FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
FM Talk Outdoors 10-12-2024
It's time to talk about the outdoors in South Alabama. Hunting, fishing, and getting outside along the Great Gulf Coast. It's time to take it outside with FM Talk 10065 Outdoors. With reports, stories, how-to information, and Dr. Bill's Marine forecast. Here's Sean Sullivan and Mike Ward. All right, here we go, FM Talk 10065 Outdoors, at least one of us here this week. My friend and partner, Mike Ward on assignment, what they say in the fancy TV world. So, and so is on assignment. Here, we're not fancy. He's hunting, so good on them. Hopefully, has good news to bring back by next week. And we're going to start off the show talking about hunting, and what's happening at home here in Alabama, also some fishing at the end of the show. But yeah, lead off batter, and when I mention the hunting world, I think about my buddy and director of Alabama's Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. Chuck Sykes joins us now on FM Talk 10065 Outdoors. Thanks for your time. Glad to be here. Now, here we go. It's, what's the other thing, as you get older time, you know, moves faster. I mean, I think I remember when I was a kid, summer seemed like it took three years, and now it flies by. And honestly, I kind of, just a week or two, opened my eyes. Week or two ago, opened my eyes and said, "Holy cow, it's going to be both season soon. Do you have those moments anymore?" Oh, no, absolutely. It's doing things and going here, and they're going to work, and look up, and it's here. It is here. And a lot to talk about with it open. And so, the season's opened up on Tuesday, I think, Tuesday coming. And as we get into this, a couple of things, I talk about it each week on the show, but I think it's better to hear it from you, because I'm not official at all that, to remind folks down here in Zone B, and we have these different zones in the state, that while both season starts, it starts for bucks, not for does. That is correct, and it has been that way every since the first year that we extended the season into February, and we printed in the digest every year, it's on outdoor Alabama every year, and still, it catches some people by surprise. It does, that's why I keep repeating it. But I've said it, but I was better to hear it from you. This is not arbitrary, the same science that led to saying, "Okay, we can extend the season into February for like Zone B, is the same reason that we shouldn't be shooting the does come October 15th." Can you explain how that was figured out and what the science behind it is? Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. You have a late run. We agreed with that. That's why the season got pushed to February the 10th. But guess what? If you have a late run, that means you're going to have late drop phones. So you've got a February run, go seven months, that's August and September, before those phones are being born, you shoot their mother on October 15th. They're orphaning them way too soon. I mean, look, if we went just strictly by biology, which is what I would like to do, you wouldn't shoot a doe in Zone B till Thanksgiving. Yeah. But I knew I'd have got strong up for that, so we had said the 10 days, you know, if you get 10 days on the back, you lose 10 days on the front. That was as much as I could push it, but if you just think about it biologically, you don't need to orphan those phones that early in their life. No, and I've taken to that. I mean, when you first said that years ago, I took that. So we don't, you know, on my place, we do not shoot them till, yeah, I mean, after the opening week in the deer season, even though everybody's fired up to shoot does open weekend, I'm like, let's just wait, we'll get in those doldrums when the bucks have gotten pretty shy and then we can start shooting those. Well, and look, on properties that that are managed or folks know their deared life on our place and your place, you can get on the deer management assistance program and you can start shooting those day one. Just like I will, but I will not be shooting my two, three, four, five and six year old doves. I'll be shooting last year's doe falls that way about 50 and 60 pounds a piece. That's what I'm going to be doing, opening week, or if I have an old doe that's over the hill that's not reproducing, but just whacking the first doe that walks by, now that doesn't happen. I know everything is relative and things are not concrete and binary, but from your time as scientists here, when that don't, that fawn drops, when's the, when's the, how many weeks out, once out, do you feel there's a good chance that that's a self sustained in deer, right? That they can handle being away from mom up. Do you have the, is there a number on that? Well, this is not scientific, this is just me talking to Sean. I would prefer three months. Okay. They can survive probably out of months, but at what cost to their, their maturity and their overall growth rate and, and how they're going to be when they get full grown. And I, I know they're not deciding, but you can use the same principles. I mean, you have cows, I have cows. Yeah. If you want to cap it three months old versus seven or eight months old, there is a difference down the road in the production of that animal. They need to be with their mother as long as they can. So I, I don't want to orphan those fawns till they're probably three months old. If I can help it. Now there's always going to be some exceptions and there's going to be some times when you make a mistake. We all do, but in a perfect scenario, I, I would not shoot my does that have got fawns until, you know, November and December around Christmas or hey, here's a novel idea. Shoot the dough phone