Just wanted to take a brief moment to give you guys a little idea how we do it here at paddle and fin podcast. We use the anchor dot f m-- recording platform super easy distributes our podcast too many many different platforms. There's creation tools to allowed you to record and edit podcast right from your phone or a computer check out anchor dot f m orDownload the free anchor app to get started. What's up paddle and fin listeners? This is your host Brian from the OG show. Just wanted to make you guys aware of Jack's te nors second annual Catch and Release charity tournament. That's Ka TCH kayak Anglers together can help this takes place September 13th 14th and 15th. It's an online event. In wide starts Friday at 6 a.m. Goes till Sunday at 7 p.m. Entry fees $20 tourney X is waive the fees you can sign up on tourney X doesn't matter if you're good angler and experienced angler new angler to the kayak fishing tournament world. So let's all get together and help Jackson out get this organized your host had paddle and fin of all come together and we've decided and he proceeds that we get from selling T-shirts hoodies. He's long sleeves things like that at the paddle the letter n and fin.com go to the store tab, you buy any stuff. We're going to take the proceeds from that donate it to the charity portion for jack stands event. That's something we wanted to do to help jack stand give back to some great organizations. So get signed up guys Jackson's trying to reach a hundred Anglers. I think it's an easy way for us to achieve even If you can't fish it, it's 20 bucks guys. Let's help out. Welcome. Hi everybody, Welcome to the paddle and fin podcast tonight with on the final cast. We have epic guest Duke West Camp from catch boards, and we were planning on doing tonight the hog trough versus The Catch Board review. So we'll go ahead and kind of get started on that. We're going to make the review short and sweet because we have a lot of questions. We've been wanting to ask Duke about his company and so I'll go ahead and go into the hog trough and I've got a couple here Justin's going to review the catch board. He has his within tonight. And so I'll just kind of go into it. My first one I bought was this one. Everybody's familiar, especially if you fish tournaments of with the hog trap, that was the first and for a long time only board that was used the board at the the time was the thing because it was pretty wide it held your fish fairly easily. The only kind of big downfall that everybody instantly noticed was that it was not lined. It was not visible all these lines in here the same colors board when you buy it. So if you're snapping pictures of fish in the tournament, it wasn't feasible. You couldn't see what what the measurements were. So became a kind of a requirement basically that everybody had to line their What you saw some interesting boards that were lined, you know, this one you can see mine is actually very dark. I did mine the first time around I try to attempt to do it with the Sharpie and I didn't have the patience nor the time to actually attempt to do that. I ended up getting a paint marker like actual Paint Marker and you used it and it worked really well, but a made my Lions really really fat. At on the board because of that, you know, I talked to a couple tournament directors. Just want to get there and put if it was a legal board and they said yeah, it looks great. It's really easy to see but your lines are so fat that you might possibly get deductions because of the paint slightly bleeding on both sides of those edges. I've never had like an issue that Iran that I measured a fish that close but Anyways, I ended up getting another one. So I got finishing online version which came with the dowel rods about the dowel rod and the foam helps make it float made it more durable because my other one I cracked it twice this one obviously though is is new this year and it started fading really really badly. It's a and it it looked when I look at it up close. It doesn't look bad but on camera it looks pretty horrible. So he said that no online, right? Yeah fishing online has the ability where you can add those little features onto the board. I think it up the price like five or six bucks maybe so it wasn't horrible. You can get this little tourney tag. Also, it's like a bundle. I like the tourney tag. It's a little on the small side for most of the tournaments like, you know, they're everybody's kind of use it almost the same size identifiers at this point. So this thing fits Really snug in there takes a lot to get it in there now because this plastic on that is warping or it's just really flimsy. I've seen a lot of cool identification identification tag, like type stuff that people have done. I think there's one called flip it pretty cool, you know, but my overall judgment on this board, it's not bad. It's usable it works well, but its durability She is seriously in question in my opinion. I've cracked the board. Justin was just telling me stories that he's heard people actually have fish flop on their boards and them snap and so when you're in the middle of a tourney last thing you want to do is obviously break one of the most important, you know, the tools that you have out there on your kayak. So she know the weight of all draw, I have no idea. It's light though. I mean it here's what kills me about this. Board the two that I don't like is how light this thing is and the fact that it still doesn't flow. So, you know, I own two of them for the sheer reason of its durability. I know and I've I tripped over it one time when it was on my black pack in the brackets and I heard it crack luckily didn't crack all the way through and then the other day when it was in back of my truck. I slid some gear in there and it came off my seat and landed on it when I was driving and I heard it pop again. So the eventually that that one that I first got this one doesn't have the dowel rods or anything. I think I bought it at Cabela's or something weird like that, but it it's got a crack on both sides like right here on the edge and it's it'll probably eventually go for keep abusing it. This one I kind of used when I'm fun fishing. The other one with the dowel rods is what I take for tournament. So overall, it's go ahead. Sorry. So the the retail price on the hog trough was originally like 1699, right? Yeah. I said you said what the additional features it's like an extra five or six bucks. Yeah. I can find have been a little bit more. I think I got mine for maybe 1999 originally the first time around and I think the final cost of the fishing online was like 25, maybe 26 bucks. I want to say and I can't remember quite offhand. So So, I mean it wasn't it wasn't anything bad, you know, it's so I just always remember thinking that original hog trough was a little pricey even at 1699. Yeah, I mean for what it is. I would say so for the sheer fact that it doesn't float and you have to add stuff to it, you know, a lot of people it's kind of weird is I think the whole idea that came about with the dowel rods in the foam was actually somebody's do-it-yourself idea and I think fishing online kind of decided to capitalize on And you know say hey, let's just let's build these boards and charge, you know, extra six seven dollars, whatever five six seven dollars what it is, you know and all that they did was they just put some DIY stuff on it. Yeah, so it's literally probably hired an intern to just say, you know highlight take a marker and you just go ahead and yeah because I wonder if it's the first year they were doing that actually making it black for you. Yeah, I have no idea all it is literally doubt. There's two dowel rods in here. I don't know if you guys can see them. It's on both sides. And yeah, they're just wooden dowel rods and there maybe half inch thick if that and I think the foam is actually laid down first, and then the dowel rod is pressed on top of it. And so because I was expecting to see like the foam over the data rod in a sense, but this looks much cleaner. That looks a lot better than the phone being sticking out on the outside. I thought I'd have to trim it. You know, I thought it'd be all sloppy again. But my overall view point on the hog trough it works. It's useful. It is high maintenance though, and it's not durable, you know for and for the price point that it's that I in the lightweight it you would think that it would float, you know, but it doesn't so it kind of kills me. I mean this thing's light, you know the part of the catch board it's you know completely lighter, but it Seriously, seriously lacks and durability in the sheer fact that you got to realign this thing. Probably. I know it was some guys do it like once but if you're catching a lot of fish and you're fishing, especially like Rivers where you're getting it really dirty, like that's what I think is causing a lot of that lining to come off as it's like the sand from you know, from it being in the in the bottom of my boat because I took mine underneath my seat so and especially fun fishing rivers my boots. And stuff are often muddy, and it's just getting on the board and it's just a mess. But yeah, actually I've broken one myself, but I have broken a friends. So I've owned two of them. One of them. I won from a tournament raffle and I ended up just selling it. Yeah, but the one that I didn't have I babied it for for as long as I still have it in the garage actually. So yeah, I can say that I didn't break my own there were several times where it was pretty pretty close to breaking it. But as soon as I found out about the sketch for do is answer to all my prayers. Yeah. See everything about this is is an upgrade. I mean, it's heavier. Do you know the weight on this? I tried to look on your website to find the actual weight of it. Yeah. It's the board. Self is about 2.4 pounds and it's about three and a half pounds on the money with the cradle and the 26 inch version. The 32 is about 4 to 6 ounces. Have you? Okay? So what I like about this board is they trimmed off what four or five inches. The other one goes up to 30 correct? 