Tigs: Welcome to Tig's Bits. We are visiting with my buddy and major league fishing pro hammer, Mr. Tyler Stewart, Tyler, if you did not know, Tyler won the MLF invitational on West point Lake and LaGrange, Georgia, just a couple of weeks ago. So he's going to visit with us. Talk a little bit about that. Talk a little bit about the tour.
I am pretty sure that we will talk about forward facing sonar at some point in this conversation. So look. Everybody that follows and listens to the show, you know, I'm Giddy. Anytime we get to talk a little bit about fishing, doing stuff like that. That's kind of my wheelhouse. I love to what I love to talk about before we jumped to Tyler, let me bring in the one, the only.
Mr. Blasi, the one man Panama Jack posse. Oh man,
Blasi: what you talking about? This right here is an off Alabama special
Tigs: here. I've got, you
Blasi: got a little rattler. That's a rattlesnake skin hat. They're made by the one and only out of Alabama. This is my dad's hat. I decided I'd pull that out for the night because we have the rattlesnake rodeo going down this weekend and off Alabama.
I think what 62 years or something like that now running. So yeah, man, a little. Shout out to the rattlesnake rodeo. They thought I'd wear my Mary Yancey
Tigs: custom hat here. Uh, I think that thing looks absolutely fabulous. Oh yeah. Tell us a little bit briefly before we bring Tyler into this. What in the hell is the rattlesnake rodeo?
What is that? Man? It
Blasi: started as this guy's name was JP Jones way back in the day. And, uh, Again, this was over 60 years ago. He used to wrestle bears and wrangle up snakes and just do all this crazy stuff there outside of op and that transformed into an event and it's centered around rattlesnakes and you know, they'll each year people, they gather up snakes, like you can go catch rattlesnakes, turn them into them.
They'll have a big pin up there. They put them all in. They bring them to the rodeo, the event itself, which is arts and crafts and music and You know, you got snake exhibitions, you got snake races going on, you've got everything. So it's a, it is a ends up being, you know, like a three day event starting Friday.
Um, and even, even has a, a, a race, I think it's called the rattling 100 out the South Alabama Speedway, outside of ops. So it's a, it's a pretty good time, man. This year I think they got Aaron tipping and. Okay. What's the other guy? Mitchell Tenpenny, I think, is playing on Saturday and Aaron Tippin is playing on Sunday, so yeah, big fun.
So if you're out and about in South Alabama, head on over to Up, Alabama and get just a ton of fun. And then they have a Greasy Pole Climb Contest, which is fantastic that you can get in. Or the buck dancing contest. So there's all
Tigs: kinds of good stuff there. Yeah, man, just get in it in this thing. I mean, you can, if you have a fear of snakes, if that's a phobia, also a good place to go to just get rid of that sucker too, you know, wow.
Well, head on out to the rattle snake fest, not sponsored, but sounds like a lot of fun. So without any further ado, and what a hell of an introduction, by the way. Hell of an introduction. Let's bring in champion, Mr. Tyler Stewart. Tyler, sorry for making you wait so long for that, but how do you follow a rattlesnake rodeo?
Tyler Stewart: I don't know if I've ever even heard of a rattlesnake rodeo. That was pretty interesting. So
Tigs: yeah, there's
Blasi: a rattlesnake roundup in Texas, but. It's not the Rattlesnake Rodeo in Alabama, so
Tigs: I've known Blasey, uh, I've known Blasey for for several years and I have heard of him, heard him talk about this thing over the years.
You know, I think eventually we're going to have to take the show on the road and go grab a little content there. But, uh, but man, Tyler, thank you so much for coming on the show, joining us tonight, dude. Uh, I know that you have had an incredible Couple of weeks. Have you, have you had a chance to like come back down to earth yet?
Tyler Stewart: Uh, man, I'll be honest. I mean, I've been on cloud nine ever since, uh, ever since that when it, you know, it's been, I've been at it for six years now. And to finally get, you know, when under my belt, it's just a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I mean, there's so many guys that do this their whole lives and don't get a win.
And, uh, You know, closing it is such a big deal. I mean, there's been so many times where I've gotten so close and, you know, not been able to, you know, catch him the last day or whatever. Somebody always catches them really good. So, but yeah, I mean, answer your question. Now I really hadn't came off cloud nine yet.
I don't even want to go fish and ruin my confidence right now.
Tigs: It's like, Oh no. Yeah, dude, I can, I can totally believe that. And you've earned it, man. There's no doubt about that. Tyler has, he's a hammer. I mean, Just kind of going back how he and I know each other. Uh, good friend, a good friend of mine, Jan Watson, we call her boots.
Shout out to boots. Uh, put us in contact years ago. Like when he, I think when, I think you were probably still in high school, Tyler, or maybe you may have been in college, just started in college and he, and he was fishing, uh, fishing for ULM, uh, at the time or whatever, whatever the hell. They're called yeah.
Yeah. So, uh, so, and he goes on and wins, uh, you won the college national championship too,
Tyler Stewart: didn't you? What you I didn't win the national championship. I won, um, both the Southern conference championships, the one for FLW and bass. Okay.
Tigs: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, this dude's been doing it for a while. He's, he's uh, had a lot of top 25 finishes, top 10 finishes, been there in the, in the money a lot.
So, I mean, man, I mean, we'll just go ahead and get this part out. This question out of the way is your next step of where you want to continue to take this? Obviously you want to go to the next step to go up to the, to the bass pro tour fish with, with those cats. Is that the goal for the rest of the season?
Now you're in a good position with, in the points. Right. Making the top five. Um,
Tyler Stewart: yeah, I mean, I, I, it would be really nice to qualify for that and to get to fish that, um, You know, luckily that win that I had last week qualified me for Red Crest, which is their championship, which is cool. But, um, but yeah, I mean, they've kind of switched up some stuff on us.
I mean, we got to stay in the top five and points, you know, to advance to that next deal. But, um, but yeah, I just need to fish clean and be consistent the rest of the year and, you know, should have a good shot at
Tigs: it.
Blasi: Hey Tyler, let me ask you. So speaking of, this is where my ignorance comes into this. So you say to that next step.
So what is the next step? So I assume this is like an affiliation, kind of like PJ golf ads with web. com tour, is it something like that where you get so many points, you kind of work your way and
Tigs: so
Tyler Stewart: advancement. It's similar. So basically like the league that I fish, I don't know how familiar you are with F uh, with FLW, but, uh, there used to be a league called the FLW chore.
And, um, most of the guys from the FLW chore. So basically major league fishing, FLW and started another league. So basically there's two leagues under one umbrella. They got MLF big five, which is a professional league, which is what I fish. Um, and that's all, most of the old FLW tour anglers, you know, it's still five biggest fish you weigh your five biggest, you know, every day of the event.
And then if, if you want to advance to the net, you know, to that other league, you know, the, it's like a total weight deal. You got to finish top five and points the end of the season to fish that. Um, obviously it's a little more prestigious, you know, to be there, but, um, you know, as far as actual payouts and, you know, stuff like that, uh, it's actually, you know, not that much different.
So, um, you know, I would say they got, uh, you know, they get a little more coverage than we do. You know, sponsor wise, it would probably be better to be there. But, um, but you know, in all honesty, I'm just, you know, just fish for a living, I don't really care what league of fish
Tigs: Tyler had that call. He called me this afternoon and, uh, he's like, what you doing?
I was like, well, I'm, uh, I'm selling insurance. I'm in enrolling a school system at the moment. It's about lunchtime. Hey, he was like, Oh, yeah. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun. I was like, well, I mean, I would love to be a professional bass fisherman but uh I just couldn't catch him back in back when it was my day.
I uh I I wasn't bad but just couldn't couldn't catch him. Now, I have fished with Tyler more than more than once and his his now wife uh was going to vet school here at LSU. So kind of jumping back to that, he, uh, she rented a house here. Tyler would come down, visit her occasionally and give me a shout.
And we would go a little pond hopping across Baton Rouge. And that's always fun when you're with a professional bass fisherman. You know, heck yeah it is. To go, to go to go do that, literally fish in a barrel for that fella right there, . And I mean one of these that one day we went and it was like four pounder.
