, and one of this is this is actually a really good intro to our guest today one of the bucket list trips that I have, and he and I have been talking about doing this together for probably 10 years now and we just need to pick a weekend and do it. But you talk about unusual fish to get on fly and in the southeastern US there are some crazy fly fishermen like myself and our guest who I'm about to introduce.
Speaker 6:That try to catch bowfin on fly, and bowfin is one of those prehistoric fish. It looks like a big paddle and it's one of those prehistoric fish that live in the backwaters, the blackwater, you know, tannin waters of some of those Cypress rivers and Cypress swamps in the southeastern US, of some of those Cypress rivers and Cypress swamps in the Southeastern U, s and and um. Anyways, hopefully at some point, um, my, our guests and myself, and maybe you, seth, maybe you, uh, uh, jamie, we'll be able to come down and and we'll all go both in fishing. But I am, I'm unbelievably excited to introduce our guests today. We've got a really special one and I'm so excited to talk to him about a million different things you know about.
Speaker 6:10 years ago I was reading a fly fishing magazine. I don't remember which one, but the name of the article was 10 Fly fishing guides you must fish with during your life, and this was in a US magazine. So they're talking about American guides. But when you see an article with that type of intro, of name, you know, of title, you just get so intrigued with it and so I was like holy cow, I'm curious to see you know who's on this list. And of course you know, of course, you're going to have a couple guides in the Keys and you're surely going to have on that list of 10, you know, you're going to probably have two or three in the Keys. You're probably going to have maybe two or three out west, on the big rivers out west. You know you might have a couple up north and some of the historic hallowed waters up north and our guest is one of those 10. Our guest was one of the 10 guys listed in this issue, I think, of Fly Fishing Magazine 10 fly fishing guides to fish with during your life.
Speaker 6:And I think that I'm trying to figure out the best way to introduce this guy because he does so much. But what I've decided to do and he's going to probably kick me later but I've decided to just read some of the things that are on his Instagram page and then we'll talk a little bit more about some of the many things that he does. But he runs Double Hall Guide Service, which is a guide service out of Wilmington, north Carolina, and, per his Instagram, full-time saltwater sherpa, professional storyteller, filmmaker, redfish Can't Jump, which I'm assuming is one of his projects, and we'll talk to him about that. You know our guest is. I've talked to so many people that know him and I describe him as an encyclopedia of knowledge, because he knows so much more than just the fly fishing. Jamie, you and I talk about this all the time.
Speaker 6:Just how cool it is to spend time in the water with a guide who not just knows how to catch fish, which our guest absolutely does, but is just interested in the whole ecosystem. And he's also an ambassador of conservation Another thing we talk about on the show a lot. He's so involved in clean water and conservation efforts in the Central Atlantic Coast as well as South Florida. So with that, I'm going to introduce our guest, seth Vernon, from Wilmington, north Carolina. Seth, how are you?
Speaker 7:I'm doing great, ryder, good morning. Thank you guys so much for having me on.
Speaker 5:Hey, good morning Seth. So awesome to have you on. I've been pumped for this one.
Speaker 7:It's a pleasure to be here, Jamie. Can't wait to get into it with you guys.
Speaker 6:Jamie's been bugging me. We've been, you know, talking about lining up various guests and I think Jamie's probably, you know, bugged me at least three or four times. When do we get Seth on? And you know when we get. So I know we're all very, very excited to get you on the show.
Speaker 7:I'm excited to be here with you guys and very humbled.
Speaker 6:Well, let's, I tell you there's so many things, but let's start off slow and before we dive into you know, the multitude of exciting, cool stuff you do, you know, walk us through what got you interested, seth in the outdoors, because you and I have talked about your fascinating you know family history and that itself could be its own show, but kind of what you know, what got you into the outdoors and then eventually you know how did that then transition into a professional career?
Speaker 7:Sure, Sure, I mean, in short, my dad's family, uh, all South Louisiana folks, um, very gifted outdoorsman and my dad was a passionate duck hunter, like his father, and kind of skipped the fishing, I think, because my grandfather took my dad fishing so much as a kid he kind of burned him out.
Speaker 7:So when I was coming up and my grandfather had me to take fishing, I just ate it up. He was John Wayne size human being to me. I wanted to walk everywhere with him in his footsteps and so from catching bass in the cypress swamps of South Louisiana to chasing trout or bowfin or redfish, I was game for anything, even if it just meant panfish, you know, in a pond. And my dad impressed upon me the beauty and the wonder of, you know, hunting waterfowl and all the varied conditions, from dry rice fields for geese, giant tornadoes of snow, geese getting up on thermals mallards, you know, in the marsh, gadwall, teal moving fast, streaking across the sky. So I can say that my family have always been a hardcore group of outdoorsmen and women and you know, early on they, just as soon as they could tote me and I could put up with the environmental conditions, I was welcome to join them on all these pursuits.