and don't worry about it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you're real good at this. People worry when it comes to the fawn side. And I'm not worried about like, well, people go, you can't shoot a fawn. What, you know, fawns the same as a, you know, yearland, same as a grown dough. But I've worked, we all worry that we're going to shoot a buck that we can't, you know, we can't study enough. This can be a baby buck. Yeah. And again, that happens too, but in most cases around our part of the world, you need to remove mounds. So if you make a mistake and shoot a button head, it's not the end of the world. There's probably 10 or 15 or 20 more of them on your property that some of them are not going to make it. Some of them when they get to be eight months old, we're going to disperse and go to your neighbor. So then your neighbors will disperse and come to you. So don't, don't sweat that. If an accident happens, an accident happens, the accidents that I'm much more upset about is a two year old late point that I've got two years invested and, and, and that gets shot. I'd rather lose two or three or four or five button heads over a two year old late point or even more a three year old late point. No, you make a good point. Also you talk about cattle and you know, I've had this conversation before, but it's worth coming back up on older dose people know, that's a dry dough, you know, and it's a, it, it, I think sometimes people think it's a dry dough and it may not be, but you've pointed out an older dough and it makes complete sense to me. It's like an older cow has better calves. And that is what you said before is true in the deer woods too. Well, it's not necessarily that she's going to have better calves. She raises a better. Okay. And birth it, but she raises it better, right? He raises it better because she knows where all of the good groceries are. Every day, drought, good times, bad times, he's been around the block. She knows and she gives that little one the best chance of this guy. So yeah, typically those four and five year old those are going to do a better job than a two year old. Just they've done it enough, they've got a lot of the things figured out. Same thing. That a four or five year old cow is going to raise typically a better calf than a first calf ever. And in that, I mean, I've read some stuff in the, in the past, I don't have it, like where I can recall it completely from my head, but like they had done some studies on buck fawns. They were born to those older does and had that advantage in their first year and how much more quickly I have stumbled here because I don't want to say it incorrectly, you can correct me. How much more quickly they've realized potential on antlers? Yeah, I mean, anything like that, if it started off on the right foot, it's going to be better off down the road. You can say the same thing for a four year old buck. If he goes through the rut real hard and February and March, he doesn't have a whole lot to eat and his body is suffering. We have an early drought or something, his antler production and body weight and everything is going to be lacking versus if he comes through the rut in good shape. And there is plenty of food out there that he can get his body built back up where more of it can go to antlers rather than just body condition. So that's true all the way through, but really and truly getting started on the right foot. By the time they're four or five years old, it makes it different. Talk about this, shooting does and y'all, if you just joined us talking director of wildlife and freshwater fisheries, Chuck Sykes, we're talking about in zone B season starts, both season starts on Tuesday on the 15th, but another 10 days before you take dose and the recommendation probably would be to wait a little bit longer. What about us shooting dose and getting the data in from game check? Are we doing better on it? Have we made it made a change there? What do you see in it like ratio? You mean lie to you or tell you I want you to tell me truth. It's very, very little different from the first year. People still aren't they're not doing it like they should why I don't know. I would hope after this significant length of time they would figure out that we're not in the air for them. We're not trying to do anything we just need today to make sure we're managing the resource the right way, but people still they still aren't doing it. Well and this all right so we'll get back into a little bit of he always does this honesty is a good thing, but sometimes a little depressing will continue our conversation with director wildlife and freshwater fisheries Chuck Sykes next on FM talk one of six five outdoors. All right, welcome back FM talk one of six five outdoors going to have y'all along my partner my board on assignment on assignment hunting which I think is a good thing from this show if you're taking vacation to go hunting or fishing pretty much you get it every time but I'm still here it's okay and joining me director of wildlife and freshwater fisheries for the state of Alabama my buddy Chuck Sykes and so the game check you're saying that the numbers have not do you think that people are killing the does and still not game checking them or we're just not killing the does we should kill. There's probably some above, but yeah I think there's a lot being killed that are not being being registered and then there's a lot that are not being killed just because it's a job I mean people don't have enough freezer space they don't have people that they can think of to give them to and I mean I heard this at an advisory board meeting last year guy was complaining because crop depredation and one of the board members said well how many did you kill last year