Four pounder. Four pounder, and he's caught three or four and I barely made a cast like, what the hell are you doing? He's doing his thing. He, he handed me his rod and then I caught a few too . That's when you realize what those guys can do. Yeah. That was a good pond. Yes it was. And I need. It's probably a little late now, uh, I don't know.
I should probably go. I need to go check that
Tyler Stewart: thing. You should probably go check that thing out. I remember they were spawning in that thing all the way to like May. That's
Tigs: true. And it was about now when we did that. So yeah, I need to go. I need to go jerk on a couple of heads. I'll report back. Just
Tyler Stewart: wait for a car to go through the gate.
So the gate will open.
Tigs: It's so terrible, man. I listened to a lot of fishing podcasts and stuff and, uh, you know, That seems to be the MO for all of us guys who just like to fish. You kind of skirt. The edge a little bit place. He's a fisherman now. He don't don't don't don't get this twisted He's just not a bass fisherman and not in game.
He is a bass fisher, but but not in the not deeply in the game Right. No, no
Blasi: scratch the surface as a kid, you know fishing little ponds brim and bass fishing was what we did Catch a little catfish on the side, but yeah, now I mainly, I surf fish a lot, and I like, I love surf fishing
Tigs: down here
Tyler Stewart: on the beach.
So, I would love, you know, every time we go down to the beach, I always go out there and, uh, I don't ever catch anything hardly, like, I always just like tight line of shrimp out there, put like a, Two ounce weight on there and sling it out there. What do I need to do next time I go to the beach to catch a fish,
Blasi: man?
I mean, there's a, there's a couple of things. I mean, shrimp's not bad, right? I mean, everybody likes a shrimp, you know, sometimes it's kind of where you're at, you know, working the cuts, you know, trying to find where those rip currents are, I always prefer those if I can find them, I feel like it's better than just trying to fish in the trough, you're kind of fishing in some of those rips.
Through there, if you can find those. But in addition, do they've got some good synthetic baits to add to whatever you're using, they're called fish bites. I mean, and, uh, dude, they're, they're really, really good. And then I've, I've gotten lately where I've started pulling these ghost shrimp out of the ground, you know, with a ghost shrimp sucker out of the sand and using those, and that's like candy for these big reds.
And for these pompano, they love them, but they're not really running really good right here, right now. Like I've been in the last few days and just being kind of super quiet, but. Water's warming up and gets up to, you know, right at 70. I think, I think we should be a good shape where I think we're about 65, 66 degrees right now getting
Tigs: close.
Tyler Stewart: So for someone that's going to the beach on vacation, just orange beach in general. I mean, could you just go out there with what you're talking about? Basically, what I do is I'll wait out there to the sandbar, go all the way to the end of the sandbar until it drops off and just sling it as far as I can out there and then walk back to the bank.
Is that, is that pretty much what
Tigs: you do?
Blasi: Absolutely. I just want to get in that trough out there where they're kind of where they hide a little bit. And uh, yeah, that, that's it, man. Just kept, you know, just have you pop like a pompano rig with like two, two hooks on it. You know, like you said, depending on the, what, what the current's doing, you know, minimal as you can get, you know, two, you know, three, four, whatever.
And then, um, put that on there, but those fish bites are nice addition. They're a little, you just cut them a little pieces. They're, they're synthetic, but they love them to death, man. Like it's a good ad. I'll fish with just those. When they're pumping over really running through here. That's all I'll use because of pumping over so selective on those fish bites.
That's all you catch. You won't catch anything else hardly,
Tyler Stewart: huh? I'm trying to hook like a shark. I'm trying to clear the whole beach. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. What last time last time, you know, they got those fish and peers and stuff like, you know, you walk out there and there's like, 50 Asians out there just yanking on all kinds of fish.
I walk out there and there are these giant sharks swimming around. Everybody's reeling their baits in, like just trying to get their baits away from them. I'm cutting everything I have up, slinging it out there, hook one of them. It just spools me, gets everybody tangled up. They're all pissed off speaking in another language to me.
And I'm just like, yeah, this ain't for me.
Tigs: That is
Blasi: awesome. That's great. That's, that's great. Yeah, I want to do some more. I'd like to do more of that, like stuff at night time and stuff. And that's where I, but to get really out there where I want to get to and like is, I need to get like a drone, which I have a drone, and start really flying my bait way out there and dropping it, you know what I mean?
And like, I'd like to do more of that. I haven't done much of it. But uh, That's fine. You know what I mean? Yeah. Atlanta, Atlanta shark on the beach, you know,
Tigs: you know, you
Tyler Stewart: rent those jet skis and stuff, you know, you might rent a jet ski and call it way out there and drop it off somewhere.
Tigs: That's that might be a great idea.
Just imagine a drone. You screw it up, dude. If you do what you did with the drone and mobile, I'm extremely concerned. That it may not work out. Well, I think it's going right in the water. You don't use that drone, dude. Don't use that one. Get another one. Oh man. That was hilarious. Uh, but look, I mean, that's a good little segue into technology and kind of want to jump back though.
And talk, talk about your win. Um, just here recently, I've got a little video. I'm going to show the clip of when, and, and I was watching, dude, this I lost my mind just I was sitting out here when you caught the four pounder. I was like, oh hell. Yeah He's in it and then I want you to tell what happened at the end that we didn't get to see.
Yeah, you know, okay Uh, so yeah, let me let me pull that let me pull it up real quick. Here we go. That's what
Tyler Stewart: we need
Let's go yes, look how he ate that thing, dude I didn't even click the reel over, and he had it.
410.
Tigs: Look at those live lids. They're bad ass.
Tyler Stewart: Yes.
Tigs: Yes, man. That's awesome. Wait, why'd you throw that fish out?
Tyler Stewart: That was, uh, I was calling that one. So I'd already had five. Oh, that was your,
Tigs: that was your small five.
Blasi: Yep.
Tigs: I gotcha. Okay. So, uh, so you caught that fish and, and at the time, because in, in those rules, it's not, there isn't a score tracker.
So no one is, you don't know what the actual weight is, but did you feel pretty good when you caught that fish? Cause that took you up to put you in the lead or right at
Tyler Stewart: it. I knew that once I caught that one, I was one bite away from winning it. And, uh, you know, I had some, a couple pound and a halfers in my live.
Well, I figured if I could catch two, two and a half pounders or one, you know, three and a half, I could probably, I'd have a legit shot at winning it. And, um, dude, I fished so hard, you know, trying to get that next bite. Couldn't do it. I had like a backup plan to catch spotted bass. And, you know, there was a lot of two and a half pound spotted bass out there, but I ran out there and I caught like 15 of them and none of them, none of them were very big.
And then, um, so it's like two 45, I'm doing it three and there's one stretch of docks in the mouth of the creek. You know, where, where, uh, where we were doing at, and I'll roll up there at literally two 50 and there's two docs and the first one I pull up to, I slung that chatter bait under and I caught a three and a half pounder and, uh, you know, this was after a live had went off.
This is, this was, this was at the very end of it. And, uh, and dude, I put that fish in the boat and I looked at my Marshall and I said, dude, if I win because of this fish says literally just meant to be and, uh, and sure enough, you know, one by only a couple ounces and, uh, yeah, it was just crazy. I mean, I pull back up and, uh, Yeah, I didn't think I had a one.
I figured, you know, you know, I got, you know, at least third or whatever. So
Tigs: when you hit the stage and you you're sitting in the hot seat, um, on a scale of one to 1 million, how nervous were you throughout that? What's his name? Chris Jones. Uh, he just drags on. He drags it on, you know, . Yeah,
Tyler Stewart: yeah. No, it was, uh, yeah, I mean, and, and when he put, uh, you know, he put the guy's fish on the scales.
He, I could see the weight, but he had his hand on the bag, so it looked like he had like 15 or 16 pounds. So I was like, well. You know, I don't have a one or whatever. And then he left is like, he needs, you know, 13 pounds, four ounces or something, or five ounces. And when he let go of that scale, it went to like 13, two or something.
