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It's lines and times. My name is Spencer Graves have joined with west Logan, a bass Master Elite. Also, I found out he was a heating and air specialist before he got into professional building. Jack of all trades, but ice of knowing, well, I'm happy to have you in. You know, the last time that you and I sat down, we had a couple of our other buddies in, Joseph Webster, who's a bass Elite, and Will Davis Junior, a winner this year's Rookie Year on the bass Elite. We were talking about live scope. Man, I'll tell you what you were right. You and I had a good conversation yesterday on the phone that pretty much died. That conversation. Yeah, it was like really hot and then it just like just went silent. I don't know what happened. I feel like it was the conversation we had. We put so many nails in the coffin that I think enough people were like, yup, all right, I get it. Yeah, well everybody understands now, But like, okay, we're gonna go from that. Today. We're gonna talk a little bit about the bass Elite schedule that came out. Do you have any interest in wanting to match that up against MLF. I know there's two battlings there. Yeah, yeah, but you know I saw I saw Toledo bend on both. Yeah. Man, I feel like it's been like that way the last like couple of years. I feel like we're chasing each other, whether it be you know, them coming after us or us coming after them on these events, and it I feel like it kind of makes it tough on us anglers because everything's obviously live stream now you can see everything, so like everybody kind of has an idea of going into If you're the second tournament coming to this venue, you kind of know what's going on, whether it be you know, a couple of weeks later, which is what most of them have been. But I mean, I don't know if there's like a competition, and I don't know all the ins and outs about the schedule making. I mean, I guess if one of these towns has enough money for you know, one one group to come there, they have enough for both of us to be there. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know if every every town pays like the premium. I know Sabine in that area of Orange, Orange Texas. I know that they paid a pretty good amount of money to have you guys come out there, because the fishery doesn't always play out to what we all expect in the big bass world. Yeah, from a fishing standpoint, it's not very good. But man, the crowds and the whole you know, the whole town just you know, they love us being there. What other town put on a giant concert like, you know, like they set that police up to be a party, and that's certainly what it is. Let's go over the Bassilite schedule. We'll kind of break down a couple of things there. We can certainly talk about, like the interest of wanting to maybe go to different places than your competition. But there's one thing I want to bring up to you that I would love to see bass is an organization and MLF do because then you can solidify truly who is the best of the best. We'll get into that. Let's talk about the schedule. February twenty second through the twenty fifth. You're gonna be a Toledo bend. How do we feel about Louisiana to kick off in February. It'll be it'll be really good. It's gonna be you know a little bit of a curveball. Not a curveball, but you know, a shake up of us not starting in Florida like we have for the past few years or probably past ten years really, but there's gonna be some you know, massive weights like Tolino. Ben's on fire from what you know, you read all the reports and of last year, you know, all the big weights has come out of there. I think the grass is doing really good there from what I've read. So, I mean, I feel like it's on the you know, on the uptick as far as lakes go. And they'll be our guys, will I mean, they'll blast him. It'll be it'll be some epic weights. I'm sure this time of year seems a little interesting in me. The second event of the bass Master Elite schedule is Lake Fork late February to early March, the twenty ninth through the third. Yeah, that's interesting to me. That seems a little early in the schedule for lake Fork. Yeah, I'm sure Lee Livis he's slicking his chops and I mean, I obviously Lee could could catch him there, you know, twelve months out of the year for sure. But I match Atlas too though. Yeah, absolutely, And it's just with him being as good as a fishman as he is, and then it being where he's guided his whole life. You know, it's hard to beat him there, but I I mean late force and amazing fishery. It kind of timey year, though, Oh it'll it'll be you. It may be harder to get a bite, but probably when you get a bite, it'll be it'll be quality. You're not gonna go around and catch forty or fifty a day most guys, I mean somebody might, but I think your your quality bites will be way up. Then we go to the Bassmaster Classic this year it's at Grand Lake, and I mean, I don't think you made it, no qualifier, So you're gonna have a little bit of a break until April. What I did notice in this schedule that seems a little different than the last couple of years is it seems like your breaks are a little shorter, so you're kind of going event to event to event to event. And in our last conversation that we had, that was one of the things that popped up the long wall between the second and third portion of the year. Yeah, I kind of like how they broke it broke it down this year. I really the only thing that kind of bothered me personally about schedulest the month of May. I feel like that's one of the better months in fishing, Like is that month the man? We've got one one event in Murray? Uh, but you know the two in April, like we were like we're bringing up after the Classic, is