he said well only get a couple weekends to hunt so I was trying to shoot a buck yep so yeah so I don't think we're probably not killing enough in a lot of locations and then some of it is just failure to report it's across the board and because people will say to me I know you probably heard it a thousand times more than I have well why do you care what does I kill and don't kill why do you care why is it important I'll tell you about the bucks well it takes two to make little ones and last I checked anyway so you got to know both sides of the equation and if you if you're getting too heavy on your buck harvest and too light on the dough harvest and the age structure and the sex ratio gets out of whack your rut will get out of whack and you start going backwards so it's those are things that we need to know to to manage it just again it goes back to your checkbook if you know what's going out but you don't know what's coming in eventually you can get upside down and it takes both make you know what's coming in and what's coming out where you can make plans and so reminder y'all even though we know doe shooting for the first ten days after that you shoot a doe you know you you use game check app but in there just like you do a buck I also got to ask you about this looking at deer season this year where are we on CWD in our state is it still in that northwest corner have you heard anything has anything changed in that no we are still in my opinion in as good a position in a bad circumstance and we can be I mean we've got less than a half a dozen up in northwest Alabama Florida found one about five or seven miles from our line and they sampled over a thousand deer in that area since and have not found it again so we're increasing our surveillance down on the Florida line just like we did up in northwest Alabama with Tennessee and Mississippi became positive years ago so we're we're doing all we can do and we're staying on top of it but that's why we need people to be out hunting we need them harvesting deer and we need as many samples as we can so people will go to outdoor Alabama dot com and and look at freezer drop off locations we need to get their tested just to make sure that we're on top of every time yeah and what do they bring to the drop off what what part of the deer it's it's difficult y'all cut the head off and put it in a garbage bag you said and because I mean as the hunter I want to know as well but obviously the state trying to you're looking at it from the you know thirty thousand foot view you've got to know I'm gonna ask you this is a tough question but they they find one in Florida it doesn't it wouldn't it make you think there's more than one if they find one I mean it's not like it drops in from outer space right well yeah it's there's gonna be more just like when we found one in northwest Alabama we knew we were gonna find more but because the prevalence is so low we're way on the front end of it it's just not it's not there and I like it like that I don't want it to be like in some of the Wisconsin and Michigan counties and up and north the northern states where it's 60 to 80 percent on three year old bucks you've got CWD I don't want that I like it that that we're testing hundreds and thousands of deer and we're not finding it that's no I like it too I'll believe me I like it too I'm just just trying to use some critical thinking out of believe me I want I wanted to not exist in our state at all yeah and and it does where they found it in Florida you know you of course you think well somebody shot a deer somewhere else and brought it in and processed it through the carcass out there and that's where it came from and you know you can speculate yourself today but as of right now all we know is they found one they have been testing hard around that area and they haven't found it again so hopefully goodness the prevalence flow and hopefully we don't find anything on in our testing protocols down there and we we're going to do good all right let's shift gears here and talk about why we all do this it's the fun part of it I've been in the weeds on that the fun part of it you like so many of us are avid bow hunter deer hunter you fired up you ready now what's it looking like in your woods well I actually uh crammed a lot of my boat sounds a couple of weeks ago getting ready and last year we virtually had zero last I mean it was pathetic none of my big oaks none of the chestnuts none of the white oaks had any there was very few water oaks but this year they are loaded so for a bow hunter that's great for folks that just like to go sit on a fluke food plot it may be a little later on in the season before they hammer those food plots because there's if most places are like ours they're gonna have play any day in the woods for a while you talk about you know so many different oaks and you've mentioned the my favorite swamp chestnut hunt over it is a if people hadn't hunted that way and there's probably a generation of people that you know they may get on a road or something but other than the food plot that's kind of how they hunt the excitement of being and having a crisp day in the woods and those acres fall and then you could hear the deer come I mean it's I mean I'm talking about it gets me excited you know they're coming it's I love it that is my most favorite time to be in the woods it brings me back to my early days of bow hunting when you threw up forty dollar death trap of a lock on on your back and any pack full of either screw in steps or cotton spindles and and you walked around till you found that one oak that was dropping and you hung the stand because you knew in three or four days they were going to be off of that tree and onto another one so it it just that takes me back