3232. Yes. Well, I like the fact that especially here in Ohio. We're hardly ever going to catch a fish that goes past that 18 or 19 inch. Mark every once in a while every day every once in a while you'll see that but uh, I would say anything past 24 so I like where it's cut off its cut off a 26 inch Mark you guys do have some that go up to 60 inches, correct? Yep. Yeah, we do when we started actually with a Musky product way before we were doing anything for kayak Bass Fishing. We are doing walleye boards at 32 inches and then musky boards that were 60 inch folding. We're actually redesign that whole line right now. So If you go to our website looking for them, they're not there but the new products going to be available in about six weeks. Yes. Oh, I like that it cuts off at 26 the weight has never been a problem for me. It's it'll if you if you measure your fish on your lap, it's not going to slide off your lap. You're not at risk of it falling off or a fish flopping and kicking it off your lap. I have from what I have heard about reviews from people the only Two things that people had a problem with the and again, I don't have a problem with this. I think it's a perfect product all around is the numbers with them being directly down the middle. You just got to watch where you put your identifier. Yeah sliding it on the board which again, it's just something you got to be aware of just like everything you can't have a perfect product just kind of watch that. You don't slide it right up to the tail because I have submitted a fish before and you get dq'd for that. I have some hurt some people having problems with the weight. But again, the way I feel is dead on if anything if there's any improvements later down the road or whatever. You know, maybe that is an option. But again, I don't think it's too too big of a deal. I slide it underneath the front of my Q-See HD and the in the bungee cords. And I know it's going to stay there in the fact that it comes with a tether the options of whatever color you have. You know, there's orange. There's purple. There's green. I think there's a red you guys now have an American American flag Edition parts of the board are red white and blue and you can get a tether to match all that. So there's there's there's no problems. As far as is losing this board as long as you keep it tethered up. There's also the option to get Engravings. I've got my Instagram name here, which I kind of messed up on that's my fault. But see going back to the logos, you can have three options that you can get the inside of the bump and Grave you can get the top of the bump engraved. Is that correct? Is that was called. Yeah, you can get that. So they have we call it top offense back of fence in front of fence. So front is facing the ruler and back is the where you have J Marsh fishing right now. Okay. Got you. But yeah, overall thumbs up compared to I think it answers all of the the problems that the original Hawk had its hella durable. I mean you could you could throw this thing out of window and drag it while you're going down the road and Pull It in and I guarantee you at all still be there. It's American made which we all know how that goes if that means anything to you pretty straightforward and I just give it a thumbs up. I need to and if you if you if you've owned an original hog trough and you've broken one or two of them with how the price keeps going up like Josh covered, you know, you pay for three of them. You pretty much have one of these boards paid for yeah. There's off. Yeah, it trust me. It's seriously easy to break one of the games. I know a lot of guys they literally stock, you know, especially if they're at tournaments if their tournament directors, they have like 10 of these in their trucks because of how bad the durability issue is with them. So, you know, it's a it's clear cut that the catch board is a much much better product than what the hog trough is, but you know, I mean this works, you know Works, but if your you think that the catch board isn't in your budget, I guarantee after a couple Seasons, like you said you're going to end up wanting one because you've probably spent more money on a few hog traps that you've had to replace and if you could have just originally bought a catch for so, you know, it's in a sheer fact we did the fact that you guys have the lining. It's already on there. It's done. It doesn't need to be Maine. maintained, you know, I mean what with the way our world works today time is money, you know and for me to sit there with a sharpie and sit there and try to make I've seen people's attempts they'll get online and go check out my hog trough in here like you do that with your eyes closed, you know, the deal chisel tip job in there that's like like you have with a real wide lines and the I mean a lot of a lot of what the product boiled down to was What was to get rid of some of those inconsistencies? So there's there's an initial manufacturing inconsistency and any injection molded product. So if you if we I have a hog trough myself in 2017. I fished with a hog trough on my local series because I catch wasn't legal. But if I measured my hog trough using our equipment over here and and and both of yours if you know, you said you guys got you both have some sitting around the house somewhere, right? None of them will be the same and then you add the further. ER in accuracy of the of allowing the user to actually draw the increment lines on it and you get this compounding you get these compounding errors and I mean a lot of these events, you know, you guys can attest to it if you fish tournaments a lot of the times it's a quarter of an inch at the end of the day 1/2 inch at the end of the day, and so if you're getting a 16th of an inch advantage over one of your competitors, that's a mile, you know in a in a bass tournament and people say well, it's bye. Quarter inch, right, you know, but the truth is if my board measures about 1/16 and short so I'm getting a 16th inch and one of you guys is losing 1/16 inch that's almost a half an increment right there. And that was that was what we thought would sell the bumpers was the the accuracy, you know, I'm a machinist. So the only way I knew how to do it was to just make it as accurate as we possibly could so we're plus or minus 10 plus or minus five thousands of an inch on every increment line, its The truth is that that catch board you're holding in your hands is probably the most accurate measurement device you have in your house right now, unless you have a machinist scale, you know, it's more accurate than a tape measure any sort of ruler it we really took an engineering, you know kind of perspective on it. But really I mean is it turns out as you guys have pointed out, you know, the reason it really sells is just people are sick of break in the plastic boards. That's been the primary driver for sales for us. Yeah. Yeah, it's that your guys's product man. I'm in I work in the steel industry. So when I saw that board come out, I was pretty excited. I've even been able to get one yet. You know, it's probably some purchase. I'm going to make over the winter time, but I didn't see what you guys did because just from sitting like when I said sitting down and trying to line one of these things I'm like, it's just it's time consuming. It's inconsistent. Then just like you touched on, you know, like not only are the board's the measurements bad. But when you start adding people to the sheer fact that they're taking Sharpies and drawing these lines themselves and you touched on something else that we also stories of which is people cheating. These boards can be easily cut and glued back together and I think your boards eliminate that you know, I'm sure somebody out there you can cut that board and try to cheat but is going to be some work and and I think it would be fairly easy to identify that especially for the fact that it's colored, you know, you know, I would think you'd be able to see the cut marks that would show up really easy on this it wouldn't you know in my opinion because it's through and through its that same color with injection molding plastic like that. So go ahead and that was in that was the concept behind obviously. I mean, I think 8 inches is the shortest fish. Most of even the local clubs will take And you notice our starts at 1 inch and that all goes back to the Andrew Shepherd thing way years and years ago where he shortened the you know, the hog trough in the section that wasn't numbered and that way that's why it was so hard to catch him because he had no frame of reference. You weren't able to say, oh why the hell is it? You know, does it go from you know 14 inches to 16 inches what happened to the 15 increment? You know, it's got that unnumbered area