Speaker 6:You know you've talked to me about getting thrown in the deep end too. You know. You know, not just, you know, not just sitting on the side of a little pond with your you know, your first little Zepco. But as you said, you know you came from a family of hardcore sportsmen and sportswomen who you know brought you in and of course you dove in with both feet. You know, even as a youngster it sounds like you know you were you were doing. You know some pretty hardcore sporting things, even as a little kid?
Speaker 7:Yeah for sure I mean. If we weren't in season chasing waterfowl or fish, which was common, we were water skiing at the lake. Athletics were a big part of growing up, so we played a lot of high-level soccer. My dad was a phenomenal baseball player, ambidextrous pitcher, and was scouted by the Red Sox when he was very young and turned it down because he wanted to be a pilot, ended up being a fighter pilot there in Vietnam. So a lot of really cool influences in my life.
Speaker 7:No-transcript got to Boone and started college at Appalachian State University. I was so fortunate not only to fall in with an incredible crew of guides and anglers but to meet somebody who's been not just a mentor but more of a big brother to me, and that is Ollie Smith of Blue Ridge Anglers. And I don't think that I would be here today if it hadn't been for the. Obviously you know the support and love and passion that my family shared with me for the outdoors. But seeing somebody like Ollie be successful and just loved by the community and to have achieved so much as far as pioneering a lot of fisheries in western North Carolina for trout and smallmouth and muskie. A lot of the fisheries in Western North Carolina for trout and smallmouth and muskie, having him have faith in me and pushing me to follow my passions. I don't know that I would be a guide today if it hadn't been for that influence.
Speaker 5:So Seth, how long have you been guiding for? So I started in earnest in late 1997, early 1998.
Speaker 7:And like a lot of young men, I started as a fly shop lackey, you know. I was stocking bins and helping out on the sales room floor and learning about all the gear and also learning about the techniques that we used just locally to catch smallmouth or trout or muskie to catch smallmouth or trout or muskie. And I've had some incredible folks along the way. Many have passed at this point in my career, but I started by working in the fly shop and then challenging myself to figure a lot of the fishery out in western North Carolina fishing rivers, both small creeks and large floatable waters like the Watauga and the South Holston, and I was working really, really hard on my own time to suss out and learn from the fish.
Speaker 7:And that may sound like a weird thing to say, but I spent more time studying what the fish were doing and how they were feeding and what they were feeding on than I did actually fishing in those early years. And then I had to acquire the skills through my mentors and friends and peers to learn how to do certain types of casts and not just make a roll cast and fish an indicator with two nymphs, which is highly effective. But I had to learn how to cast. I had to learn how to back cast. I had to learn how to steeple cast. I had to learn how to mend and reach mend. And if it wasn't for those folks like Ollie Smith and Bradley Lyles and Matt Fussell Hayden and Theo Copeland all those guys invested in me, saw something in me and put a little bit of time and energy into my education.
Speaker 6:Seth, what's interesting? First of all, I didn't realize about your background so much history in Western North Carolina, specifically the muskie. But you know, one of the things I've always really enjoyed about spending time with you on the water is your knowledge of the fishery and the local ecology. So you know so much deeper than just the fishing. So what you're saying here it's interesting. Do you think, when you talk about learning about all those layers right of not just catching a fish but the layers of you know, the outdoors around you, the layers of that water system that you're in, do you think were you doing that? Were you learning those things to become a better fisherman? Or were you learning those things because you were fascinated with the overall habitat? Or maybe a little bit of both?
Speaker 7:Oh, I think, I think everybody will agree, all of your listeners and many of my friends, you know. Standing in a river, you, you're intimately immersed in that situation, feeling the current on your legs, feeling a change when you move from pocket to pocket, eddie to riffle, I was just always very curious. I'm sure I wore my dad and granddad out with all the questions I had about why they used certain duck calls in this type of situation and you know, certain duck calls or goose calls in this type of situation. But I've always had this very curious mind and I would say it's truly insatiable and, for those that are near to me, probably a little bit irritating that I just can't get enough. But I always try to find a way to describe my personality as it results with the outdoors and I feel like we've lost this viewpoint.
Speaker 7:You know John Jay Audubon, who most people know for his prints of birds and beautiful artwork. He was a hunter first. He was a hunter first and a naturalist second and he shot hundreds of thousands of birds to get good case studies and anatomical design so that he could illustrate these creatures. And I've often felt like my passion was to spot and stalk whatever it was that I was hunting, whether that was turkeys or deer or trout or smallies or muskies and saltwater species too. But at the end of it I want to know the inner workings and what makes those different species tick. And the only way I know to do that is to really get down to the micro level and find out what is actually perpetuating these fish to migrate or move shallow or change locations with the tides. We saw this with tailwaters, with trout. We see it with my daily guiding for redfish and tarpon and trout here on the coast of North Carolina Just always had a curious mind.
