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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. 'Round the Fire was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
What are the biggest conservation challenges for our saltwater fisheries?
About 'Round the Fire:
Hunters and anglers sit around the (virtual) campfire to discuss conservation and environmental issues from the unique perspective of outdoorsmen. Sportsmen and women can be important allies in America's ongoing efforts to protect its landscapes.
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Enjoy this blast from the past from the EarthX Archives. 'Round the Fire was one of the first shows we produced and aired back in 2020. EarthX Media has grown a lot since then, but we still like to look back on these insightful conversations and see how far we've come.
What are the biggest conservation challenges for our saltwater fisheries?
About 'Round the Fire:
Hunters and anglers sit around the (virtual) campfire to discuss conservation and environmental issues from the unique perspective of outdoorsmen. Sportsmen and women can be important allies in America's ongoing efforts to protect its landscapes.
EarthX & EarthXtra
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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TVTranscript
00:00Hey, this is Kirk Dieter, host of Round the Fire, and I'm joined today with some really
00:21special guests on EarthX TV.
00:25First of all, I've got my friend Conway Bowman, and he's in San Diego, and then Al Quatrochi,
00:31or we're just going to call you Q or Al Q, and Los Angeles, both of these gentlemen are
00:38saltwater gurus.
00:41They've been my good friends for many years.
00:43We've traipsed around the world and done some funky stuff, but we're going to talk a little
00:47bit about old times and fishing and all that stuff, and then talk about what we're seeing
00:53on the water, because I'm a trout guy, I live in the mountains of Colorado, but I think
01:00we all kind of have home waters, and we all have kind of seen the impacts of what's going
01:04on in the world as far as climate change and other things that we as anglers need to tune
01:10in to, because we're on the front lines, we're the canaries in the coal mine, we can tell
01:14people what's going on.
01:15So I want to kick that all around, but let's start by going back to the very basics, the
01:21very beginning.
01:22I'm going to talk specifically to you, Conway, because you helped me launch my career doing
01:28a story called Fly Fishing Gone Mad for Field and Stream magazine, and eventually made it
01:34into this book, which is the world's best fishing stories.
01:40I got it, you know.
01:43So it's living proof that it's all about the subject matter.
01:48It's more about the writer, actually.
01:53No, I remember that, you know, there I came and you took me out on the boat, and we put
01:59in the chub, and I saw the first Mako shark arrive, and you're telling me stories about
02:04how you would go out in a real small aluminum boat with a compass and like find these fish,
02:09and then figured out how to pull on them, but hooking the first Mako, for me, was surreal.
02:17As I described it in the story, it was like hooking an NFL wide receiver, only they go
02:21three times faster, and at the end of the football field, they jump over the goalpost,
02:25right?
02:26So, yeah.
02:27That's a great description.
02:28Yeah, and the three of us, we hit it a few years ago, and got on the backside of Catalina
02:35and caught some big mamas out there, and I wondered if you guys can talk a little bit
02:40about your sharking experiences and what draws you to it, because you guys are twisted, okay?
02:45I love you.
02:46Well, thank you.
02:47Appreciate that.
02:48So, how'd you get into it, Kyle?
02:54You know, so the way I got into it was the Mako shark was the only saltwater big game
03:01fish on the west coast that you could sight fish here with a fly rod.
03:06They come to the boat, you hook them, they jump, and they're very powerful, and they're
03:10one of the most beautiful fish in the ocean.
03:12So, we're fortunate to have a good volume of this fish that's a few miles off our beach
03:18here.
03:19So, that's how I really got into it.
03:20You know, early on in life, my dad and I would spend our summers in Stanley, Idaho, so I
03:25learned how to fly fish, fly fishing for trout on some really great, famous western rivers,
03:31but we would always come back to San Diego in the winter.
03:34He was a schoolteacher, and so we had the winter here, so I basically, I was fly fishing
03:39for bass and bluegill, and then I was in my early 20s when I started kind of getting
03:46curious about saltwater fly fishing, because my dad had a great library.