which kind of leaves you with this. No man's land of you know the kind of tinkering. And I mean we've done everything to make our product is cheap proof is possible. But I mean the the bottom line is if I can make it there's nothing inherently special about me, right? I'm a machinist that figured out how to build this product. You know, if I can build it someone else can build it but let me just tell you that like all the time and effort that went into actually designing and figuring out how to build the product the way it is today. It would be really really difficult to either remanufacture an existing product in my opinion would actually be Easier to cheat by man, you buy totally remanufacturing one from the from the get-go modifying an existing one would be to mend the powder coat and everything. It's just it's going to stick out like a sore thumb at you if you go and try to manipulate it. All right? Okay you want to do would you like to go it? Well Justin, did you want to finish reviewing over anything else you wanted to add it that you liked know? Ultimately that I mean think I think we touched on every single thing that That there is the touch on here the only only problem I see with marketing it to a crowd that might be difficult or the people that are on a tight budget for fishing. I think what you guys have done here with the big boom in the kayak fishing industry was kind of just nailing on the head because I imagine you guys are just Can't keep up with all the work, but basically, yeah. I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a lot of people there's a lot of guys out there who will want to go big or go home as we see with buying kayaks by and reels whatever the case may be. Those guys are probably eating this up, but the only only problem I can see with with marketing certain people is that low-budget people just start now and so yeah and like the honest truth is for a lot of letting our local clubs smaller tournament series, you know, the events that have less than 15 or Guys, I mean it's all about involvement and it doesn't matter you can use a hog trough get people, you know get people into the sport that ultimately is the is the goal and but you see with any guy any of these Anglers as they get more serious you touched on it, you're seeing the market move Upstream, maybe a lot of guys that were attracted to this sport because hey, I can't afford an $80,000 bass boat, but I can get a $800 kayak and and get my equipment on it. You see these guys moving Upstream you see him. Buying 200 and 250 dollar rods and reels it's not just the basket, you know, the bass boat guys that are you know, buying the expensive tackle any more you're seeing trolling motors and power poles. And you know, that's see the Jackson hat. So you're you know, you're aware of the blue sky and the whole bees and like, I mean, it's just it's the whole kind of thing moves up market and I agree. It's probably not if you're just doing your first tournament series like get a hog trough and try it out before you go drop 60 bucks on a bump or because you never know you might I just hate Tournament Fishing. Yeah, it might not be your thing. You know, so don't yet. But yeah, I mean it's that the hog trough certainly still has its time and place, you know, I think but I think you're going to see some of the more serious Trails move over to catch only in the near in the near future just because of the consistency consistent line with you know, and the products just dead on consistent. So, you know, there's not really any questioning did someone manipulate this did someone someone cheating is there Foul Play? I think it takes like as many of those questions as you can out of the equation. Yeah right on. Well, I know we would like to learn a little bit more about you and speaking of the whole kayak fishing thing. Maybe you can go over if you fish out of a kayak and what your favorite type of fishing is Josh what one other question where we're going to throw in there. We want to know what kind of fishing you like. if you can what you do fish out of and I I will wait I will kayak fish. I fish out of a canoe. I've got a drift boat and I've got a bass boat. So I will fish out of anything that I can fish out of now to give you some idea. I've got zero hours on my Merc this year and I've got about a hundred and fifty days on the water in, you know various. I'm not a Pro Staff for anybody. I have got a like a fleet of Randomness that I kind of use depending on the situation, but I'm mostly a kayak angler. I'd say I probably weighed more than I that I've been well I would know I weighed more than I've been on the boat this year anyway, and as far as you know, I don't I wouldn't like nail me down to a species I'd say I'm about as a true of a multi-species angler as there is as you know musky musky is probably where my heart's at. If I could catch any fish every day. It would be it'll be musky or be, you know trout in the Stream. Eames but you know, I obviously bass fish. I walleye fish. I pike fish. I catfish I caught the guys in the back of the shop got me started carp fishing like a year and a half ago, you know, so I'll fish pan fish and crappie with my wife and my son, you know, so I'm really all over the place with regards to you know, my fishing habits. Are you doing any tournaments I tried to do I mean I used to I used to do some tournaments or rather make my donation over at with kbl. Brian Schiller's now fishing that that serious I've been with them. So I started in 2017 and I just I did the series really because I we had been making the wall I Bunk Boards in the musky Bunk Boards and I found out about I'd been kayak fishing for It sometime at that point, but I just I wasn't even aware that there was a competitive arena for it. I just I just assumed there wasn't you didn't have a live. Well, he couldn't way fish and then I kind of found out they were using a bump were to measure and we were already building a bump or it at the time so I was like, all right, you know, we have an accurate bump or maybe you know, maybe I can sell this to the Bass Anglers and you know, I fished some bass before that, but it wasn't the purpose of me to being competitive wasn't really about it. Well, it wasn't about like winning a tournament. It was more about like learning the process meeting some of the Anglers like seeing what the culture was about. And you know, I ended up picking a great local Club. Shout out to the kbl that you know, Allen wide Meyer and all the guys run a fantastic fantastic league and you know you get humbled really quick because I consider myself a pretty good stick and you know, I'm not even one of the top 10 guys you're worried about. I mean, I've actually got a bunch of running skunk. Kbl right now because I'm easily easily distracted on tournament day, but I'm certainly not one of the guys you're worried about, you know, and there's there's just a lot of fantastic Anglers over there. And you know, I got hooked on the I got hooked on the the community really was what was you know, it was this is the reason I still do tournaments. Like I said, I you know, I'll register for the you know, the Newton open it kbl this year. And I know that I'm just going to go fish white bass all day. I'm just kind of contributing and going out there and just just you know, we're just I'm just having fun. It's like they're my friends now for my fishing buddies and it's good to you know, I fully believe that the sports starts at that Regional level. It starts with strong Club foundations locally and everyone's kind of concentrated on well FLW and kbf and the Hobie bass open series and you know, there's been Rumblings that you know Bas s or MLF might be rolling out something that's that's going to be you know, that that's going to be a kayak or CPR type. Leaders and I mean that we behave heard those rumors for a while, but we always talk about what goes on at the top end of the sport but it's really what's happening in the local clubs. That is that's where the growth is. You know, that's what that's what makes this sport grow. Its not its guys graduating from those clubs up to a National Trail which is kind of now making some of the national clubs grow, but it doesn't start it starts with the with the local clubs for sure. And what what state are you out of? I'm in Northern, Illinois so about Two minutes Northwest of Chicago. Okay, and you mentioned Muskie fishing recently you had a picture of I'm not sure if it was your personal best or just a just another monster musky that you've caught. Can you elaborate on that for us a little bit? Yeah. That was I mean, that is my that's my personal best Muskie in a kayak and it's also my personal best musky in state. It's it's far from my best musky, you know lifetime if I've caught, you know, I've caught him up. 49 and a half out of the out of a boat and I've got a couple Pike over 50 inches. So I've been but I've been doing this since I've been fishing for Pike and musky probably longer than anything since I was like 7 or 8 years old, you know, we've been traveling to Minnesota Canada, you know, God bless my father for doing that because he wasn't an angler. I was just I just had the itch. I don't I don't know how I got into the sport really, you know, it's just it kind of happened and you know, I was then I was dragging dad around. All over the place, but that one was forty five and three quarters. I caught it. I was teaching