It's the Terrible at Fishing Radio show on Cold Country Radio.
Here's your fishing expert and host, Michael Rafino.
Oh, welcome back to Terrible at Fishing for This Week.
This week has been crazy.
My wife and I, we've been riveted, just like most of you probably, to what's happening
in Southern California.
So our thoughts, our prayers, are with everyone down in Southern California.
What's happening down there, and I'm recording this on Thursday, still at 0% containment.
We are off the phone with a friend of ours, and many of our friends have lost their homes
in Altadena.
We moved here from Los Angeles, and I'll tell you a story of why we moved.
Five years ago, five years ago, was really the straw that broke our camel's back.
There was a fire called the Tick Fire, and we lived in Canyon Country over by Santa Clarita.
That morning was like every other morning's beautiful, and I went bird watching.
And then the kids wanted to go to the public library in Valencia, so we went over to the
putt, we took the family over to the public library.
And while we were in there, a friend of mine called and says, Mike, there's a fire heading
over to your house.
And I go, no, there isn't.
I was just bird watching this morning, and then we did a bird walk.
It was beautiful.
There's no fire.
And he goes, oh, there's a fire.
And so we stepped outside of the Valencia library, and we looked over, and there was
a big plume over approaching our home.
So we left the kids at the library.
They were old enough, don't worry.
And Kathy and I, we went driving to our home, and we lived on San Canyon.
And by the time we got there, roads were blocked, and so we kind of meandered our way in, and
I got out of the car, and I ran up the hill.
Fire was all around.
I was about 15 feet from walls of fire that were way taller than I can imagine.
I ran in to get our pets, and my cat, my dog, I didn't want them to burn to death.
So I got out, and the cat jumped out of my arms, but I still had the dog, and a neighbor
pulled up, and I got in his car, and he got me out of there down the hill to my wife.
And I was, you know, we were worried.
Homes were being burned all around us, and I looked at my wife, and I said, look, it's
just stuff.
It's just stuff.
And you know, all those people down there that are losing their homes and have lost their
homes, I mean, they're great.
I'm actually very, very happy that only five people have lost their lives, but as of this
moment, it's sad that five people lost their lives.
We have a lot of friends down there, obviously, and friends put us up in their home for a
few days until the fire was controlled and extinguished at the tick fire, and homes around
us were destroyed.
Our house was not.
It was a lot of smoke damage.
A lot of smoke damage.
Took a lot to clean it up.
You know, what's happening is it does bring back memories.
You know, it wasn't the only fire that we survived, but it was definitely the closest.
Next door neighbor in a house was completely leveled, and it was our wake-up call.
You know, Southern California, you get a lot of fires because there's no rain, and it's
just dry vegetation.
Although around our home, we had a large, like hundreds of yards, of ice plant, which
was a really, is a really good barrier, by the way, but, I mean, embers and flames, they
jump it and we're hitting neighbors' homes.
To be honest, you know, even in my poor health, I was stupid to run up that hill.
I mean, I couldn't breathe.
I could barely see where I was going, and I couldn't breathe.
I just wanted to, I mean, I forgot all my pills, you know.
To be honest, I just wanted to save my animals.
I didn't think about grabbing any stuff besides my animals.
And my cat, we were able to find my cat weeks later, and she just recently passed away last
year, but she did real good.
And the, it was really, that was the straw, was the fires.
And I know a little bit of how many of these people feel, and when I got to my wife, got
to our car, she was upset, and I was just grateful, you know, that we worked home, and
we were all safe.
And when it comes down to, you know, this type of event in one's life, you count your
blessings.
And that day I counted my blessings.
I was, I smelled like a fire.
I mean, it was, it was crazy.
And what those people are going through down in Los Angeles right now, and it is just stuff.
You know, I know it's memories, and I know it's this and that.
I know.
But it's just stuff.
And that's what I kept telling my wife.
And we can replace stuff, you know, and memories do not go away.
They just don't.
In fact, memories become more precious to us.
They grow in value.
Yeah, you don't have a catalog of it anymore.
But you have the memories.
And I hope our friends and all those people down in LA, nice thing about my face is that
we come to each other's aides.
And I know emergency shelters have already been set up down in Los Angeles.
And evacuations and our friends in the, in our faith are taking care of one another right
now.
I mean, because we're on the phone with them.
And everybody's taking care of everybody right now.
They are not going without a bed.
They're not going without a food, without food.
We, you know, in our faith, we rebuild each other's homes.