to how I started bow hunting now as you know I'm a little smarter a lot older so I go ahead and put my stands up early on those trees and now I've got enough stands that I don't have to take the tree and I know that the first week to 10 days of November I've got 10 trees on the play scattered around that odds are they're going to be dropping sometime in that window so whatever direction the wind blowing that's the career I'm going to it's yeah it's I mean just talking about this you got to be daydreaming man and ready for it it is fun and I'm like you I've spent a lot of time hauling climbers usually but I did have the lock ons with the the bolts for steps that we use for a long time but then graduating to yeah I'm in my 50s now I can have a ladder stand that's already set and ready to go and get in it I am much more if you I guess times moved on if you say hey Sean you can go to a climber or ladder stand if I get a choice I'm going to a ladder stand most of the time and if that's sitting on a white oak I'm with you well and I want everybody to play before you go out Tuesday go check your stands go check your straps go check the bolts and nuts and wheels you don't want to go to at opening morning before daylight and find out that your squirrels have eaten three quarters through one of your ratchet straps and end up hitting the ground we don't want that it's it's a pain but lifelines safety harnesses and checking the stands before the season it's a must yeah I think we've said this before y'all Harbor Freight they got all kind of new ratchet straps they are cheap and it is nice to put a fresh you know couple on a stand out there and we get about a minute and a half left you talk about the lifeline you've talked about that with us before you got me using one that I'd never well I'd wear a safety belt when I or hardest when I get up in the stand and do anything as I climbed up you change my mind on that what is this thing that you're talking about yeah it's called a lifeline security rope whatever you want to call it but when I first hang my stands and I've got my lineman belt and my safety harness on and I'm climbing as soon as I get to where my platform is gonna be I will put my lifeline on the tree and it ties on above the stand goes down to the bottom of the tree and from that point on when my feet leave the ground my harness is attached to that lifeline so climbing up and I'm never unattached from the tree because the majority of falls and accidents take place either getting into or coming out of the stand it's typically not sitting there I mean yeah every once in a while somebody will fall asleep but the majority of it is climbing up getting in and climbing out and coming down so if you're attached that whole time you are 100% safer absolutely and you know I started I guess two years ago you got me started on this and picking them up and y'all we can put some links up at our Facebook page you can see what we're talking about there's a couple manufacturers of them and there you know you put them on each stand and then you hook into them going up and going down it just makes too much sense that's why it probably took me a long time to figure it out so I appreciate it as a as a elder a middle-aged hunter and for even the young and those in their 20s if you're hunting you're getting above two feet off the ground these things are truly a lifeline absolutely if a young hunter or a middle-aged hunter wants to become an old hunter I would suggest using one good point I like your turn of phrase as always we appreciate you being on the show with us hey good luck to you as well next week all right we back that was director wildlife and freshwater fisheries Chuck Sykes coming right back we'll shift gears talk fishing next on FM talk one of six five outdoors right welcome back FM talk one of six five outdoors by man Mike Ward all assignment this week it's okay he's hunting hopefully he has some good stories when he comes back from Kansas on that big thank you director Chuck Sykes for joining us getting ready for both season that starts on Tuesday reminder to your in zone B bucks only for the first 10 days just remind you once again all right I said we'd shift gears later on the show and it's always great to talk to this man from cold-blooded fishing and many other locales it's our friend Kat and Richard Rutland joining us now thanks for your time we got you Richard you with us yes sir there he is alright this you know with this time of year and it might be it's like y'all talk about the like you and Bobby and so many y'all love turkey season the spring because it keeps guys like me delayed from the water for a little bit and maybe the flip side for fall fishing is you know with dove season open and and both seasons starting on Tuesday maybe that makes y'all happy too because it will keep a few of us off the water for a little bit out there when it comes to fall fishing but it's here it feels fantastic and that leads me to asking somebody like you what about the delta man what do you see and what do you think's gonna happen how was last year last year was phenomenal for a little while until it got kind of like a little bit of a freshwater influx which is pretty real premature in my opinion last year I don't know what the heck happened last year with it because it wasn't like we had like a big major rain event that all the sudden we all the fresh water show up out of nowhere and it kind of shut everything down but everything is really setting up the same as it was fingers crawl so we don't get a another tropical storm or you know something to that nature to flood it out but then the water is just salty as it can be and there's so much life up towards the delta right now so I'm really looking forward to that it's