there will be I've I've never fished in Florida in April, so I'm really looking forward to that. I think there'll be big weights there. Our first our first four events, and the Classic. I mean, Grand's a phenomenal, Like Grand's probably the best lake in the country that doesn't have any type of grass in it. It's what I've always how I've always felt about it. So the first five events are great and then we're you know, rolling to which I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but Bama and June's gonna be a lot tougher than people think it is. Late May early June. It's amazing how and I've lived here in my whole life and fisherman that two week transition from early May early or late May early June too late June is it's it's a big difference when you say that transition. Is that a water turnover thing? No, I think that's because of the heat. I think it's a heat situation along with pressure. I think eventually, like, man, we have so many tournaments here, and I know there's tournaments across the country, but Bama, like I think we talked about it last time we were on it's like the center of all fishing, pretty much like Alabama. You know, that Northern Alabama deal, and you know, they just have tournament after tournament, day after day after day, and it's just after night after night. You know, you got you got a six to twelve in the morning and then a three to you know, nine in the evening every day and then two weekend tournaments. It just I think the pressure starts catching up with them because the fishing is great, and then all of a sudden, it'll be like a light switch and it'll it'll get you know, go downhill for the most part. You know. I know we're talking about the Smith Lake event that's happening the twenty seventh through the thirtieth in June, and obviously that being being that's the second part of the Alabama deal because you've got Wheeler Lake the thirteenth through the sixteenth. But I want to go back to the Florida thing real quick. You know, Harris Chain in April, I fished the Toyota Series. We fished that in April, right, And I wouldn't say it was a stingy tournament. We had some crazy weather that came through. But I also felt like on our Toyota schedule there wasn't a tournament that we had to had pristine fish. Yeah, the weather didn't set up good. It seemed like in twenty twenty three almost every event you went into, the weather was screwing you up somehow. But that's something you guys, as pros, you deal with everything. Oh day, Oh yeah, that's I mean, that's a whole deal about us being pro like we like a lot of times you get to like just you know, everyday fisherman casual. Get to what it's gonna rain to day or it's gonna you know, we got a cold front. Let's just wait a couple of days and then we'll go to be a lot better. We don't have a choice something. We have to go out there and deal with it. But and that's a whole thing that can screw you know, you look at a tournament on the schedule like, man, that's gonna be a slug fest. And then a day before we start practice, you know, you got a bad coal front that drops twenty degrees and it just you know, monkeys everything up. But that's where I think those Florida fish are probably the most, you know, the most ones that are going to be affected by a weather change a lot of times because they're Florida strain. I mean, they're very finicky. They kind of act like women to me if everything's not just if everything's not just perfect, you know, they don't want to cooperate. In Raleigh. If you're listening, I'm not talking about you, but yeah, I think they that will be the only tournament. And maybe we're in April and you're not gonna deal with that quite as much like you would in February, because I think I had to pop up showers. That was the change. And in Florida, when you get those pop up showers, you know, your water temp the day that you're practicing before you go into the tournament could be seventy eight eighty degrees and you're like, this is perfect. After that rain, it can drop down to seventy two or even even less. I mean, look, I've fished Oka Choby. I usually like to go down to Florida right after the holidays, right after Christmas, and I fished Oka Choby this year in the coldest weather it's been since the eighties. Gosh, and I mean we're talking like fifty two. Because what a lot of guys don't realize about that water is when you're dealing with five to six feet in some places to four feet that temperature, it will I mean, you take you take a bowl of water, you put it outside, that's gonna get a lot colder. If you have deeper water, it's harder to adjust. And I mean with the average depth of Oka Chowy being like eight foot, like it's it'll it'll flip floff in a heartbeat. And it fishes like a small pond because nobody really fishes the center of it. Everybody stays on the edge where the grass and right now, as bad as the water conditions are, there's like three places on the whole whole lake to fish, so it's like a real small part. Do you think that's why bass is not going back to oaken Choby. A lot of people have talked about the eradication of the grass. They're screwing things up. Yeah, I mean it's still a phenomenal fishery and it's got giants in it. But you know when Tyler won down there out of the river on the forward face and deal like, man, I'm not gonna say five years ago, ten years ago, that would have never happened. He could have even caught the weights he caught, like, but you're not going to compete with that lake. So you think the fish are just kind of getting spread out because of what's happened a little bit. And I just think the fishing's not. Everybody's bunched up. So those big weights in these little areas, yeah, they're they're there to be caught, but