Ep. 816: New Year's Resolutions, Mutant Turkeys, and Goodbye (Sort Of) Cal | MeatEater Radio Live!

Hosts Brody Henderson, Ryan Callaghan, and Cory Calkins go deep with Dr. Phil Lavretsky about turkey mutations and his latest citizen science project, throwback to their favorite hunts of 2025, make some New Year's resolutions, and answer listener questions. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:05Speaker 04

  Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia. Meat Eater Podcast.

• 2:28Speaker 05

  Happy New Years, everyone, and welcome to Radio Live. I'm your host, Brody Henderson, and I'm joined by Corey Calkins and Ryan Callahan.

• 2:37Speaker 05

  Today, we're not actually live. We're actually pre-recording before Meat Eater HQ shuts down for the holidays. But we've still got a great New Year's Day show for you guys, even the poor suckers who stayed up late last night and they're nursing a hangover. Hopefully, you're not one of those people, but I imagine there's a few of you out there.

• 2:57Speaker 06

  Is that gonna be one of you, Cal, Corey?

• 2:59Speaker 07

  Hmm, not with kids anymore. I'm going to bed at 8:00 PM.

• 3:02Speaker 05

  There you go. There you go. Avoid amateur night.

• 3:06Speaker 07

  That's right.

• 3:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, I get all my fun in, uh, early.

• 3:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:11Speaker 06

  And it seems to really wrap up within, like, a beer and a half, anyway.

• 3:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's smart. That's smart. Uh, today, we're gonna talk to our friend Jake Lavretsky about all those...

• 3:22Speaker 06

  Phil Lavretsky.

• 3:23Speaker 05

  Lavretsky.

• 3:24Speaker 06

  Phil. Phil Lavretsky.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Jake. Why do I have Jake in there?

• 3:27Speaker 06

  Jake's our producer who's right next to Phil in the window.

• 3:29Speaker 05

  Jesus, Pete. I'm just reading. That's the problem with just reading a script.

• 3:33Speaker 07

  Sorry, Phil. Dr. Phil.

• 3:35Speaker 06

  Three-time guest, Phil Lavretsky.

• 3:37Speaker 05

  We're gonna talk to that Phil guy, not our Phil, um, about all those funny-looking, uh, color-faced turkeys, uh, getting shot out there these days.

• 3:46Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 3:48Speaker 05

  Um, we've also got a very special in-house interview with Cal about why in the hell he decided to leave Meat Eater to go get a real job. No one really knows.

• 3:58Speaker 06

  I didn't know that was in the script. Alright. Welcome.

• 4:02Speaker 05

  Um, and for our crew segments, we're gonna look back on our favorite hunts of the year, and then we're gonna look forward with some New Year's resolutions. You guys, New Year's resolution, guys?

• 4:13Speaker 06

  Semi, I like to think about it, but then it rarely follows.

• 4:18Speaker 05

  I'm gonna force you into at least saying something today.

• 4:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a good idea.

• 4:21Speaker 05

  Um, lastly, since we can't chat with you guys in real time, we're just gonna go over some questions and comments that have come up in emails in previous episodes. So we're still looking out for the fans out there. Um, before we get into all that, uh, happy holidays, fellas.

• 4:38Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 05

  I'm looking forward to the break as I'm sure you guys are. Um, I got about a hundred pounds of meat that I need to grind in the burger and sausage. So that's a big project. And Cal and I were just talking, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try and get out, uh, with the dog for pheasants and maybe get the wife out for a late season cow elk. So, yeah.

• 5:01Speaker 06

  That's like over the whole break kinda goal.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, the, the boys wanna get after, well, one of them does. The one already shot a late season doe, so the other one has to do what his older brother did. So we might try that too. What do you guys got going on?

• 5:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, meat management is high on my mind because I, I really wanna go hunt with this muzzleloader.

• 5:25Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:26Speaker 06

  Um, the timing is not.

• 5:29Speaker 05

  You've only got two, three days left of the season, right?

• 5:32Speaker 06

  Right, yeah, just, just this weekend. Um, but like I would really like to get some ducks in the freezer.

• 5:40Speaker 05

  Yep. Now that they're finally around.

• 5:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 5:43Speaker 05

  Jeez.

• 5:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, um, and just that dog work is so frickin amazing. I, I, I love that. But I am, I have, I do like in my chest freezer, I do a game bag, uh, storage. So like this game bag is a whole parted out.

• 6:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 6:03Speaker 06

  And backsealed, nice, uh, elk shoulder.

• 6:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 6:07Speaker 06

  This one's like the nice cuts and that's what I have left of my elk from last year.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:14Speaker 06

  Um, is it just a little bit of front shoulder and, um, some neck meat for slow cook and stuff. And then, um, the, uh, kind of really just the loins, which is kinda crazy.

• 6:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 06

  Um, and trying to.

• 6:32Speaker 06

  Like I, I'm gonna be cutting it close, but it'd be like a good full freezer turnover situation if I don't kill a deer.

• 6:43Speaker 05

  You'll be starting fresh after you get through this.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  Pretty darn fresh, yeah, yeah, because you got, um, you know, mostly two and a half antelope in there.

• 6:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 06

  And that, that were this year. And, uh, and then, yeah, the turkeys and, and pheasants, but.

• 7:02Speaker 05

  That puts some pressure on you too, not having that backup meat from the prior year, you know?

• 7:07Speaker 06

  I know, I know. And then, uh, I think I'll need to commit to grinding some, some stuff too.

• 7:15Speaker 05

  How about, how about you, Corey?

• 7:17Speaker 07

  Yeah, grinding between my bull and a really old whitetail buck that I shot this year, I'm gonna grind all of him up.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  Stinky old ruddy, tough ass buck?

• 7:25Speaker 07

  Yeah. Very funny color on him, like real pink instead of dark red like I'm used to.

• 7:31Speaker 05

  Really?

• 7:31Speaker 07

  Yeah. Uh, just found out, I shot him here close to Bozeman in town, hundreds of other deer around. I was a little worried about CWD, had him tested and just found out that it was negative, so I'm excited. I was probably gonna eat him anyway, honestly, but, uh,

• 7:45Speaker 05

  Oh, you rolled the dice, huh?

• 7:47Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 7:49Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm sure we've all eaten it at this point.

• 7:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's the thing, and we're all still sitting here. But yeah, I got a lot of grinding to do and, uh,

• 7:56Speaker 05

  Although your face looks funny, is that, that's not like a CWD.

• 8:00Speaker 06

  This is tough for Corey because,

• 8:02Speaker 07

  What are you talking about?

• 8:03Speaker 06

  Because we've recorded, because we've recorded the live show that aired on the 18th. And then in order to prep for the holiday, we filmed the show airing on Christmas and the show, this show airing on New Year's, all in the span of two days. And so every single one of those shows has a conversation about Corey's face.

• 8:20Speaker 07

  Yeah, I want to say it looks better than yesterday, which would have been, uh, Christmas episode. So, yeah, you'll have to go back if you haven't listened to the Christmas episode and find out what happened to my face, besides the obvious.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  You wouldn't tell me, I'll have to watch the show.

• 8:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're gonna have to. But, uh, and then it's turkey season still to the end of the year. So my boy and I, eight-year-old boy and I'd like to go out and get a bird.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, man.

• 8:43Speaker 07

  Weather dependent and how the roads hold up.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was pheasant hunting like, I don't know, week or so ago and cut a lone gobbler track. Man, I tried to find that thing, but I couldn't.

• 8:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, roaming around somewhere.

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 07

  Loving the fall. So, yeah.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  And speaking of gobblers, how's that, Phil?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  That was incredible. You're a pro. People love you when you host, bro.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  Um, we're gonna do our first interview today, and our guest is Dr. Phil, not Jake, Lavretsky. He's a hunter, conservationist, and geneticist. We've had him on the show before, so some of you guys may have seen him. If you're not familiar, he, he, he's got a really cool duck DMA, DNA project going on.