Speaker 6:You know you have just gotten back, and I say that because I've been salivating over your Instagram pics of tarpon that you just brought up. Obviously, that'll eventually work their way up the eastern coast of the US. You just got back from a fascinating place to go immerse yourself the Everglades, yeah, and man, it looks like, and I know that that's a place you love to fish, but I also know that's a place you talk about immersing yourself into an ecosystem. I mean, I can't. That just must just be like an endless source of interest for you.
Speaker 7:You know that the actual the, the deep everglades- oh, the deep everglades is special and I want to frame this up for our listeners because I think when people hear the word everglades they think only about one portion of that ecosystem and they think about the sawgrass prairie and the people riding airboats and folks that you would see on TV like swamp people. And the Everglades in and of itself is such an ecologically diverse and vast landscape. If I'm not mistaken, it is the largest national park that we have east of the Rockies. Just wrap your brain around that. It's millions of acres and that park begins just below Lake Okeechobee with Big Cypress, which is below Naples on the west coast, and extends all the way east across the Tamiami Trail, north and south. That's that saw prairie. And then it extends south all the way to Key West and then beyond to the Drive Tortugas National Park, so that entire body of water west of Isla Mirada, west of Marathon, florida Bay as we know it, where all the illustrious tarpon permit bone fishing has happened over the last 50, 60 years. That is the Everglades National Park.
Speaker 7:And we like to go to Flamingo, which was historically like a mullet camp where at the turn of the century before, the national park was manifested and people were moved off the landscape because they weren't allowed to you know, quote reside in the park any longer. Flamingo was always this very small settlement at the very southernmost mainland point on Florida, and now there's a campground. They just updated and built a new lodge and restaurant, which is very nice, and then they have a marina to service guests coming into the national park. If you want to get fuel and ice and drinks, you can also launch in one of the two marinas one that leads you north into Whitewater Bay and one that dumps you right into Florida Bay to the south.
Speaker 6:And it is a wild place. You know. We used to you and I've talked about this. I used to spend a lot of time in Flamingo. I had a bunch of fly fishing buddies and we would go down each March.
Speaker 6:I guess I'm looking now and realizing, looking at some of your photos so you've come back pretty recently we would go down in March and we would, we would get a houseboat and there'd be six of us you know we is, we would literally, you know, would take the houseboat and we would drag the flats boats behind the houseboat and we would just anchor up in the mouth of, like the Shark River or the Lossman's River. And I just remember, at night, you know, it's so dark, as you said, you're in the middle of this massive, you know, national park really, and it's just there's no light pollution, but off in the distance you see this super faint dim, which of course, are the lights of miami. You know, a little bit of illumination, you know, as you look back to the east across the glades, right, um, but um, now, when you go down there are you?
Speaker 6:are you guys staying in flamingo? Are you and then going? Are you guys staying in Flamingo? Are you doing day trips out into the glades? How do you logistically set up?
Speaker 7:your trip? Yeah, no, that's a brilliant question. So it takes me about two days to get down there from Wilmington and I do that for my own sanity. But once I get to Flamingo and I'm waiting on my buddies to arrive, I set up camp. So we stay in the campground and there's some logistical reasons for this.
Speaker 7:If we and we've done this in the past, like you have and it is an extraordinary experience to urge people to do this but we've done the houseboat where we, you know, we'll tow two skiffs behind the houseboat and head out into the back country and maybe park it in mud bay or up by the Midway Keys or some sheltered little cove and then use that as kind of a hub and spoke model to centralize our trip and we'll have spare fuel on the houseboat and all of our provisions. We can run about all through the glades and that is a wonderful way to experience the glades. But there are times when the wind direction changes and being in the back country of Whitewater Bay is not as successful a fishing opportunity as being in Florida Bay, to the south of Flamingo, you know, just a mile south. So we stay in a tent, camp style. I try to build it out very safari-like, very comfortable Air mattresses, cotton sheets, blankets, pillows, the whole thing. Very comfortable air mattresses, cotton sheets, blankets, pillows, the whole thing. We have a separate screen tent that is just to mitigate all the bugs, because Flamingo is known for having some of the healthiest mosquito populations in South Florida and being a national park, they're not spraying for that.
Speaker 7:So we have a screen tent that's 14 by 14. It's probably the most invaluable piece of gear you can have down there and that's where we do all of our cooking. The campground has solar powered, hot showers, restroom facilities, potable water. They have fuel at the marina so you can stay in country and in fact on this trip I was down for 12 days and I never left. We had enough provisions and enough food and fuel accessible that we didn't have to come out of the park. So, screen tent for cooking and for after hours. This year one of my buddies who came down with some of our friends, he set up a separate screen tent and that became our own flamingo bar. So we would eat in my screen tent and then everybody would migrate over to more comfortable camp chairs, get off the picnic tables and have some brown water.