And we take care of each other, you know, and our neighbors.
And our neighbors, of course.
I mean, but faith first.
So I, you know, I spent, you know, the opening segment talking about the fires down in Los
Angeles.
And we're working Santa Monica.
So the Pacific Palisades in that area were customers of mines and Malibu and, and Brent
Wood and, and that area, Bel Air, believe it or not.
And I knew a lot of movie stars, a lot of television stars, a ton of, I mean, hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.
I mean, and Sparks Stars and stuff like that.
I mean, and I've been to their homes and I've delivered stuff.
I've helped them hook up stuff.
I've done a lot of stuff down in that area that is now gone, is now gone.
And you don't understand, people don't understand.
You think about Pacific Palisades.
It sounds really cool, but, and it does, it's pretty cool.
But those people have owned their homes for 50, 60 years.
They don't have a lot of money.
And they, you know, their homes are paid off.
They're living on social security.
These are just normal people like you and me.
I mean, some are rich, some aren't, but most are not.
They're just most are not.
So fortunately, you know, the people I know in my faith is they're helping each other.
And they are so consumed right now with taking care of our brothers and sisters.
Hopefully, you know, similar support systems are set up for everybody, but I know that
the ones that I know have lost their homes, they're being taken care of, but they're sad
and devastated, but it is just stuff.
I know.
I have a, you know, I don't know what, you know, what it's going to look like in 24 hours
when you guys listen to this.
Pretty sure it'll still be burning down.
And there's just no, you know, right now there's just really no control.
So, but we will get back to, you know, some of the news events of this week besides the
fires.
We're going to talk about a challenge that was put upon me this week.
And I'll tell you how that went.
As you listen to this show, I'm going to tell you where I'm going to be because I pre-record
my shows.
I don't know if you knew that.
You probably did.
So, I pre-record my shows and I try to push this off till Thursday because of what's happening
in Los Angeles.
And you know, the heart, you know, that we're seeing in the people down there too is phenomenal.
The news reports are enrapturing, but I don't want, you know, you watch so much negative
it will affect you.
And it brings back the fire that I, you know, that we had around our house five years ago.
And it was just five years ago.
Again, that was, my wife, my wife looked at me, you know, after I got back in the car
and we were staying at our friend's house who put us, our whole family up, five of us.
They put our whole family up and, you know, she goes, we got to leave.
We got to leave.
We're moving.
I go, well, it says one way or another, okay, you know, if we go back in our house isn't
there, we're moving.
But our house was still there.
We just cleaned it up and sold it.
And then we moved up here to Klamath Falls where happened to be five years ago.
They were having all these wildfires.
We were dying.
I was like, I thought we were leaving it.
I remember five years ago.
It was crazy.
Northern California and around here we were just, we had fires and we were, we couldn't,
it felt like we, it was our fault.
That organ was on fire.
We moved up here and there was fires and it was, it's our fault.
Oh, when we drove out of Santa Clarita, there were fires and in our rear view mirror were
just plumes of smoke and Valencia was on fire and it just made us happy that we were leaving.
So in our next segment, we won't talk about the fire.
We're going to talk about other stuff.
So I want you all to stay tuned because I know that 15 minutes was bad.
The next 15 minutes is going to be more fun.
See you in a few minutes.
Out in the backwoods under the stars, I tuned in the radio from my old car.
So country radio on Friday night, terrible at fishing, but it feels just right.
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The terrible official radio show.
Michael's got the secrets and now you know.
If you can't line your cast just find Gold Country Radio.
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back to terrible at fishing.
Now I am doing some work right now in my studio.
I make fishing lures and arts and crafts and stuff like that.
I do a lot of art.
And so that little humming that I'm going to hopefully post-production get rid of, you
know, it will disappear.
But it's a humming.
Hey, what do I want to talk to you about?
Let's talk about the challenge.
So a few days ago, I see on Facebook, sidelines pizzeria.
You guys know sidelines?
So it's over on Main Street.
And they posted this thing called the wall of flame.
Now I didn't know sidelines.
I never go in there practically.
My daughter likes the pizza there.
But so I saw the wall of flame.
We go now every place I've ever gone in.
Now I'd known where there was a wall of flame.
I am on it.
All right.
I was raised with hot food and it was, you know, it's nothing.
You know, it's not like it would affect me like it does everybody else.
I don't have, you know, the exit like everybody else or the entrance of anybody else.
So I posted on Facebook says, ah, piece of cake.