03:50He had all the great books by Joe Brooks, Lefty Cray, and I would read these wonderful
03:55stories, and it took a while to figure out the Mako game, but once I kind of figured
04:03it out, it became, and has become, one of the greatest fisheries on the west coast for
04:10a fly angler, in my opinion, so, yeah, I mean, that's kind of the, that's the long and short
04:15of it.
04:16Yeah, and the thing that struck me, too, was going out on the boat and all the other stuff
04:20you'd see, too, on dolphins, whales, and it's just, the ocean is so amazing, and a land
04:28guy like me in Colorado, when I daydream, I say I daydream about trout fishing, and
04:35that's kind of where I was born and raised and so forth, but all my night dreams tend
04:40to revolve around the ocean and tarpons and sharks and stuff like that.
04:45There's so many more of those big, big Makos around now, but you're right, you take somebody
04:50out that isn't used to the ocean or hasn't been spending much time on the ocean, we just
04:55go a few miles offshore, and you're going to see some amazing, amazing wildlife.
05:00Yesterday I was out, we saw a blue whale, came within 100 feet of the boat, 100 foot
05:06blue whale spouted right 100 feet of the boat, it was incredible, the folks on the boat were
05:11from Chicago, and they're like, whoa, you know, so, in addition to seeing Mako sharks,
05:16you're going to see so much other things, but it really puts people, it connects them
05:22with nature in a very, very intimate way.
05:24You're on a small boat, looking at these magnificent creatures, whether it's a Mako shark, or a
05:29blue shark, or a tuna, or a 100 foot blue whale.
05:34So, and what that does, it makes people, once they get off the boat, now they become a great
05:40ambassador to the ocean, because I really don't think people that haven't been on the
05:44ocean, they've just seen it on TV, they've read about it, they've, you know, they've
05:51seen things on the Discovery Channel, but once they get out and experience it, it changes
05:57their life, and they become our next greatest ambassadors.
06:01No doubt.
06:02I agree.
06:03You know, I was going to say, with all the bonito we have around lately, Conway, about
06:08three weeks ago, we were just driving the boat, coming back in, and a free jump in Mako
06:13just took off.
06:15And it was like out of nowhere, and we were like, oh my God, we were like little kids.
06:19It was such a cool thing.
06:21And then last week, I saw something that I've never seen before.
06:24We saw the seal eating something near these big schools of bonito, and we got close to
06:29it, and my buddy goes, wow, look, he's eating a white sea bass.
06:32And we got closer, and I go, that's not a white sea bass.
06:35The seal was eating a juvenile Mako.
06:38Oh, really?
06:39Never seen anything like it.
06:41Yeah.
06:42I've only seen that once, one time, and it was really interesting.
06:48But, so I think that Mako shark may have been weak, may have been injured, and so.
06:53That's what we have.
06:54Big shark hit the small shark or something, because there's no way the seal's going to
06:57catch a Mako.
06:58No, no, no.
06:59There's no way.
07:00Yeah.
07:01That's really amazing.
07:02Or maybe somebody hooked it, released it, you know, who knows?
07:05Yeah.
07:06But it's crazy to see those things out in the Pacific Ocean, and pretty close to where
07:10we live, just right offshore.
07:12We're very fortunate.
07:13Yeah.
07:14Yeah.
07:15The beauty of the ocean is you never know what you're going to see.
07:17Every day is different.
07:18Yeah.
07:19Yeah.
07:20So talk to me a little bit more, Q. I know you're kind of a guru of a funky species called
07:24Corbina that a lot of East Coast saltwater anglers, and a lot of Midwesterners, and Rocky
07:29Mountain anglers, they don't even really understand it that much, and you've written a book about
07:33it.
07:34Tell us a little bit about how you got into that, and what your book's about, and all
07:39that.
07:40Well, you know, the Corbina have always been here.
07:41They've been here for millions of years, and, you know, they were a very difficult fish
07:45to catch on a fly.