Speaker 5:It sounds like my kind of trip. I'm just ready to stay at home base. Now, when you do get out on the water, this sounds like uh, you need every. Every friend has that guy to go camping. I think you're that guy right. You pack properly and make sure you got everything.
Speaker 7:So I do, I do, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty, um, I'm pretty good at this trip, uh, and we used to do some outfitting in the mountains and when I was working in Alaska, it was very important that you've had, you know, all your necessary kit, and so I've really streamlined this trip to have everything that we need and nothing more. We're so fortunate that we get to do this every year. We're going on almost 20 years of doing this trip, and the only year that we missed was the year of COVID, when they shut down the national parks, which was a shame, but what a wonderful place. There's so much to do and see. You don't even have to travel that far away from the marina for things to get wild.
Speaker 7:This portion of southern Florida is the only place where the American crocodile and the American alligator coexist, and I know some of your listeners will think that I misspoke there, but there are crocodiles native to the Southern US and their range used to go all the way up to like Jupiter on the East Coast and Tampa on the West Coast, and during the early years of the alligator hide trade the gladesmen, the forerunners to the guides that are down in South Florida today that know this landscape and love it. They hunted bloom birds for the millinery trade, for ladies' fancy hats, and they hunted alligators and crocodiles and those skins brought a lot of money to market in trade. And so when you launch at Flamingo, whether you're on the bay side going south, or on the whitewater bay side going north into Buttonwood Canal, you will daily see crocodiles in excess of 10 feet.
Speaker 6:Seth you're talking about now this. As you said, our listeners are going to be picturing American alligators, so this is a different species. This is an actual crocodile. Is this the same species that you might see in Central America or is is a different species? This is an actual crocodile. Is this the same species that you might see in Central?
Speaker 7:America or is this a different species of crocodile? Yeah, so it's a different species altogether Crocodilians. Actually, in their archaeological record they're much, much older than alligators and it's curious to know for our listeners. We're all familiar with the American alligator, which is a New World species, but the only other alligator on the planet is in China. So crocodiles inhabit the Nile River. You'll find them in Thailand. You find the real scary ones, the salties as they are known affectionately, in Northern Australia, the saltwater crocodile. You have the Cuban crocodile, which they think our American crocodile is a relative of, and they have very different personalities.
Speaker 7:I can tell you with confidence that the American crocodile, which has been in South Florida since before people ever inhabited that area, is a pretty docile creature, pretty shy, doesn't really like being around people, whereas the Cuban crocodile, its nearest cousin, is a much more aggressive creature that has been known to attack people. In fact, March of this year, right before we made our plans to get down for our annual pilgrimage to Flamingo, was the first documented bite by an American crocodile on a human, and we got the full story when we got down there. But there was a Cuban guy launching a sunfish in the marina and it was a windy day and his boat blew over and he was capsized and he put both hands on the hull and started kicking and splashing and pushing it to shore and a crocodile swam over and bit him on the leg but immediately let him go. If you saw these creatures, if it had wanted to kill him, this would be a different story. But I have to think that it was a territorial display.
Speaker 6:But nobody's dumb enough to swim in that marina. That's amazing, well, you know. So that's amazing to hear we had been. I had a group of guys I was lucky enough to get invited. Last spring we went down and we fished Cuba. Last spring we went down and we fished Cuba and I had this was a first for me but I had a small one of the crocodile species from Cuba that you just listed. Yes, I had one of them come up and take a fly. I mean, we were casting it at bonefish back in the mangroves and all of a sudden, this small, what I thought, what I assumed was an alligator, and the guide explained just what you just said. No, it's not an alligator, this is a Cuban crocodile. And it was interesting. There was no, you know, there was no love in his voice for that. You could tell that that was considered a dangerous obviously the larger ones a dangerous animal to the folks that live out in the wild Right In that area.
Speaker 6:And I just assumed it was an alligator man was I wrong.
Speaker 7:Right. And so when you look at an alligator, the snout and the skin color are a big giveaway. Alligators tend to look black, even when they're out of the water. They have a much darker complexion and their snout is almost perfectly rounded. And then when you see a crocodile, it has light, smoky gray hues and when wet you can see some yellow and black banding across its body and tail, which aid in its camouflage. But the key giveaway the alligators are darker in color. The crocodiles are more of a smoky creamy gray and the alligator snout is very triangular, think of like an arrowhead, and not that you should get this close, but alligators' teeth all fit kind of neatly tucked in, so when their mouth is closed you don't see their teeth.
Speaker 6:Yeah, none of our listeners are going to be examining the teeth of the alligator versus crocodile, I think.