Or should I say chicken wings?
Because their challenge was chicken wings.
And so they replied, come try.
And so my son and I were out for a walk.
Because I live just above downtown Washington Street.
And so in the, you know, in the, you want a heights.
And so my home was like 110 years old and trying to figure out, you know, who built the home
because I want to name it.
And I cannot find, even at the assessor's office, I couldn't find any information on
who built this home.
So I needed to just keep asking.
I went to the museum, I went to the library, I've gone online.
I know.
So anyway, Russell and I, my son, we were walking around and coming up and we were, I was going
to take him to lunch at Amy's for a burger.
They got good burgers at Amy's.
But we were walking by sidelines.
I go, oh, I looked at my boy.
I says, we got to go in here.
So we walked inside and I took, and I looked at the wall of flame.
Wouldn't that many people on it?
A couple dozen.
And I saw asked her, I said, what is this thing?
Wall of flame.
She goes, well, she says, you got to eat 10 chicken wings in seven minutes with a five
minute burn time.
I go, well, that ain't much.
She goes, well, you know, a lot of people say that.
And I go, she goes, they're like two million Scovels.
And I looked at her, I says, two million.
I go, the hot sauce I cook with is 15 million.
I go, I just had a million Scovels last week and I go, I was like, catch up.
I go, cook them up.
I said, cook them up.
So I did a live on my YouTube channel.
And I just had to.
I mean, I got challenged.
I mean, my ability to take heat is nothing to be trifled with nor to be questioned.
And there was a wall of flame.
So, so I do a live, I take my camera over to the wall of flame and tell everybody what's
going to happen.
And they give you a T-shirt.
You know, if you succeed, they give you a T-shirt and they take your picture and they
put you on the wall of flame.
And I didn't know they gave me an ice cream bar too.
Afterwards.
So, every place that has a wall of flames got a stick.
There was one place in Sonor or Jamestown.
It was Jamestown, just south of Sonor in California and near Modesto, Jamestown.
There was a hot sauce spot and, you know, they had a wall of flame.
Of course, I got to get on the wall of flame.
And so she, they have a disclaimer.
And on the disclaimer, it tries to scare you.
You may die, you know, you may go to the hospital, you may do, you know, it's just, yeah, they
try to scare you.
This place in Jamestown, it's probably not there anymore, because a long time ago, she
rings this like fire bell, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
And I go, what's that for?
She goes, well, I'm just telling the fire department what is about to happen.
She had this whole thing she played out.
Now, at sidelines, they got something similar.
They don't have a fire bell.
What they do have is a flashing red light, you know, that police have on their cars.
They take out of their glove compartment, stick on their car.
Well, that's what this is, just a flashing red light.
And she puts it on the, after my disclaimer information, she puts this red light up on
the, on my booth.
And then she gives me gloves.
So I gotta have my gloves on because it's hot sauce.
I understand that.
You know, you don't want, you know, you don't want to touch your eye.
You got hot sauce.
All right.
You might as well go to the hospital right there and then.
And so she gives me my gloves.
And then she brings me my 10 chicken wings.
Now, I don't mind heat at all.
I really don't mind heat at all.
As long as it's flavorful, I love a sweet heat.
My hot sauce is a sweet heat.
Usually hickory.
It's got some fruitiness to it.
I mean, it's sweet, but it's powerful.
And I like that.
I like that a lot.
So she brings me this little basket of chicken wings by a son sitting there watching.
He knows, he knows dad.
And she goes, the timer's going to start when you take your first bite and you can't
leave anything on the bone and you can't use your hand to pick the meat off.
You got to use your mouth.
You know, you can't wipe your mouth.
You can't take a drink, you know, during this period of time of the challenge.
So I said, all right.
So this is all on a video on my YouTube channel, Terrible Efficient.
Sidelines, like pizzeria or bar and grill or whatever it's called, sidelines, you know,
down on Main Street.
And so I start, you know, and there's a trick.
I will tell you, there is a trick.
I've never been timed before.
You know, I can handle heat, but nobody ever really timed me before.
And there is a trick and I will tell you that when you eat hot sauce or a pepper or something,
it doesn't get hot until you swallow.
So you need a chipmunk, this thing, or squirrel it, you know.
Pull it away in your cheeks.
So I'm just, you know, eating the meat off of all these bones.
I'm just storing it into my fat cheeks as much as I can.
And then you just got to chew it up.
And at that moment, when you swallow, then the heat's going to hit you.