you're you're dividing my among fifty people and or you know, thirty people in three areas. One of the arguments that I've heard from some people about Okochobee is, you know, the pressure and the eradication of grass and like them changing the fisher he has made the fish spread out. But you remember that tournament after they started taking out a lot of the grass where the top thirty had thirty pounds. I talked to a friend of mine. He was like, oh, my buddy was in that tournament, and he said, most of those guys were fishing eight feet away from each other. I have a good heat runs a guide service down there, and he was like, man, dude, it was unbelievable. For like two hours, everywhere you looked around, everybody was really like a seven or eight poundery. He said. It was the craziest thing they could be in the Yeah, it didn't matter, but everybody was sitting on top of each other. He said, those you know, those key areas like just ignited, and every big fish in them was biden. So, I mean the fish are still there, it's just you know, they're getting caught a lot more so at the end of the schedule. After Smith Lake, you have a little bit of break. Basically you're not fishing in July, but then in August you're back to back. You're at Lake Champlain and then you're at the Saint Lawrence. That doesn't really seem any different than what's been happening in the last couple of years. The same thing we just did, you know, however long, you know, a month ago and I think that the weeks are really cul They maybe off one or two, but you know, those are two great fisheries to end on. I mean probably obviously Saint Lawrence's, you know, world class for sure with what just happened up there, and a little different, a little different they're putting in at Waddington, so it's gonna be a little bit farther run to the lake. And I saw some comments on social media about oh, them guys aren't gonna go. They're like, oh, we're going. It wouldn't matter if we only got an hour to fish down there. I mean, you're going to that lake. You can't not win if you don't go to the lake last events of the year when you have to do twenty five to fifty mile one way runs, so you're gonna be doing one hundred miles by the end of it, even more because you're moving around different spots financially, how do you justify that during the season from like a ass nine point I mean, let's you don't even think about it. Let's talk about the sponsor thing, because this is a perfect segue to get into that conversation. A lot of people think professional fishermen get everything for free. I wish, oh can we do? And I'm not I'm not trying to make a joke of it, but like literally, it's really is true. And what's crazy is people think and there's guys in the opens right now that are fishing, and I wasn't because I had a lot of buddies, older guys that we had already you know, been established in the elites when I made it, so I kind of knew the ropes, like what was going down. A lot of the misconception is you make it through the opens and qualify for the elites, that your phone won't quit ringing and people are beating down your door to give you some money. And dude, it could not be further from the truth. Like it is. It's one of the hardest things. It's the hardest professional sport because if you look at it like you played baseball, you know, or you know, NFL, NBA, Once you make it, you're there, You're set, like you're there in those sports. Yes, Like I mean, you go through triple A in baseball, you know you're working your butt off and then you get called to come up and you know you've still got to perform. Obviously, but like you get that signing bonus, you get all that good stuff. Man, you make it to the elites and they're like two weeks later, Bias is calling, hey, we need that entry fee money. When it comes to the entry fee money, it's five thousand dollars an event. Correct, you have to pay all that up front. You can, we have we have you know, payments that we can do it in payments. But they don't really care how you pay it as long as it gets as long as they get it. But yeah, back to the sponsorship deal, man, it's you've got to you know, where you had to build relationships. And the main thing I can tell, like would say for younger people, and I mean, I'm I'm I feel like I still am kind of young. But I've been doing it a long time. I've been doing it since I was eighteen. You have don't be calling people. And I have these these conversations with a lot of the companies I work with because I've gotten really close and they're like my family. He said, I can't A couple of them will say I can't stand with Somebody calls me and says, hey, I'm gonna fish this this and this and this. Can you give me this and this and this and the main thing they're like, we don't really care what you're fishing. What can you do for us for to you know, to get the return on investment for me giving you something? So can you sell me, hire me packs of bates to you know, level out what I'm giving you or what I'm paying you for. So, I mean that's the right approach is to hey, I can do this for you, I can post all this, I can be here at these stores, try and get you in these stores to compensate what you're giving me. That's the right approach, not hey, I'm going to go fish these opens and make the elites. Well that's great and wonderful, but how many rods can you sell? So one of the things that I do in my professional life is, you know, I'm a radio host for I Heard Country and I Heard Media. But I also own my own company, which is a media and marketing branding company, right, and I work with different professional anglers and we talk about like how to get in demic sponsorship, but really where the where the butter is and that's where