Speaker 7:But if you look at crocodiles, their teeth actually grow through and protrude out of their closed mouth through sockets from birth, and so you'll see these crocodiles with their mouth closed and you can actually see the teeth protrude both from the top down through the bottom jaw and from the bottom up through the top jaw, and there, you know, it shows you just how much you know, I can't imagine how many folks who don't realize, a, that there's an American crocodile and then, b, that that animal is down in the Everglades.
Speaker 3:It shows you just how much life, big life you know is out there that you're not aware of. Back in 2016, frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of musky angling education material anywhere in the world.
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Speaker 8: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.
Speaker 5:Every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor.
Speaker 8:Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week?
Speaker 5:Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 1:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 8:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
Speaker 1: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.
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Speaker 6:Now let me ask you this One of the very interesting things you do is you also, while you're down there, you know you're obviously interested in, but also involved in kind of keeping an eye?
Speaker 6:on some of the invasive species that we're hearing about in the Everglades, and both Jamie and I have seen the photos of these monstrous pythons yes, just monstrous pythons with alligators in their mouth Literally pythons large enough to eat an alligator. Or maybe some of these are crocodiles, but is that? I mean, tell us what's happening with that? Is this? You know, this is something we've all kind of seen online over the last several years and it almost sounds like this is kind of a fundamental, you know, shift in, maybe, in the ecosystem.
Speaker 7:I totally agree with you, ryder. So we have to go back in time. Obviously, south Florida tons of natural reptiles because of the climate, so lots of cool snakes, lots of cool lizards, but over the years and through the reptile trade and civilians having things that they probably shouldn't be allowed to have, and I'm all about freedom. But that environment is so similar to the environment where these Burmese pythons, which are the predominant python, that have become an invasive issue and an ecological nightmare to the Everglades. But they also have rock pythons and some other snakes that have escaped and possibly just civilians who had these snakes and decided that they were too big to keep or they were moving, couldn't find a home for it and thinking that they were doing something nice for the snake and not thinking about the ecological disaster that they were creating for the Everglades, it turned these snakes loose. One of the zoo slash serpentarium parks may have been one of the precursors when hurricanes wrecked South Florida and these snakes obviously escaped into the landscape and it is the perfect landscape for that type of predator and if you look at the species that they're eating, you now have a very large, constrictor, non-venomous snake, the Burmese python. We'll talk just about that one that has been introduced to the Southern Everglades. They're being found as far north as Collier County, which is Naples, marco Island, on the West Coast, all the way east to Miami and south you have.
Speaker 7:This specific snake is extremely camouflaged, can lie in wait for a very long time to find its next meal, can survive cold winters through brumation, which is like a type of hibernation for reptiles. Alligators and crocodiles are capable of this too. It's called rhumation. They can swim, they're arboreal and they grow to a tremendous size and so compound that with all these native endemic animals on the landscape in south florida, like bear cubs, raccoons, alligators, possums, wading birds.
Speaker 7:They've never known this predator on the landscape, so they're easy pickings for this silent, ambush predator, and we've seen the evidence of that just in our time and our tenure of coming down every year for two weeks Used to be. When we set up camp in Flamingo, I went to extreme lengths to secure all of our coolers and our dry good storage with locks and padlocks, because the raccoons were so talented and so mischievous that they would find a way into any of your kit where you had food storage, and so you'd get up the next day and find a loaf of bread strewn across the campground and that's not good for the raccoon and it's not good for us. And so in the last six or seven years now, since we've been doing this trip, I have not seen evidence of a raccoon in Flamingo, and that can't be purely correlation. Right Like the snakes are putting a dent on the small mammal population.
Speaker 5:And now, Seth, you're helping to catch these snakes. Is that true? Yeah?
Speaker 7:So an average day for us in flamingo we'll get up at five, hit the water at six, return from fishing around six, fuel up, start dinner. Now, I don't know why this is, but I have a theory about it, but sometime between 8.30 and 11.30 at night these large Burmese pythons start their nocturnal movements and they move from one hunting ground to the other. And there is legitimately only one way in or out of Flamingo, and it's Highway 9336. And it's the main road, called the Ingram Highway in the old days, the main road in from Homestead South into Flamingo. And that last five miles of Flamingo you go through three distinct, different habitats, one being red mangrove and some small grassy plain, the next habitat being more white mangrove, and then as you move further up it becomes more pine hammocks. So several distinct ecological zones in that bottom five miles.
Speaker 7:And we'll travel the road at night with all the accessory lighting that a person can afford to have on the front of my vehicle and look for these snakes, both in the road ditches or crossing the road. And we've just, in several years of doing this, picked up no fewer than 10 pythons, and those are just ones we're actively searching for. Sometimes we find them swimming in Whitewater Bay or in Florida Bay, and we'll kill those too. Again, I'm not interested in killing something just for the sake of killing. They recommend you not eat these creatures because they can load up with mercury toxins and we know what kind of ecological harm they're causing. And I love snakes, but in this instance, the best thing that we can do if we come across one of these invasive high apex predators is to kill it.