07:47And years ago, I remember fishing with a guy named Nick Curcione, and I actually caught
07:52one on leadcore, you know, like throwing cable.
07:57And I hooked one, and I landed it, and he's like, oh, my God, you got a, you know, a fair
08:01caught Corbina on a fly.
08:04That's unbelievable.
08:05And I didn't realize how important it was, or how difficult it was.
08:10And then, years later, I realized that, you know, people weren't catching these fish routinely.
08:16So we had a bunch of guys, just a bunch of group of guys that would go out there, and
08:20we tried to figure out how to sight fish these Corbina.
08:24And you know, in the beginning, it was tough, because we were throwing heavy lines at them.
08:27But then, with the progression of the new lines, and the lighter sinking lines, and
08:32we came upon, my buddy Paul came up with a fly that would land soft, it was based on
08:37the Del Brown Merkin fly.
08:40We were able to get close to these fish, and we were able to get them to eat the flies
08:43consistently.
08:44And I was like, oh, my God, we kind of cracked the code a little bit.
08:49So we, I started writing articles about it, and, you know, doing lectures on it and stuff,
08:56because we were catching Corbina routinely, it was like, it was unheard of, you know.
09:00Back when I first caught my first one, Nick basically told me, if you can count the amount
09:03of Corbina you catch on one hand in your lifetime, you're considered a great angler.
09:08And here we were, you know, guys were getting 20, 30 Corbina in a season.
09:13It was, it was crazy.
09:14So we started getting excited about it.
09:16And it was really only a handful of us doing it at the time.
09:19And after, you know, preaching about it, after about 10 years, we're starting to see a lot
09:23of people now out on the beach, chasing these fish and having a great time catching them.
09:27So something kind of caught on, we got this movement going now, and it's really exciting.
09:32I'm very fortunate that the timing is right for me to have a book coming out on this subject.
09:37You know, I've been threatening to write the book for 10 years, and it took COVID and lockdown
09:42and me bringing my studio from work to home to actually sit down and actually do it.
09:47So I'm happy, I'm going to get that out soon.
09:50What's it called?
09:51And how can people get it?
09:52The Corbina Diaries.
09:54And you can get it on Love2, the number two, love2flyfishmedia.com.
10:02Awesome.
10:03You guys, that just triggered a thought.
10:05You guys are both code breakers.
10:07That's just, I'm talking to the code breakers here.
10:09And you know, there's a common denominator there, too, because Nick Kurtz, you know,
10:13was the guy who was one of the first anglers, fly anglers, to target mako sharks on a fly rod.
10:19And he's the one who really inspired me to go out.
10:21So there's an interesting, you know, connection there.
10:25And Nick was great.
10:29I used to harass him at all the trade shows.
10:31I'd walk up, you know, I'd ask him all these questions.
10:34And I knew I sort of had arrived when I took him out.
10:38And we had a wonderful day.
10:39We caught a handful of really big makos.
10:41And as he got off the boat, he said, yeah, he goes, I think he said something like,
10:47you know, I may have started this, but you've pushed it to the next level.
10:51So, you know, you've arrived.
10:52I'm like, yeah, thanks, Nick.
10:53But Nick is that common denominator also.
10:57And so, but he was a pioneer in West Coast fly fishing.
11:00And it's really cool that he's both inspired and sort of mentored both Al and me.
11:09Yeah, I want to take that up a notch.
11:11I ran into Steve Abel about a couple of years ago.
11:14And he's another one that was kind of in that same thing.
11:16Absolutely.
11:17Caught a bunch of makos back in the early day.
11:19And I showed him some of the photos from the day we, the three of us went out.
11:23And he was like a little kid giggling.
11:25He goes, oh my God, he couldn't believe it.
11:28He goes, he couldn't believe the size of those fish.
11:30But both those guys couldn't, they never really caught, I mean, they caught big ones.
11:36I think a hundred pounder was a big one then.
11:38But what we experienced a couple of years ago and what we're experiencing, it's crazy.
11:43So, those guys were so important in sort of the evolution of the mako fishery.