my wife how to troll out of the Hobie of all things. There's a good crappie and walleye bite. It's a really finicky bite, but I figured it out a number of years ago. And so, you know, she likes eating crappie and she's been wanting to try walleye. So I figured you know, whatever will go drag some baits around and see what we can make happen. So I got that I wasn't fishing for Muskie got him on six pound fluorocarbon in a medium pass Rod. So wow. I always tell people if you want to catch more muskie fish like a walleye fisherman. They catch more they catch more damn musky than the musky guys. It's the truth. Here's here's the big question. Did you measure measure that fish with a catch board? I did? Yes. I did. We have a new we have a new folding 48-inch product that I've got. One of our I've got a couple people testing it right now. It's it should be on the website. Actually. I just units in stock and it should be on the website by next week. But we also provide the bump boards for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources the conservation police the game wardens. And so that was actually the 50 inch model that we that we made for them. So II did I bumped it and got an A. I got an accurate bought my business partner who's a big mustn't fisherman was so salty because he he didn't manage to get one in a tournament the weekend before and I was spamming him pictures the other night, so nice Well, dude, I wanted to ask you some questions actually in regards to the manufacturing process of your boards. Like I said before I'm a I work for a steel company. So I had a lot of interest I used to actually work for one that supplied, you know products like aluminum and copper and everything. So I want you to kind of go into detail kind of what it what it takes to make the bump board man you want you can get as detailed as you want. You know, what kind of aluminum you're using, you know what it takes but your Machining processes. You know, like I said, it's I think I think when people have an understanding of what it takes to make the product that you guys sell in my eyes. That's what sells me on what the price of one of those is, you know what I mean? Like we talked about before this in my opinion doesn't take much to manufacturing but when you are etching lines into steel or aluminum, that's some Precision work and that's some high quality machines, you know. I'll just from my background. I kind of know a little bit about that. But I'd like for you to elaborate a little bit tell us what goes on, you know to make these boards sure we get you know about every month we get about 10,000 pounds of three inch by quarter inch 6061 aluminum bar stock that so it all actually happens in our everything except the powder coat actually happens all in our facility. It basically goes into a big horizontal saw. Machop blanks and then there's a there's a top one Machining process that that puts the holes and the tether hole and actually cuts the board to length at which point it sent out to powder coat and then when it returns, there's an opt to Machining process which locates the fence squared of the face, so we actually put the dowel pins. We put the dowel pin holes in after after we get it back from Powder because you you're going to change your point of registration once the powder. It's there. So the only way to really keep it accurate the keep your zero Mark Accurate is to is to put the pot or put the dowel pins in after the after the coatings on after we do the op to Machining process where all we do really there is cut the pocket for the the QR code and the serial code that's right next to the fence and then put the dowel pin holes in it. We move it over to a hundred watt fiber laser. And from there it the the machine etches the all the Engraving on it. We used to actually use a ball end mil in CNC machine. All of them. That was like it was a nightmare when we were doing it at when we were doing it. That way we were really under charging for the product to just to kind of get it out there. We kind of always had our eyes on a laser system, but we just really wanted to know that we have the orders to justify, you know, a hundred and fifty thousand dollar piece of equipment before we before we went out and bought it so You know, it's after it separates laser engraved. It's a really simple it's a really simple, you know building process. We actually we tune all the cradles now, so they fit tightly or if they all fit uniformly on the boards. Now we didn't used to do that. Some of you guys that have had them from like way back since 2018 when they were just first approved. We used to use electrical tape to kind of take that Gap up a little bit. We got a little more sophisticated and built some tooling to tune all the cradles into each board. We installed a fence on it and clean it up bag it up and ship it out to you. And as of right now, we don't even really sell through dealers. There's a couple of dealers that I've been experimenting with Westbrook is one of them Jade is fishing in Central Illinois is another one of them, but we've been just trying to get a dealer program together because the paddle Sports Community loves the loves the product and I there's a lot of paddle sports stores in a lot of retail specialty shops like tackle stores that That want to they want to carry the product but up until now. I mean, we just been selling them almost as fast as we can make them. It's just really been since June of this year that we've actually had an opportunity to start building inventory. So yeah, that's been the biggest struggle and I've adding we have almost 10 guys between the full-time and part-time guys. So we're a small company but we're like we're quickly transitioning into like more of a medium-sized company over here. You know, I have all the you know, I've dealt with all the growing pains. But it's fun man. I have a ton of fun in this industry. I have a ton of fun doing this. I still don't really pay myself. So I have to do some hours as an engineering consultant still but I can't complain life is good. Yeah, man. I remember I went to actually originally get a catch board. I think at the beginning the season and I think I was like oh and I was rushing out because I had I hadn't even really decided if I was into doing any tournaments at the time and I decided yeah, I won't want to and then I jumped online and Mike I'm going to get a catch board next week's tournament. I think I can I'll pay the extra shipping have it sent out and then when I found out there was this pretty long waiting period And I was like, they must be dirty. Doing things right over there, maybe because I think it was I think at the time there was a backorder for what I was trying to get. I can't remember exactly what it was but I ended up getting one of the hog traps, but you know, it's really cool to see, you know, the success in that, you know, you said you guys had started out originally making them like just the bigger ones right? Use was it for Muskie fishing and well? Yeah. My partner was a my business partners actually a two business partners. The one is a Big Muskie angler and you'll never hear me say this to him but he's probably one of the best Muskie sticks in Illinois, we fishing tournaments together. So he was more into the tournament scene than I was and that was just where we were plugged in. We did some walleyes stuff. We did some musky stuff. I never did it very seriously. He's always been the more serious tournament angler. But yeah 100% started with the Muskie product and then the walleye product. Wasn't until I became aware of CPR. I mean, we didn't even have a website and I mean we did it was all just Word of Mouth, you know, I mean, you know how the fishing scene is you eventually you kind of just know everybody and everyone just knows. Oh, hey that's that's duker Eric. Those are the bump word guys. Go talk to him about a bump board, you know, so we never until we got into kayak Bass and I just I didn't really have any contacts and I was just kind of trying to figure everything out. You know, that was when we finally built a website and started a Facebook page, but it was all the longer product. Before that. What a what year was that that you were doing the musky stuff? When did it all start? Mm. It started like in 2015 with some anodized stuff that we didn't really like and then in 2000 2016 was when we were actually selling some product. Okay, and it was it was teeny tiny like I'm talking like maybe sixty to a hundred units like a month like just a hobby business at that point. We started the business. Is Abit Anglers like we are just looking for an excuse to our wives to go out of town and go fishing. So, you know, I gotta go do this competition. It's a marketing thing baby. I gotta go, you know so that I mean it didn't we didn't really think it had a ton of potential. It was just we were dumb enough to make a couple bump boards for ourselves and then people Psalm and then it kind of turned into a business and we said, oh, yeah. Well, let's you know, what will we can use as an excuse to our wives and I never in the world. I never anticipated. The pated that I'd be sitting here on a podcast talking about how I make Bunk Boards for a living that's cool. So did you want to talk about what kind of said it all for you guys? It's we were we kind of touched on before the show, you know, when that came became kbf proved, you know, they can Bunk