So I probably do like three or four of these wings and store it up in my fat cheeks.
And then I swallow and I said, all right.
You know, it actually was very tasty.
I will tell you that if you do this challenge, you will, if you can handle heat, you will
enjoy the chicken wings.
You're just going to have a good time eating them because they are very delicious.
It is a sweet, almost pineapple mango type of sweetness to the barbecue sauce that they
put on it.
They say it's two million Scoville's, but I will tell you one thing about Scoville
units.
There's no industry standard to Scoville units, none.
And so they could just say whatever they want.
That's two million, you know, 15 million, 500,000, whatever, you know, just pick it
out of the air, you know, it all depends on if you're a wuss, it's high.
If you're not a wuss, it's low.
So anyway, so I started eating all these wings and I can't take a drink like I just did with
my coffee.
My lips are burning.
I have a goatee, so it's like, you know, and it's all red.
My lips are burning.
All right.
And just because there were tears, it doesn't mean I was crying because I wasn't crying,
but you do tear up, your nose runs, stuff like that.
I was able to blow my nose, I just couldn't wipe my mouth.
And I think they want your lips to burn.
That's why they didn't allow me to wipe my mouth.
But the, so I finished all 10 wings fairly, you know, within what, five and a half minutes
or so.
It was quite a bit of food, actually.
I thought it wasn't going to be that much food, but you know, it wasn't too bad.
And then as soon as I finished, to her satisfaction, she started the five minutes on the burn.
Now, this really was the hardest part because when you stop eating hot food, at that point,
you start feeling the hot eating of that food.
So this five minutes is really the torture test for an individual to not hit a drink.
And she did allow me to wipe my mouth, but just not with a wet cloth.
I had to use napkins.
So it was still there.
But she had a big wet towel ready for me at the end of five minutes.
And you know, I did okay.
I mean, you watch the video.
I mean, there's some tearing, you know, some nose running, which happens with hot food.
I mean, I wasn't screaming.
I wasn't crying.
I wasn't, you know, oh my God, this is so, so hot.
Now I didn't do any of that.
So these two older guys, they were at the bar and they, they, they'd seen a guy my size
talk, talk up his game and then die after two wings and start a sucking on the Cola
machine's ice dispenser.
So they were skeptics.
They were skeptics.
But you know, this is Michael Ruffino.
Yeah.
Mr. Heat.
I bring the heat.
He went to fishing.
I bring the heat.
So they, they were impressed.
They high-fived me these two older guys.
After the five minutes, you know, I was able to use that wet town, clean my beard off and
my lips and my lips were hot for like 10 minutes afterwards.
And he just called me hot lips.
You know, next time you see me, he got lips.
Yes, right.
It's because of sidelines.
And then I got this beautiful shirt, black shirt, said silence.
Because I survived the hot wings challenge or something like that.
And anyways, really nice shirt, t-shirt.
And she took a picture of me with my t-shirt, my ward.
And I guess they'll print that picture one day and put it up on their wall of flame.
At the end of the year, she says, the thing about inviting everybody back that has survived
and do a championship challenge.
So piece of cake.
You know, there's only one, there's only one hot sauce, you know, that I can't endure
on that kind of level.
And that's a hot sauce called Mad Dog.
I use it in cooking, but you really can't use a lot of it.
Mad Dog is probably the meanest hot sauce I've ever had in my life.
And I've had a lot of hot sauces.
I mean, the bomb ain't that.
I mean, the bomb's just hot for hot.
Dave's Insanity is just hot for hot.
There's not tasty at all.
You know, there's just like a lot of vinegar and stuff.
It's not very good.
But so anyway, that's my challenge this week.
Walking along Main Street enjoying the day.
When I get sucked into a restaurant and I have not broken my streak, I am on every wall
of flame I've ever stood in front of.
I mean, this, this, this, I mean, you ever watch Princess Bride?
Don't ever challenge a Sicilian.
Best seen in Princess Bride is the Sicilian one.
And that's me.
Although I didn't die.
That's the Sicilian died.
All right.
In the next segment, we're going to tell you where I'm at right now.
While you listen to this, I'm going to tell you where I'm at.
It's actually pretty cool.
Out in the backwoods under the stars.
I tuned in the radio from my old car.
Gold country radio on Friday night.
Terrible at fishing, but it feels just right.
Want to get your business noticed?
Sponsor a show on KKFO Gold Country Radio on 103.3 FM and create awareness through on-air
announcements.