starting to set up well we're starting to pick up school with fish that are coming up the bay it feels like setting up kind of just south of the delta system there so it's looking good okay and I want to talk about that that progress but first I want to go to the bigger you mentioned last year the a little bit of freshwater came in and shut down it see I've been fishing fishing the causeway gosh since late 80s 90 grew up fishing there and it is not scientific so I'm not you know before the scientists out there listen or show say Sean I realize it's not scientific it seems like lately last decade off and on good years about that the trout by didn't hold up as long and in the past we'd have you know more water come down and it might slow the fishing down more freshwater come down the river since it might slow the fishing down for a little bit but give it a couple days couple tide cycles it would rebound you spend a lot more time on the water now than I do what do you do you see it's you think it's more fragile than it was before I do I do and you know it just seems like in years past man really it seems like the last real good stretch of years ended in like 2013 2014 ish timeframe and then last year was like the good old days you know for a while where we were finding big flocks of birds up there with shrimp you know shrimp underneath them with with trout and white trout everything else and then you're starting to do the do nothing drift as it got cooler and whatnot but it seems like you know of course we don't control how much water comes down the Corps of Engineers does that force because they're way smarter than we are and and I feel like that I don't know if it's coming out of Tennessee Tom Bigbee or or out of Alabama but we're getting more fresh water down here than normal you know kind of starting in that know sometime in November timeframe so that's kind of what I'm seeing I kind of feel like that's what it is it's kind of something a little bit unnatural that happens because like I said last year it felt like it may be barely we had a cold front it barely misted you know up there around Tuscaloosa Birmingham area whatnot and then it was like boom all this first water showed up and it was over with but the good news is that there's tons of shrimp around seems like there's lots of speckled trout still around and whatnot and and we're starting to see all the right signs to set up well so I'm really looking forward to it's got my fingers crossed we don't have some big rain event flushes are out yeah it for sure and I've you know following this and I want you to talk about that following up the bay I've only had a couple of times I've get out this late summer but the fishing was pretty good for me mid bay we'll say so I knew the fish were kind of kind of there and the shrimp were there at that point then I don't have to look any further than the bait shrimpers scrubbing the paint off the USS Alabama dragon right there to tell me that the shrimp or you know shrimp are making their way up so I imagine they're shrimp all up through the delta right now what do you think that trigger is for them to go under the causeway go under the bayway and make their way and I don't know why I guess it's just I grew up that way why I cared that I catch him up there versus south of the causeway but I do it's just like it's better to me for some reason I agree it's something really special to go up that far north away from Mobile Bay and catch those fish up there because it's just so beautiful so big so vast and it's just such a special place in my opinion up there and like you I don't know what it is and once you start catching them north of the of the causeway in the bayway it is just absolutely phenomenal but I really feel like it's usually a good temperature drop you know first you know we always think like you get the first cold front like we're about to get and it's going to be in the 50s you know you think it's oh man it's time to go up there but it takes it takes a while for that for that water temperature to cool off and really make those fish want to go up and I see that throughout the whole winter you know fall and winter cycle is when we have cold front as long as there's not something keeping them from checking up any system you're in the fish tend to want to go up the system farther whether it's a tidal river or the delta or you know something of that nature that it always seems to want to push them up when it gets colder and that's what we got to wait on is some some of that water temperature start hitting that like somewhere somewhere in the 60s in the in the mid 60s or so is usually when you start to see it start to come together yeah you're making it okay that as we think about that makes a little more sense because you know we know the shrimp are already up there right I mean whether you know that they're pulling the bait shrimp that's as far north as they can or like you know I talked Captain Wayne Miller in the bass fishing world and he's seeing all the shrimp when he's there so if we don't think about like he just laid out you're like well the shrimp are there why aren't the trout and you think it just needs that temperature for them to transition further up that's right now I assume what the fish are feeling is they need some stability you know in the with with the water temperature because they're cold blooded so they need they need some stability as far as like keeping their keeping their temperature regulated so that they can live and feed and all that and that does you know the farther up you usually go in a lot of these systems the deeper it gets sometimes and that's why they're seeking those areas because it's deeper and it's more stable yeah and you know you think about the way the river