I like lost
Tigs: as much as Tyler loses it. He is very, very composed. Like You just really, we play golf. We've done a lot of, you go
Blasi: that many years. I mean, like, and you get that first win. Like I can only imagine, I don't care what you're doing. You know what I mean? If you're that committed to something like that's, that's when you lose it, huh?
Yeah.
Tyler Stewart: I mean, it's such an, it's such an up and down sport. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I could get dead last at the next event. You know what I mean? It's not one of, it's not one of those sports that, you know, It's so hard to be consistent, you know, like there's very few people that have, you know, been very, you know, dominant, been able to, you know, continuously when, you know, guys go through little streaks and get on a hot, you know, that they'll win two or three in a year or, you know, a couple years.
And then you won't hear from, you won't hear about them for a little while. And then, you know, I don't know, it's just up and down. It's just crazy how, you know, I think there's so much mental, I mean, you know, like you, you were talking about golf, golf's the same way. You know, there's so much mental in this sport, you know, when you're fishing, good, you got confidence, everything's kind of going your way.
You have one bad event and kind of get. You know down in the dumps and then you spin out and it's just like disaster disaster disaster
Tigs: I mean you See it with with I I think every angler at some point goes through that every single one of y'all Goes through it and everybody that's doing it is good It's I mean, it's it's got to be the most rewarding feeling in the world to win one of those just I mean It's just that list of people who actually win an event is, is not that long in the grand scheme of things is to the amount of people that, that fish those tournaments.
So man, kudos for sticking in there. I knew you would win one. There was, I mean, I had zero doubt now that monkey's off your back. Go win the next one. Get on up there in the points. Come on.
Tyler Stewart: Yeah. I think the, I think the first one's the hardest one to win. You know what I mean? It's like even in college, you know, the, the first one we won in college, I mean, we ended up winning two that year, you know, it's just, it's so hard to get that first one.
Tigs: And then you just realize, I guess you kind of get that monkey off you. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I
Tyler Stewart: was fishing so tight, like, you know, I had a two pound lead after that first day. Going into the second day, like, you know, being in the lead, it's hard. I'd rather be like in second or third. You know what I mean?
You know, I fish so tight that second day and. What making good decisions didn't fish. Well, you only call it 10 pounds that second day, but going into that third day, it was like all or nothing. You know what I mean? Like there was no pressure. It was just like, I don't know. It was, I had like a different mindset for sure.
Tigs: Yeah. It's interesting. You
Blasi: say that I was going to ask that a while ago, like, you know, cause in any sport that you play or anything that you do and you compete, when you find yourself, like you've just got that first win in, like, you know, cause you probably find yourself pressing and pressing sometimes more now you can probably fish, probably I was going to say you could probably fish a little more loose.
Yeah, you know what I mean and go out there and I understand, you know, as the tournament evolves and each day evolves You've probably changed but still now you've got the win. So so I guess that that definitely is a
Tyler Stewart: factor, huh? No doubt. I mean, there's so there's such a fine line between you know, how you fish I mean you can go out there and fish conservative for checks, which is how you make a living in this industry I mean you got to cut some checks or you can go out there and try to win every time You know what?
I mean? It's just like You know, hero zero type deal. And, um, and, uh, I don't know. I mean, for me, I guess you could say that second day I fished way too conservative, I guess, you know, just trying to make sure I caught, you know, enough weight to have, you know, be in contention the third day and, you know, I caught the minimum amount of weight I could have not on purpose, but you know, to be in contention the last day.
And uh, you know, I just think if I would have been fit, you know, mentally a little different, I'd have made better decisions on the water and, you know, fish a little more thorough.
Tigs: Did you learn anything from a Taekwondo Wanda or what? How do you help? What? There it is. Taekwondo. Did you, what, what was that actual tournament?
What was the name? What was the name of that? That was at Lake Champlain. Like Champlain, that's right. So he finished, you finished second in that one, right? No, I
Tyler Stewart: finished eighth. I finished eighth in that one, but I
Tigs: led, it was
Tyler Stewart: a four day event and I went in the last day with a two pound lead. And dude, I was so nervous and you know, my starting spot didn't pan out.
You know, I had some locals kind of jacking with me down there. Um, And just after that, I just spun out, you know what I mean? Like days, not, you know, don't start out well, you know, you just, you just start running around just doing stuff you shouldn't be doing. And, um, you know, One thing leads to another and you come in, not even catch a limit.
So that's pretty much what happened then. I just, uh, I don't know. I think, uh, gotten a lot more mature since then. That was, you know, my second year on tour, I've seen a lot of different scenarios and, you know, um, you got to try some different stuff every day to win this thing, like win these things. Now, I mean, it's so hard to win off of one little area or one little deal.
And I just didn't have enough stuff to fish down there when I got down there and there was. You know, another tournament going out of down there, like a local tournament. And, you know, a lot of the places I wanted to fish were covered up with people. I mean, I was just spun out, you know what I mean? Right.
So, you know, this event I practiced for it, you know, obviously I had that backup deal and, uh, you know, I was just kind of bouncing back and forth between stuff, trying not to, um, you know, burn up all my fish the first two days, like that first day I caught that 21 pound or I caught 16 pounds. Really quick and then just left those fish and um, you know, some of those fish are kind of what got me through the next two days and used to I would have burnt that thing to the ground the first day,
Tigs: right?
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's taken. Let's take it because it's like, hey, you got to get it while the getting's good, you know, strike while the kind of deal I that that's where the that's where the whole game comes into this deal is like crap. Do I keep trying to go to? Hope these fish don't leave and I can go and hit on them tomorrow and get me a couple more.
Did you primarily, how many did you weigh in that you caught off of that boat doc that we saw you fishing? Uh,
Tyler Stewart: I probably weighed 75 percent of my fish off that one, off that one marina. Dang.
Tigs: Wow. Yeah.
Tyler Stewart: I mean, I jumped around a little bit and caught some, you know, doing some other stuff. But, uh, but I had two marinas that were, where you saw that, uh.
Where that clip you showed that was actually a marina that I fished in practice. I got one bite on, um, after I caught that 15 pounds the first day in the other Marine, I ran in there and I kept ending up catching a five pounder and, uh, You know, that was unexpected because, you know, I had a didn't have a good practice in there.
Fished it the second day, didn't get a single bite. And then the third day, I catch that, you know, four and a half pounder, so. Um, not the place was tough, dude. It was a tough place to fish.
Tigs: Yeah. I mean, those weights, the weights were like, good Lord. Yeah. It showed that it was tough for no doubt. Sorry, Blazing.
No, no, no. You're
Blasi: fine. It's a, I'm curious. You were going back to something a while ago. You said you were talking to some locals. It felt like you got some bad Intel. So makes me think so. When you, when you go fish some of these places, let's say you've never fished or you've buried, um, so it sounds like what, I mean, where do you get your Intel from?
How do you scout that before you go? I know, I know you get practice days in, but so
Tyler Stewart: we go off limits like a month before where we can't talk to anybody about anything. So, Um, you know, we can talk to the anglers that we're fishing against, but we cannot talk to a non competitor about it. So unless you get some insight on social media, can you, yeah.
I mean, you can, well, you can't watch stuff during the week. Like if MLF posts something, you know, where some guys were catching them during the week. We're not supposed to watch that. But, uh, but as far as like, you know, just public knowledge, we can, we can, you know, look up stuff You know anything like that, but we cannot like, you know, go and get information from some, you know Some local hammer on the lake or anything like that, right?
So but um, but now what you were talking about so what happened to me down at champlain is Uh, dude, I went down there And when I got down there when I say there were some locals down there So they were actually not even in the tournament and um, they were just I don't know They're just hard to deal with they didn't want me to fish bomb.
They didn't you know, it was just You One of those deals where, you know, northerners, man.
Blasi: So you're talking about some of the competitors were kind of just being a little,
Tyler Stewart: no, not, they weren't competitors. They were
Tigs: literally just locals. Oh, just people fishing. And just
Tyler Stewart: when I say locals, I mean, guys that are even in the event. Yeah, they were just, they were just up there fun fishing and I had an area that, you know, I was fishing and, uh, you know, I politely asked if, you know, if they've monitored by fish with them, you know, around there and, uh, they were like, hell no, you know, I mean, just like, and, uh,
Tigs: yeah,
Tyler Stewart: I mean, it was, it was kind of, it was just, it was a lot of stuff that went down.