Our online stream at goldcountryradio.org and our podcasts that live on forever.
Your message reaches a broad local audience while also targeting listeners who choose
to tune in to the shows they love.
Plus, we promote your sponsorship across our website and social media.
For more information, email goldcountryradio at gmail.com.
Call 541-238-6989 or visit goldcountryradio.org.
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The Terrible at Fishing Radio Show.
Michael's got the secrets and now you know.
You can't lie, your cast just find Gold Country Radio.
Welcome back.
Wow.
So, you know, first segment, I kind of depressed you, but you actually understand why I left
California, born and raised in California, California for a state.
With geography, topography and everything, it offers everything to everybody.
The most beautiful islands to the lowest spot on earth in Death Valley.
So, and the tallest peak, Mount Whitney.
And I've been to all those places.
So anyway, we left because of the fires, our love and prayers to all those down there.
Now, where am I?
Here you are.
You're listening to me on the radio.
I've prerecorded this.
I would be kind of fun to do a live broadcast one day and I want to.
But I'm not yet.
But I would love to do a live broadcast.
Maybe Mike and I can figure out how to do that.
That would be a lot of fun.
Maybe by phone or something like that.
So there's this entertainment place.
I know we have a family fun entertainment center here in Klamath Falls.
I had no idea.
Until fairly recently.
And it's called the World of Archi.
I know.
I never heard of what Archi is.
But Archi is, I guess, a dragon themed thing.
Probably a card game or something like that.
But anyway, John owns the World of Archi.
It's a family fun center.
It's over on Main Street.
And so that's where I am right now while you listen to this.
Now the neat thing is about the World of Archi is that tonight, second Friday of every month,
they invite local artisans and vendors, local vendors, into their fun center and they set
up a table.
And they can sell their goods.
All for nothing, at least at the moment.
And that's what I'm doing now.
So here at the World of Archi, it's 1111 Main Street, they do this to help local vendors
sell their goods.
And I think that's a really nice thing.
You know, community radio is like that.
You know, we help everybody to enjoy each other.
And anyway, John actually opened up his fun center on the second Friday of every month,
four to nine, to do this.
So there are other vendors here and they're all just share, you know, sell what they want.
Now I do a lot of fishing stuff and crafts and art.
So if you want to see my art, well, that's, this is not a bad spot to do it.
To see it.
Or to buy it.
But I do a lot of other stuff too.
And I will be making baits for the spring season here rather quickly because I have
to paint like hundreds of baits to do that.
They're sold over at Lake of the Woods.
And this year I'm going to focus a lot on finesse, very small hard baits.
You'll catch a bunch with my hard baits and my soft baits and my spinners.
I'll catch a lot of stuff.
Now the neat thing too, he does here, he has what's called a family night too.
And he does that.
He's going to have a family night on Tuesday, January 21st.
And again, it's free.
And he brings in live reptiles like alligators and lizards and snakes.
And he's, you know, hopefully some, some other animals too.
For the kids to take pictures with and to enjoy and get a hand, you know, learn about
them.
So to be honest, he's got a lot of fun stuff.
See family nights every third Tuesday.
So it's every third Tuesday is family night.
And then vendors event is every second Friday.
And anyway, it's called the world of our Kai.
It's a 1111 Main Street.
And it's, it's a, I, me, I like, I like, they has laser tag, VR rooms and other really cool
stuff, but he's got a big arcade.
And I was so excited.
So recently, so weird.
I was in his store.
We were talking about selling my stuff in his store.
And I told him, I said, when I was in college, I liked the game joust.
We have flap around on an ostrich.
I know ostriches don't fly, but in games, anything can fly.
And you joust on a flying ostrich.
I know just as theme is cool fun.
And strangely enough, somebody called him and said, I have a joust game like a week
later and now they got joust and my son and I were in their plane.
He's got a pool table, air hockey, all sorts of other stuff in there.
And the VR room is crazy cool.
You are not the VR, well, the VR room is too, but the laser tag room is pretty cool.
I mean, it's psychedelic, it's black light, and just it's just really cool.
I mean, he's got a little snack bar there with very affordable snacks and a little store
that he sells, you know, crafts and stuff like that toys.
And so really a kind of a, I mean, a really neat place.
I had no idea.
He's actually looking to expand, so he's looking for a bigger spot.
I think he wants like 60,000 square feet or something.
So it's actually really neat.
So John is the owner of it and he's trying to, you know, create like a destination where
kids and families can enjoy themselves and vendors like me can sell their goods at least
once in a while.