• 9:32Speaker 05

  Where he's like figuring out the lineage of, of, uh, different ducks out there, whether they're hybrids, purebreds, whether there's like farm-raised duck DNA and those things. And he, he moved on to doing a similar project called Turkey DNA, which we're gonna talk about with him today. We got, got him on the line? There he is. Thanks for joining us, Phil.

• 9:54Speaker 07

  Hey, Phil.

• 9:54Speaker 04

  Happy New Year.

• 9:55Speaker 05

  The whole world knows you as Jake now.

• 9:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, you were just thinking about turkeys that whole time.

• 10:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  What's up, Cory?

• 10:04Speaker 07

  How you doing, man?

• 10:05Speaker 04

  I like the look.

• 10:06Speaker 07

  Haha, thanks.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, happy holidays.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, happy holidays. Happy New Year. Now it's January 1st.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  Yep, yep, exactly. Uh, Phil, for folks who aren't familiar with you, just give us a quick breakdown of like your bona fides, and then we'll get into the, the Turkey DNA project you've got going on.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So I'm a professor here at the University of Texas at El Paso. I run a wildlife genetics lab. We are geneticists, but we basically do everything else under the sun. We're out there collecting, catching, banding, bleeding, telemetry unit attaching, working with hunters, landowners, farmers, and others, uh, to figure out what's happening with our wildlife, and answering the questions that our state and federal agencies, uh, partners wanna know.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  Great.

• 10:55Speaker 04

  That's yes.

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Um, so leading into this turkey DNA project, uh, I'm not sure if everyone's aware of this. Hopefully they are, but I'm going to tell them anyway, like, a- at one time, like, all turkeys were wild. There was no such thing as a domestic turkey. And then, North America got colonized, they domesticated those turkeys here, brought them back to Europe, then brought them back over here. And so now things are all screwed up. Um.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Sort of, that's sort of the timeline.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, it, li- listen, if I got it wrong.

• 11:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:32Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 11:33Speaker 06

  Are you just embarrassed because he did it so well? I mean.

• 11:38Speaker 04

  Man, how much did you drink last night? Anyway.

• 11:40Speaker 05

  I don't drink at all. That's the problem, I think.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, so sort of the timeline. So turkeys, turkeys are a North American species. They're not, they're not European. There's no, there's no real tur- there's no turkey lineages in Europe, New Zealand, anywhere else. They are a North American, Mesoamerican group of birds that evolved here. They were one of the successful domestication events by our ancestors that made it over the land bridge thousands of years ago.

• 12:11Speaker 05

  Oh, I got you. Okay.

• 12:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, so current ancient DNA work, uh, puts the domestication with Goulds, potentially with Miriam's, potentially two different time points, uh, between different tribes that were around at that time.

• 12:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  Looking at four thousand so years ago. So turkeys were domesticated, much like, um, cow and dogs and stuff in Europe, but they are specific to North America.

• 12:42Speaker 05

  So, like, European colonists didn't come over here, or maybe they did, did, did they, were they grabbing those, those turkeys that had already been domesticated, or were they also getting wild turkeys? And domesticating them?

• 13:00Speaker 04

  Are we, are we talking about Thanksgiving? Those would have been wild turkeys. The colonists would have been on the east eating Easterns at that time, right?

• 13:10Speaker 05

  So did they also, did, did they also domesticate, capture and, and eventually domesticate those birds?

• 13:17Speaker 04

  Yes, but like. Hundreds of years later.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  I got you. Okay.

• 13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So, so really, Native Americans were the ones that had what you would consider domestic turkeys at that time.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  Um, eventually, many, many moons later, they would be brought back to Europe and there are, but they're not. So there's farms of turkeys, but wild turkeys, as far as we know, have been brought back by the Brits primarily back to Europe. And then everywhere they go. So there's, right, so there's turkeys in New Zealand. Uh, there were no real, there were no turkeys in Hawaii, so people brought them there. So turkeys have been expanded that way. But naturally occurring only in North America, origination of domestic only in North America, Mesoamerica.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Okay, before we get into the next stuff, um.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  Real quick, north, like as is now, North American wild turkeys laid on me the, the five subspecies and roughly where they live. Without getting into how they've been spread around, like their original kind of range.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  So if, if we'll, we'll go east to west, right? So east of the Mississippi River, where you had naturally occurring boreal forests. That would have been your eastern turkey. Once you get into the Florida Panha, or Pan, yeah, Florida side, that would be Osceola. What we're trying to figure out is how different Osceolas are from eastern right now. So there's the, there's those two. As you go, as you go west, so west of the Mississippi, you start getting into what would originally be Rios. Right? So that would be Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, that area. Then, once you get into more mountainous regions.

• 15:09Speaker 05

  Before you, before you move on to the next one, Rios typically. Or originally, we're like river bottom turkeys that lived in more open country, correct?

• 15:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 15:21Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. So then you're essentially changing habitats from low elevation to higher elevation. And that's when you get to miriam's, right? So uh, where I go in New Mexico, that would be all the sky islands there. Right? The Gila, the Sacramento Mountains, those would be all nat- natural miriam habitat, right?

• 15:47Speaker 05

  Into a little into Colorado too, correct?

• 15:49Speaker 04

  That's right. Yeah. And then south of that, right? Would be Gould's. So almost, not almost. All of the range in Mexico would be where Gould's turkey would have, would have been. And that's why all the studies have suggested that they're the source for the original domestication.

• 16:09Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  That miriam's. So that's what you got. Oh, and then oscillated turkeys.

• 16:15Speaker 05

  We're not worried about those right now.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  Talk about that.

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Um, that's a whole different.

• 16:20Speaker 06

  But I feel like that is, considering the advancement of civilization. Uh, like that's where the domestication had to have started, right? Like sweet potatoes. Yeah, exactly.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's still being, so for sure, like some, potentially we just don't have the, the fossil records and the ancient DNA to go along with it, but I'm sure some civilizations did go after the oscillated turkey, but for one reason or another, what we do have good data for is that Gould's were Gould's and Miriam's and a mix of them were part, were used for that, the, the earliest domestications as far as we know here in the Southwest.

• 17:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. And it just became like the cool kid trend.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 17:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. It's like, whoa, let's follow those guys around. Yeah.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  And they're bigger than oscillated. They're, you know, more, maybe more delicious. I don't know.

• 17:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 17:20Speaker 05

  Alright, so we're getting into these like different color phases and weird pattern, color patterns that show up, um, which is, I'm sure a large part of, of what you're working on here, like what's causing that?

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 05

  And, correct me if I'm wrong, but like we've got a few different things going on here. We got completely wild turkeys that have some type of genetic mutation like albinism or melanism. Is that, that's, that's one.

• 17:53Speaker 04

  That's one.

• 17:54Speaker 05

  Cause. Um, then we've got breeding between wild turkey subspecies, because these birds have been moved around a lot. We've got overlapping, naturally overlapping range, and we've got like manmade overlapping range. For example, in here in northwestern Montana, you've got marriams and easterns and hybrids, like kinda all living in the same zone. Um, and then the third thing is you've got these like quote wild turkeys that are actually the product of, of some domestic ancestry. Like it could be, uh, um, like, like a, like a, a wild hen that rolls in behind the barn

• 18:39Speaker 05

  and hooks up with a domestic tom. Um, or a domestic turkey of either sex that maybe goes rogue and joins a flock of wild birds. Are those the three, like, main things we're looking at here?

• 18:55Speaker 04

  Those, yeah, so we're trying to now, originally this study was all about just asking the question of wild turkey DNA was born out of the question, is this a wild turkey?

• 19:09Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  But, is every white, smoke faced, red, black turkey a wild turkey? That some weird mutation? Is it because of the hybridization between wild and wild? Is it because of wild heritage or wild domestic, uh, uh, interbreeding? Or is it just a bunch of like domestic feral birds that are on the landscape and people are shooting them?

• 19:32Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 19:33Speaker 06

  I can usually tell because it's a lazy turkey hunter or somebody who can't call very good, where I'm like, oh, that's obviously got some domestic, uh, DNA in it.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 06

  Because you, you shouldn't be able to get. Like that one Randall shot this year.