I won't even get into all that, but, uh, yeah. Some people are friendlier than
Tigs: others, is what you're saying. Oh, that's enough. But that would spin you out. That would spin anybody out, dude. It would spin me
Tyler Stewart: out, so. But, uh, but it's, you know, it's one of those deals. I mean, you know, I learned a lot from it. And, uh, you know, just try to be more prepared when it comes to, you know, multi day events to have more stuff to run.
You know, I should have been looking for, you know, when I caught those good bags the first day, I should have been looking for new stuff, you know, in the afternoons instead of beating on those places. That I already knew there was fish. Right.
Tigs: Right.
Blasi: I would think they would close the, like, the, the lake down for local.
I mean, like, if you play a golf tournament, I can't go out in the middle of a golf tournament and just start playing golf. I mean, like
Tyler Stewart: I think the issue is, you know, we're on public bodies of water. Right. And, um, I don't know how they would monitor that. Oh, okay.
Tigs: That's a good, you're bringing up a good point.
So Tyler, I would, I would ask, I mean, you, you fish all around the country and you know, I, my, my theory and my thoughts of anytime, number one, I'm not going to be on the lake when they fish, when the pros are on the lake. I just don't go fish. Cause we fish a lot of the same areas, so I'm not going to get in their way.
And I mean, sometimes they run and do, there is a tournament or a club tournament or whatever going on and you have to share water, but I would always give not To the freaking pros who have paid five or six thousand dollars or whatever it is for an entry fee I'm over here fishing a hundred dollar jackpot Yeah, I'm going to let that guy in front of me, which is just common courtesy.
Right. Everybody listening to this, if you're not doing that, shame on you, you know, I mean, it isn't cheap for these guys to tour around and do what they do. Every fish counts and every fish helps them make a living, you know, you're out there fun fishing. Anyhow, have you ran across, what is, what's something crazy besides that?
That you've run across, um, just while, while out fishing a tournament that's just been like, what?
Tyler Stewart: Man, I had one event on Lake Eufaula. The guy was actually really nice, you know, and he, uh, but I pulled up, you know, I only had like one or two good places, you know, I didn't have the greatest practice and, um, I run to my first spot and there's a, there's a guy sitting there, he's not in a rap boat.
I can just tell he wasn't in the tournament. He didn't have a Marshall or anything. So I'll pull up beside him and he was like. There's a tournament going on. I mean, dude, there's like a, there's like 200 rap boats that have been on this lake for a week and I was like, yeah, he was like, I was like, you mind if I fish this area with you?
He was like, no man, come on. I done caught 18 pounds right here, right before you got here. Oh man, dude. I was like, How do you not know there's a tournament going on, on your local, on your, he's like, on your home lake, which I don't, he was nice, like, he let me fish with him, and, you know, I mean, it sucked, cause, uh, it was like a real small bite window, and, you know, he took advantage of that, and he caught him, but, uh, I ended up only weighing one bass that day.
And, uh, the next day I ended up pulling back up to that same spot. He wasn't there. I caught 18 pounds off of it and missed a check by two ounces. Oh my Lord.
Tigs: Oh, so, you know, I mean, yeah. So there you go, . I mean, that time right there didn't, I'm
Tyler Stewart: saying that right there cost me no le, you know, no less, less than
Tigs: thousand.
Yeah,
Blasi: that's tough, man. When you're battling, not only the elements in the lake and other competitors, but then people like me, you just show up with a hat on like this and I'm over there taking all the fish out of your honey hole, you know,
Tigs: believe it or not.
Tyler Stewart: I would say it's, you know, when there's local tournaments going on and stuff, I've never really had any run ins with those guys at all.
And usually they're pretty, you know, they know what's going on on the lake. And, you know,
Blasi: respect most of the time,
Tigs: you know? Right.
Tyler Stewart: Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's, if, and I really haven't ran into that many issues, period, you know, with, with people on the lake, but like I said, those, those two scenarios are the only scenarios that I feel like have cost me, you know, cost me money or cost me places, but, uh, but it's going to happen.
It don't just happen to me. It happens to everybody. You know what I mean? That's
Tigs: true. Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. And I mean there's, what's the biggest bash you ever caught?
Tyler Stewart: Uh, I caught a 12 seven at Bussy break. Good Lord. The lake up here by my house. It hadn't been open very many years. Uh, super fer. The lake, which was the lake, which was the lake record.
It was the lake record for a while. Yeah. Yeah. They've broke a bunch of times since then. But, uh, isn't it up,
Tigs: up to, is it up to 15 or something? Did I see? Yeah. Somebody called a
Tyler Stewart: 15. Somebody called a 15 like last week.
Tigs: Good god. Crazy. That's crazy. And but Tyler, he, he fishes Caney, Caney Lake in Louisiana.
And I'm going to let Tyler, we'll talk right now and then transition that beautiful place with live scope and how, what you've seen. Because I mean, we got to dive into dive into what, what that is. Not just, not just angler standpoint and what it is and competitive competing, but what it's doing in the fishing.
In fishing for everybody, you know, you're learning, we're learning new things. Uh, but, but, uh, Tyler guides on Caney Lake in North Louisiana. Tyler, tell us, tell everybody out there. About this hidden gem of a big,
Tyler Stewart: well, it's not a hidden gem anymore, but
Tigs: yeah, it's still kind of hidden, but it's, it's a
Tyler Stewart: great lake.
Lake and not really, I guess people, people ask me all the time, you know, what's your favorite lake in the world? And, uh, I tell every one of 'em, candy Lake, I mean, it's lake at home, you know, it's a, it's a small lake. It's a 5,000 acre lake, but. It's got everything you could ever want, you know, in a 5, 000 acre lake.
It's got offshore structure, it's got grass, it's got docks. It's a, it's a great training ground, you know, as far as, you know, learning different techniques and, you know, trying to, you know, hone in on a certain, you know, like if we were going to go to a lake where you think they're going to be on docks, you know, You can go out there and practice flipping docks or fishing grass or offshore, whatever you want to do.
And, uh, there's just not many lakes that's set up, you know, where you can do so many different things and catch bass and catch big ones too. I mean, it's got, I mean, there's been a lot of state records caught out of there, you know, and it's a place you can go and catch a four to eight pounder just about every time you go, which is crazy.
There's not many places in the world like that.
Tigs: Wow,
Blasi: that's awesome. I've never heard of it. So it's still a hidden gem from somebody like myself, but
Tigs: Yeah, we're gonna go we're gonna go with tyler one day. You got to go to this this lake we're gonna let him show us some stuff because I've gone with him up there and imagine that day that that you and I went you know We had a full moon.
We we had tried to plan it. Perfect. Yeah, everything on paper You know, besides a little cool front coming through everything on paper, it was perfect. You'd been out there like a day or two before they were spawning. They have some of these boats, Chad, have these monster like towers on them. So they can send it like they do.
Like your fish snook in the Everglades. They have those. So just back over the motor there. Yeah. Yeah. And they can, they can sight fish and, and see all monsters. Well, they had moved out. Could you imagine if on that day had we had forward facing sonar? Yeah, what we would have, what we would have been able to go and do, you know, you could recoup it.
So let's jump in to that. What is your thought? What are your thoughts on forward facing sonar and where it's at right now? And do you like using it or not? A little bit of a secret. I do not believe that you use that to win a tournament. So you can win a professional tournament without using LiveScope or forward facing sonar.
Am I wrong? I
Tyler Stewart: You can, but it's probably the first one, one in the last two or three years without it,
Tigs: maybe for a while,
Tyler Stewart: but I'll be honest, dude, I'll love live scope. I love doing it. I like going out there. I feel like it, it levels the playing field. I mean, you got a lot of young guys coming up and stuff.