But it's actually really a neat place.
You guys should, I was impressed.
I didn't know it existed until I saw him on Facebook.
It was like, what is this?
And then I asked my kids because they're in a D&D and stuff and I was like, have you ever
been in that place?
They go, no.
And it's like, it's right on Main Street.
I mean, it's a fairly short walk from my home.
And it's like, so we, you know, so I told you that Russell and I, we went for a walk
and we hit sidelines.
We also stopped by the world of Archi and played joust and talked to John about this
event for vendors.
So really kind of cool.
Anything that allows vendors to get some visibility, especially, you know, tonight where you're
listening to this, he's not charging a thing for the vendors to do this.
And you know, it's a, it's just one of those really cool things that he's doing to help
the community.
You need to stop by.
I mean, you're listening to this show right now.
You should stop by, say hi to me.
And check out the place.
This is as good as close as I get to a live broadcast is recording this now to be played
while I'm there in a Vite UN.
This is close to a live broadcast I get.
So anyway, I've been making a lot of stuff, art and really cool stuff.
I mean, I just got done making a, these are, these are phone stands, you know, dragon theme
because, you know, I have some that, you know, of other stuff too, but you know, these are
dragon themed and they turned out really cool.
So and then I've got some dragon clock that I still haven't finished.
I just cut it and painted it so it's got to be glued and then assembled and then finished
off.
But it's a lot of fun.
I mean, yeah, you got to check.
I mean, Clameth Falls got a lot of stuff that I've yet to, you know, I'll fully explore.
I mean, I love the museum.
If you've never been to the Clameth Falls Museum, you got to go.
It is amazing to me that how many people live in Clameth Falls and have not been to the
museum or have not even been to Lake of the Woods.
It's crazy that, you know, people have not done these things and the Clameth Museum's
nothing practically to pay.
And they got this luminescent rock display that glows in the dark.
So you walk into this dark room and all the gems glow.
I mean, how cool is that?
And then, you know, it's got that cool World War II intercontinental weapon on display,
which I didn't even know there were intercontinental weapons in World War II.
And cars and really nice looking exhibits.
And then we got the Fawvil Museum.
I hope I said that right, which focuses a lot on the indigenous people of the West Coast.
They even have a Chewmash exhibit there, which is the largest exhibit of Chewmash artifacts
is in my hometown, Lompoc.
And of course, you know, the La Prisma Museum or La Prisma Mission in Lompoc also has a
huge indigenous collection.
It's one of only two missions in California that are owned by the state.
All other missions are owned by the Catholic Church.
And so there's, I mean, then, and there's local, right next to the Fawvil, there's a
little museum or gallery that features local artists.
And I forgot the name of it.
It's, I mean, Klamath Falls.
I know people just might when it gets Klamath Falls.
No, I'm not from here, so I appreciate what it has to offer.
The mayor's done a very good job, I think, in making this town attractive because it
attracted my family.
Although, leaving the fires of LA was pretty easy to do.
I love this place was on fire back then.
I know, I'm sorry.
But we are, we live in a very cool town.
We got a children's activity museum or something like that over on East Main Street.
And we have all sorts of stuff.
Got the logging museum.
Got too far away, you know, 25, 30 minutes.
And Crater Lake was in an hour.
And it's just, we are blessed here in Klamath Falls to have what we have.
And our Main Street has been done up rather well.
I mean, I, I live just three blocks above it.
And so we go down there and walk.
And there's always a little shop, a nook that I like to walk into.
And you know, say hi, introduce myself.
I like to say hi to people, you know.
I'm a very, very congenial person.
I, I, I mean, I will say hi to anybody I walk by on the street.
Or even if they're at the light in their car all the way about them, they're probably thinking
who is that old guy.
I just like saying hi to people.
So you know, enjoy, enjoy what we've got.
We've got some pretty fun stuff, World of Archives, where I'm at right now.
And but check out the museums and the galleries.
I love that.
I really, really, really love art.
And I love the murals and stuff, the electrical boxes and stuff like that are painted here
and down.
So, all right, we'll talk about fishing.
Finally, we're going to talk about fishing in the next segment.
After these words, see in a minute or two or three.
Out in the backwoods under the stars, I tune in the radio from my old car.
Gold Country Radio on Friday night, terrible at fishing, but it feels just right.
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Welcome back to Terrible At Fishing.
I know we're finally going to talk about fishing.
I went on and on about the fires, our experience.