Boards kind of exploded you guys came onto the scene and you came on and seen it in like in a serious way, you know, I You've you guys formed a team, you know, you guys got some guys that you sponsor, you know, some really good guys to like not just as good Anglers, but you know good representatives for your company. Do you want to talk about how how that boom occurred and kind of like how you got approached by KB F. Yeah. I didn't know who Chad Hoover even was. I approached my local tournament. You know, KDL is a kbf an affiliate. And so I approached town-wide Meyer and I Hey, I got this product. It's better than the hog trough. It's more accurate. And you know, we'd really love for to use the kbl as a test bed, you know, can you approve this and if guys are interested whatever if they're not interested just let them use the hog trough and I didn't know Alan as well at that time and he was like, oh you got no no, no, you gotta if anything everything just goes through kbf and you got to talk to this guy Chad Hoover and and so I just I went about trying to get ahold of Chad through kbf through, you know, I'd gotten an email address form for mountain and then ultimately I sent a I just sent it in an email to info @ K BF.com and told them about my product and left my phone number and like 15 minutes later. Chad was on the phone talking with me about it. And I kind of told him what my concept was and you know what the product looked like and you know showed him some pictures and eventually I said, Him one of our original prototypes because we had 3D printed cradles that were they cost me like a thousand dollars a print these damn things when we were testing so we didn't even actually have a production product. So I sent him up one of the one of the Prototype units he unboxed it looked at it and he called me he's like dude, it's done. He's like this is going to be legal. He's like, this is he's like, this is awesome. He's like this is we needed this for so long and you know, he had told me even about you know, hey Luther was trying to figure out a bump board and you know, he's like I hate And asked him and he said man, this is a great idea. He's like he's like you're onto something here. He's like you gotta he's like make me make me like 13 of them for the national for the for the 10 in Florida. He's like in make sure you got like five or 600 of them to and comes out of the national championship and selling at the national championship. And yeah that that event the 10 he put a picture on his Facebook page of the board's we built for the 10 and our our website. We've been up for I think a day or two and then when that post went live our inventory was gone like overnight it was and then for the first year it was always it was always a weight if you wanted a certain color a certain length or you know, it was just it was always awake because we were just playing ketchup ketchup ketchup. I it was it was hard to go out and throw a lot of capital into the business not knowing what the potential was and you know, and I halfway thought. Oh, this guy's crazy, you know fight you're going to sell 500 Bunk Boards at an National Championship. I like there's only 708, you know, some odd Anglers there and we sold out at the national championship. So I brought like I was a little over 500 boards and we were basically sold out there were a few blackboards left because that's always been kind of the unfavorable color amongst the kayak Community. But all the colored boards actually sold out, you know during the event and that was that was kind of a seminal moment where I started taking this real real serious that at that at that point. I was up to that point. I was still kind of like this is a fad and everyone just likes a new product because it's something new and different than the than the same old, you know the status quo so to speak but when ice when we sold 500 of them at the NCI was like, okay all right time to start treating this like a real business and more or less since then I've been doing this. Like I said full time. I still do a little Consulting just to keep the lights on basically. But the I've been full time since you know, March or April of last year. You guys plan on expanding the options for colors on those boards? We're going to keep doing what we've been doing, which is you know, we have the 4-way five kind of standard colors in each size and those will continue to be the standard colors and then the will offer so the all the custom colors that we offer. Those are all tied to charitable 's so when we when we did the pink board, you know, the pink board is going to be tied to is tied to a breast cancer charity with the America board. I actually have Dryer and Denny Ramiro or both on our Pro Staff. They're both combat veterans and their kind of heading heading up the charge with the team to sponsor a really cool veterans event. We might actually throw it. I don't know. It depends on how much work those guys are out for you know, so we and then the purple board. I we still haven't actually the we haven't decided that was the board that we released right around the national championship, but we take $10 a proceeds from each each board and it's there's about a hundred and fifty in each batch. Give or take because I have some scrap, you know, I don't always get a hundred and fifty out of out of an order but you know, we generate 15 hundred dollars for a charitable. Every time we go through one of those batches of custom colors and you know, we got so many requests for it's hard to do it custom one-off for everybody. But we figured you know, we can kind of cycle through colors give everybody a chance to get what they want and we can also support a you know, we can support a good cause because I've been fortunate to have been successful in My business Endeavors, you know, so more than anything like being ethically conscious and being a positive contributor to the community. That's super important. I'm one of the people that's not really it's not lip service. You know, I'm not that's not bullshit for me. I just that's just the way I feel about it, you know, if we can't do it right it's not worth doing right, you know, and that's that's something you touched on a little bit that you know, the more I've got It involved this year with the kayak Community because before before this year, I was literally just fishing with my buddies, you know, I mean, we're fishing take a couple pictures here and there my post a little something on Facebook or one the local forums and this year. I kind of dove into the tournament scene and I'm not even a very good Lake guy, you know, most of these tournaments occur and lakes, but what I really got a taste of is the community that you talked about, you know, and it's just by meeting people like the paddle. been guys and just actually kind of getting more involved on the Social Media stuff starting to follow a whole lot of Anglers man, and you know, like the Westbrook story from the kid with the cat that got the kayak, you know, the and your story that you're talking about for, you know, those proceeds going to build, you know money for things that you know, a lot of people kind of pushed to the Wayside nowadays and it's kind of cool to see us as a community and people kind of care and we're all trying to take care of One another, you know, it's just there's a lot of hobbies out there that people can kind of get into that. Don't don't take that as seriously as a lot of the companies. I see that our have entered the kayak fishing Market that they do and it's impressive Main and I commend you guys as a company for doing that appreciate. Thank you. So I got a question here you need you may or may not want to answer it. But I'm curious as to cause you said there were some improvements that were made from on the board from 2015, you know just in a short time period do you have any improvements that you'll be making to the boards for next fishing season? Um to be honest, probably not there is we are talking about doing a custom Extrusion instead of the bar stock because Doing such a volume now that it starts making sense on a man you from a manufacturing perspective. It actually makes it cheaper because I'd be using less aluminum on your end as a user consumer. It actually fixes one of the problems which makes it lighter, you know, so we would extrude a product that had would have some like cavities and it essentially which would not cheap in the build quality but lighten the amount of aluminum other than that, you know the as far as the the kind of standard three-inch wide bump or product which is the bumper that most everybody's familiar with, you know, we'll make changes as we need to but I'm hesitant to start to change it too much there because it's always you're always fighting to serve different Masters, you know, and it's it was you know, when the lines were if you if you've seen any of the old bump boards the lines used to be or the Used to be all along the top Edge and then the lines were didn't go all the way out to the edges. And then at that point the big complaint was well, the lines aren't long enough. So, you know, I can't measure when the fish is tail is, you know, really forked. I can't measure my fish right? And so I actually I agreed with that. I thought yeah, there's no reason not to run the numbers down the center and run the line to the edge because most of the time the Tails all the way out towards the