• 19:51Speaker 05

  Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

• 19:54Speaker 04

  I I did what I wanted to interrupt. So there is a caveat to domestic and heritage. So domestic.

• 20:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  Your white turkey that you go to Costco and buy, right? So this is a nuance within the turkey world that I only recently learned. Heritage is essentially people taking a domestic bird, breeding it with a wild, creating some thing, and then creating, calling it some heritage. Think of it like, um, I guess back to ducks. There's a bunch of different duck breeds that people have done that with. Dog breeds, right? So it's it's mixing dog pools, especially when people do dog wolf and then create some weird looking thing and then breed that a bunch.

• 20:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 06

  And then they get a tattoo.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 20:41Speaker 06

  Yeah. Same old story.

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Um, that's that. So the that's the caveat. So we are looking at like, is it a bunch of heritage breeds? Is it a bunch of domestic breeds? What's occurring? What happens? Yeah.

• 20:55Speaker 05

  It's cool. Um, and as far as like the domestic birds go, like, I spent some time around those things. We raised a few every year when I was a kid and they're stupid. And they're like, not very athletic. So it's like, like, looking at back at those birds, it's like really hard for me to imagine one of those things just being like, you know what? I'm going with those guys and I'm gonna live in the woods with them. And like that they'd survive long enough to like pass on their genes. Um, like I know like domestic pigs can go far like pretty rapidly.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  But it's like, it's like, how adaptable are domestic turkeys to surviving in the wild?

• 21:42Speaker 04

  Well, that's a great, we don't know. And I wouldn't have guessed it, but I will give you two caveats to that.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  One, remember what I said, heritage breeds are technically wild, domestic.

• 21:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Parents. So maybe that gives them a bit, a bit up and coming that they're like, oh, there's something in some of them being like, I want to be wild. A little bit.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  Right.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  The other thing that's happening on the landscape, unfortunately, is that there are tales of people now creating breeds. Like there's an eastern heritage that looks like an eastern.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  But is not a wild bird.

• 22:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 22:24Speaker 04

  And people are, and I've, I've heard through the grapevine, people are breeding things that look like osceolas and other things and putting those on the landscape. During, right before hunting season. For everybody can envision that picture. So now you got birds in the spring. So now you, they only have to really survive for, for not very long. To have that breeding experience.

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yep, yep. Money in the waters out there.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. So unfortunately, people are doing what people do and, and, um, you know, once there's a dollar to be made, they, uh, people do all sorts of things.

• 23:03Speaker 05

  Um. This might be too big of a question. You might not, not be able to really get at it, but, um, based on the evidence that you're seeing, the DNA evidence. Um.

• 23:17Speaker 05

  What seems to be more common when one of these weird color faced birds show up? Uh, uh, is it like truly wild birds? Or is it more birds showing up with some barnyard heritage?

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Uh, it's a mix of both. So there's, so in fact, I had an email exchange with Mike Chamberlain today. Where I sent him the most recent results and he's like, there's still a bunch of white birds that you're calling pure wild. And then there's a bunch of, uh, there's plenty of white birds and smoke faced birds that are completely heritage. And then there's, you know, stuff in the, in between. The answer to that is, I don't know.

• 23:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  We went, went into this thing thinking like, ah, this shouldn't be that hard. But turkeys are incredibly much more complicated than ducks and waterfowl more generally and probably most wildlife for a variety of reasons. Their genetics is incredibly complex.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  And that is muddying the water even further. So we are trying to build up the data sets big enough where we could be more certain about like, what are we looking at? Are we really looking at a wild bird that's now white? And if so, why is that?

• 24:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  One of the things that we're trying to do is I've got a new student that has identified most of the genes responsible for, for plumage. And so what we're going to layer on is, is the genotypes of those specific genes. And what we're fight, super preliminary, but there are at least two ways for a bird to be white. There are these two genes that if you knock them out, you have a white bird. If you partially knock them out, you'll have white barring. Right? So now we're trying to figure out how often or how frequent is that? Are those found in wild populations?

• 25:17Speaker 04

  How frequent are those introduced from heritage or domestic birds? And how quickly does that disappear from the population?

• 25:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  You shoot a weird looking bird. What is the probability that that's A, a wild bird? And B, how much of a unicorn is that?

• 25:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:37Speaker 05

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• 25:51Steven Rinella?

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• 27:16Speaker 05

  I imagine too, I mean, there's a lot of states now, Nebraska, Montana. You know, I'm sure you could name Washington where like...

• 27:29Speaker 04

  California, Utah, Idaho.

• 27:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, like where like you could go out in Nebraska and potentially in the same area, run into Mariams, Rios and Easterns like...

• 27:46Speaker 05

  Like all within spitting distance of one another.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  Or, or at least things that look like that.

• 27:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  One of the things that we're sort of gauging now, places like California, Washington, Idaho, Montana, like you talked about Oregon, where, where agencies at the time were like, you know what? We're not gonna, we're not, we don't know what's gonna take. So we're just gonna put all the subspecies into there. Right? So what do we have left? Are, are there any actual populations representing true Rios, Merians or Easterns? Or do we just have what, potentially what we're gonna coin as the American turkey?

• 28:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. So we're, we're, wild turkey DNA is expanding substantially this year. So we're not, we're, initially it was all about weird looking birds. Now we're trying to get geography.

• 28:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Right? So if you are getting your gobble on this spring or thinking about it, we're gonna have, wild turkey DNA is gonna start doing a draw, much like duck DNA has been doing for the last few years, where if you get drawn, you get a kit, you have some vials in there, instructions, and if you shoot a bird, you can cut off that tip of the tongue, put it into there, ship it back to us. We're gonna do our, our thing. You'll get a certificate for that bird. And then we're gonna start compiling data sets, hopefully to answer many of these questions.

• 29:11Speaker 05

  You could, that whole project, you could really bum out some turkey hunters that are like, their goal is to get each subspecies and then they find out, they're like, oh, man.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  I was, I was, I was actually thinking the same thing, you know? Turkey slam, the only way to get true turkey slam is that you actually got genetically vetted.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  Right.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Eastern gulls. Otherwise, you got the mutt slam.

• 29:35Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 29:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. I can't wait to go to National Wild Turkey Federation Convention and be like, are they peer reviewed?

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Is this turkey real?

• 29:46Speaker 05

  Really? Hmm. Um, Phil, you want to pull some pictures up?

• 29:52Speaker 05

  Uh, I was talking to Phil the engineer, now I'm talking to Dr. Phil. Um, what, what are the most like common and easily identified color phases that a turkey hunter is like likely to shoot or might shoot?

• 30:07Speaker 04

  You know, when I, when I was thinking of this question, I phoned, I phoned a friend. Uh, Mike Chick related, uh, uh, Katie with, with our wild turkey DNA and tried to figure that out. Because I'm only now looking at turkeys, right? You've got a duck guy.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 04

  Uh, expanding into the edible, uh, domain here. So I'm only, I didn't know that this was even happening in turkeys until a year ago. So some of the most common would be what you're looking here, that reddish, that red phase. There's a bunch of, um, oh, this is something I wanted to, I wanted to say, so just like a black lab can actually make all phases of lab, right? So you can have yellows and, uh, you can, you can have chocolate and black come out of a black lab. All heritage breeds, some proportion of them also can make white turkeys, right? All have it.

• 31:04Speaker 04

  And so people are just maintaining these different color forms by, by that selective breeding. Anyways, I just wanted to put that out there.

• 31:11Speaker 05

  No, that's good info.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  Could be why we're seeing more and more white turkeys out.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Again, we'll be able to source because the mutations that occurred in the heritage and domestics to result in white type. It is what it looks like, quite different than what we see in wild populations, just naturally occurring. So we'll, we'll hopefully be able to actually track that. But right there, what you see right there, so that white and black barring, that interchange, right? I think that breed is supposed to be known as like a narygazin. Um, we see that quite often, and that's what I told you there, if you, there's two genes. One gene says barring, the other one is a melanin production gene that says you turn on or off.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  So that's how you get barring, where you get on, off, on, off, plus barring. So that's what you're seeing in that turkey right there.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  Phil, can you go back to that last one you had up?