Speaker 6:Well, you know, I think you and I've talked about snakes for years and I know you love snakes, Um, but I think it's a pretty, you know it's, it's a pretty universally accepted um, you know, message from the biologists of South Florida that, hey folks, this is not a natural thing happening and this is, you know, devastating to the, to the native animals that are living in the Everglades. So, they know, the right answer is, you know, is to you know, if you come across one of these, that it's best to take it out of the ecosystem.
Speaker 7:Correct. You know it's fascinating that the state of Florida has really gravitated towards, like citizen science and health and as hunters you and I we can learn from this when it comes to other invasive predators and working with our state agencies to enlist the help of responsible ethical hunters. Florida now has a python derby and it lasts for several months. They also do like weekend long hunts. Now there are some special training, online training sessions, and you can get listed as a contractor for the state of Florida If you have interest in handling these snakes and capturing them, and the state of Florida has wholly endorsed this, and I think it's a step in the right direction because we're taking the burden off of wildlife biologists and game wardens, who will do their part when they happen upon it.
Speaker 7:But now you've got guys like me and you, ryder, who love an adventure and are not afraid to get dirty and chase these things down and get them off of the small mammals and alligators and deer that live in the glades. You've got legitimate python hunters and contractors out there doing good work to help save the Everglades from this destructive ecological nightmare that is the Burmese python.
Speaker 5:Now Seth, up here in Canada I worked for Canada's largest reptile. It was a zoo, but it was basically a place, like you said, where people have animals. They don't realize that tortoises can outlive us, or they get these pets that they think are a cool idea and then they release them into the wild. Well, obviously, up here releasing a python doesn't do much In the winter. Winters are quite dramatic. But, like we said, when you're fishing your bait bucket, don't empty it into a body of water where there's. There's so many risks for our fisheries and, you know, for our forests If you do let different species that don't belong there go Right?
Speaker 7:No, it's definitely a case study in South Florida is full, like the pythons, catch headlines because it's, you know, giant snake attacks man, giant snake eats alligator, and so it's definitely a headline grabber. But there are other invasive species in South Florida. There's house geckos. They've made their way all the way into central Georgia and they're not supposed to be there. Now you have a small lizard. They're beautiful, they're cute.
Speaker 7:They started in the pet trade, in the reptile pet trade, and now they're loose upon the landscape out competing the native animal. You know the little green lizards right that we have all through the southeast around our houses. There's tegu, t-e-g-u, there's river monitors, things that come from other continents that are not supposed to be here, and they're now loose across the South Florida landscape. Iguanas there's a ton of iguanas inhabiting South Florida and they're not supposed to be there. And what those lizards do that this type of snake doesn't do, is they eat a lot of the native bird eggs. They're perfectly happy digging up a ground nesting bird's eggs, perfectly adept at climbing a tree to take out eggs from a tree nesting arboreal bird species. And that climate just really allows a lot of these invasive species to get a foothold in what is truly a very fragile ecosystem to get a foothold in what is truly a very fragile ecosystem.
Speaker 2:Well, what's interesting, seth, is? You know you're not talking about an evolution of a migration pattern.
Speaker 6:Right, you know you and I are both birdwatching nerds, for sure, and I'm still fascinated by, you know, picking up my bird books from when I was a kid, and it's pretty easy to look at those maps and just see over time how migrations patterns change. So what you're not talking about is a natural, you know, movement of wildlife into a new area. These are introducing, you know, species, whether it's the snakes that you know that have were released by private owners, or maybe during one of the storms, and then and then the iguanas too, Right? I mean, isn't the thought that a lot of these species were? You know, they're not evolving naturally at all. They truly, in many cases people believe were released, as you said, by people that might've meant well, but didn't realize the damage they were causing.
Speaker 6:That's exactly right.
Speaker 7:And I can understand a pet owner who, you know, had an attachment to this reptile and then was forced to maybe move or, you know, couldn't in whatever capacity care for this animal anymore and maybe couldn't find someone to surrender it to, like Jamie was talking about, which is a wonderful option to have and so they released it on the landscape, thinking well, this climate's suitable and maybe this thing will make it. And unfortunately they make it just fine.
Speaker 6:Tell us, you know, one of the things that's so interesting as you talk about now the people that are, you know, trained, right, and going out to try and define these, these invasive species, and, of course, the. The challenge is, yes, you know, you come across some of the snakes crossing those roads in South Florida, but it's the big female right that is on a nest, and I'm trying to think of what I've read and what I've heard. You know how many.