to be and if you're asking what's endemic and what's non endemic. Endemic is businesses within the group that you're already in. So in the fishing industry, I'm just gonna pull out a double AFCO sunline. Those are endemic. Sponsors non endemic are the ones that you know, you have people that watch you that could utilize those products. Truck companies are non endemic. You know, let's say gasoline companies are non endemic. Boat companies are endemic because everybody needs them. There are a million different non endemics that people don't go to. So tell me, is west Logan when your year is done, how do you set up your sponsorships and where do you try to find extra money or extra cash in order to supplement to compete in the next year. Yeah, yeah, I mean basically, you know, you you obviously want to keep the good relationship with the ones you already have, you know, throughout the year, and then you know, make sure that they're happy with how what you did during the year year. And you know, if you feel like you you did something you know good enough, you you know, ask for a raise, how you just like you wouldn't a regular job. But me personally, like obviously I like to keep those relationships but I in my the companies that I work with now, I am completely happy with you. I love working with them. You know, we're really close and most and majority of them are you know, in the industry. So me going out looking for different companies in the industry is not really going to do me any good because I don't want to obviously, I don't want to be that guy that jumps around, because then you lose your credibility for me talking about something like just a quick instance, if I'm with this company talking about how great it is one year, and then the next year, I'm telling you how great this other product is that competes against you know people, people are noticing that now, you know, on social media, so you kind of lose some credibility there. But for me personally, I'm I've been reaching out to these non endemics like you're talking about, and man, it's it's a lot different talking to these companies than endemic because, I mean, you have some leverage here. You they know what you've done, they know the fishing industry. Well, if you go to you know, somebody out of the industry, they're like, well what does all this mean? Right? Like, okay, you fished here and finished here, and you drove this many miles. Well, how many views like that? They're wanting to say how many eyeballs are on you? So it takes a lot more, you know, navigating and having all this information. It's a lot tougher. But if you can ever break through on one of those deals, it's a lot. It's very much worth it. I had a guy on Facebook and I saw a post that he put up and he was talking about how he took some time and applied for one of those ROD sponsorship programs. And I sent him a private message and I go, hey, man, as great as those scene, Yeah, it's really a way for anglers to get caught by companies giving up your email address so they could put you on different marketing campaigns. You know, some of these companies are going to go out there and they're gonna go, hey, we're gonna give you forty percent off. Well, the markups already way above that. They're still making money out and then they're going to require you to put up X amount of social media posts. And I sent him a note, and I would tell anybody this because it do get a lot of questions from younger anglers who want to know because they do the same thing. They'll go to Sunline, they'll go to AFCO, they'll go to all those endemic sponsors. Those guys are getting hit by everybody. You have to think outside the box. And what I told him is stop going to fishing companies. If there's rods that you like, use those. If there's reels you like, use those reels. But don't think that just because you won a local night derby or you won a local smaller tournament, don't think that these rod companies are these big sponsors are going to be knocking down your door saying I want to give you everything because they've got guys at the top that you still have to buy stuff for exactly. You know, like you probably have a bait sponsor, yeah, but you probably use other baits outside of that. You just know that those baits, if it works just as well, you'd rather use the bait that you sponsor. Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean the companies I work with no like from a bait standpoint, Like they don't make every single bait that I could ever use. But on the opposite side of that is if I'm using a different company's baits, they don't want me, you know, blasting it everywhere, but they want me to use what I need to use to be successful. But like you said in the opportunity, if there's you know, one side by side, I would rather use the one that you know supporting me and I'm supporting them. It's that given take yes, yes, and going back on that. That's why I tried to when I made it, I reached out to the companies that I truly used, not just looking for a dollar here or an extra thousand dollars there. I mean, I'm with Zoom, I'm with arc, I'm with Afcam, with sun that's the Gama Gods. That's the stuff I've used since I've been you know, I was a kid. Sunline is the best. I mean it Just like I made it a point when I qualified to you know, make the elites, and I knew, I knew you have to have sponsors to make it. I'm like, I'm going to reach out these companies that I use, and I mean a lot some of the deals I got when I started wasn't even money or very little, just because I believe in these products. And I mean I felt like I could, you know, promote those well enough to you know, move up in the company. So chasing that extra dollar. Like if you get with a good company and you stay with them two or three years, and you know, somebody comes along like, hey, we'll give you a thousand dollars more. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, because everybody has their own opinion, but just kind of look at jumping ship like that. I just I can't stress that enough to you know, the younger generation. Don't be that guy. There's a name for it, but I can't say it on the radio. You're all good. Yeah, it's a podcast. You can say whatever you want. So just know, like, just know that you can say whatever you want here, like it's it's not it's not radio rules for sure. You just don't want to be jumping around pretty much, is what I'm saying. I mean, because as big as this industry looks, it's very small. Well everybody work by it works for everybody. If somebody leaves this company over here, a lot of times they get a job over here. So you don't really want to burn any bridges. Sometimes it is very necessary to burn those bridges, but you know, a lot of times you try not that's also not just a fishing thing though. That when you're in business, when you get to a point where you're working and you're working for the man, or you're in an industry. Every industry seems really big when you're not in it, but when you get in it, it's tiny. Ya, it really is. It's tiny. You would know more experience on that. I just know this one, but I could see where it's just like it could be. You know, your boss was over here for a minute and you didn't like him, so y'all got into it. Well, two weeks later you got a job off for over here. But then you get that that job, and then a month later he's the boss, and it's like oh. But a lot of that comes down to how you position yourself with what you say about the brands you're representing. Absolutely, if you go out there and you go, I'm West Logan and I love Sunline, Yeah, Well, if Sunline has a bad Batchel Line for whatever reason and you end up leaving them and you go to Berkeley or something like that. If you went on and said I love Berkeley, everybody like, yeah, but you just love Sunline. If you went on and said, I think Sunline has an amazing line when it comes to frogging. They've got some of the best braid that's out there that makes you look already like you're doing exactly what you said to Sunline. I'm promoting your brand. I'm doing it in a good way for you, but I'm not saying that you're the greatest thing ever, because that puts you in a bad spot, puts them in a bad spot, and companies understand that. So if you're looking for sponsorships, do kind of what WestEd. Just just be genuine about it. I mean, like I mean, I don't really know how else to say it. Just being genuine because like I brought up the day of the world today where everybody can see everything you do, Like people don't forget what you say on social media for the most part. Is that kind of how you handle your social platforms as it is. I know some guys they kind of fake how they are on social media because they think that's what people want to see. Yeah, but people aren't doing and you, I think a lot of guy you could get away with that before like the fakeness it comes out eventually you either get caught in a lie, and especially the way our live coverages now when when you're the worst thing I've seen and I'm not I don't know any names, I've just seen it, and not even like all the different platforms, a guy be using something and straight up lie by what it is on camera and it's like sitting there you can see it plainest days like, dude, you just straight up liede. Well, the problem with that is you've got twenty thousand people watching you. Well you're instantly viewed. Is hey, I don't know if I can believe everything he tells me. So like you can say you don't have to say what it is, don't say it's something else. Yeah, that's the biggest thing. Like if you're flipping grass like oh I've been, you know, flipping this ze crawl Junior, and you you go to re rib one up and it's yeah, it's something else, and they're like, wait a minute, Like all you've got to say is, man, is you know I'm flipping this you know, green pumpkin creature baite in in these mats or in trees or something like that. Straight up line man, that that's just not a good look for the whole industry. And I mean it's it's it's not a good look because there are people that you know. I mean, I do this when I watch events. I will slow down different things online and I'll pause and I'll look into it. And that's what we're doing it for, is to and to be honest, to go if you want to go down another rab hole us fishman or making our job a thousand toms harder. How So, we're teaching everybody how to come catch the fish we're trying to catch. To Mike a living, So how do you how do you navigate that where I used to be? And I'm so happy that you you just basically said that you don't. But it used to be that you wanted to keep so many secrets. And I think that's what I saw a lot of the conversations that people were having about Live Scope is the older generation they don't want to help anybody come up. They don't want to have anybody get to that spot because you got to spend time on the water to find the spots that I had to find, and that's how you're going to get there. There's no secrets anymore. There's zero secrets and bath fishing anymore. And I think Man, I'm gonna be honest, there's a lot of the forward facing song old areas or the fans are like, man, it's so boring to wats they're just looking down. They're not saying anything. I think there's a little bit of some secrets left there, like bait Wise and President Ain't nobody really want to say anything? Like because you're in the back of your mind, you're like, all right, this is somewhat of a new technique, the