• 32:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, sure.

• 32:10Speaker 05

  Maybe that so that that there's a red one I'm guessing.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that would be what is known as like a color phase red. Uh, there's, there's, there's turkeys. If you look them up, they're called barnyard reds. People have made all sorts of stuff.

• 32:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  But yeah, that would be one of the things. The other more inch more um readily observed are called smoke phase. I don't know if you've got a picture.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  We got a gray one up there, Phil.

• 32:37Speaker 06

  Um, I can add it really quick. It'll just be a second.

• 32:42Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, just throw it up there when you get to it. Um, so tho- those are kind of the big, big ones, Phil.

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  What, what, but you got like, I've seen some of the stuff you guys have posted on Instagram. Some of the stuff is like very subtle. Like, I don't like, if you were just out hunting and not paying attention, like, you might not even notice it.

• 33:05Speaker 04

  Absolutely. Yeah, no, I mean, it wa- it takes Mike Chamberlain, who, you know, looks at these things every single day, be like, oh, that one feather is not right. You're right. Most of us, including myself, would be like, sweet, I got a turkey.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 04

  Um, but yeah, no, as we're learning more, what we're hoping to do also is to create some field guides where we start showcasing so people can actually start learning about it as we learn it. Uh, and we figure this stuff out and get this in the hands of both agency and private individuals out there so we can better potentially monitor some of these populations. One of the things that, one of the things that we're worried about

• 33:47Speaker 04

  in through these introductions of heritage or domestic birds on the landscape is that what we're finding in heritage and domestic when we have reference set is that they're incredibly inbred. Every single one looks like a brother, sister, right? Full siblings. And the, and then what's happening on the landscape is our natural populations through fragment, habitat fragmentation, translocations, all of these other things also are not, are, are incre- are highly, are more inbred than other wild populations I study, including mammals and other birds.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Why?

• 34:24Speaker 04

  Which is-

• 34:25Speaker 05

  Is there some concern that that could be?

• 34:29Speaker 05

  I mean, it's probably more habitat driven, and I'm sure Mike Chamberlain could weigh in here, but is there some concern that that could also be at least a minor driver in where you're seeing turkey populations decline?

• 34:42Speaker 04

  100%. So as you up that inbreeding coefficient, what we know from every other animal, pumas or Florida Panthers are a great example of it. You lose that connectivity to other populations. More and more of them breed amongst brothers and sisters. You increase that inbreeding. What's happening is that even if you had all the habitat in the world, the individuals that you have now are making eggs that are either inviable or individuals that have lower survival because their inbreeding is so high. So turkeys also don't like to cross the road, apparently, like, right? So ducks will fly across the road,

• 35:25Speaker 04

  but turkeys don't. So as you get more and more of that fragmentation, bigger issue in the east than in the west, you basically force the population to become more and more inbred. And as you put, so let's say you're

• 35:40Speaker 05

  You're creating artificial island, island populations.

• 35:44Speaker 04

  And then if you throw a bunch of highly inbred heritage birds into there, what we showed genetically is that if you breed those two birds together, instead of decreasing inbreeding, you actually artificially jump the inbreeding between the birds. So a nest that should have been outbred, meaning, you know, good to go, you artificially already spike it up. And turkeys aren't the only ones we're seeing the same pattern. We're seeing it in our ducks when gamefarn mallards and wild mallards interbreed. You should have an inbreeding coefficient of zero, but it jumps to point two, within the clutch. So you're artificially inbreeding your own population through those actions.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  That's no good.

• 36:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, a cyclical effects, especially for turkeys that have a hard time with habitat connect and and population connectivity.

• 36:38Speaker 06

  Would you mind, um, cause you guys just got some, some good ink on the genetic uh, depth in the eastern mallards? Would you mind just hitting that real quick, like an update for everybody on, on?

• 36:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 36:53Speaker 06

  The percentage of domestic DNA within your, and I'll, I'll buzzkill this.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  Was that that map that got posted? Did you see the map?

• 37:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was us.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  Was that you guys? Yeah, yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, within your quote wild population.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, so basically, uh, uh, yeah, basically I need an hour to talk right now. But, uh, so what we're doing, right? So duck DNA was what we started with in the wildlife world being like, all right, does citizen science at this level with hunters work? And the answer is overwhelmingly yes. We're in our third year. We've doubled the participation, doubled the number of samples every year. Thankful, thankful to all the donors that provided the, the funding necessary for that. And essentially we're over almost 3,000 samples collected in three years.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  And one of those, one of the aims of that study is to monitor the populate mallard populations across north, across the US for now. We're about to get Canada into the mix, but across nor, across the US for now. And what we've seen, what we've tracked is that the eastern population is not doing great and it continues to get worse and worse. And so during the fall flight, when you've got an influx of, of birds out of Canada, which are mostly wild, uh, you have 75% of harvested birds from duck DNA. And we have got other data that support this even more. Um, in the Atlantic flyway are feral or feral hybrids.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  And when we look at summerbirds and my other work, working with the state agencies, that proportion actually jumps to like 100% or even less than 2% for most of the states. And so 75% there, we jumped down to about 40, 40% on average in the Mississippi. Huge amount in game, of game farm mallard ancestry in the Great Lakes region. Less so if you go south of Tennessee, there's this interesting population dynamic going on there. Uh, you jump to the central flyway and essentially disappears, less than 10%. You jump over the Pacific flyway and it jumps back up unfortunately to 20%. Mostly driven by whatever's happening in California.

• 39:18Speaker 05

  Yep, yep.

• 39:19Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 39:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we're tracking this thing and unfortunately for the, for the wild mallard, it continues to be quite the problem. And we're hoping, we're starting to try to figure out some solutions. But obviously everybody always asks like, is the, so they're interbreeding. Is there any sort of actual biological problem with that? And in the next year, we'll be, we'll be putting out papers showcasing that not only does it change their migratory capacity, their feeding behavior, their ability to nest. Uh, but in fact, we showcase that their brains have actually been changed to, uh, to not,

• 40:02Speaker 04

  uh, to be more domestic-like than they are wild type when you interbreed. And all of these traits have a correlation with genetics. So the more game farm you have, the more game farming you look like. The problem with the Atlantic flyway that we're starting to see, or at least now we can analyze, is that we randomly now get a game farm mallard.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  Phenotype and behavior by just by chance. There's so many hybrids that some proportion of nests just by chance recapitulate game farm all of a sudden, which is just not great.

• 40:42Speaker 06

  No, I mean, that's why all those fellows who you know can't blow a duck call are posting all those pictures of limits. Yeah.

• 40:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 40:52Speaker 06

  Yeah. And there's like, we're not getting what, you know, me as a big duck eater would call like the benefits of having some domestic strain in there like.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I will tell you, so people will be like, oh, no, yeah, whatever. Ducks, duck, I'll eat that. Fun fact, they don't put on fat, very fat content, the way a wild type. That's why they can't, they can't, we've published this now. And um, we were like, why can't they move? Maybe they don't know how. Maybe there's some weird thing happening. But one of the physiological differences is that even if we put them on high fat period in a child, they will not put fat.

• 41:35Speaker 06

  Oh, I feel like if we were in like the doctor who uh, you know, like bomb shelter, the DEFCON level for me would have just, just raised. I'm like, my God, there's a real issue here. Like fatty ducks are like the, the most prized possession in my freezer.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and if you don't have a fat duck, when that polar vortex happens, that duck doesn't make it. And the more of your population proportionally grows with those types of traits, the lower the, the survival and the fecundity or baby making we expect. And that is what we're seeing in the Great Lakes, we're seeing in the Atlantic Flavies. So what I have to caveat all of this, it's all suggestive. It's a, it's at least explaining some of the population declines, right? Um, we don't, habitat is definitely everything, but even like, just like the turkey, you need a, you need an animal that knows how to use that habitat.

• 42:39Speaker 06

  Yeah. Um, all right.

