Hello everybody. Thanks for being here. This is Hal Herring,

Back Country Hunters and Anglers podcast and Blast.

Hey, uh, I have been on a kind of Southern Wander. I am just outside of Auburn,

Alabama today on a day of pouring rain.

And this southern wandering has been doing research on the southern national forests,

which has been wonderful.

And it's allowed me to reconnect with some old friends.

And one of those on the Florida coast there, Florida Gulf Coast, is Jack Rudlow, who's our guest on the Florida coast there Florida Gulf Coast is Jack Rudlow who's our guest on the

podcast today and Jack has uh he's been on that coast for over six decades

he'd been working on that coast as a marine specimen collector and scientist, researcher,

and battler for the wild places and fresh water and clean water from that area for more than six decades.

He's he hasn't a life that reads kind of like a novel and if you'll in the podcast you'll see he was connected early on to

John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts the famous marine specimen collector there who was in Cannery Row, and the

Log of the C. of Cortez, which is one of my favorite books.

And Jack Rudlow himself has written nine books of fiction and non-fiction, including one of the world's most in extensive treatises on shrimp and the shrimp industry and I won't go through all

of those I'll just say that the forgotten coast and the living dock at panacea are two of the most important books in my life. I got

them young from my parents and they increased well they inspired me to look more deeply into the coast as I was fishing and wandering there as an older person.

Those are just incredible books.

Some of those are collections as well the forgotten coast of National Geographic pieces that Jack and his wife and Rudlow work together on the 1970s and 90s.

I won't go on and own.

Jack has the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Panacea,

which is a aquarium and a research center, and has provided education to

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