Speaker 7:you just can't imagine how many eggs, right, yeah the wiches are pretty large and they're not a species that gives live birth, you're right. They actually lay eggs and guard the nest, what the Florida Wildlife Commission has done, and I thought this was brilliant. If they is a female, they will often implant a radio transmitting device right. Just like dog hunters may use with a collar on their dog to find them over rough terrain, and just like we do a tagging of certain fish species, so this one emits a radio pulse and the biologist will turn that female back into the landscape. And this is the final reason. They'll keep tabs on that creature.
Speaker 7:And once the actual gravid season starts, where these animals are going to probably produce some kind of pheromone that's estrus-like and attract males to them, those wildlife officers will go out into those districts where they've released these radio-tagged females. And not only will they find that female using the radio antennae, they will also pick up all the males that have now been attracted to her. So instead of catching a snake, they're using her. You know a snake, they're using her, you know, like a Susie, she is being put back on the landscape to serve a purpose, and that purpose is to find out just how many other gravid females and males might be attracted to her presence, and then they get a much bigger catch of these invasive snakes.
Speaker 6:Well, and at the same time preventing the eggs. You know, not only are you attracting other males, but you're preventing that nest right from hatching. Tell us about I know our listeners are going to want to know like when you talk about big snakes, tell us about how big are these snakes, and then you know, I'm sure you guys have come across some decent sized ones. Just tell us about what we're talking about here.
Speaker 7:I'm sure you guys have come across some decent sized ones. Just tell us about what we're talking about here. I would say the first Burmese python that I ever found in the park, which was over a decade ago, was only about nine feet long and there seemed to be for a while, like the carrying capacity of the Everglades and the newness of the species attaining a foothold ecologically. We saw a lot of snakes that were in that like seven to nine foot range. Uh, now that you've got the contracted python hunters and fwc working really, really hard, hand in hand with citizenry, to find these snakes, uh, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the most recent record-setting snake that was caught in florida was an excessive 18 feet cow, so double the size of the biggest one that we've seen, which was right at the 12 foot mark. If you look at the pictures of these snakes and I can tell you from handling them, it's just one solid muscle, like one solid muscle, like stronger than any bodybuilder's bicep or forearm, and it's 12 to 18 feet long.
Speaker 5:Now, seth, how do they react? Like if you see one one, let's say, on the road and you go to approach it. Are they aggressive, are they?
Speaker 7:it's a great question, jamie. Yeah, for the most part they want to evade detection. So, um, I'll keep the headlights on them. We're all driving around with head like head, you know, like you wear around your hat, uh to to be able to continue to see when we get in, uh into either the grass or or, you know, past the headlights, where I have a good, good line of sight on these things.
Speaker 7:I am often, um, very cautious around these snakes. They have six rows of teeth, the outer rows being pretty large, the inner rows being pretty small. They can unhinge that jaw and while I've been tagged by a lot of our native snakes and it's not fun you know your non-venomous snakes just from handling them, whether it was a coach whip or a racer or a corn snake, you're going to get tagged if you mess with snakes. Enough, this is not a snake you want to get tagged by. You can Google videos of people trying to get them off when they've had their hand hit or their forearm hit, and you need some pretty serious tools just to get all these recurved teeth, these needle sharp teeth, out of your hand or arm. So I often will shut the engine down, leave the lights on, so that we don't have that vibration, and hustle over to the snake and try to get it away from the vegetation so that I can get it up on the road where I can handle it better.
Speaker 7:I would say nine times out of 10, they just want to get away, but I'll grab them by the tail, drag them, let them make a couple of lunges at me, stay clear, and they tire pretty quickly. Most reptiles do. Their bodies are not meant for long struggles and so they build up a lot of lactic acid and I'd rather tire that snake out a little bit before I grab it behind the head, especially if it's a big one. And inevitably when you grab one mouth opens it's behind the head, especially if it's a big one. And inevitably when you grab one mouth opens it's trying to bite you because now it's in fear for its life and they start wrapping up on you and it is absolutely overwhelmingly impressive just how strong their constriction is. I've grabbed a couple big enough that I was grateful I had my buddies with me, because I don't know that I could have unwrapped them from my arm.
Speaker 6:I'm laughing because I'm picturing. The word impressive, I mean. I think I'm picturing in the middle of the night, out in the Everglades under a headlamp, and you've got a 12-foot snake wrapped around your leg or your arm, and the word that comes to Seth Vernon's mind is my. What impressive strength this snake has.
Speaker 7:Yeah, you know, I mean I hate that. They're here, right, and I think that if we were in their native range where they live, it'd be really cool to see one and we wouldn't harass it. I wouldn't say that we're fortunate to have anybody especially the local population and the animals that we want to thrive in the Everglades to have to contest with these extremely large snakes. But while they're here and while they're accessible, I sure want to get the experience of being up close and personal with that.