forward deal. We might can have some stuff to ourselves for a year or two. You want to say as much as you can. But on the bike of your mind you're like, man, we've got something a little bit to ourselves. Let's try and keep it as long as we can. Because I mean back when Van Dam and Skeet and like the early years of the Elite series. Man, when you'd get a forty five minute deal on ESPN, they you didn't they didn't have to show nothing. They just showed some fish catches and then you'd get a magazine article two months later. Well, I mean, there's so many there were so many secrets. Then the fishing was easier. Lifeescope is making you, guys way more efficient though too. Oh, absolutely it is. It is your quality of cast. Well you're, yeah, growing in a thirty five degree window exactly. I mean the famous line that everybody says, if you're not scoping, you're hoping. I mean, that's that's the that's the most honest thing ever. A lot of times you were you were hoping that there was a fish by that, you know, lay down that, or that random log laying out there or something. Now you just pan over there and you're like, well, there ain't one there. But like before, you're like, well there might be one. Let me make four or five pitches there. Well that's a minute in a day. Well, you just pan over there there. You just going on tell you, the crazy thing about life scope is not whether or not you have it on the front of your boat. The crazy thing about it is whether or not you have the right settings. Yes, absolutely that you that you can see everything you're looking at. You could look at somebody's screen and go, I mean I see it on these forums on social media. People will see something on Hummingbird and they're like, how did you get your screen that dialed in? And what I'm noticing now more than ever with social media and just the expansion of the Internet and people being able to do research. Honestly, more people are willing to help out now than they were ten fifteen years. Yeah, and I don't really know which I wasn't fishing then. I mean, I haven't been around that long, and I don't know what the reason for that is. I don't know. I mean, it's a good thing, I feel like. But you know that was the case even at doc talk. Yes, you know, you pull up to a ramp now and and somebody goes, hey, man, you're beating them up, and it's like, yeah, man, I was throwing around us. People are actively telling you because all you gotta do is look at the deck of their boat. Because most guys aren't putting their stuff away. And I mean I still fish with some guys. Where they put their boat in the water, there isn't a rod on. Oh yeah, I fished a team tournament weekend ago at Nately and all my buddies are not there. They're my really good buddies, but they won't pull their rods out till they get where they're going. I think are they doing that because they don't want anybody else to see, or they don't want you to see. I don't know. I mean mainly the people that I know. I mean, we're both throwing the same thing anyway, because I mean we we kind of, I mean we talk a lot. But and I know guys that you know back in the day would pull out just random stuff, like you know, just so people because they had people looking at their boat. They would they would like lay different baits in the bottom of the boat or tiss something just crazy on. I'm like, man, man, you're catching them on that. I'll go by there and like it's gonna be a like it's in you know, late Apron. They're all over the bank. You go by there and there's like ten x D east tide on and like you know, big floaters. I'm like, yeah, okay, go And then they get to their spot, they shove and they put all that up in the left bind and then they pull out all their good runs from that. I mean, I'm I'm so new to fishing. I started fishing four years ago. I grew up on a great bass lake in Virginia, Smith Mountain Lake. Oh, it's all it's amazing fish. And I didn't fish when I was a kid. I was on the water, and I'll never forget this. I used to go to this bait and tackle shop every week and I'd asked the guy, hey man, what are they catching them on? And he'd always pull out one bait and say, all, they're catching them on this. And I remember I bought a crank bait. It was a storm wiggle work and it was in that fire tiger piller and he was like, they're catching them on this. I still didn't know anybody that knew how to fish, so I didn't have anybody that could teach me how to fish. I had people would show me how to hunt. That's why I got into hunting so much, but with fishing, I didn't know anybody well. When I finally got into fishing, i'd moved to Atlanta. I was fishing Lake Lanier almost exclusively. A buddy of mine said you need to come up to Smith Mountain Lake because we were both from there but living in Virginia or living in Atlanta. He was like, let's go fish. I caught a forty pounds striper on a jerk bait and two feet of water, and it took me out eighty feet and I'm sitting there like I turned around. When I got this thing in the boat, I looked at him and I said, bro, we get back to Atlanta. I'm buying everything. I bought an Evan Rude one fifty engine on the back of a stratus from ninety nine eighteen foot. I signed up for every tournament I knew, how Like if somebody was like, I need a co angler, and I'm like, I got you. I'm in this tournament as long as you can help me understand some stuff. So I went all in. Well, now when I go fishing, man, I'm still trying to eat up as much information as I can from people. And when I see people faking the baits on the deck, it makes me laugh more than anything. It's a thing. But I mean, like like you said, the you got bit by that bug, you when you got when you caught that first stop. I mean that's and that's