edge right near the Cradle it made more sense, but then you know sure. Enough we change it and there's you know guys that ask me. Hey, can I get one of the old style boards at the old engraving? I don't like it with the numbers in the center my mighty D disqualified me because I covered up the you know, I put the tourney tag over the over the number and he couldn't tell how long it was. So, you know, I'm hesitant now that we've kind of got a standard design that most people are familiar with and now like you said you get the one fish dq'd because you slide the tourney tag up a little bit too much and that's the last time you'll make Mistake, you know, it's just it's a it's a it's a crummy lesson to learn, you know, especially if it's in like a live tournament and it's a great fish. It's a it's a, you know, it's a tough pill to swallow but you it's a mistake that you really only make once have you guys thought about like partnering up with anybody or have you as far as I could identify ocation tags like a way to attach to for sure. I don't think your boards. Yeah actually Jim strong. Goku's who does the flip it tournament identifier? He's one of our protein guys and I've been working with him. I've just been to in data with work to really turn it into a new SKU but that the flip it identifier in almost the same design that it is. It'll be a little cleaner and the little more refined than the version that he's selling now a little bit a little bit of a cleaner production look but yeah, that'll that'll be that we will have that. Available for for sale and I'm hoping by the beginning of next year. I'm really hoping for like a month or two, but I'm just I've been disappointed with the amount of time. I've had to apply to projects like that. So I'm just being a realist probably better be getting a 2020. Have you ever thought about any accessories for the for the board such as a bracket? Yeah, we had after that's that actually should be available in 8 in 8 weeks. Yeah, Denny Ramiro good friend of mine and also a business partner of mine. He did a design that you know, some people have seen he used to sell them, but they were 3D printed but it was a catch board bracket that he designed and I took most of the basic design concept and change it just a little bit. But yeah, he helped he helped me with that and there will be a board holder available in six to eight weeks is about the time frame the the tools being built. I just haven't I haven't had a chance to or they haven't had a chance to start it because we're actually getting we've moved to a bigger extruder for the for the new board and then and the 3-inch product that we're already selling. We just, you know bought new molds and we're in like that's kind of like Burner, I need the three inch in the 5-inch cradles before I need the holder, but the holder will be available really really soon. Okay, gotcha. I want to know a little bit more about your ability to put logos on the boards. I know you can make some pretty intricate. Logos, like I know Brian I think you you you talk to Brian and you put the paddle and fin logo on his board. Correct? It's remember him saying something about you want to know how how complex it was and what is your limitation to it? Could you do a logo say like what's on Josh's sure right now? It's a yak attack logo. Oh, yeah. No problem. Yeah, the the big crowd it gets to be the super detailed like when you have a lot of Colors, so in order to shoot it, we need it in black and white and I don't technically need it in black and white, but the our equipment is only going to recognize where there's color and when there's not color so there's no gradients with a blading powder coat. So it's either there's paint there or there's not paint there. So I can't, you know a blade a certain amount to make it look like a gray scale. So it you know, if the if it's a basic rule of thumb if your logo looks good in black and white White we can engrave it 100% And we can do super detailed work, but it just has to look right in black and white and super super fine lines. Obviously, you're going to get are going to get lost to a certain extent. I mean you can you can put the line there but the depth of the powder coat like you don't you lose some of the fine detail in the in that process. But yeah, we can do almost any logo almost any black and white logo. And we'll do it for a you know, we right now it's mostly clubs. But you know, I know you guys mentioned, you know, making the paddle and thin logo available to your listeners. That's that's absolutely no problem. All we need on that end is just approval from the the owner of the licensed logo and and it's easy as going on our website and just hitting a drop-down and adding it to your board. Oh nice, so you'll keep you'll keep it as an option on the website. Yeah. It's that was the big I didn't know there were going to be so many people. People that were that enamored with the with the custom stuff. I thought it would just be you know, kind of some of my buddies that knew I could do it that would ask and I put a post up in January when we were struggling really with the laser but one of the small victories was we kind of figured out how to do the logos and I and then I had so many requests for it that it was just a customer service nightmare Because by the time you spent all this time talking to someone on the phone to figure out what they wanted go back and forth about I got to do this. This with the logo. Can you give it to me in black and white or have you know by the time you spend all the customer interaction time as like we were losing money to to put the logos on there. And so I just I told our web designer. I'm like figure out how to implement this into the website so that you know, as long as we get approval on the logo anybody that wants to use it can use it and for that reason with kind of stayed away from manufacturers. There's been some quite a few manufacturers that have asked us to to you know, can we can we get our Pro Staff guys with their with their Logo and I said it's fine if you guys buy it if you guys are buying them for your team. That's great. I'm like but I don't want to have anything to do with putting someone's license logo for a charge on a bump board and then the legal headaches that could go with that down the road. You know, I just don't want to touch that with a 10-foot Pole. One thing I did have a question. See when I originally had seen the catch board like online. I always had thought that it was a one piece design that it was bet. The aluminum was bent what what was the thought of process and making that to Pieces because I would think in a sense that my costs are them having. It just be bent would be less money for you guys manufacturing, you know, as as a far as opposed to making it to Pieces sure the I'm doesn't hold up nearly as well as PVC to abuse. So you can put that board that catch board on the ground right now and jump up and down on that cradle. You won't break it. I mean that stuff is it's I do that all the time at trade shows. I'll just put one of the display units on the ground and I'm 215 pounds. So I'll jump up and down on the board and invite anybody that wants to jump up and down on it to try it out and aluminum. Especially as it gets thinner when you kind of you have that curved section right at the top here. If you did a full Extrusion, what you're going to end up is with a lot of sharp Nick's. Yeah on that black on the top edge of that black surface if it was all I mean if it wasn't PVC if it was all aluminum the PVC will it'll scratch it'll ding up a little bit. But I mean if it does you can take a little piece of sandpaper to it and it's just far more durable and and we thought you know we You're thinking ahead as far as like, you know conservationist Peta and all that stuff. You know, we just didn't want to be creating like a sharp Burr on the edge of the board because someone dropped it and you know dropping it on asphalt there's something or on the sidewalk or it hits a rock and then you get one of those deep gouges in it. We just kind of wanted to avoid that. So that was the purpose behind the two-piece design cool. It was more expensive for sure. I could extrude that product out of aluminum much cheaper. Yeah. I wanted to ask you a quick question about what you made for the national championship. You know, we kind of thought it was a trophy but you're not even sure exactly what you kind of made of KBS National Championship. You want to go on a detail about that? Yeah. It was me and Chad just have a way of just exchanging favors with one another so no money ever changes hands. It's always just like hey do this favor for me. And then I'll get you back later. And so he's been really really good to me over the years, you know over the last couple of years rather since I've known him, he's just been he's been a mensch man just a just a just a really good dude. And I knew he wanted a new he wanted a trophy and he called me up one day and said, you know, I want a big trophy and he's like just he's like I like what you do. He's like, it's super industrial. He's like I want something his exact words were I Want something industrial and ridiculous and I said, all right. I'm like, are you sure you want ridiculous? Like as far as I can cook up ridiculous. I can get pretty ridiculous and he's like I go go for it just have at it. And I said, alright. Well if I'm doing that there's no