Speaker 7:And no, this is different from some really dumb individual like we see every summer getting close to a grizzly bear or a bison in Yellowstone. Right, you know we're not out there to redneck it up and be disrespectful to the wildlife. Well, that's tormenting a native animal. It is, yeah, it is. And so, again, these things aren't endemic. They've become a huge problem. They've put a massive dent on so many of the native fauna in the park. And look, we're just happy that we get to do our part, and three of the guys that come down there with me are all about snakes. They're not afraid to lend a hand and you know we try to get after them. Do our part while we're there, it's fun.
Speaker 6:Hey Seth, Go ahead, Jamie.
Speaker 5:It's so awesome that when your guests are out with you fishing, you have the opportunity to see some amazing wild animals while you're there, too. Right Like. You got sharks, you got snakes, you got crocs, you got alligators. I pulled a couple years ago when my kids were young. We went to some reptile like a little zoo, right yeah. And on the way there down Alligator Alley we saw more than were actually at the actual farm right yeah, I'm an idiot. I could have just pulled over to the side of the road and observed these great creatures, but no, there's one in a pen that they're feeding whatever else to right. But it's amazing. Florida's got some amazing diversity to the animals and the fish as well, yeah.
Speaker 7:And so here's a neat success story and Ryder will appreciate this as much as I do. But you know, flamingo got its name because of the native flamingos that used to exist there in Florida Bay around Snake Bay and Shark Point and Madeira Bay. Exist there in Florida Bay around Snakebite and Shark Point and Madeira Bay and that most recent hurricane that ripped through last fall pushed a huge host of flamingos up from Central and South America and they're now hanging out all over South Florida and back in the park in Florida Bay, all over South Florida and back in the park in Florida Bay. I'd love to see our native wildlife and especially some of these incredible birds you know really do well and thrive.
Speaker 7:And the key to that and this is probably my big soapbox is the state of Florida has got to do a better job of fighting special interests, namely big sugar, and they've got to get the EAA reservoir up and running, which is going to scrub and clean water coming from agriculture before they send that water south.
Speaker 7:The natural flow of that environment was that the banks of Lake Okeechobee during summer rains would just overflow. Now we have the Herbert Hoover Dam there that mitigates that and they divert water east and west on the coasts. You can go to Captains for Clean Water if you want and see a lot about this information. But the natural flow of that fresh water would leave Okeechobee and flow south and west down into the Shark River Basin, through the Shark Valley across the Sawgrass Prairie, and that water helps to mitigate all of Florida Bay and the Gulf Coast from being too hyper-sailing and it just restores the health of that whole ecosystem to have a constant undercurrent of water what they call laminar flow just creeping down that whole South Florida glade. And that's going to be the key it's getting that water to return south and that'll be what saves the Everglades, more so than us wrestling pythons.
Speaker 5:Well, seth, I got so many more questions. We might have to do two episodes, if that's okay with you, but I'd love to dabble into some of your coastal fisheries and wow, there's so much, so much to do. The Outdoor Journal Radio Network's the Untamed Pursuits. We're bringing guides like Seth to you each and every week. Seth, I can't thank you enough for this show. If people want to book a trip with you down in the Everglades or up in the Carolinas, how would they do that? How do they get in touch with you?
Speaker 7:Yeah. So the best way to get in touch with me and I'm here in Wilmington for the majority of the season they can find me online at doublehallguideservicecom, and they can reach me through Instagram at capped Seth, and they can call me on the phone or send me a text at 910-233-4520.
Speaker 6:That is amazing. It is amazing and, seth, we're going to bug you if that's okay for a future show. Jamie and I we could bother you with questions for many mornings and listen man, I can't thank you enough. I'm so excited that you jumped on with us today and, as Jamie said, I'm sure we're going to try to bug you again for a couple more shows and then you and I will be fishing and hopefully hunting snipe and rail and doing some red fishing this fall man.
Speaker 7:So I can't wait to catch up with you again this fall. Likewise, I cannot wait to have you on the Battle of the Boat.
Speaker 6:Seth, thanks again, man, thank you so much, and Jamie and I are both real grateful that you jumped on with us today.
Speaker 7:Hey, thanks for having me. Look forward to doing another show together soon.
Speaker 5:Hey, I'm your co-host, Jamie Pasilli, here with Ryder Knowlton on the Untamed Pursuits podcast, part of the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Network.
Speaker 9: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 Jerry 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 9: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 2:How did a small town sheet metal mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges? Mechanic come to build one of Canada's most iconic fishing lodges. I'm your host, steve Niedzwiecki, 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 8: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 1: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.
Speaker 2:You said hey, pat, have you ever eaten a trout? Find Diaries of a Lodge Owner now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.