They're really good at it. I mean, these young guys that I've only been fishing a couple of years, it gives them a chance against somebody. Who's been doing this for 20, 30 years and fish these lakes a hundred times. I mean, um, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are salty about it, but you know, there's like, cause because of all the young guys having so much success with it, but dude, I think it's here to stay.
I like it. I enjoy doing it. Um, you know, I'd like to get a little better at it. There's some guys out there that are just on another level. But, um, but you know, I, I spent a lot of time doing it too. And it's something that, uh, you know, we're all going to have to get good at it. We're going to get left behind
Tigs: versus like,
Blasi: not like, I'm trying to understand like, so you see in the fish, they're out in front, like what do you mean, how to manage that fish now that you see it or what, well,
Tyler Stewart: Think about good and not good.
I mean, there's so many different species of fish out there. So you just, just say you go out in the middle of Toledo bend or somewhere like that, you got catfish, drum, carp, crappie, everything you can imagine, and it's being able to, you know, pick out the bass in between those fish and, um, you know, and then, and then catch them.
So, I mean, it's not easy to catch them. I mean, you gotta, you know, there's different techniques that, uh, You know, work better than others. And, you know, obviously right now, the, um, you know, to make your egg is so strong and that's, what's winning a lot of events, just a little minnow, you know, on a jig head, it's nothing crazy.
I'm sure you've thrown a lot of stuff very similar to it at saltwater fish. But, um, but yeah, there's just a, I mean, it's not, it's not that it's that hard to catch them. It's when you get around them, it's getting around them. And, um, you know, figuring out what they, you know, what they want to eat. Uh, you know, getting around the bigger fish, you know, that's my biggest deal.
Like I like at Rayburn this year, like I could catch 30 or 40 a day doing it, but I could only catch two and two and a half pounders, only 12 pounds worth doing it. And, um, you know, there's guys that are literally just targeting the big fish. Like they won't even throw at it unless it's four pounds or not.
And that's very hard to tell. And, you know, those guys that are, you know, came up doing nothing, but that, you know, can tell is that fish four or five, six pounds, or, you know, is he going to buy it? Is he worth? or chasing around a little while. I mean, there's just a lot that goes into it that people don't realize.
I mean, a lot of the guys that are, you know, that they want to say, Oh, you know, it's live scope, anybody can do it, but I promise you, you can go throw a live scope right now on someone's boat who's never done it before, or even someone who's done it some and, you know, have it done a lot. And they ain't going to catch him with it.
It's tough. I mean, it is extremely tough. I mean, it's not a
Tigs: color, another picture
Blasi: of a fish, just swimming around saying hello, you know, it's not just like imaging and in the medical field, which I'm in like, where, you know, like. The image could be right in front of you, but you don't really know what you're looking at.
If you're not really good at knowing what you're looking at, you may miss something that's very major, which in your case would be a big fish, you know, or right, right.
Tyler Stewart: Yeah. So it makes it, it's just tough. I mean, and, and the thing we talk about, you know, a couple of me and my buddies talk about, it's like, I'm 29, but we are not in that generation, you know, of like the hammer live scopers.
My generation still goes down a bank or it will be live scope and see a lay down. And be like, Oh, there's probably a fish over there and go over there and fish it. You know what I mean? The generation now. Like they literally will not do anything but live scope and that's why they're so good at it. You know what I mean?
Like if they were to go look at that, you know, go fish that lady out. They troll up to it and look and see if there was one in it, either, you know, whether fishing or not, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Tigs: Yeah. I mean, I don't like fishing
Blasi: for them one way or another. Yeah.
Tigs: That's where I think that you're, you're really in a, at a, at a perfect age, Tyler, because you're young enough to be an adopter of all the technology and, and, uh, to know how to use it, utilize it, but also, uh, Old enough to you could go and catch plenty of fish without it.
You don't need it like to just go catch fish. Now, from a competitive standpoint, if everybody else is going to have it, then you're at a complete disadvantage if you don't have it or don't know how. To use it. I think that's where some of this controversy is coming in with professional anglers and the community and all of that is that some people don't like that.
These young bucks are coming in and starting to take checks. Maybe they don't have the respect for them that they don't think that they can catch it without them. I don't know. I'm not been around those guys. I don't, I can't really form an opinion. I'll be
Tyler Stewart: completely honest. It is harder to learn how to fish.
It's more effective. Don't get me wrong. Live scope fishing is way more effective, but if you, it is harder to learn how to fit live scope fish than it is to learn how to fish like traditionally. 1000%. So all the guys you see on the internet talking about, Oh, you know, it's so easy, you know, just go out there and look around and catch them.
I promise you, it's harder to do that than to go down the bank, you know, throwing a square bill or flipping lay downs or whatever. It's just, it's just, it's so, it's, it's so different. You know what I mean? And it's hard to,
Tigs: I don't know. I don't think I would be that good at it.
Blasi: No, you, I mean, it's, it's no, no, no.
Y'all, I mean, you bring up a great point on this too. But it's like. But if you're, and Brantley said this too, so if you're an early adopter, this is technology that's a game changing technology, and it's obviously, if you can master it, which the sounds like the mastery level of this is really, really, really difficult on the scale of You know, learning old school versus a new school, but if you can do that, it's going to, you're going to reap the benefits and, and hey, time is shown in any type of industry and any type of, you know, if you can adopt to that technology, that's going to give you an advantage and become a master at it.
You usually come out on top, you know, and those that don't usually get left behind. That's just pretty much
Tyler Stewart: simple, you know, no doubt. And, uh, I mean, I'll say there's like. Tears to this too. Like on a scale, like one to 10, like these guys coming up out of college that are so good, like these guys are like eight to 10 with live scope, like these guys, they're going to go out there, you know, they're going to do that the entire practice and they're going to figure out how to utilize that in a tournament.
You got guys like me, you know, that I would say like that next generation up, you know, probably like a five to eight with it, still good with it. Still can catch them with it, but not like. Not just, you know, insane. And then a lot of your guys that used to win a lot of events, you know, just absolute hammers, you know, shallow fish and structure fish and stuff like that.
That will not even boys.
Tigs: Our age, Blasey.
Tyler Stewart: They won't even, I mean, they won't embrace it at all. A lot of them won't. I mean, some of them are. You know what I mean? But a lot of them just, just cannot stand it. Can't stand the idea of it and, um, are doing everything they can to get it banned. You know what I mean?
But I mean the people sponsoring our events, you know, Lurance Garmin, Humminbird. You know, these are the companies that, you know, keep our You know, our, our league of float, and these are the companies that are selling this, so I do not see it going anywhere. I don't care what anybody says. There might be some leagues where it's monitored to our, to where it's like a hint or two, maybe two transducers, you know, a lot of guys right now running.
Four to five transducers, four faces transducers. And we're talking two on the front, one or two on the back. I mean, it's getting out of hand for sure. But
Tigs: yeah, but, but
Blasi: some, Hey, Hey, Tiggs, why don't you tell them about the idea that we have to say fishing? We did. Yes. Yes. We, yeah, yeah.
Tigs: I mean, yeah, I think we've got an idea here.
It's, it's super easy. You know, you, uh, somehow or another, you just limit, you can use scope, but you only limit it to practice. You can use it in practice. Can't use it in an event. Yeah, or maybe you can use it for like an hour or there's got to be some way that these, they may not be able to do it now, but some way they could put out a software update to where it had a timer on it.
You could use it, but it could only be used for like an hour in a day or something like that, you know, to where it limits, it limits the time. I don't know how this would ever. Workout in a real world. But you know, I mean, they're going to have to think, think of something or just, they, they let it go. If you want to listen to a really good podcast, Tyler was on one called the spotted dog.
And there's a guy, I think, was he the Garmin guru was on there with you, man. They, they go into, especially like the last 30 minutes of that episode. They go into dialing in. You know, the contrast on the things, all the different colors, the way to see, it gets deep, how you see the blobs, the way the cone is, how it faces, how you're looking at 90 feet.
What'd y'all say? A 90 foot stretch at the end of that cone. It's really a 30 foot. You're looking at a 30 foot area. So, I mean, you got to think you're still that mass of water and there's still, there's a, There's plenty of room for era. And if you don't make a perfect cast on those fish, a lot of times, once you make a cast or two, do they, does that spook them pretty much?
