And and it's it's taken a lot of those, you know, from from Vegas wash to, you know, to the to the stuff up the over to it's taken all that stuff out of out of play for the most part, hasn't it?

Yeah, and I know you fished a lot of tournaments there, you know, through your career.

And, you know, I mean, there's areas that historically tournaments have been won out of that are literally miles from the water's edge now.

I mean, literally, you can't even see where, you know, some of these areas.

So, like, some of the historical stuff up in the Overton, I mean, the river arm up there, like, I mean, it's so far from the water, it's not even funny.

But even stuff like...

You know, stuff that's played in the last three, four, five years, that stuff's dried up, too.

Will those baits and techniques and stuff that you do for the smallmouth in the north work at Lake Mead?

Um, in your early years at ICAST, like, in what capacity were you attending ICAST?

I would attend the first couple years.

The first year, it's funny, man, I had, uh, a story that I, I still remember.

I still talk about it sometimes.

But, uh, I'm there, I'm in the Berkeley booth, and you're just kinda trying to figure out what your job is, what you can do.

And, you know, your first couple years too, like, when you're new to the scene, you don't know anybody.

So, like, you sit there twiddling your thumbs a lot, right? Like, you know, y- you go where you're supposed to go, but, like, none of the media knows you, so no one's asking for an interview.

Give us a typical session, let's say, um, at the Berkley booth or the Abu booth.

Um, in your early years at ICAST, uh, like in what capacity were you attending ICAST?

You know, so the f- you know, as a professional angler, like, you know, it is important in a lot of cases for a lot of guys to be there, you know, and, and, uh, you know, we'll talk about a lot of the different reasons.

But, um, you know, I would attend the first couple years.

The first year, it's funny, man, I had, uh, a story that I, I still remember.

I still talk about it sometimes.

But, uh, I'm there, I'm in the Berkley booth, and you're just kinda trying to figure out what your job is, what you can do.

And, you know, your first couple years too, like when you're new to the scene, you don't know anybody, so, like, you sit there twiddling your thumbs a lot, right? Like, you know, y- you, you go where you're supposed to go, but, like, none of the media knows you, so no one's asking for an interview.

What are you there for two or three hours, or how does that work?

Yeah, cool.

So, um, you know, drop shotting, I think is one of the techniques that is way more versatile than a lot of people give a credit for.

And we talked about it a little bit before we started recording here.

You know, you can, you can finesse with it, you can power fish with it.

And that's not just like a finesse vertical presentation.

So like, The setup, I've got a bunch of them, right? Um, it's just like a lot of, it's like a crankbait.

It's like, what's your crankbait set up? Well, it's like, okay, well, what kind of cranking are we doing? And with drop shotting, it's like, okay, what kind of drop shot are we, are we doing? Um, you know, I've got some that I lean on heavy, you know, heavier than others, but, um, I drop shot with everything from like six pound test all the way up to sometimes maybe 15, as far as a fluorocarbon, a liter size.

Is that part of a, is that player for you very much these days?