multispecies angling
We are spending an entire year catching carp on increasing more difficult baits.
We have rules, prizes and a leaderboard. This post will document the catches in a more in depth manner.
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Continue reading “Welcome to the Carp Ladder”Episode 26
February. Love. Fish. In no particular order and absolutely no supervision.
We’re back. It’s cold. It’s romantic (allegedly). And somehow we’re talking about fish again instead of buying flowers.
Bret and Dave roll through recent trips—questionable weather decisions included—and dive headfirst into the latest fishing news spiral:
🐟 Swedish Fish (and not even about the Carp Ladder. We contain multitudes.)
🎣 Stolen tarpon. Yes. Someone really boosted a silver king. Humanity remains undefeated in weirdness.
🪼 Jellyfish with a unique anus. Evolution is wild and apparently has a sense of humor.
🛸 UFOs. Because if it swims… or hovers ominously over water… we’re probably talking about it.
Then we descend into the final four baits of the Carp Ladder—the strangest, most diabolical offerings yet. If you thought it couldn’t get weirder, congratulations. You were wrong. These baits are less “match the hatch” and more “question your life choices.”
Somewhere in there, we laugh at ourselves. Repeatedly. It’s therapeutic.
🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or dive in at ifitswims.com
📸 Follow the chaos on Instagram: @the_ifitswims_podcast
📩 Got feedback? Love notes? Mild threats? Weird fish photos?
Send it to: feedback@ifitswims.com
We like feedback as much as the next podcast.
Episode 25:
The crew’s back and barely thawed out—Bret, Gary, and Dave huddle up to swap fish tales from frozen tents, chase the first fish of the year, and unpack some truly cursed crab trap contents (shoutout to the mystery shark head that started 2026 off so right).
We talk:
No one is safe. Not the fish. Not us. Definitely not the listeners.
🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at ifitswims.com
📸 Carp Ladder sign-ups live under Contests on the site
📩 Hate mail, love letters, or weird fish photos? Send ‘em to feedback@ifitswims.com
Follow the madness:
👉 @if_it_swims
👉 Tag the crew if you must:
@13.13.photography | @ghoule1111 | @davespeerart
We’re back from the field and straight into the fish-adjacent madness — with just enough structure to call this a podcast episode and not a group text gone rogue.
First up: a few recent trips where the fish showed up, the weather didn’t behave, and nobody remembered sunscreen (again).
Then we dive headfirst into some fishing-flavored news that may or may not have happened in the same universe:
We’ve also got:
If it swims, we’re talking about it. If it doesn’t, we probably still tried to put a hook in it.
Full episode at ifitswims.com
or wherever your questionable life choices lead you for podcasts.
In this episode, we hit the sand, surf, and straight-up weird side of the fishing world like a hardhead catfish eating something even it wasn’t sure about..
We kick things off with a redfish surf fishing trip that reminded us why salt, sand, and suffering are the holy trinity of angling. Did we catch fish? Absolutely. Did we sunburn in places that shouldn’t see daylight? You bet.
Then it’s on to fishing news, where things get weird real quick:
Fish-themed video games? Check.
piebald blue catfish straight outta your patchwork nightmares? Yep.
A flooded restaurant where you eat knee-deep in water while fish cruise past your table? Of course that’s real. Welcome to the apocalypse, served with fries.
We also climb back onto the carp ladder, adding four more strange and weird baits to our ever-growing arsenal of questionable decisions. Do they work? Tune in. Or better yet, try ’em and tell us how many carp laughed at you.
Plus:
Listener feedback so good we had to Google a few things to see if y’all were messing with us. You weren’t. You’re just deeply weird and we love you for it.
Somewhere in there we ask the eternal question:
What WOULD Jeremy Wade do? (Spoiler: probably that.)
Bret and Dave are back with another round of multi-species mayhem, low-stakes fishing hot takes, and extremely questionable aquatic science. This month, they unpack their latest adventures, troll through some fishy corners of the internet, and add FOUR brand-new offerings to the ever-evolving, totally arbitrary Carp Ladder.
Also on the docket (but not in any logical order):
The world’s largest swimming pool (seriously, it’s absurd)
People catching fish for the carp ladder (thanks, cult following)
Giant fish dangling in shopping malls
Murray cod (aka Maccullochella peelii if you’re feelin’ Latin)
Chunky smallmouth in Vermont
…and other assorted nonsense that we probably should’ve edited out (but didn’t).
The podcast your tackle box warns you about.
Stream it, scream it, or ignore it entirely—either way, we’re at:
🌐 ifitswims.com
📸 Instagram: @if_it_swims
💌 Got beef? Got love? Got a fish that’s weirder than our show?
Drop us a line: feedback@ifitswims.com
Some places you fish for the beauty.
Some places you fish for the solitude.
And some places, like the rotting skeleton of the world’s largest swimming pool, you fish because it’s absolutely, unapologetically weird.
Over two weekends, the IFITSWIMS crew—Bret (@13.13.photography), Dave (@davespeerart), and Gary(@ghoule1111)—descended on the ruins under Lake Cisco, where a decaying public pool has fused with a creek and created what can only be described as a fishy fever dream. Gary made it out for Weekend One only, but the chaos spanned both sessions.
The mission was clear: climb the carp ladder. And climb they did. Rung after golden-scaled rung, the squad hauled in common carp (Cyprinus carpio) like it was a job with benefits. A few catfish slithered into the mix, too—likely wondering why these weirdos were posted up in their post-apocalyptic hangout spot.