Are they, they swim off, you lose them or a
Tyler Stewart: lot of times you make a cast at them and you don't make that perfect cast and they get a look at it. What they'll do is they'll swim up behind it, get a good look at it. And just, you know, they'll. ease off and then you can throw out them a hundred more times and a lot of times they won't even give it any interest but um what i found is like you know when you're you want to make a perfect cast and you want to get it close to them but you don't want to get it too close to them because you really don't want them to get that good of a look at it because Um, you know, they, there's so many of them that will just swim up, look at it and turn around.
So for me, like, I just try to keep it, you know, a couple feet above them. And then when they start exerting energy toward it, I start reeling it faster. You know what I mean? And right, right, right. When, uh, when, um, you know, and it looks like more like a bait fish, you know, a bait fish, isn't going to just stop when, you know, a bass is running behind it.
So, um, but yeah, I don't know. There's some little tricks and stuff that I do that a lot of times I can get a bite, you know, get a couple extra bites doing, but, um, yeah, there's just so much more that goes into it than just casting.
Tigs: Oh, yeah, but I think the coolest thing with it all is how we've learned, everybody has learned in the last, Two or three years, especially the behavior of a bass and that they don't, frankly, some say we've been wrong, the myth.
Some of these things have been myths that we are bad. There are
Tyler Stewart: so many myths out there that have been, you know, uncovered with live scope. I mean, you can put the troll and motor. Anywhere in the lake and troll around and see just see fish, you know what I mean? Uh, you know For them to get set up and bite like on the bottom.
It takes a spot You know what? I mean a certain spot like whether it's a drop or a current eddy or a brush pile or something like that and um You know, we always thought those fish out there in the middle. They just roam around don't eat, you know Don't bite anything, you know until they set up the feed on one of those You You know, quote unquote spots, but, um, yeah, that's what four faith sonar showed us is those, uh, those suspended fish out there will bite.
And, um, you know, you don't necessarily have to have a spot, you know, you can just cover water with that thing and, and pick off a big one here and there. And that's what these younger guys are doing. And that's why these older guys can't stand it because they've spent 20 years looking for spots, you know, you know, and that, and, and, and.
And that's, that was their advantage. And that, that's not really an advantage
Tigs: anymore. Yeah. Yeah.
Blasi: I mean, just an amount of open water and like, what, what's, what's going on there? Why? Yeah.
Tyler Stewart: I mean, they're just out there roaming around. I mean, in the middle of nothing,
Tigs: it don't have to be like, why would they be out there?
They're out there. They, and do you find that they, that tho those fish travel more in schools? Are they more in packs?
Tyler Stewart: You see a lot of like small wolf packs, like two to three fish, you know, deal swimming around. I rarely ever see like a giant school swimming around. Usually they're either roaming, you know, in twos and threes and stuff like that.
Um, and a lot of times they'll be like big, bait related, you know, if there's bait out there, which you never know where bait's going to be, you just troll around till you find it, you know what I mean? It might be in 50 foot of water. It might be in 10 foot of water. You just kind of troll around till you figure out what, what the bait are doing.
And, uh, if there's bait, there's some kind of, you know, there's probably bass around them somewhere. Um, I mean, you can put the trolling motor down at just about any lake. At any dam and just take off in the winter and catch fish, you know what I mean? And it's it's not easy. Don't get me wrong, but, but it can be done.
You can figure them out. Yeah. But, uh, you know, before you had to spend hours and hours idling on down and side scan, trying to find them set up on the bottom somewhere, which, uh, this is just completely, you know, through that out the window. I mean, you could still do that, but, um, and there's still a time and a place for that.
I mean, I think like the summer months, you know, May, june, july. I don't think that ford face and sonar is quite as Dominant as it is right now. Like it obviously helps lining up on those schools and stuff and brush piles or whatever But I don't think it's as far as just chasing Random roamers around out in the middle of pockets and middle of the lake.
I don't think that's going to be As big of a deal. I think you're going to have to kind of go back to that You know, hard spot or, you know, point or
Tigs: whatever, some spots and then find them. I mean, still you use, I mean, you're still going to use it to, to scope them.
Tyler Stewart: Yep. You're still going to use it to help you make a perfect cast at, you know, a brush pile or, or if there is a school down there, but, um, but yeah, I mean, there's just, there's just Pete, I mean, live scopes, not a new thing.
I mean, it's been out for a while. You know, eight years or so now, five years, something like
Tigs: that. I don't know, but five years really big, but I think seven or eight years ultimately that that technology is, has been out. So yeah, I mean, it's people
Tyler Stewart: are just now really figuring out how to use it. You know what I mean?
Um, There were some guys, like even when I first started on the FLW tour, that were utilizing that and just not telling anybody, you know, they figured it out, you know, and, uh, that they had a huge advantage. Scott Martin
Tigs: was one of them,
Tyler Stewart: wasn't he? Scott Martin, Cody Meyer, um, there was a few guys that were catching on, you know, doing, doing that and, and doing really well, but, uh, you know, I don't have anything against YouTube or YouTubers or whatever, but I would say some of that, uh, You know, some of those guys coming in and catching all those giants with it and showing exactly how they're doing it, you know, has definitely made a lot, you know, sold a lot of those graphs and really showed people how to, you know, how to do it and how effective it is.
Because I'm ill
Tigs: again, should get a big check from, uh, from them.
Tyler Stewart: No doubt. Ben Milliken, Josh Jones, all those guys, I mean, they're great with it. And they've sold a ton of units, Lowrance, Garmin, both of them. But uh, you know, without those guys, I don't know that there would be quite as many people doing it.
You know?
Tigs: Yeah. That's true. They have made a lot of awareness. Yeah. I mean, they exposed
Tyler Stewart: it. Yeah. I mean, cause you know, you don't see as many tournament guys exposing stuff like that. And, uh, those guys, I mean, they, they're so dominant with it. And, um, you know, you saw how good Millican was with it. And, uh, he went and fished the opens and qualified for at least there's in one year, you know what I mean?
That's crazy. And
Tigs: people said he wasn't going to finish top five in the first two events. I mean, I
Blasi: got a question on this. So like, so, so the guys that actually make this, the technology, like it's Humminbird, one of those companies, I assume, or yes, they have one. Okay, so companies like that, do they ever do things where they bring you guys in and like have like a seminar three days?
Yeah, man, you really really really do a deep dive on this to really understand
Tyler Stewart: it They do. Um, there, there's different seminars and stuff. I mean, yeah. Um, that, yeah, just about all the brands have, you know, a, a seminar to, you know, through, you know, throughout the country tackle stores and stuff like that.
You know, trying to show people how to do it and, you know, bring more awareness to it. But, uh, well even
Tigs: like with the pros,
Blasi: if there's something where they take y'all and like really, really get into it on at a different level. I dunno if they have some, you know,
Tigs: I dunno, I don't know. I could tell
Blasi: master technology guy that come
Tigs: in and I could tell you the best.
The best seminar that you can get is to hire that man right there and let him take you on Caney Lake and show you There we go. How to use it. That's what I'm down for. That's what I'm down for. Let's do it. That go get go have your lesson on the water the hell with watching it in some classroom Go
Tyler Stewart: on the water.
I need to just book a cabin at cany one weekend and just come fish with me a few days
Tigs: Yeah, we're gonna do that. We still need to do we've been talking about this for a while and do crawfish It'll have to be late spring if we're gonna talk crawfish at this point, dude It ain't our crawfish like
Tyler Stewart: 12 a pound down there, too.
Tigs: They have come down to five Dollars for live and I think they were still eight dollars a pound. Uh this weekend for boy Means i'm not having any I'm getting close on
Blasi: that like at some point like i'm definitely waiting another probably, you know, three four weeks, but it's happening
Tigs: Oh,
Tyler Stewart: yeah. Yeah After the win and got me a Couple of pounds.