channels are here compared to the bay you know you have big areas in the bay that are all the same depth when you start thinking about our rivers they can it gets real cold they can drop off into some like you said stable deeper water but if it warms up it's not that far to go right or left you know for them to find something is shallower that's right and you got salinity as well you know salinity as well you know it used to be back back in the in the good old days I'm talking about right you get a little rain get a little fresh water and you could target some of those deeper areas because salt waters of much denser than fresh water so the fresh water to me it felt like it was just skimming across the surface yep and flushing out into the bay and then you get a good side cycle or two it would clean is clean everything up a little bit and it would everything would settle out and that there's some of those deeper pockets would hold that salinity and hold the fish up there for us you know do you start as it because you know I started thinking about the layout of the delta some of the shallower areas of the delta are in the southern extremes of it I know there's a bunch of exceptions have you know spent a lifetime up there but as you like you said as you go north you get deeper do you do you see those fish you think that just be guess it if we got a real extreme cold front came through do you think they bypass some of the shallower flats and just end up in the rivers up further or do you have you any thoughts on that yeah no I think that's exactly what they do they pull out of that shallow stuff because they feel a shock of that cold and they can't we see this in the winter a lot like in the dead of winter like in January and February sometimes after an extreme cold front the fish up will still bite they still have to feed but they get lethargic it's like they almost don't fight you know you hook a fish and just kind of like kind of just barely shakes his head the whole way back to the boat you know and and that's and that's when they get that's when they're when they're shocked you know when they can't really they can't really it's just like we are when we go out and it's you know twenty five or thirty degrees outside you can't loop your hands as well your your your elbows and your knees and everything kind of kind of a can hurt a little bit the fish the fish kind of do the same thing that's why they want to gravitate towards that deeper water because it's going to be warmer on the bottom than it is on the surface or in shallow or versus deeper water I just joining us talking to Captain Richard Rutland with cold blooded fishing I got another question here and then we'll go the break and come back with some of the bigger ones but as you try to pick this apart when do you decide I mean do you go is it just if you don't go up there and see bird schools in the next month then you say they're not there or do you have a pattern where you try to pick apart at the Fisher up there no heck no I don't I don't just follow birds if you follow birds you might never catch a fish up there sometimes but generally speaking you know around the October 1st part of November timeframe I like to like to get in some of those big bays up in the Delta like Grand Bay, Delvin, Chocolata, Chuck the Polecat and then even some of the shallower stuff south of the I-10 there's usually where I start and we'll just do a shrimp pattern popping corking in a voodoo shrimp or you'll even have some great top water days up there things like that they're going to be set up in that shallow stuff and kind of what always tells folks when you're thinking about fall it's the opposite of spring you know what I mean we're waiting the fish come out of the deep water in the shallow and fall they're in the shallow water going to fall into the deep so that's kind of how I try to wrap my brain around that alright we're coming right back more with Captain Richard Rutland from Cold-Blooded Fishin right here on FM Talk 106-5 Outdoors Alright we're back FM Talk 106-5 Outdoors We're going to have you all along the binder too of course his show airs later tonight and tomorrow but you can always get into the podcast get our FM Talk 106-5 app the first place podcast post is to the app but you can also get it by going FM Talk 106-5.com click in the podcast tab or anywhere you subscribe for podcasts you should be subscribed to us and that podcast will show up right there so you can listen to these on the road later on they're always there and waiting for you alright continue our conversation always good to get this man on and this is not going to be the last for this year he doesn't know that but I just said that is Captain Richard Rutland from Cold-Blooded Fishin you're on for a couple more shows this year okay I like it come on good cuz I love talking callsway fishing and you do as well I'm going to ask you this so waiting for that water temperature to make that difference to move them up north of the callsway in the Bayway the shrimp are are up there you talked about throwing you know voodoo with a rattle cork what else you have tied on like how do you break down your day if we're going to go with you and you're taking us we're going with you fishing do we start off with the rattle cork is it day but what do you throw in you know popping cork in a voodoo shrimp is always just been dynamite set up but as we start to get into the cooler sections I'll always like to have a bunch of grubs tied on so just down south lures or some of the mirror lure grubs and whatnot usually about a quarter ounce jig head or whatnot and you know when you start to get around those birds you got to kind of figure out what's work and sometimes they want the popping cork and other times they're