Went on and on about my Hot Wings Challenge.
And then the Family Fun Center here in town.
Where I'm at right now.
So let's talk about Isaiah.
Fishing, ice fishing.
Now, Diamond Lake is open for ice fishing.
I've been watching the cameras.
People are out there.
But again, it is inconsistent.
So you have a spud bar.
A spud bar is a metal spike along.
And you're just pounding the ice in front of you.
What you want to do.
And I've told you this over and over again.
But please, as you walk out on the ice, pound it hard as you can a couple of times.
See if you can break through it.
And if you can break through it, maybe you shouldn't be walking on it.
But if you go like four or five times and break through it.
And then put your gloves off.
Put your hand in there and measure that ice.
And see if it's four inches.
If it's four inches, then continue walking.
But don't walk too far.
People have broken through the ice at Diamond Lake.
Not all the way, but one leg.
When one leg goes through the ice, you can't break your leg.
So please, be careful.
Now people are out there ice fishing.
There's some spots measuring up to ten inches of ice.
Which is very, very, very, very, very safe.
But you want to be very, very safe.
Now Lake of the Woods is not thick enough yet.
Although I'm about to go up there and measure.
I've called up there and they haven't measured yet.
And they still have a little bit of open water over at sunset.
So you know, you could ice fish, okay, when there's open water on another part of the
lake.
And typically over in the Aspen area, that area is actually really good fishing on the
ice.
And usually the thickest ice is over in Aspen.
So if you go to the northern part of the lake, usually you can get onto ice and ice fishing
before the southern part of the lake is done freezing.
So I need to go up there and do a little exploring.
Because they're not doing it.
Get up there.
We'll get up there.
Evidently I left something up there.
And they got to put aside for me.
I don't know.
Ah, something.
I don't know.
Evidently I don't miss it.
Because I don't know what it is.
But I do the fishing events and evidently the last fishing event I left something there.
So Lake of the Woods.
Spud bar, any place that you go, Gerber Lake, Fish Lake, if you snowmobile the four mile
or wherever, make sure you spud bar it and you're safe.
You're wearing all your safety gear and you're doing it.
Now I've been tying flies and a nice thing is next week on Tuesday night at the Waffle
Hut at 630 or so is the fly tying club, fly fishing club.
And so if you want to join the fly fishing club here in town, you could go to Waffle
Hut this Tuesday at 630 or so.
And you can say hi to everybody.
You don't have to join.
You can just come and visit and say hi.
And see, you know, I usually, everybody brings us to raffle off.
So it's kind of fun for the club.
And I'll bring stuff and oh, I got some pretty, I got some pretty neat stuff for type flying.
And so we'll bring that and have them raffle it off.
And so you, there are some really fun things that are happening.
Now I am enjoying the, you know, fly tying, even though I don't know how to fly fish yet.
And fly tying is quite tiny.
That's all I can tell you, man.
I need not only my glasses, but a magnifying glass and I'm putting the thread on it and
the feathers and I got an instruction book that step by steps how to do these things.
And it's actually pretty cool.
If you've never tied fly, whether you fly fish or not, it doesn't really matter.
Tie flying is actually a lot of fun.
I guess, you know, if you like crafts, you know, flying a tie, tying a fly, flying a
tie, whatever it is.
Tying a fly is quite relaxing.
And you're just having fun making something.
And you know, the neat thing about making baits is that if you catch something with
something you made, that's pretty cool.
I mean, I do it all the time.
There's not a bait that I throw, I don't think.
There might be a few.
Very few.
That I don't make.
I didn't make.
I mean, I have, I've got thousands of baits that literally is in my arsenal and I've made
every one of them.
Just about.
I say 98%.
So there's probably 2%.
I, there was a, there is a company called Six Sunts.
I do like one of their baits called a Swank.
The Swank bait is, I can't find the blank for it.
So I, I literally buy theirs.
And the Swank is one of my favorite baits to throw for bass fishing in the summer.
And the Swank is, I mean, if you get it on clearance, which by the way, they usually
have one on clearance.
I mean, great, but they will catch fish.
And I've got a lot of personal best bass on Swanks.
It is probably the only bait that I recommend that I don't make is the Swank by Six Sunts.
Again, I wish I could find the blank for it so I can paint my own.
It's really good.
It's a really good bait.
So I'm going to, you know, this next week, I'm going to head up to Diamond Lake and do
some ice fishing.
And that's going to be a lot of fun because I've never fished Diamond Lake.