Tigs: You deserved it. You deserved it. I like that's what you can do when you get a nice little, uh, a nice little check like the hell. Yeah. Hell
Tyler Stewart: yeah. Yeah. I've been, I've been craving them and uh, I was like, what the heck? I mean, yeah, let's go get, let's go get some one night and uh, I don't know. I'll, I'll probably be like you guys.
I'm going to wait until they come down a little more for I go again.
Tigs: Exactly. So go, go in bag. To going back to live scope, Tyler, these, these rigs, I went to the, uh, to the Bassmaster elite event on, on Toledo and walked around, saw all of their boats and all was just kind of blown away. You know, one of them had seven freaking graphs on it.
You know, the it's, it's stupid. You've probably seen that Chris Aldane, uh, viddy, walking around the boats. Dude. Is that necessary? Number one. And I mean, it looked some of those that dude with the four, I mean, that's a safety issue. It isn't already. It isn't the easiest you can see over that windshield, but then you're going to put something else.
You know, I think it's getting a little, we're getting a little out of hand here.
Tyler Stewart: I mean, if you have the funds to use every piece of technology you can to help you, I don't see why it's a bad deal. If I could have five 16 inch graphs on my boat, I would. I would run it. Hell yeah.
Tigs: I mean, I don't, I don't Would you put those brakes on your boat?
I
Tyler Stewart: would run the brakes. Um, I'll be honest, before the, before we go up north this year, I will have some crop breaks on my boat for sure. Will you? Yeah. Yep. And I'm probably, and I'll probably end up putting a transducer, like a forward facing transducer on the back too. Um, so, uh, you know, we talked about how do you, the live scope and stuff and, uh, that right there is, uh, it's, it's something some guys are doing.
They're putting, you know, a active target or a, you know, a live scope transducer on the back and it's substituting. Side scan, but it's giving you a picture exactly like it would on Ford facing and sonars. So all those fish that are suspended, that are extremely hard to see on side scan. Yeah. Um, you can just idle, you can see em and find those fish, you know, with, uh, you know, while you're idling on the
Tigs: butter.
So it just, you just, you're not having, you're not turning it around and it's just No, you
Tyler Stewart: just, you can, you run them on both. You can run 'em on both sides. Or run 'em on one. Okay. I'll probably just run it on one side and, uh, you know, just run it straight out the side of the boat, the right side of the boat.
Usually when I'm li, when I'm like side scanning something, I'm always looking out to the right side for some reason. So I'll probably run it out to the right and um, you know, like when we're up north looking for, uh, rock piles and stuff, um, I think that's gonna be like a huge key. So, um, I, I, I don't, I don't disagree with it.
Like I, I'm, I'm all for the technology. I think bring it on, you know, I mean, you know, if they release something where you can, you can see the scales on the fish. I'll, I mean, I think, I think that's awesome. You know,
Tigs: well, we may get there and it's AI and all of that, what it does. It, I mean, it gets better.
The evolution of technology. You go with a flasher, they add the flasher and that was like the game changer back in the late seventies, early eighties. Then you move on, you know, to to 2D sonar color, 2D sonar. And then I think the biggest leap is whenever you got mapping. Yep. You had GPS maps and lake maps, and then.
KVD and all of them leading the way to to get the true lake maps, you know with all the The contours and everything on just about every lake that was as big of a leap in technology As there has ever been in fishing and then on the side imaging 360 And then now forward facing sonar. I mean, I don't think there's any really for it to go.
You can have, Blasey, they have these boats, crappie breaks, or just there's on the back of the boat and then you control the motor on the front so you can stabilize it, or you can go up on a fish and hit those brakes and, you know, not spook them. Fishermen, you, well, a lot of times, what's weird.
Blasi: Okay. So, so it's without reverse thrust and creating all that action.
So you're just dropping it down
Tyler Stewart: the back. Right. And those fish are like, they're really, uh, they're, I don't know. They, they get like, uh, when you're transducers pinging, I don't know. They're, they're really curious. It seems like a lot of times they'll swim towards the boat. So when you're. Trolling towards them and they're swimming towards you.
You have like one cast before they're under the boat and they spook. So those coffee breaks, you know, I think are, I think are definitely, you know, a game changer would help you get, you know, a few more cast in before that fish spooks.
Tigs: Yeah. How do you operate that? I mean, you've got, how do you operate the brakes?
They're buttons up front, obviously.
Tyler Stewart: So there's, there's just a one button up there. And, uh, so you let your poles down and, uh, obviously it's got the trolling motors in the water. And then, uh, you're just kind of trolling around. And then when you see one, if you're getting too close to it, or the wind's blowing you up on it, you just hit that button and those, those, uh, brakes will turn on and pull you backwards.
It's not a real complicated thing. I think it's, uh, I think it's actually pretty, pretty user friendly.
Tigs: Oh, I've never, never been in a boat that had them, but I've seen them. Um, I've seen them around, man. I, uh, it's just boats have done. I've looked at the Louisiana outdoor Expo and Gonzales this past weekend.
I looked at some boats and, uh, was looking at the interior and the designs. They designed these boats now, the gauges of wire that they run, all of the batteries. They, you know, I mean, you can spend upwards to 120 grand on a damn boat, bass boat now, rigged out, you know, to, if you wanted to. In a heartbeat and that's nuts to me, but that's crazy.
That's crazy
Tyler Stewart: Yeah, I mean some guys were running fifty thousand dollars worth of just graphs on their boat
Tigs: It's yeah I had like a forty thousand dollar bass boat back in the day, you know, and that was not a cheap bass boat 25 years ago 20 years ago, you know, it's crazy how far that's come but that evolution It's the way that's why it's not gonna stop the people who are bitching and complaining about it Just get used to it because it's not going anywhere.
Like you say Laurent's gone Those guys are only going to advance this technology. It's only going to get better. Can you get worse? And the, the genies out of the bottle, you can't put that thing back in, you know, just adapt.
Tyler Stewart: I don't know. It seems like to me, it's more of the elite guys, like the bass master guys, you know, that are complaining about it.
It seems like there's more of those old school, just hammers over there that Done so well for so long. If I see it getting banned, monitored at all, it seems like it would happen on the elite series before it happens on the MLF side. It seems like MLF almost racing it and the Bassmaster guys just hate it.
Tigs: Right. I know it's the counter. It's a, and that may end up
Blasi: in the two, two, two of them, because y'all, all of a sudden you overtake from a viewership perspective, people want to watch that a little bit more. Right. You know what I mean? That's where the cool stuff is. You know, people are not getting younger.
They're getting older. Right. And so these younger generations are coming up and that they're the ones that are going to be watching this
Tyler Stewart: to me, but, uh, you know, a lot of people complain and they're like, Oh, we don't want to watch people stare at their screen all day. It's hurting the viewers. You know, I think.
You know, that, that was a lot, that was one of the arguments, but I think on bass live, it hit like record numbers at Toledo band this year. And so, I mean, a lot of people are saying that it's hurting it, but in reality, I think, um, I enjoy watching it. I mean, it's, like I said, it's something that I'm trying to get better at.
So anytime anybody's really catching them doing it, I mean, for me, I just want to see what they're doing different than
Tigs: I do. Yeah, something you can learn from it. I mean, that's the beauty of, of fishing these days is you can actually watch all of your competitors. You can go back and watch on YouTube and watch the lot.
You can watch it, which is freaking incredible. You can learn stuff, you know, you're always going to be learning. So I can only imagine stories that happen and all of that stuff while you. You're on the road and you know, the trash talking and all, uh, all of that good stuff, but yeah, that it's not going anywhere.
People just need to embrace it. I hate seeing some of these quote unquote heroes of ours and legends, uh, kind of like, yeah, just suck it up buttercup, you know, it's, it's. You got the money, you know, you got the money, you go learn how to do it, get out of the woods in the, in the damn fall and go learn how to go learn how to use your graph.
Like some of these other people are doing, you know,
Tyler Stewart: that's, that's exactly what it is. The younger guys during the off season, they are not taking a break. They are out there on the water spending the time. You know, some of these older guys that have been doing it for so long that are probably so burned out from fishing their whole life, you know, uh, those are the guys that, you know, are, are not really embracing it, not getting out there and really trying to learn it.