why we all do it. And the one great thing about the fishing or the you know, bass fishing as a sport, fishing in general, it's never the same every day. Like I think that's what makes us keep going back. Like me, you want to go out there, you want to go out there. The older guys like it's never the same, hardly ever. I mean you've always got some of the weather changing, the water change, and you know, the moon phase. It's it's always something different. So it's always you're always learning. And in other sports you're obviously always learning. But I mean, you get to a point where hitting a baseball is hitting a baseball, or somebody's throwing it to you. They're throwing it to you. Hey, I think anything catches up with technology, you know, the life scope conversation. I thought about this the other day because I went to a high school football game. When I played high school football, we didn't have TV monitors on the sideline, oh god, where we could go and replay the play that just happened and break it down. We wait until we went to film. Yeah, on Sunday afternoon. Coach who was probably coming in drug from you missed your seven, You can't tackle blut. Yeah. These kids now are getting instruction right the play. Yeah, And that's the same argument that I have with Live Scope. Livescope is just giving you an actual read out about what's happening. It makes you be able to tune your baits a little better. They're not going for this right now. They're not going for that, right now, let me try this. They bid it. I'm gonna stick with that. Yeah, absolutely no, it's that instant. I wouldn't call it gratification because I feel like that's more like social media, like the TikTok deal, like you know, you get it right then. But I mean it's still the same concept, just a different way to look at it. But yeah, I mean technology. I mean I graduated my senior year was in two thousand and twelve. We didn't have none of that stuff. I mean that was eleven years ago. Like I mean, it's just some year ten years after me, right, I mean, like we would go to film on Sunday afternoon and your coach but yell and ask you because that's the first time you saw what hap and instead of like that instant, they're the last generation of me, all of a sudden, you see these new kids and you're like, these kids got it. So man, we barely had an iPhone. I got like an iPhone three my senior year, and I'm like and it was like the best thing ever. Well that's why now with fishing in the technology just it's not even just live scope. I can go online, I can pull up Navy on ex I can look at their mapping system. Yeah, I can look at any lake I want in the world, and I can see the topography line, yeah instantly, you know, instead of pulling out that paper map. I've still got paper maps at the house and a bend just and sometimes I look at them just if I'm curious of how accurate, you know. Yeah, and I'm not gonna lie to Those paper maps were pretty close. Like they weren't like, you know, the real tight contours, like the little bitty stuff, but you know, like they were they got you real close. And I think fishing was a little bit easier back then because the fish weren't is pressured, they didn't get caught as much. So when you got around, you know, like close to a group of fish, you would start catching them instead of you know, you'd have to roll up there and scan around like we do now on live scope, and they're not I saw a podcast the other day for some people that we're talking about what they thought Livescope had done, and like the fishing pressure is the fish are very still relating to the obvious stuff, but they're not sitting like exactly where they should be because every time they roll up there, like a three or four um roll up or one of them gets caught, like almost instantly. So they're like, what happened to Frank? He was just here? Yeah, exactly, Like and about five times of rolling up there and Frank and Frank Junior gets gone. Every time they're like, let's swim over here one hundred yards and try, and like, we'll float over here and when we get real hungry, we'll run up aerial quitting the run off. The behavior of basso is so interesting, especially with all that conversation, because you know, they've done studies where they tag a bass and that bass will find itself back on that tree that you caught it on six months later. So if he don't get caught before he gets there, that's the thing. But they're still they're still dumb fish, right they are, But they're they learn little things along the way and they're able to figure stuff out. But they ultimately will allance whatever environment they're at yes now, and it's the same. I mean, we're dealing with a creature that's got a brain the size of a you know, the end of your thumb. I mean, you know, the majority of them, and I don't think they're like they know they're getting caught by bass fisherman. They're just doing it for more like of a survival situation. Like I think that's more of it. People like man, then fish don't know that they're you know that you're catching them on a red worm. I'm like, well, no, he probably don't. But eventually he sees ten thousand red worms and he gets jerked out of the water every time he goes near one. He's gonna know to kind of maybe I'm gonna hold off on that when it comes to that, Do you set the hook and practice? Not very much? And you start practice on what Monday Sunday? Monday, Monday, Tuesday? And then we you know, they say we have Wednesday full day, but you mean you're off by three or four o'clock most so on Monday, do you go out and set the hook just to see what you're dealing with a lot of times I'll start practice with a hook some of the time, depending on where we're at. For the most what do you