11:50But now they've given us the opportunity to kind of push it to the next level.
11:55And I think we really have.
11:57It's been great.
11:58Just as the Corbina.
12:00I remember years ago, you'd see one guy fly a machine for Corbina.
12:04And now the legions of flying was that are doing it.
12:09It's pretty impressive.
12:11So, that's crazy.
12:13First of all, for context and for the audience, when we're talking about a big one now
12:17on the mako shark side, we're talking 800 pounds plus.
12:20Yeah.
12:20Oh, yeah.
12:20Yeah.
12:21Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:21That is nuts.
12:25But let's talk some brass tacks though.
12:27You guys have seen these fisheries evolve now for many years.
12:30And Conway, when you and I started fishing together, you told me.
12:35I had it in my notebook.
12:36I was looking at my old notebooks the other day.
12:37And it was like, mako shark fishing kind of started around Memorial Day in May.
12:43And it kind of ended around Labor Day.
12:45And you had that short window a few months.
12:48Have you seen things change with the water temps changing and the seasons changing
12:53and the fish changing?
12:55Can you walk us through a little bit of that?
12:57The climate change and the impact on what's going on with the water?
13:01Yeah, absolutely.
13:01Michelle and I were having this conversation a couple nights ago.
13:04So, when I first started doing this, you're right.
13:07Memorial Day was the kickoff.
13:09And it pretty much tapered off after Labor Day.
13:11The water temps were cooler early.
13:15And they would warm up in August.
13:18And then they would start cooling down again in September.
13:20And what I mean by cool, warm, back then, a year when you would have water
13:26that would hover around 70 degrees, that was warm.
13:30Okay.
13:31Now, how many years?
13:32Let's say it's 20 years later.
13:35I was out yesterday.
13:36I had 74 degree water.
13:38And we're in October.
13:39Okay.
13:39And I keep very detailed logs on all this stuff.
13:42So, I've seen an increase in water temperatures over the last 20 years.
13:47And it's really starting to accelerate.
13:49The other thing that I've seen is the ocean currents have dramatically changed.
13:54When we first started doing this, you could go out.
13:57And by and large, you would have a very prominent north to south current every day
14:02from May through September, October.
14:06Now, that current can be north to south today.
14:09It can be east to west tomorrow.
14:11It could be swirling around and doing absolutely nothing the next day.
14:15So, there's some fundamental changes going on with the ocean.
14:21And it's adversely affecting the fishery.
14:22I'm not seeing a lot of school-sized mako like we used to see.
14:27So, the school-sized mako would be 40 to 150, 200 pounds.
14:32Not seeing a lot of those fish early on now or during the typical peak season.
14:37I'm seeing more big fish early, like big fish, 300 to 800 pound fish.
14:44A fair amount of very small fish.
14:46And then as we're getting into the fall now,
14:49that's becoming what it was like early in the season years ago.
14:53So, right now, I'm seeing those 80 to 200 pound fish
14:58mixed in with a few really big ones.
15:00So, it's definitely changed.
15:02And the food item for the mako shark has changed as well.
15:05Over the last 10 years, we've had a lot of bluefin tuna
15:08that have kind of migrated into our area.
15:11Anywhere from, you know, 10 miles off the beach to 100 miles.
15:15And I think it's really, it's changed.
15:19That food item has changed the mako shark sort of migration pattern
15:23and what they're eating.
15:24So, I will tell you, it has changed.
15:27And anybody who kind of denies, you know, climate change,
15:30all the days and all the years that I've put on the ocean,
15:34I've never seen, and all the logs that I've kept,
15:37I've never seen such a dramatic increase in water temperature.
15:41And just a fundamental change in the fishery.
15:43It's really, really interesting.
15:45So, and it's great because I can talk to Michelle about this
15:47because she's a marine biologist
15:48and she has a greater grasp on the scientific part of it.
15:52I have the observation part,
15:53but she can bring in, she brings in a lot of solid information
15:56that makes a lot of sense.
15:57Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:58It's amazing.