But, um, but I don't know, I'm anxious to see, you know, where it goes and stuff, but, uh, personally, I don't think it's going anywhere and, um, I think it's just going to get better.
Tigs: Yeah, that's cool. That's a great
Blasi: set of time on that. Cause I'm, I'm so shallow on other than what Brantley's told me. And then I watched a little bit.
It's Lita Ben, some of the coverage there, like, so this is pretty cool for you to dive into it like this, but it makes perfect sense, I don't think it's going anywhere, and like you said, start watching these guys on YouTube, watch your game film, just like they do in football, you know what I mean, and just get better man, put the time in, it sounds like everybody's just gotta step their game up, you know, and work a little
Tyler Stewart: harder.
The new thing that's going on right now is these guys are shallow scoping, like at first, you know, it first kind of hit the deal and people were catching them out deep, you know, those suspended fish out in 20 to 40 foot of water. And, uh, those fish to me are pretty easy to see and, you know, make out what's a bass, what's not.
The guys that are really killing it right now are the ones that have figured out how to catch them in that, like deep water. Two to five foot range. And they are so hard to see when they're that shallow. And, uh, that's something that I'm not, I'm not good at that. I mean, I wish I
Tigs: knew, you know, you would do it.
I mean,
Tyler Stewart: like Scott Martin, Scott Martin just won an event this year on, uh, and, uh, and he was bed fishing with it on perspective. It's. I mean, catching them in two foot of water. I mean, and, and like at our event, we just left, I mean, the guys, half the guys in the top 10, you know, behind me. We're catching them on the, you know, that shallow, shallow stuff, shallow lay downs, you know, that weren't sticking out of the water.
And that's just something that I know I'm not good at. And it's something that I'm going to have to spend some more time doing, but I'm not scared to admit it. You know, I just, I suck at it and it's something that, you know, I'm going to have to practice, you know, or I'm going to get, you know, guys are going to, you know, leave me behind.
So, but, uh,
Tigs: yeah, man. Uh, yeah, that's it. It's it's just. It's here to stay get used to it. Everybody suck it up and uh, and and go go learn, you know I mean, it's Rick Klein freaking Klein dude is now with six cents and as he's learning how to live scope If that isn't an inspiration to you, then I don't know what it is.
You know, I mean Wanting to get better Yo, he's been fishing for over 50, 50 years of professional bass fishing. Tyler, do you think you will be fishing? Do you think you will have a 50 year career ,
Tyler Stewart: dude, I hope so. But that's,
Tigs: do you want one? Do you want to fish for 50 years?
Tyler Stewart: I don't know, dude, I'm already all broke up from fishing. I'm having to, I gotta have surgery, shoulder surgery Friday. Oh man.
Tigs: So do you really? Oh, man. Yeah, I had,
Tyler Stewart: I had surgery last fall. I've been going to therapy for eight months and it's just gotten worse. And, um, they're going to cut me back open Friday and try to get me ready for that next tournament.
Three weeks from now, so Wow.
Tigs: That's gonna be some, we'll see how that goes. Some skilled work there. Oh man. Yeah. So
Tyler Stewart: yeah, hopefully I don't, if I'm like this at 29, I don't know how I'm gonna be at 50 .
Tigs: Right. I don't know how he's done it. Dude, that guy's unbelievable. Uh, definitely, definitely one of my fishing heroes.
And I know that you and I have had this conversation, my friend, about one of my definite, my all time. Fishing hero, Mr. Larry, the general Nixon. Uh, dude, how fun was it to get to be around that dude? Is he really, would you, I know that we, is he, is he really the general? I know them when that whole split. It was kind of happening that he was behind the scenes talking to talking to y'all like a general Like yeah
Tyler Stewart: Yeah, I mean i've had dinner with him before he's just one of the most laid back nicest guys out there and um Well, I know you appreciated that selfie I got William and sent you that time.
I didn't show you, but I wanted to.
Tigs: Well, well, a little breaking tigs bits, uh, tonight I'm going to play a couple of these things. So I'll, I'll explain them first. Number one, Larry Nixon is my favorite fisherman of all time. Tyler Stewart is coming up very fast, but Larry Nixon is my boy. I got to fish, uh, one time I got to fish with him.
I knew his father in law and, uh, and all of that. And he was at the lake and his father in law, he liked to sip a little bit. And we were at this event one night and, uh, he was like, yeah, you need to just come meet us, come meet us out there. Come meet Larry. He'll show you, he'll, he'll. I was like, all right.
The problem with telling me that is that I'm going to be there. Like, okay, so I go and I launched it. I launched it that, that ramp that's on the Texas side. When you cross Pendleton bridge, it's a, it's a new Marina now. I think they've redone it all, but you know where I'm talking about. I met Larry there and he, we, we.
We talked I fished by him. He taught me a couple of things on some worms caught a couple of fish Was as nice as could freaking be, you know, so That guy's always always been like at the top of my list But with that said me and my buddy John, john, melvin miller. Johnny if you're you're watching this and I know you're going to be Back in high school, Larry Nixon had his, his fishing show and it was our favorite, my favorite.
And you know, at times though, when Larry would catch these fish, it was damn near like he was having an orgasm. It was just Unbelievable. And we would sit there just kind of pretend that that is exactly what was happening. So Tyler's up there. He's leading on Lake Champlain and I'm freaking out. I'm fired up for Tyler and my buddy John and I like to make these just dumb songs.
Blasey, you've heard some of these. I've sent you some. These are things that never need to be shared. They're just creative outlets. We will call it. Uh, so in Tyler's honor, we stayed up all damn night going back and forth making, uh, uh, A couple of this, this song, you have something
Blasi: you're about to play right here.
Cause you're
Tigs: building this up. Oh yeah, I do. I've got a little clip. It's not the whole thing's like five minutes long. I'm not going to play the whole thing. I got a little 37 second clip of it, but yeah, I sent what I'm about to play to Tyler. I was like, Tyler, what time do you wake up to go? Cause I don't want to send you a text message, wake you up or anything like that before championship Sunday.
He's like, get up, get. up at three or something. I was like, perfect. So we because he was on the east coast, we were up to like two o'clock making this dumb things so stupid, but we sent it to him. And it's in honor of it's in honor of, uh, of our of my boy, Mr. Larry Nixon. So, uh, let me let me pull it up here.
There is
Tyler Stewart: this the
Tigs: come here big guy.
Tyler Stewart: Go, whatcha doing to me? Big old fat fish,
man,
that's a good one right there. That is a good look at the, look back on that thing.
Tigs: Don't need Gucci on my back. TV Gucci got my back. Yes. It went on for 37 seconds of just the dumbest thing maybe ever made. I wanna see the one that you sent me. Which one? I've got a bunch of them. It may be what closes it. What closes our show? Um, I got a bunch of one. There
Tyler Stewart: was like something about a big old bath.
Tigs: That is the show closer. We have an outro, uh, with that. So yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll hit that here in a second, but man, uh, we'll, we'll kind of start to wrap up here. We've been going for forever. And, uh, dude. So proud of you, man. I'm so, uh, honored that you would come on and, and talk about it. Way, way, way. Well deserved buddy.
And, uh, and go get you some more of those wins. Go get
Tyler Stewart: that's the plan, man. I appreciate y'all having
Tigs: me on.
Blasi: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely enjoyed talking to you. I learned a lot tonight here. That's so cool. We are 100%. We're going to come up there, do what you talked about. We're going to rent a place up there.
I'm down with that. That'd be so, that'd be so dang awesome. I
Tyler Stewart: want you to help me out on the beach too. I gotcha. I'm so bored when I go to the beach. If I could just figure out how to catch a few fat fish up there, I'd be all right.
Tigs: I'll tell you what we'll do. We're going to get you. Let me know when you're coming, when you're going to orange beach and uh, and Blasey and I will meet you there.
And uh, we won't interfere. Allison, if you're listening to this, we will not interfere with your vacation. We have other people we can see, but we will go show Tyler and go visit with him and fish for a little bit. So that sounds fun. We'll hang with us for a second. Tyler, I'm going to outro this and, uh, appreciate you coming on and we'll see you guys next week.
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