like sneak peek. There's just hey, I'm driving it down to Louisiana, you know, March 23rd and that and it is what it is. You know, you're just taking it how you get it because I can't have too many cooks in the kitchen on this deal and we got carried away, you know. I kind of my thought process early was I wanted it to be taller than the Stanley Cup. So it's four foot tall and it's about 230 pounds of mostly aluminum and polished aluminum powder coated aluminum, you know anodized aluminum, there's all sorts of stuff on there. And like I said, I got carried away but it was I think it turned out nice. It was a nice centerpiece and you know half the joke was just I told him hey, you know now you got to figure out how to get it home. I got it here. You know you go put it in the the corporate headquarters are in here and you're fishing dinner, wherever it goes wherever its resting places, but it's not my shop and you think I can do you think you could duplicate it all for sure. I'd it was all that it was all blue print and everything. I mean, I'm like I can't get away from the engineering dork in me. So yeah, I mean we actually did There's CAD drawings of the entire thing. You know, I got to replace the there's the little you know, the little Ends Parts. It's actually the old fence that we used to use on our bumper there just goal. That's where we put all the names on it. So, you know, I've got blueprints for everything in case I need to rebuild anything. I know I'm sure I'm going to get a phone call in the next couple months like a do this Duke and I'll do it. That's it's not a bad gig to have considering this could be I mean depending on how big this sport gets with kbf in the direction. They're going you're the man you created. He's great at the trophy for the very first one at a one of the KB of events that early kvf events. That's pretty good. And that was the thought I you know, I sold it to my business partners as hey. We're going to build the Stanley Cup of bass fishing because it's we just add the names to it every year and it's kind of a tiered design so I can just add another layer to the cake if I need to but I think we have enough for the like the first six years or eight years. I think we have enough total spots to put its angler of the year. The ten Champion the trail Series champion and then of your Trail search and then the national champion, so there's there's actually four sides to it with with all those individuals engraved on it. I'm not it was a headache. I got it done literally about an hour before I left town for Louisiana. I lived at the shop. I had been there for I think three straight days without sleep at the point when I when I left for the national championship, so it's I guess that's a business lesson overcome it and just figure it out make it happen. Yeah. All right. Well, I got another question for you. Let's see. What what are your day-to-day responsibilities? What does that look like for your role in the company? And what would you say is your favorite part about the operations and catch well to be honest. My day-to-day has changed around here quite a bit. We have a new media Endeavor that we've been doing with the team and I've actually been on the road fishing and filming. Our various team members fishing for most of the summer. So I was fortunate enough to make a couple of really good young hires a couple of Brothers Here Marco and Jake and and one of them that neither of them had any shop experience. We trained them. One of them is running the shop right now. Basically one of them stayed his right-hand man, and you know, they've managed to train all the staff we have in the back and so I'm not a back of the shop guy and all anymore. I don't do any of the production. Self I don't do I don't do any back of the shop type of stuff. I handle mostly sales and and some customer service type stuff. But really really what I've been doing is fish fishing and shooting videos. I know it's terrible. Yeah. We saw the teaser for Dwayne Twain's video man. Everybody's really excited and we had him on and his interview went really really well and he was talking about a lot of the videos. You guys have been doing following the catch guys around and everybody across the the web sites everywhere Facebook. Everything is just really really excited to see what you guys have come up with man. Yeah, you guys are going to be stoked man. I've been looking at this stuff for we did the first video over at well over a year ago when we went to the Boundary Waters and 2018 and if you've ever been there, I mean, how could you not shoot a good video on the boundary? Waters but we just we saw the potential for it. And and and like I said, I do a lot of different types of fishing but the potential was really in the kayak more than anything. I happen to prefer fishing out of a kayak but it's you know, what we found real quickly was the guys shooting fishing out a bass boats are pretty lazy. You know, they tend to they tend to put a camera man in the bass boat. You get one pretty static angle always from a guy sitting in the in bass boat and you just don't get the shots that you get when you're you know, when we when we shoot its me and my business partner bacilli, you know, we're there's there's a lot of times we have to camera angles but we have we have two guys always kind of monitoring what's going on and what we can capture and it's just it has a much more cinematic feel some of its artsy-fartsy BS but it's it's definitely got a what we're trying to do is give the team a really professional look and a bigger platform. We have scaled down our Pro Staff and you know, our thought is we want 25 highly supported athletes as opposed to you know, a lot of these steps that are several hundred people that are you know discount code this or you know that I think that culture really kills it it really it'll eventually that culture will be the death of the death of competitive kayak fishing if it stays that way You need to be able to support the athletes that are that are competing, you know, the Anglers that are competing at the highest level need to have the support so they can do it. You know the FLW the MLF the Bas s Pros they have that because once you get to that level you're you're you have sponsorship people are covering your travel costs. So, you know, we're trying to step up and one of the things that we do is when we go on the road with the catch guys, I always get a big house and like I always cover there. Lodging and you'd be surprised what like how big a deal that is to a lot of these like got these Blue Collar guys, like just having a spot to stay is the difference between going and not going and and and it's a shame because if we want the sport to grow the the guys like we really need to start supporting the supporting the the premier guys a lot lot better and you know, like discount code prostaff kind of thing that has its place for guys. That are doing you know, they're only you know, couple few years into their careers and they've never staffed for anybody and there's like I guess it has its place but I'll but ultimately you got we got to invest in these in these Anglers because they won't they won't have time to do it. They won't have the time away from work to do it. They won't have the funds and it's and it's tough when you think about even kbf and I'm the biggest KBS supporter. There is like, you know, people would say I've drank the Hoover aid, but you know, you got to finish really A third or better or you know third or fourth or better to break even if you're not doing also like the pro series side pot, you know, you got to do pretty well. Just if you're going to go out and pre fish for a day or two pay the tournament fees, you know, do all the travel expenses all the meals in town. I mean you really need to finish third or fourth before you're even breaking even and like the winners are making the first and second and third maybe making a little bit of money, but that's that's the top. It's tough that the economics of it or tough that You know even a guy like Dwayne Beatty or Dusty or Kurt Smits, you know, the you know, all these guys of it. They don't win every tournament, you know, so there's that that means you're taking a loss some weeks and it's it makes it hard to do it every week and that needs to change right? Yeah Kurt mentioned that when he was on the podcast about you know, they asked him if he was going on a certain tournament. He's I could just he's like honestly man. I don't I don't have the funds. You know it you've like you said the payouts for this. You've got to do really well to just break even to cover those expensive as man and it does it. I hope to see with the growth that we've all been seeing in the past couple years start to up those pots. So it does make it more more friendly for these guys. Like we all are a lot of us are blue collar fisherman, you know, we didn't grow. I didn't grow up with money. We didn't I heck I just started fishing. You know six years ago and the way I could get into the fishing that I liked was by kayak fishing. It's affordable. You know, I can't afford to go out and buy that big bad, you know bass boats get out there and do it that way, you know and living in Ohio man. It doesn't even make sense because it's it in a storage somewhere for three months. Probably, you know, but you know, it's it hopefully with the growth that we're all seeing because it Does seem to be a