16:00I'm not as offshore as you are Conway,
16:01but seeing the dorado up here,
16:04seeing the bluefin tuna, 300, 400 pound bluefin tunas,
16:07the guys are catching them on the helium balloons
16:10and the gummies, it's insane.
16:13And we had Wahoo here, like not too many years ago.
16:16Two years ago.
16:16Three or four years.
16:17Yeah, two years ago, we had Wahoo right up here.
16:19You know, pretty soon I'm going to be going off the beach
16:21and catching rooster fish.
16:23Yeah.
16:23It's nuts.
16:24You could be, you could be.
16:26So it's really interesting.
16:28I was reading some of Zane Gray's early writings
16:31when he was a member of the Catalina Marlin Club
16:33or Tuna Club.
16:34And that was the early 1900s, was it?
16:37Something like that.
16:38But they were seeing bluefin tuna then,
16:39which is really interesting.
16:41So a hundred years later, that's sort of coming back.
16:44But one thing I didn't find was water temperature.
16:46I would be curious to see what the water temperature was
16:50a hundred years ago with these bluefin tuna here.
16:53So with, you know, with the bluefin tuna there versus now.
16:56Well, you know, it kind of sounds like,
16:59I mean, I don't mean to be silly here,
17:01but it's almost good news.
17:02Like if I could catch rooster fish off the beach in LA
17:06I'd be down, you know, sign me up.
17:08But yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:09There's always the other side of the coin.
17:11What have you lost?
17:12And what do you-
17:12Well, yeah, I think with the warming water,
17:16you're losing sort of the, our Southern California-
17:21Native species.
17:22Our kelp beds, our indigenous, our native fish,
17:26our kelp, you know, our kelp bass, our white sea bass.
17:29All those things will be pushed away unless they can adapt,
17:32which, you know, I don't know if they can.
17:34But I know during big El Nino events,
17:37and Al, you've seen this,
17:38we have a prolonged El Nino event,
17:41all the kelp beds disappear.
17:43And the water has to cool back down
17:45to get them grown again.
17:47And that is prime habitat
17:48for all those near shore species we have down there.
17:51I mean, the Pacific Ocean in Southern California
17:53is pretty darn cold if you think about it,
17:55you know, in comparison to the East Coast.
17:57But right now, 74 degree water, five miles off the beach.
18:01I've never, ever seen that.
18:02Yeah, the other day, 71 off the beach.
18:05Off the beach, 71.
18:07It's interesting.
18:07It really is.
18:09And we've surf perched.
18:10I'm wearing the surf perch.
18:11I haven't seen surf perch in two to three years.
18:14I used to get them all the time.
18:16So, you know, other than some of the obvious things,
18:19are there other ways to mitigate this?
18:21Are there things that we need to, you know,
18:23for us in Colorado, we're experiencing fire now.
18:27We, you know, in California,
18:28certainly you've experienced fires too.
18:30There are ways to mitigate the effects on rivers.
18:33You know, we can plant more trees.
18:35We can create more shade.
18:36We can create more habitat and cover.
18:38We can keep flows going.
18:39We can do those types of things.
18:41The ocean's an awful big piece of water.
18:43And when it's changed, it's going to be changed for a while.
18:46Yeah.
18:47Yeah.
18:48Other things that we can do, you know.
18:50But it's really, I think the ocean is something
18:52that has to be done globally.
18:54Because it's everyone's problem.
18:56And it's, you know, for many years,
18:58for many years, it was such a big, mysterious place
19:01that nobody understood what really,
19:03what the ocean was all about.
19:04And we just made it into a complete toilet bowl now.
19:06Everybody throws everything into the ocean.
19:09Chemicals, plastics, you name it.
19:12I mean, it's, and it's starting,
19:13we're starting to see the effects.
19:15You know, the ocean is like the Amazon.
19:17It sucks so much carbon dioxide.
19:19You know, it keeps, it's like a filter.
19:22And now, because it's becoming acidic,
19:25we're not getting that carbon dioxide pull
19:27from the ocean anymore, as much as we used to.