wanting a grub you know they're down a little bit deeper yeah you know it's one of those things that it is true you could pull up and whether and I want to get to this it's because they just got tired of being up on the surface or there's too much noise from boats or whatever sometimes when they're not hitting up top those trout are still there you know they're trying to find the shrimp again or whatever and I've had this happen countless times you then go to a grub and boom you're back on and catching that's right now just because the birds aren't working anymore doesn't mean the fish didn't go anywhere right they didn't evaporate yeah no no I feel like a lot of times what you'll see happen up there is you get in there with the boat a little too tight on the school and and they shut down up on the surface so that's when the grub really starts to come into play let's talk about that getting too close with the boat whether it be your boat or somebody else had seen that school as well what's the etiquette there of doing this man whenever I get up there I always like to you know you see a group of birds work and I usually stop and watch them for a minute before I do anything and kind of see what the activity looks like where the concentration of where the birds are getting down that and then I like to figure out of course where the current of the wind is blowing how it's going to affect the boat and then get up current or upwind and try to try to shut down the big motor get on the trolling motor and ease your way on in to where the birds are and you want to be throwing those baits right where the birds are diving or you know it's like you don't worry about hook my clients or a lot of times they're worried about hooking the bird you know and I'm like don't worry about the birds just throw right in there at them you know that's that's where the fish are going to be is right in there and you want to you don't want to get in boat in the middle all that you want to stay on the outskirts if you know as far as you can without spooking the fish now this wouldn't be an issue for you but for other folks they see this going on right they see they coming up there there's a boat already on this school and but they want to catch fish too and if you do it right you can how do you do it right how do you how do you come in and be the second person in I just try to try to give everybody some room I bet you can a cast link or two you know when it's when it's when it's when the when the birds are going nuts you just kind of want to just get a kind of I don't know I almost think about a 50 or 60 foot radius from where the where the birds are actually dipping down in the water I mean I would write I mean my experience over time I would I'll welcome you I'd rather you yeah you can come in there and fish it too if you do it wrong not only you can shut down the fishing for me you're shutting it down for you you know that's I mean it's I'm not saying hey this is my my school you don't find come on in but just don't screw it up for both of us that's right that's exactly right because you see it happen a lot up there especially that time of years and it's almost like people get tunnel vision whatnot and they forget about etiquette and you really you got to give everybody some room and if you give everybody give everybody a little bit of room everybody catches more fish better time and you get what I'm saying yeah and it's not I mean we should do you know the mom's advice for growing I do etiquette for etiquette sake but in this case it actually benefits you the second boat in to do that etiquette because you're not going to screw the school up for you because if you do it wrong the first person's not gonna catch but you're not gonna catch either that's right and the pay attention of the birds as well like you need to be looking at the water a lot of times because you'll see shrimp jumping way away from the where the birds are and the fish are what's making the birds jump out of making the shrimp jump out of the water absolutely absolutely and the best scenario ever y'all if you're sitting there and you're not a likely stretch and you start seeing shrimp jumping and the birds hadn't seen them yet that's my favorite because you usually don't get as much company from other fishermen when that happens as we wrap up to let's you know something that's changed in my lifetime is just the number of redfish in the delta what are you seeing on your charters now are you still seeing that in the fall oh yeah that's getting really good in my opinion redfish has been down the probably the past about three or four years something like that and it's starting to get really good again yeah starting to see big numbers up there hey compared to when I was a kid it's even when it was down it's still a lot better but yes I do it's good news to know there you ever find a mixed in there with the trout or are you going so we're separate to catch them a lot of a lot of times you'll find bull reds mixed in there but not necessarily slot trout mixed in with the trout underneath the birds and whatnot but I'm definitely approaching it different than speckle trout trying to find grass lines or marsh banks or some drop offs some stumps they love stumps up there when you can find some wood some submerged wood and whatnot that's that's the best recipe for that you got me fired up and you got people fired up when you get a trip booked with you how do they do that how do they go with cold blooded y'all can find us on social media cold blooded fishing our website cold blooded fishing dot com or you can call me on the telephone two five one four five nine five two seven alright thank you Richard I kept Richard Rutland our guest and we'll do it all again next week [Music]