I've never done it.
And if you go on their, their camera, you'll see quite a few people out there out on the
lake on the ice.
And so I got to try it.
I got to try it.
And so I'm so hungry to go ice fishing right now.
And whether, you know, you're probably wondering about the kite festival next month, you know,
at Lake of the Woods, don't know if that's going to go or not because, again, they got
to have pretty thick ice to put a lot of people on the ice.
I mean, on ice fishermen, we take precautions, but general public, they don't want a thousand
people to be running out there and fall through the ice.
So I don't know if the ice, the kite festival is actually going to go on or not.
But my guess is yes.
My I've been told by Lake of the Woods, maybe not.
But it's oh, and I got this new thing too.
I got another new thing for fishing.
This is called, it's called a proof ball.
You probably think, like, what's a ball prove?
It's called a proof ball right there.
And we'll show you my camera.
So you'll, you can, oh, something else is really cool.
This show on GoldCountryRadio.org, you can listen to it on demand now.
So you don't have to just listen to it at seven o'clock on Friday nights.
Although I also posted on with video on my YouTube channel, but also on GoldCountryRadio.org,
you can go ahead and replay any of my shows whenever you want.
So very cool.
Something new, and I'm the first show with it.
So anyway, the proof ball was on Facebook and somebody showed a picture of a, of a trout
they caught and it had underneath it, it had all, it had the measurement, it had the weight,
it had the girth and it had the species all stamped into the picture.
And they go, oh, you know, so I asked, why don't you do that?
And they go, oh, there's this app that does it.
And it uses AI to measure it and to, to identify it.
And it's called FishTechie, F-I-S-H, like fish, techie, T-E-C-H-Y.
So FishTechie is the name of the app.
Now the app is free.
So they make their money by selling these things called proof balls.
So the AI uses this ball when it's next to the fish to estimate size, girth, weight and
identify the species.
He uses this ball.
So 1.4 inch ball, orange, it's made of rubber, it's on a key chain.
And they, when you buy them on Amazon, the, you, you pay 30, I think it's 30 bucks.
And you go to flytechie.com, F-L-Y-T-E-C-H-Y, flytechie.com.
The app is called FishTechie.
I don't know why one is different from the other, but flytechie.com, you can read about
it and see what you think.
I haven't used it yet, but I just got it.
It took forever to get the balls.
Took forever.
But, you know, a month later it showed up and it was like, wow, I forgot I even ordered
that thing.
And so now, whenever I catch a fish, I can put this ball next to the fish, take a picture
of it and it tells me everything.
I didn't want to know about the fish.
Now the great thing about this is, one, it's easy.
I mean, I usually take a picture of my fish anyway.
But when you have to weigh the fish, measure the fish, things like that, the fish has to
be out of the water a lot and then you're traumatizing the fish to some degree.
And so, you know, this reduces trauma on the fish by substantial means.
And it's easy.
It's just a little ball.
And you can hold the ball next to the fish, take a picture of it and done.
And you put release the fish back in the water.
And that is, this is really kind of cool.
Nothing to release that fish faster is a big, big plus.
And without putting a hook in its gill to measure it or to weigh it, laying it down
onto a board and measuring it, this little guy right here, I don't know, you know, if
you're a tournament guy, you're probably going to do it the old fashioned way.
Anyway, but I'm not a tournament guy.
And although once in a while I do a fish tournament, but I'm not a regular.
But this little ball is called the Proof Ball by Fly Techie.
F-L-Y-T-E-C-H-Y.
If you go to flytechie.com, you'll read about it.
And the app is called Fish Techie.
Don't ask me why it's a different name.
Because it is.
And then you register your balls on the site, on the app.
And that's what you do.
So you got, yeah, see, you can add a proof ball.
So anyway, consider the price of the balls, the price for the app.
But I really think this is going to be really nice to have.
So I want to thank you guys for tuning in and listening to the show this week.
You know where I'm at right now.
And our love and our prayers go to our friends and families and our, and everybody else in
the Los Angeles area.
We really hope not only that you, you only lose stuff if you lose anything.
Because remember, it's only stuff.
You have each other and memories don't burn away.
Take care everybody.
We'll see you next week.
That was Terrible at Fishing, the radio show.
With fishing expert Michael Rafino.
Check out Terrible at Fishing on YouTube.
And tune in next week for the next episode and more great fishing tips.
Terrible at Fishing, Fridays at 7pm on Gold Country Radio.