• 42:42Speaker 05

  We gotta keep moving here.

• 42:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 05

  We could go all day.

• 42:45Speaker 06

  The human responsibility thing here is really like, once again, a factor.

• 42:50Speaker 05

  Um, Phil, how, uh, how can folks take part in the turkey and or duck DNA projects?

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Please, uh, if you're interested, oh, if you're still duck hunting, uh, like how? And you shoot something super awesomely cool, or you're like, I don't know what this is, both duck and goose, go to www.duckdna.com and sign up for the hybrid kit. If you get chosen, we'll send you a single vial kit. You send it back to us, we do the analysis, you get some answers. Um.

• 43:26Speaker 05

  Do we get a little, uh, favoritism there? Like, can you send us a bunch of those? Come on.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  You guys, you guys had a bunch of them already.

• 43:35Speaker 06

  I think Corinne got a bunch of them, yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 05

  Uh, well, I'll talk to Corinne.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, but we could definitely send you some. That being said, on the turkey, uh, go to wildturkeydna.com. Start signing up. We're going to have, uh, those polls right before turkey season. That being said, if you do shoot a turkey during, if you have a fall hunting season, like you guys do for a few more days in, in Idaho and others, and you shoot something, give us a, a, a ring or an email through the website, or get in touch at wildturkeydna on Instagram, or at duck D, duck DNA, the duck DNA on Instagram, or at LeBretzky Lab on Instagram, and we'll take care of you.

• 44:20Speaker 05

  I, I got one more question about that, especially for the people who might end up with one of these kits. It doesn't have to be some weird looking bird, correct?

• 44:30Speaker 04

  No.

• 44:31Speaker 05

  Like, anything. Like, it could look like a, like, just pure white tail fan Miriam's and you still want to study it.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  So for turkeys this year, we're looking for geography. Uh, we're also part of the selection criteria is where do you hunt? How many birds do you usually harvest? Um, those are. There are going to be some of the information that we're going to want to know. If you are a person that has access to, you know, three tags, we'll send you three vials.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  If you're someone that shoots one bird, we'll send you one vial. So we're going to gauge, gauge that so that way we can get as many hunters involved and as much of the geography uh, uh, captured as we can this year for sure.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Great.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  And this year for sure, if you're like, my kid shot a bird, send that thing in.

• 45:19Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 45:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. It'd be super awesome.

• 45:22Speaker 05

  Um, thanks for joining us, Phil. It's, it's always a fascinating conversation and, um, on a side note, I'm looking forward to heading down to Texas. Corey, you're going too?

• 45:33Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  Um, for a collaboration, uh, Meat Eater has going on with you involving Owl Dad, which the audience I'm sure will be hearing more about later. So we're looking forward to that.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  I thought we were just doing birds. No, no.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Nope, nope. We're doing, doing Owl Dad too. Uh, but thanks a lot. Happy holidays and thanks for coming on.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. Thanks, everybody.

• 45:54Speaker 05

  Very cool.

• 45:55Speaker 07

  Happy New Year, Phil.

• 45:56Speaker 05

  Thank you, Phil.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Happy New Year.

• 45:58Speaker 05

  Okay, folks, that's it for today's show.

• 46:01Speaker 06

  That was awesome. I mean, come on. That's great citizen science, man. That, that, that was good. We might have to trim some of these listener questions, but that was a good talk.

• 46:08Speaker 05

  That's cool. We can do that, Phil. We can, we can skip them. Maybe just do one each or something.

• 46:13Speaker 06

  Well, it's like, it's, it's part of like what hunters bring to the table for the greater good.

• 46:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. And when you get a chance to talk to someone like that, it's just like, I got another question. I got another question. Like, you don't get a chance to talk to people like that very often.

• 46:29Speaker 07

  Yeah. Some of the other critters that he'd love to dive into with other DNA, you know, he's got duck and turkey going. There's other

• 46:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 07

  things he's got in his head that he wants to pull off here coming up. So hopefully there's more, more to come.

• 46:40Speaker 05

  Um, do we got a Throwback Thursday song, Phil? Or did you just abandon all the, all that?

• 46:45Speaker 06

  No, I still, I still do the drops.

• 46:46Speaker 07

  Isn't that your favorite one?

• 46:47Speaker 05

  Let's do the drop.

• 46:50Speaker 05

  This is my favorite one.

• 47:08Speaker 05

  I need you to fill out the whole song. I want all the lyrics.

• 47:11Speaker 06

  The entire one. That'll be my, my winter break project. Sure.

• 47:15Speaker 05

  Um, all right, guys. It's time to look back at the last year and, and share your favorite. I, I think it's, I'm doing hunting, could be fishing, but I don't know what you guys are doing. Share your favorite, uh, trips of the year. So Corey, you're up first, man.

• 47:29Speaker 07

  Yeah. Well, gosh, it was hard to top my spring black bear hunt. I think I got a video up, uh, there, Phil, and a couple of photos, but, uh, hunting a spot, the best part about it was I've been hunting the spot for about five years without being able to take aim and shoot at a black bear. And finally it all came together this last spring, uh, early May. Solo hunting overnight, backpacked into a spot.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Bruiser.

• 47:57Speaker 07

  Spotted him the night before, put a stalk on him. He eluded me. He zigged and I zagged. And, uh, then was able to dig him up the next morning, stalked him. I spotted him at probably a mile and a half away and then stalked into 90 yards and shot him on the run with a 300 wind mag, which rarely happens. I feel like spotting stalk bears, you see them far off and you're like, oh yeah, it looks like he's headed that way. You know, they usually go a different direction or something. The odds of like lining up the planets to get them within range are so slim. It's so tough, but so addicting too. And I got lucky with this one. I couldn't tell he was that big from that far away. Uh, but holy cow, it'll be probably the biggest bear I ever kill, uh, in the state of Montana at least. And, uh, fun note, I just got the

• 48:40Speaker 07

  hide back from Mr. John Hayes and he told me that was the biggest Montana black bear that's ever come through his shop.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Really?

• 48:47Speaker 07

  Ever. Just patting my back.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  Wow, that's great. What does the skull measure?

• 48:51Speaker 07

  When it was green, it was just under 20 inches. I haven't measured it since, since I boiled it. So.

• 48:57Speaker 05

  Were you by yourself?

• 48:58Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm. And then a buddy helped me pack it out.

• 49:00Speaker 05

  Oh, that's what I can say if you had to pack all that out by yourself.

• 49:03Speaker 07

  Even the two of us. It was brutal and it was hot too. It was like 70 plus degrees. Uh, that hide and head was insanely awkward and heavy to pack out. Had to cross creek multiple times.

• 49:13Speaker 05

  So you got him rugged?

• 49:15Speaker 07

  Uh, it's just, uh, the hide right now. Thinking about getting.

• 49:18Speaker 05

  Eventually you get a rug.

• 49:20Speaker 06

  Yeah. That's not, those are good things to hang on. Do you have a place to like hang it or throw it in the house?

• 49:24Speaker 07

  In my office at the moment.

• 49:26Speaker 06

  Oh, okay.

• 49:26Speaker 07

  Yeah, right upstairs. It looks pretty good up there next to my mountain line.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  Sweet.

• 49:31Speaker 07

  Uh.

• 49:32Speaker 05

  You got a couple more here Cory?

• 49:33Speaker 07

  I got one more, just uh, it was hard to pick out of the two. Got to kill a whitetail buck and a doe with my son this year. It was alongside with me. Uh, it was really fun. Got some private land access, not too far from home here. I don't think I would have got the access if I said I'm hunting by myself, but I said I was bringing my seven-year-old boy along and it was like, heck yeah, bring him in. And we shot a doe out of a blind within the first couple of minutes and the landowner said, if you see this super old unicorn buck dragging his feet around, you should shoot him because he's probably not going to make it through the winter. And as we were dragging out the doe, uh, that buck came out of the, out of the cottonwoods and we got him too. So doubled up within a, about an hour of hunting.

• 50:15Speaker 05

  Um, so he literally just had the one horn on the one side?