Gary bowed out after round one. Probably smart.
A week later, Bret and Dave came back for more. Only this time, things spiraled.
Instead of standard gear, they brought a 2-foot child’s rod—or maybe it was an ice rod—either way, it was something you’d expect to see in the hands of a 4-year-old or a confused Minnesotan. They took turns landing carp on this tiny noodley stick, because of course they did.
Then Bret kicked it up another notch and wrangled a smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus) on the thing. At that point, physics checked out of the conversation completely.
Because if there’s one rule in this universe it’s this:
If it swims… and things get weird… that tracks.
Episode 21:
This month, Bret and Dave return from the salt crusted, sunburned trenches of an IFITSWIMS group trip — where sharks were hooked, redfish were wrangled, and someone probably got bit by a crab. They break down the trip, riff on fishy headlines, and give you the latest updates from the Carp Ladder, which is either a wholesome community contest or the beginning of a slippery evolutionary experiment.
You like drum spots? we all like drum spots: https://www.instagram.com/drumspots/
🔻 Want to enter the Carp Ladder? Of course you do. Sign up on ifitswims.com
under the Contests tab, or just yell at us via email: carpladder@ifitswims.com
🐟 Website: ifitswims.com
📸 Instagram: @if_it_swims
📮 Feedback, love letters, and complaints: feedback@ifitswims.com
Day 4 started how it had to:
Coffee, first.
Then the slow, sandy process of breaking down camp, stuffing damp gear back into trucks, and brushing off the kind of beach grime that doesn’t rinse out until the second or third shower.
With everything packed, the plan was set—roll out caravan-style to the ICW, squeeze in one last fishing session, and then hit the road. One last stop for bait along the way at the same ditch system behind the dunes, where the marsh drains toward the Intracoastal, and then onward.
They reached a little spillway where everything—marsh, ditches, and tide—funnels into one tight outlet. When the water moves, it’s a fish magnet.
But the tide wasn’t right.
Still, the crew picked at it:
After that, it turned into a half-hearted shot at an alligator gar, which were cruising slow and smug through the brackish water. They love saltwater more than they should, and while none came to hand, they were there—big, ancient, and uninterested.
The clouds finally started to roll in, but it didn’t matter. The heat was still locked in, the air was still thick, and after four days of wind, sun, redfish, sharks, and digging strangers out of the sand, the crew was cooked. Done.
Everyone split off separately, headed home in different directions, weaving down a dirt road past wild boar and washboard ruts.
The plan: shower second, clean the truck first.
Priorities intact.
By Day 3, the rhythm was set:
Morning coffee, lines in, redfish, small sharks, and someone wandering too far into the soft stuff with a 2WD rental. The usual.
One thing broke the pattern early: Gary caught a black drum (Pogonias cromis)—a first for the trip, and a welcome change from the nonstop reds and sharks. Not the anyone needs a break from reds and sharks.
As expected, the bait bucket was running low again.
Bret and Dave made a plan to hit the marsh ditch behind the beach—same area as yesterday, just quicker this time.
No detours.
No lingering.
Grab bait and get back before the shark rod screams again.
They executed it perfectly.
Net in, bait caught, back in the truck. The plan worked.
Almost.
Because just as they were leaving the beach, Gary heard the truck fade out—and the shark rod went off again.
Same rig, same bait, same spot.
Another bull shark, this one between four and five feet, and another clean fight brought all the way to the sand, solo.
He beached it, got the photos, and released it safely again. No drama. Just a repeat performance while the rest of camp was out chasing baitfish.
When Bret and Dave rolled back in, Gary’s face said everything before he even opened his mouth. “You’re not gonna believe this…”
They believed it. They just weren’t thrilled about it.
The wind was still blowing. The heat was still on.
But the humidity finally backed off, just enough to make the day bearable—though it was still too hot to sleep once the sun went down.
Dinner was Yakisoba, cooked up by Gary, because even if he’s going to keep stealing the shark rod spotlight, he can at least feed the crew right.
Three days in, and the scorecard was filling up.
Redfish, gaftop, black drum, sharpnose, and two solo bull sharks landed by the guy who stayed behind.
The morning kicked off with Bret casting lures into the surf, looking for something different. It wasn’t different.
It was gaftop (Bagre marinus)—again.
But for whatever reason, they were smashing topwater, and for a few casts, it was actually kind of fun. Messy, loud, and completely absurd.
The rest of the day started to fall into the now-familiar rhythm:
Then, somewhere around mid-day, Bret and Dave headed into the marsh behind camp—just past the dunes, toward the ICW. The goal: refill the bait supply with whatever they could scoop from the ditches. Shrimp, mullet, pinfish—whatever moved.
Back at camp, it happened.
The big shark rod went off.
Hard.
Gary, alone on the beach, heard the bait clicker start screaming. One of those runs where the reel sounds like it’s trying to leave the rod.
He jumped into action. What followed was a solo fight that lasted over 30 minutes, dragging up and down the surfline before he finally got the fish beached.
A bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas), five to six feet long.
Clean hook. Brutal pull. Perfect release.
A guy who’d been walking the beach wandered over and jumped in to help with the release.
We thanked him properly—with a few IFITSWIMS stickers and the knowledge that he’d just been part of something better than whatever his original beach plans were.
When Bret and Dave returned from the marsh, Gary’s face said it all before he said a word.
Photos were passed around.
Baits were reset.
The beach had officially come alive.