trend that kayak fishing is is the largest growing sector, you know right now at this time in in fishing in general in the fishing industry. But you know, I completely agree with you on that point man. Some things do need to change in these guys need to be invested in you know, I mean they make they make great marketing tools, you know, especially with the internet to now, you know, you've got Dusty at their recording all the time and you know, it's just it's it's The net does need to be addressed and hopefully some some of the other companies out there like yours is going to notice that and you know kind of jump on board like what you guys are doing for your guys. We've all right. We've already seen it's more effective. You know, I've already seen increase. I've already seen increased sales like this is kind of an off season for us right now. We will sell some walleye and musky gear. We don't have any musky current stock or any of us keyboards in stock right now. So we're not selling any of that. So we'll sell. Some walleye stuff, but we've been in that segment for a while. So it's you know, it's slow. It's really really slow and we see just with just a little bit of the buzz from Dwayne baby at the FLW cup generated quite a few sales right after that event. And so, you know what we're hedging our bets on mostly because personally it just means something to me and I'm trying I'm trying to convince everybody that it's the right way to do it is I just think that if you invest heavily In these guys in and they really do buy into the team environment and they buy into your team and they're they're banging the drum about it. Like I feel like 20 ft like 25-30 guys and gals. We hope there's some ladies at our team is about the right is about the right number and we're going to show that you know, I I'd rather put more money into fewer guys and I'll get more I'll get more our oh, I'll get a better Roi on that then, you know having several hundred, you know discount code because At discount codes are for customers. You know that that's what I tell all the guys on the team and and even some of the guys on our team. They're still on discount code programs with some of their Pro staffs and I tell them all. I'm like man, you know, we have a TV deal now, so you'll be seeing some of our videos featured on Midwest outdoors and you know, and I can't name the streaming service, but I'm sure you can imagine the the several streaming services in the outdoor space. We're in talks with them as well with the with the media content. And you know, I keep telling you guys this elevated this elevated, you know media presence that you guys had its worst something, you know, make it worth something and get what you're worth. You know, that's what it's all about. And I keep trying to drive home to them is you know, take take your value. You know, I'm just one of the guys that you're taking your value from. I'm giving it, you know freely, but, you know, take it from the rest of these assholes, you know, sorry. You know take it from the rest of these guys, you know, because they're just so used to you know, new guys new to the tournament seeing they want some logos on their on their Jersey, you know, and they'll they don't care. They just want the logo on your jersey. I don't even really care about the discount code. That's the crazy thing. Most of these guys will be Pro Staff without even a discount code and and and it's great. It's great that guys are eager to like embrace the culture and an embrace the sport but at the same time, it hurts the guys at the top because you know like this. Companies have taken this carpet-bombing method of social media where yeah, we'd rather have a thousand guys on staff, you know just banging the drum all the time then just having a few of them that really count. Who knows I may be maybe in a year from now. I look like a fool. So we'll see time will tell. Justin you have any other question? It's buddy. Yeah. I actually have just a couple more my video go out. Can you see me or that we could see? Yeah, we can see you. Okay, it's all froze up over here. Let's see. I want to know about the most challenging aspect of the job. Family time, you know, I'm an entrepreneur like it is married to his business is and his wife and you know, I you know my wife I love her and she's she's probably more reasonable and most wives and you know, there's still that there's it's been hard to find a family time, you know family work balance with you know with catch being as busy as it is. I'm also partnered with Danny Ramiro of on the water Innovations. We have a trailer company and and then the media the media business and there's something else cooking right now and I'm just be stupid to get into something else. But that's just the entrepreneur and me. It just wants to tackle as much as I possibly can but it's I'd say the hardest thing to balance is just having family time when you're you know, trying to really get a business up and running. And then lastly I want to know what would be one long-term goal in one short term goal for catch. Short-term goal. We are winning the challenge Cup this year team catch the gauntlet has been thrown down. We will win the challenge Cup this year long term goal is by 2021. I want to have a Netflix series that follows our team and all the Anglers and encompasses every every element of fishing again. It won't be just kayak but there still be a lot of kayak a lot of waiting. I just I want to do a little Have a different fishing program and I'll be honest. I've watched a bunch of fishing videos and over my ears and I don't think I don't think anyone's done it real anything really interesting since River Monsters. And so I think the you know, I think the world's ready for you know that they're ready for a bigger look at kayak fishing for sure. And I think that ends up being our conduit that gets us into a streaming deal in Netflix Hulu, whatever. I'm not I won't discriminate anyone that wants to give us a good, you know a big old. It and a good deal on a streaming platform. Just give me a call. Yeah, I definitely think we're headed in that direction. I think the industry is ready for it. And I think it's going to be televised in the next 10 years. We'll see how that goes. But yeah. All right, Josh you got anything else? Nope. I think I'm off that Duke. I want to thank you for taking the time to speak with us today man. It was a great interview, and I'm heading actually up in your area. Your Labor Day weekend to meet up with Brian if you have any interest and kind of meeting up with us, maybe doing a little bit of fishing one of those days. It'd be awesome to have you out man. Yeah, LOL. I'll contact Schiller. I got I'm trying to do a shoot with Midwest Outdoors for Dusty. So I'm not sure which day that's going to be I've actually if you see me like semi distracted trying to text it's because the silly the videographer and Dusty have been messaging me right now. So once I get that figured out, but no I love to me. Man, I love meeting. I love meeting new characters out on the water. It's certainly a lot more personal. You know, it's a lot more. It's a lot more fun doing it on the water than it is over the over the internet, right? Yeah. For sure, but thank you. Thank you again for taking the time and like we said to man you're making the killer product. I wish your guys business all luck in the world, man, and you guys keep moving forward and can't wait to see what else you guys come out with man the be exciting exciting things for your company. I appreciate it guys. Thanks for having me much. Real quick. I'm gonna give a shout-out to our show's sponsors. We got rock Town Paddlesports Loveland canoe and kayak hammered lures Coyote sunglasses. Fish mob lures Southern Lake Co Michigan, Ohio kayak Anglers, don't forget to send your damaged Plastics to Erica hammered lures so he can melt them down and make new base for Heroes on the water Josh. You got me out last things to throw in there just if you guys want to Check out our website. You can reach it www paddle the letter n and fin.com. Also if you have any questions or requests, maybe four episodes May mean by you guys would like your interviews on or products to be reviewed. You know, check it out. Our email is paddled a letter in fin at gmail.com. You can reach us out on social media were on Facebook Instagram at Pat allanson basically and you know, that's about it. It did you want to put in the shoutouts out there do anything you want to catch let you know that just thank you guys. I'm Brian. Sorry for ducking you for the last six or seven months. You know, I'm glad to kind of could check it off the list. I am a listener. I listened to almost every damn episode you guys do so you're doing you're doing good work. I love the tile of the tournament Recaps. I love all the little segments that you guys are coming up with adding new care. Here's to the show man. It's awesome. It's not different than what we're doing with the video. It's just, you know, tell them the stories a little bit and you know, hey, shout out to you guys, man. I'm not I don't need to plug the company man. If they're looking for bumpers, you know where to find me. Well, we appreciate your time tonight, man, and you take care. Appreciate it guys. Take care.
Justin and Josh compare the ketch board and the hawg trough in this episode. The guys also speak with the man behind it all at Ketch Co. Duke Weskamp. 