• 50:19Speaker 07

  There's a tiny little nub on the other side.

• 50:21Speaker 05

  Did that thing have any teeth left in its head?

• 50:24Speaker 07

  Barely. No, I'm dying to see how old he is. I sent him in to get CWD tested.

• 50:29Speaker 06

  Well, did you send in a tooth to the lab here in town?

• 50:32Speaker 07

  It takes about eight months though. So we'll find out more to come on that one, but that was pretty special to have my son there with me.

• 50:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 50:39Speaker 05

  Cool. Cal, what do you got for us?

• 50:41Speaker 06

  That eight-month waiting period for old Marshall is going to be tough.

• 50:44Speaker 07

  I know. He's already forgot, but I.

• 50:46Speaker 05

  That buck's probably older than he is.

• 50:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, very possible. Yeah, I'm hoping, yeah, I'm guessing eight or nine.

• 50:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:52Speaker 06

  It could be 10. Um, I, I had a great hunting adventures this year. Obviously there's big brown bear in Alaska, uh, which was great, but we talked about that a bunch and I just wanted to hit, since we're coming to the end of the season, um, I get, it's depressing, but I get a lot of people who write in and tell me how bad hunting is.

• 51:14Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 51:15Speaker 06

  How it's not good.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  There's no animals anywhere, too many people.

• 51:19Speaker 06

  And.

• 51:20Speaker 05

  Why bother?

• 51:21Speaker 06

  I.

• 51:24Speaker 06

  Spend the vast, vast, vast majority of my time on public land.

• 51:29Speaker 05

  You mean, you mean both?

• 51:31Speaker 06

  And my secret to success is just trying. Like, that's all, all, like, it's that simple. I see spots that I've never hunted before and I just go, "Yep, probably nothing here, but we're gonna give it a shot."

• 51:47Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 51:47Speaker 06

  Um, and that's just, once you pull the Band-Aid off of like, "Well, I gotta go to the place that I know." Uh, a whole new world opens up to you and, you know, if a bunch of people dump into your spot and your choices of finding something new or pissing and moaning and

• 52:06Speaker 06

  um, go find something new. Um, go ruin somebody else's spot.

• 52:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the thing, man. Like, if you're griping about too many trucks at the trailhead and you're parked there, guess what those other people are doing? Griping about your truck being there.

• 52:20Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yep.

• 52:24Speaker 06

  So, this, this picture that Phil's gonna pop up is from one of these times where I was driving, it was getting close to end of shooting light. Um, it was a cold snowy day and here, I'm looking at this river bottom or creek bottom and I'm like, "Dang, that's good looking pheasant. Wish some lucky son of a gun could go out there and, you know, knock on a door, maybe. I don't know." Um, and there's this little chunk of public land that attaches to the highway.

• 53:02Speaker 06

  Just this place where you'd be like, "There's no way there's any birds here at this point in the season. Maybe opening day type of thing." But swung off, grabbed the dog and Snort and I, uh, at a very fast pace, went to go check this place out and cut a pheasant track. We followed it and all of a sudden, like... I was so surprised. I did everything I could not to shoot this bird because I like had the gun over my shoulder was just like not in the game at all and just barely caught this this rooster that snort had flushed flying over the hillside and was lucky enough

• 53:40Speaker 06

  to to get him and I celebrated the moment um in a very unserious pheasant hunting way by taking a picture of the dog and be like God how cool is this and then we flushed another rooster right after this after talking and taking pictures and laughing um and obviously that shotgun going off and 50 yards later flushed another rooster got that bird because I was prepared and then we walked in serpentine fashion five more miles never found another pheasant track at all um so we were just the right place at the right

• 54:22Speaker 06

  time and it never would have happened had we not just tried something new.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. Amen, Cal. Amen.

• 54:29Speaker 07

  Spot that maybe was overlooked days before, you know?

• 54:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. So um and it's just, yeah, like those two birds are way better than uh shooting a limit of birds on like it would have been a win to go out there and flush a bird.

• 54:47Speaker 05

  Right.

• 54:47Speaker 06

  Right?

• 54:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 54:48Speaker 06

  So.

• 54:48Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 54:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

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• 56:29Speaker 05

  Guess that leaves me. My favorite hunt of the year is always gonna be like the youth deer hunt with all, all the kids and all the family. But like, I also like to get in, you know, a solo hunt now and then. And this year, we got, we got it going, Phil. This year I drew a Colorado mule deer buck tag. And it was in November. And for anyone who's, who's never experienced a really good mule deer rut hunt, it's, it's pretty special. During a typical whitetail rut hunt, especially if you're archery hunting in the woods, you

• 57:10Speaker 05

  usually only get to experience it in like flashes, right? Like, here comes a buck chasing a doe and then he's gone. But in like more open mule deer country, like when the rut's going, like you get to just like kick back and watch the show and it's amazing. Like just watching bucks push does, watching bucks push other bucks around. And that's what this day, well, that's what happened on this day. We, we just like hit it right.

• 57:41Speaker 05

  Uh, that's my buddy Dan and like, pretty much from first light on, we were looking at ready bucks cruising around solo or, or looking for does or bucks that were chasing does. And, uh, Dan killed this buck like maybe an hour after shooting light started. Um, we'd already glassed up two other bucks and we're like, uh, which one should we go after? How should we go after them? And then that buck like is just like there in front of us 200 yards away. And, and Dan was like, yeah, man, I'll shoot that one. Um, so he killed that buck. Um, we got him cut up and, and stuffed the meat up in a juniper and, and kept hunting, um, all day. And pretty much all day long, we were like looking at bucks.

• 58:26Speaker 05

  It was like amazing. Like it was a warm day. Like it was cold here in the morning, but warm day, but didn't matter. There's still like deer out bucks looking at those all day long. Um, and I guess about, it would have been about like an hour and a half before dark, I found, um, this buck, glassed him up. And, um,

• 58:51Speaker 05

  uh, that, that deer was, that buck was like obvious. You got the picture film? There he is. Uh, like that buck was like, like he's not a big scoring buck, but like he was the fricking man. Like he had all the does. He, he was chasing other bucks around, keeping them away from those does. And it like, a- after watching him for an hour, I'm like, yeah, he's the one. Um, it, it, and part of the thing that, that gets me going like on the, whether I'm going to shoot a buck or not is not necessarily the antlers. It's like, when you're looking at a buck that's twice the size of the does that he's hanging out with, like literally twice the size.

• 59:31Speaker 05

  Like you're looking at a good one, no matter what his antlers look like. And that was this buck. Um, so ended up doing a pretty steep downhill. Stock got to 400 yards, ran out of cover and uh shot him and killed him. It was cool because the deer never knew I was there and I killed him instantly. But um we walked down like I had a good landmark on what like that deer just disappeared out of the scope. And when I asked Dan what happened, he's like, I don't know. I blinked when you shot and the deer's just not there.

• 1:00:04Speaker 06

  And you're like, that's not your job.

• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  So we get down there and it's like getting on towards dark and I'm like, he was right in front of there was like a lone pinion pine. It was like he was standing right in front of that. Get down there. I'm like, man, not a track, no blood, no hair. Like you start panicking, you know, because I'm like, if he ran, he ran this way, went down that way, no tracks, no hair. And I'm like, I'll fully admit, like I started swearing. I'm like, Dan, what's the, what the?

• 1:00:36Speaker 05

  Um, and then I go back to where I'm like, this is where he was standing and like, I don't know why I didn't do it earlier, but I turned my head to the right. He's like 10 feet away.

• 1:00:48Speaker 06

  Like, and then you're like, I am too old to let panic drive my decision making.

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Exactly. But um it was a long day, man, like well before dark to well after dark, a lot of miles, big pack outs and it was just a great hunt.

• 1:01:03Speaker 06

  Heck yeah, man. Beautiful buck. Yeah. Super cool.

• 1:01:06Speaker 07

  Yeah. You can see the fat rolls on him. Just.

• 1:01:07Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 07

  Shank looks like it's just swollen.