do? Are you the type of guy where you go out with a bait with no barb or no hook, or do you go out out there and you take your troubles and you fold them under to keep the same weight. It just kind of depends, like on a on a troubled hook bake, I do roll mine because I don't like taking the hooks off because you know, the bait was designed to have the hooks on it, right A lot of I'm a tot water you can take it off like a you know, a walking bait or something. But like plastic wise, when I'm practicing, after I kind of if I find an area, I know I'm gonna fish, but I want to kind of expand. Like let's say I go in an area and you know, the first two times I set the hook's two three pounders and a three pounders is really good on there that I mean, within if it's within two hours of practice, I'm cutting my hook off and I'm gonna, you know, fish everywhere I can around that area because that's where I kind of want to stay at. Well, I don't want to catch every I don't want to go a mile over here and catch one, than a mile over here and catch one because you're just wasted because you were gonna fish there anyway. But I like having like being confident I got three bites down that stretch. I got four bites down that stretch, instead of fishing news I've been I've been bad about before going in an area getting two bites and being like, well, I'll just fish here in the tournament and leave completely, instead of dissecting this area and knowing where the jews stretches are per se. The benefit of losing the hooks is that you can expand your area and see how many fish and actually yes, compared to setting the hook and then worrying like, oh I can't catch anymore. Correct And I mean to be honest, man, how many fish do we shake off that we probably still care? It's probably not very many. But then it becomes a mental game a lot of the time, because you may have shook that one off and you at least you get to go back through there, and you're gonna fish really hard. Let's see if you can get that fit. Man, if you go through there and hook a four pounder like it just mentally, I'm like, well, I know I'm not gonna catch that one, and you still may catch it, but like your odds are way down. Yeah, I see. I think one of the problems that I've had in practice is I'll go because I've heard everybody else's philosophies, right, so then they stick in my head and hearing this philosophy is actually making a lot of sense to me now, and I'll probably change my game plan going in. But how I do it? But I used to go in and I'd stick one fish and I'd be like, Okay, there's fishut or biting here, but I wasn't breaking down enough of that area. That's how you go to Florida. You catch one fish. I'm always extending my area one hundred two hundred yards and just staying kind of in that because they're so school fun. Yes, oh yeah. And like I said that, that goes to like where you're fishing, what caliber fish you're fishing around, Like you knowing in Florida or me knowing as well. Once you get an area, you get one or two biting, you better not let you better not run around because that's where you're gonna need to stay. But I mean there's certain like instant like around here fishing like the and it kind of depends on the southeast if you have a pattern lake going on, or if it's an area I mean it's kind of the same deal. Like Gunnersville is in Alabama, but it's an area like you don't run around gunners Will trying to run a pattern. I've tried it my whole life. It don't work. So you fish Gunnersville at fish gunners Will completely different than I do. You linear and you would fish out as a pattern. You could run it as a pattern because you're running your brush pile as you're running rocky points, stitches anything like Smith Lake. Do that. Yeah, Smith is a very good pattern lake. And maybe it's it's because of the beat selection with the herring compared to Lake the threadfin shad probably and it's probably has a lot to do with like the cover that they have, Like you know, gunners has got the grass, so I mean it kind of does relate to that Florida style fish where they'll get into a grass clump or this area of grass that but it's still a Tennessee River system. It is. It is, but it there's no place on the Tennessee River that has grass like like gunners Will race. I mean, it is you know, slap load. That's why it's the best. You know, one of the best lakes in the world. Still I always laugh when people are like, well, hell, if you're fishing the Tennessee River, just throw what you would throw on the Tennessee River lakes. And it's like it's almost all of them are exactly different. Yeah, they are, they are. They all have their little name with the Cousa. Yeah, they have their similar just like the Cousa. They all have their similarities, but they're completely different. Like when will want it lay you know, I want the first or the lab the first elite you know at Neeli Henry, I want it. And then leading up to that tournament, everybody's like, oh man, you're you know, you're a shoe and I'm like, and du yeah, it's two lakes down, but it is not even close to the side. That's because Logan is that middle sibling. Yes, screws and it's and it's yeah, Logan is like half of Logan is like Neely, and then the other half of Logan is like, I don't even know, so like it's not like l no, no, it's not like it is completely different. And that's how different that lake is between the other two, like Laying or Laying Neely. Like they're all different and they all have coach river spots and they all have a little bit of grass, but they just set up different and it's crazy how different they are. This has been lines and times. My name is Spencer Graves. That's West Logan. 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