19:30It's really a big problem.
19:31And everybody can do their part.
19:33But like Conway says, I think getting people out on the water
19:36and experiencing the ocean is really,
19:38when it becomes something that generates inside you,
19:42that there is something really there.
19:44When we lose the ocean, we're going to lose our,
19:46we're going to lose everything.
19:47Yeah.
19:48Yeah.
19:48The whole system's going to break.
19:50So.
19:50So I think, you know, a lot of the inland development
19:53in Southern California, our wetlands,
19:56our riparian habitats have really been affected.
20:00The fertilizers, the nitrates that are dumped
20:03into our watersheds that end up in the ocean,
20:06that creates just crazy red tides
20:08that we've seen in recent years.
20:10And that really affects the food item for all the fish,
20:13you know, all the game fish.
20:15And, you know, you're seeing a lot more,
20:18a lot of toxins in the bait fish,
20:22and it's affecting the mammals.
20:23It's affecting, it's affecting everything.
20:25So I think addressing things inland
20:28is a really important, is an important thing to do.
20:32And I think we're making progress.
20:34And there's a lot of wetlands restoration
20:37and habitat groups that go out and try to restore it.
20:39But we need to, we need to stay on that.
20:42And we can't, we can't, you know,
20:45have all this development,
20:47even though Southern California is a great place to live.
20:50Whatever's developed inland is going to affect
20:52what we're doing on the ocean.
20:54You know, and Al brings up a great point.
20:56We can bring out folks that are probably our age,
21:00and they can appreciate what's going on.
21:03But it's really important to get very young kids out there.
21:06And kids that honestly don't really have
21:08a connection to the ocean.
21:11So for instance, inner city kids,
21:12we can get them out there.
21:14And you can get them on a boat and observe the wildlife,
21:17things that they have never seen.
21:18They're going to go back to their classroom.
21:20And they're going to say, hey, you know what?
21:22I saw a whale, I saw a mako shark,
21:24I saw an osprey dot, you know, that kind of stuff.
21:26And it's going to inspire, you know, that next,
21:29that next, once again, that next ambassador.
21:32And you gotta remember, people that live along the coast,
21:34it's a very small sliver on both coasts.
21:36It's folks that are even 10 miles inland
21:39that rarely go to the beach,
21:41that don't really have an understanding of the ocean
21:42because they're just living life.
21:44They're trying to survive.
21:45But if you can get them and put them on a boat
21:48or walk in the beach with Al Q,
21:50and just seeing what the ocean's about
21:52and how what we do inland is affecting what's in the ocean,
21:57I think that's where we should go.
21:58I think it's very important that that message gets put out,
22:01whether it's in school, you know,
22:02obviously it's got to be in schools,
22:04but just getting kids out there.
22:06And that's something that I've been really trying to do
22:08the last couple of years with a group called Castco.
22:11Taking interested kids that have never been
22:13out of their neighborhood, we get them out there.
22:14And I will tell you,
22:15you teach a kid how to fly cast or fish,
22:18but then you bring in all that other stuff,
22:20all that nature stuff,
22:21all the connecting with animals and seeing fish
22:26blows their mind.
22:26And they're the next ambassadors
22:28because they go back and say,
22:29I not only caught a Corvina or not,
22:31I not only saw a shark,
22:33but I saw the ocean and how it works.
22:35And it's really cool.
22:37So yeah, that, I think in my opinion,
22:39that's, what's going to save our ocean right there.
22:41Yeah. And I agree.
22:43I agree.
22:44You too Q have been involved in that stuff for a long time
22:47and you've been promoting the sport
22:50and I think right now we're at a stage where
22:53and the fly rivers, the fishing rivers,
22:56the trout rivers and the ocean,
22:59we need to get people connected
23:01and engaged with these resources
23:04because if they really engage,
23:06not take them just for a boat ride,
23:08but take them so that they can understand the sport
23:11and the ecology and all that's going on
23:13and how it's so much more than pulling on fish.