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  Those Colorado bucks that can spend the summer up above tree line and then migrate down to good winter range, like they're huge. They're huge deer. Um, like, you know, two inches of fat on the back, like pushing 300 pounds, I'm guessing.

• 1:01:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Speaker 05

  Um, so yeah, that was, that was a real good hunt this year.

• 1:01:28Speaker 05

  I guess Phil, do you just want to like, how much, how much time?

• 1:01:32Speaker 06

  It's up to you, Brody. I mean, we're, we're almost at an hour right now. So.

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  Let's just do this first one.

• 1:01:37Speaker 06

  Just you can cherry pick some questions.

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  We'll do, we'll, we'll just do one. Um, we're going to do a little fan Q and A section in lieu of the live chat with our listeners. And uh. This one, uh, the guy's name is AJ. I forget his last name. He sent in an email. It's, it's a little long, but it's pretty juicy. So, so bear with me. I'm going to read it. Um, my wife's college roommate is married to a guy who asked to go deer hunting with me every season. On paper, it should be perfect. He lives near great public land. Our kids get along and it's become an annual trip north to visit them. The problem is his idea of hunting couldn't be further from mine. He road hunts almost exclusively, shoots deer from the truck,

• 1:02:22Speaker 05

  targets swans on purpose and only takes headshots. I've made it clear. I won't shoot from the road or hunt that way. Even so, he insists on helping me get one. He pressures me to stay in the truck and keeps telling me I don't need to unload my gun when we get in the truck. If I say I want to hunt alone, he takes it personally. I end up spending, spending most of the weekend riding around instead of actually hunting. This is where it gets real good.

• 1:02:50Speaker 06

  There's more.

• 1:02:51Speaker 05

  To complicate things further, my wife already dislikes him due to him cheating on his wife shortly after they were married. I don't want to interfere with my wife's friendship with her former roommate, but we're both on the same page that we don't like him.

• 1:03:06Speaker 05

  Yada, yada there.

• 1:03:07Speaker 06

  Curious to know what the question is.

• 1:03:09Speaker 07

  Heavy yada.

• 1:03:10Speaker 05

  So my question is, how do you handle someone whose ethics fundamentally clash with yours, especially when family and friends are involved? What's the line between being polite and enabling behavior that gives hunting a bad name? Man, like, I understand the, the dilemma of like the wife friendship here, but other than that, this is like very simple. You're talking about a guy who's hunting illegally and unethically, not to mention being a cheating scumbag. Um, so like you just gotta cut ties and not worry about being polite. I don't know if you guys. Have anything more to add, but like

• 1:03:49Speaker 06

  That one seems pretty cut and dry.

• 1:03:51Speaker 05

  The email, he's basically trying to convince himself that this what's, what is what he needs to do, I think. Like he's talking himself through it and just needs to like gentle push to be like, no more.

• 1:04:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, there's your push.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. So AJ, like get rid of him.

• 1:04:09Speaker 06

  Don't get drugged down, buddy.

• 1:04:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. It sounds like you, you, you, you like, you already have some, some good morals and ethics around hunting and it's just like not worth being around that guy.

• 1:04:22Speaker 06

  I, I will say the only defensible thing here is there's nothing wrong with shooting fawns.

• 1:04:27Speaker 05

  No, there's nothing wrong with shooting fawns. Um, but you know, if you're doing it leaning out of a truck, running truck, then, then it's a problem.

• 1:04:36Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:04:37Speaker 05

  Um, so yeah, I didn't figure you guys would, would have a whole lot to say, but I felt like AJ really needed a, a friendly push in the right direction.

• 1:04:48Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, nowhere to go but up, buddy.

• 1:04:50Speaker 05

  Since, uh, uh, we're going to do another one, Phil.

• 1:04:53Speaker 06

  Okay. And also I do think just, uh, partially because Nick already made the thumbnail and the title is set in stone. I think it'd be good if we hit on just some brief new year's resolutions.

• 1:05:04Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, we're going to do that.

• 1:05:05Speaker 06

  Okay, great.

• 1:05:05Speaker 05

  That, that, yeah, we'll get there. Um, we can, let's move on. All right. We, we, we, cause we're, we're using up a lot of time. We're going to do our Cal interview. Is that good, Phil? Can we move on?

• 1:05:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  All right. Uh, okay. For our next interview, we've got our very own Cal, the conservation man Callahan. Um, as, as most of you hopefully know, Cal is officially the new CEO of backcountry hunters and anglers. He's going to continue doing some Cal stuff for Meat Eater on a part-time basis. Um, but he's going to have his hands full at BHA and this may be his last appearance on radio live. So this whole thing is kind of like a bittersweet farewell, Cal. First off, congratulations.

• 1:05:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, thank you.

• 1:05:52Speaker 05

  I don't think BHA could have chosen a better person for the job than you, but I gotta know, does that like, that CEO title making you a little nervous?

• 1:06:02Speaker 06

  Oh my God, the things I don't know.

• 1:06:06Speaker 06

  You know, like that's not the, um,

• 1:06:11Speaker 06

  There's no motivation there to be a CEO. There's a lot of motivation uh to just like fully embrace the things that I that that motivate me.

• 1:06:20Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:06:21Speaker 06

  Right?

• 1:06:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, and a whole bunch of other people.

• 1:06:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, and this, yeah, I I was asked would be like the simplest way like.

• 1:06:30Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:06:30Speaker 06

  Why'd you do it? Well, they asked.

• 1:06:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:32Speaker 06

  Right?

• 1:06:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:33Speaker 06

  Um, and so I'm I'm very, very excited. Yeah. Um, and I I'm just like gung ho to like be able to just like fully embrace. Um, you know, this big thing that's been a big part of my life that I've kind of been like moonlighting in.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:06:54Speaker 06

  For a long time as as a volunteer.

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:06:57Speaker 06

  So, um, super stoked there. And then yeah, the meat eater side of things. Um, is going, you know, to continue hosting the podcast, doing some some video work. Um, and you know, that's going to be like a supportive role.

• 1:07:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 06

  Which is pretty darn amazing to be able to do that. So.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  Cool. Um, can we expect anything different from BHA with with you at leading them?

• 1:07:30Speaker 06

  I, you know, that's a interesting question. So it's a it's a membership, chapter, model, nonpartisan organization. I think the need in the conservation space is like true representation of, you know, like folks like us in this room, right? Like a lot of conservation is the speak is aimed at folks uh with with big money and and deep pockets that want to give. And like, we definitely need some of that.

• 1:08:08Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:08:09Speaker 06

  But the goal, my dream is to have like, you know, the the rank and file.

• 1:08:17Speaker 06

  Uh, folks that go out and do this stuff, the end user of public lands.

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:24Speaker 06

  Uh, you know, represented well. Um, we're in a lot of conservation pickles right now because it's like, I swear to God, people at the very top are working off of like, public land theory.

• 1:08:41Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:41Speaker 06

  Well, we've been told.

• 1:08:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:08:43Speaker 06

  You people like these things, right?

• 1:08:47Speaker 05

  Well, let's, let's get into those people at the top. I want to read you a quote from an article that popped up in my feed this morning. Earlier this year, Utah Senator Mike Lee's efforts to slip, uh, permission for federal land sell off into a Senate Republicans budget reconci- reconciliation bill failed after outraged citizens forced him to withdraw the proposal. On Monday, December 15th, Lee launched another gambit to sell or transfer your public lands to private interests by adding amendments to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, which the US Senate is now considering. Lee's ploy is disguised by complex legalese, but if it is adopted, the effect would be

• 1:09:31Speaker 05

  to eliminate the legal language that requires the Department of the Interior to protect public lands, national parks, historic trails, wild and scenic rivers, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I imagine you're going to be spending a little more time in Washington DC. So if you were to run into Senator Mike Lee in a bar, what would you say to him?

• 1:09:56Speaker 06

  I would say, thank you for putting together such a perfectly public list of working against the wishes and best interests of the American people. It's like he's writing his own resignation letter. It's like, if you're dealing with a bad employee.

• 1:10:15Speaker 06

  Because of all the laws of protecting employees with employers and things like that, it can be kinda hard to fire people for cause.