23:15I think that's the future.
23:17Don't you Q?
23:18I do. And even for the fellow fly fishermen,
23:21you know, we all go out to the beach
23:22and we wear a stripping basket.
23:24That's great.
23:24You know, it's important to have that.
23:26But after you're done fishing
23:27and you got to walk back to the car,
23:29put plastic in that stripping basket,
23:31put the garbage,
23:32put the cans that you see in the,
23:34throw that all in the stripping basket,
23:36walk to a garbage can and throw it away.
23:38If everybody did that,
23:40if everybody did that,
23:41the beaches would be clean.
23:43You don't have any idea what I see in the morning
23:45when I get down there
23:46and the stuff that's left there.
23:48From the day before,
23:49it's absolutely incredible.
23:50The guys that are out on the beach,
23:52sweeping the beaches and doing this,
23:54they're heroes because there's so much stuff.
23:57People, and it's mostly,
23:58I'm not, I want to point the finger,
23:59but inner city people don't understand
24:02that it's, you know,
24:03if they go out and have a good time
24:04and they just leave everything.
24:05Well, you're right.
24:06And it's because-
24:07We got to realize that you can't do that.
24:09And it's because a lot of folks
24:11are just trying to survive.
24:12They just, they're just trying to,
24:14you know, just trying to get to the next day.
24:17And that kind of stuff
24:17just is not in their wheelhouse.
24:19But if we can make,
24:21give them some skin in the game,
24:22get anybody's skin in the game
24:25to be an ambassador,
24:28and that's what it's going to take.
24:30And I think that the more people
24:32we get out on the water to observe,
24:34not necessarily even fish,
24:36just observe and understand.
24:38You can get kids just snorkeling.
24:42If you put a couple of kids
24:43on top of a kelp forest in 10 feet of water
24:46and just have them snorkel,
24:48it'll blow their mind.
24:49Oh my gosh.
24:49It's like being,
24:51it's like a living aquarium, you know?
24:52And it's everything, it's all related.
24:54And it's better because they're actually
24:56in the water
24:57and they're actually engaged
24:58and immersed in that.
24:59Not looking through a fish tank or,
25:02and those are all-
25:03Or a phone.
25:03That's such a great thing.
25:04Not looking on a phone.
25:05Yeah.
25:05Exactly.
25:06That's what we need to do.
25:07It's so important.
25:09You guys are making me Jones
25:10to get to the ocean.
25:11And I don't know if that's why I'm-
25:13Right.
25:14But I want to come in, you know,
25:16we're getting near the end here
25:18and are almost out of time.
25:19But, you know,
25:20I wanted to thank you for joining me
25:22on EarthX TV here
25:23and being around the fire.
25:25We have been in the past.
25:27Oh yeah.
25:27Many times.
25:30And the great effect
25:31in some cool places in the world,
25:33from California to Colorado
25:34to Alaska together.
25:36And I'm looking forward to the day
25:38that we can do that again in person.
25:40But for now, I wanted to just thank you guys
25:43for being brothers and friends
25:44and comrades in arms.
25:46Helping Dieter out on this
25:48and being on EarthX TV.
25:50Hey, thank you, Kirk.
25:51You do a lot.
25:52You do a lot for the environment.
25:53You do a lot for fishing.
25:55And your passion is very contagious.
25:57And we appreciate you.
25:58Yeah.
25:58We love you, man.
25:59You're just-
26:00We love you.
26:01You're a bright spot in our world.
26:02That's for sure.
26:04Absolutely.
26:05All right.
26:05Well, this has been a good time.
26:08Good chat.
26:08Good around the fire.
26:09And we'll do it again sometime.
26:11Thanks, guys.
26:12All right, guys.
26:13CKD.
26:14CKD.
26:16We are sportsmen and we are in trouble.
26:28We've learned what happens
26:30when we underestimate a serious threat.
26:33We can't make that same mistake
26:35with climate change.
26:39We need to stand up for America
26:41and for our kids and grandkids.
26:43Tell Congress to act on climate.