• 1:10:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:10:26Speaker 06

  But it shouldn't be.

• 1:10:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:29Speaker 06

  And this guy's like, I'd say, like, "Thank you."

• 1:10:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:33Speaker 06

  Senator, like, "You are an obstinate employee that has gone rogue and you are publicly working against the best interest of the American people."

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:45Speaker 06

  Uh, "Thank you for filling out the paperwork for us." Really?

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:50Speaker 06

  And so, like, what's, and I don't know if you guys get, like, hear my phone blowing up, but it's over what is going on right now.

• 1:10:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Speaker 06

  And it is this, you know, it's complicated, like, backdoor dealing where he submitted amendments at, like, the very much 11th hour to, uh, this appropriations process that was largely getting wrapped up.

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Speaker 06

  So, again, he's not making friends with a bunch of people.

• 1:11:24Speaker 05

  Um, there's a little- Yeah, probably even people in his own party are like, "Really? Again?"

• 1:11:30Speaker 06

  The people within his own party, the people within the committees that he works on, um, like, he is just working against people, like, nothing's ever easy.

• 1:11:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 06

  Because, like, if, if there's a compliment I can give this guy, it's like, he's a zealot, like, he's, he truly believes beyond the wishes of anybody that, uh, we shouldn't own public land, we shouldn't have public land, we shouldn't have the freedoms that we get to enjoy on public land. Uh, why that is, we, we will likely never know.

• 1:12:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:04Speaker 06

  But, um-

• 1:12:07Speaker 06

  And it is just, it's just like this, um, death of a thousand cuts like type of thing. Well, if I can get a little win here with this amendment change and then that'll stack up to this other little win and this other little win. And it's just gonna be easier because the other thing that he's doing right now, right? Is there's like 20 or 25 acres in Bryanhead, Utah? That the, the little municipality there, Bryanhead would love to use this public land for the municipality.

• 1:12:39Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:12:40Speaker 06

  There's all these systems in place where we, the American people can facilitate that. Right? We can lease that land to the municipality, uh, and retain ownership. And then we, the American people get to use those lease fees for, um, the, the maintenance.

• 1:12:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 06

  Or, uh, or creating new public land.

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  Do a land swap or some.

• 1:13:02Speaker 06

  There's a land swap, there's, um, the sale through the Federal Land Policy Management Act. Where, um, the revenue from that sale gets used to get public land of higher value. All these things that are, um, within the Congress of the United States, we the people.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  They're existing levers that can be pulled.

• 1:13:27Speaker 06

  Yep. And, and the people of Bryanhead, Utah can get what they want and it doesn't shortchange the rest of us.

• 1:13:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Speaker 06

  However, Lee doesn't want to do that. He's like, nope, free, nothing.

• 1:13:41Speaker 06

  Right? And are you really gonna come out and work against these fine citizens of Bryanhead, Utah? And it's like, yep, I am. Because we have all these systems in place that are public and they're for the benefit of we, the people of the United States. Right? Um, let's work within that framework and everybody can get what they want.

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:04Speaker 06

  But he's just like not willing to do that.

• 1:14:07Speaker 05

  Moving, moving past good old Mike Lee, um, real quick, what are some of the other big issues or fights? You think BHA is gonna be tackling this year and moving forward?

• 1:14:20Speaker 06

  I think awareness is a huge part of this.

• 1:14:27Speaker 06

  You know, we, it's, you know, from the top down, like we're being told, there's a campaign running to tell people of how

• 1:14:37Speaker 06

  our public lands are not good, they're not working for us, not in the best interest of the American people. And, you know, hunters and anglers, like if you just look at BLM, like, we are uniquely poised to be like, uh, actually this stuff's incredible.

• 1:14:57Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:14:57Speaker 06

  It's insanely valuable. You can't put a price tag on it. Um, and then the ecosystem services that those lands provide, um, in addition to being like the home of like our extractive industry, a lot of times, it's like, the case to sell this stuff off is so thin. Like it is just, like, it should be a nonstarter. Um, so that's going to remain like a goal of the organization.

• 1:15:26Speaker 05

  Getting the message out.

• 1:15:28Speaker 06

  You gotta get the message out. There's a lot of people out there who are in full alignment on this, but they don't pay attention to what hunting and angling groups do or think. So that coalition part of the package is something that, that we can definitely help bring to the table, right? So I've got, done a lot of work in the past with, um, big green conservation groups, as well as, uh, big businesses that more align with the, the quote unquote, green side of things. Um, and the, the fun thing here is like, you don't have to give anything up in order to, uh,

• 1:16:12Speaker 06

  uh, bring some education into all sides here. So like, um, uh, you know, very succinctly, it's America. We can have our guns and our public lands.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:16:24Speaker 06

  And if somebody tells you that we can't, uh, they're working against you.

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:28Speaker 06

  Like, there is nothing that we have, nothing that we have and enjoy right now, that is not here because we didn't demand it. It's not here because we got lucky. It's because we hit the brakes and said, oh my God, there's no more fricking ducks left.

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:44Speaker 06

  We gotta do something about this.

• 1:16:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:46Speaker 06

  Um, oh my God, remember how cool elk were? Let's come up with a giant program to reseed elk across their native range.

• 1:16:54Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:16:55Speaker 06

  Like, we're in this memory lapse

• 1:16:59Speaker 06

  situation right now, where it's like, people have forgotten all the hard work and dedication that happened to give us what we have right now.

• 1:17:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:08Speaker 06

  And we just need to, um, remind people that this stuff is not here by chance. We didn't get lucky. It's here by choice. And people demanded that we have this system of public lands, that we want wildlife. And we want access to them.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. Stakes are high.

• 1:17:27Speaker 06

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 1:17:28Speaker 05

  Um, all right, Cal, I'd like to end this interview by saying that, uh, you've been a big inspiration to me over the years, and I'm sure the same goes for everyone here at Mediator and, and the fans who are listening. So thanks for the work that you're done and the work you're about to do. Uh, fighting the good fight for all of us hunters and anglers.

• 1:17:49Speaker 06

  Well, thank you for, uh, taking your, your hosting job and, uh, putting in this opportunity. So, uh, membership.

• 1:17:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 06

  Got to grow the membership. Um, we need, uh, more names on the list. So we can, uh, advocate more effectively.

• 1:18:09Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:18:10Speaker 06

  For our public lands, waters and wildlife. Um, so if you can do something for all of us, get, uh, just get a solo membership and tune in and see what we've got to say.

• 1:18:21Speaker 05

  Cool. Cool. Um, all right, Phil, we're going to end it with some, uh, New Year's resolutions.

• 1:18:28Speaker 06

  Cool.

• 1:18:29Speaker 05

  Imagine, uh, we, we've got enough material by now that we can end this thing. Um, Corey.

• 1:18:36Speaker 07

  Hey.

• 1:18:37Speaker 05

  Twenty twenty-six.

• 1:18:40Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, I mean, obviously I could try and eat more, exercise, or sorry, eat, eat healthier.

• 1:18:46Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:18:47Speaker 07

  Uh, exercise more, this and that. That'll probably come as a roller coaster ride as it typically does for me throughout the year. Start out gold and then end up not so healthy, but then it comes back and forth. But, uh, my new year's resolution is, uh, my son's gonna be eight next year and I want to do more hunting with him. Certainly watching, uh, you and Yanis and Steve take your kids out and hearing all the tips and tricks.

• 1:19:11Speaker 05

  The best, man.

• 1:19:12Speaker 07

  Have a great outing in the woods with him. Uh, it's been tricky up until this point. I would say we've done a little bit more this year than, than in years past, but now that he's eight, he's a couple of years off of being able to do it himself with me in the woods. So, we're gonna try and get out a little bit more. Couple, uh, squirrel outings and spring turkey.

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 1:19:29Speaker 07

  Every day in the summer and up next fall too, so.

• 1:19:31Speaker 05

  Nice.

• 1:19:32Speaker 07

  Yep. More time in the woods with my boy.

• 1:19:34Speaker 06

  That's a good one. I support you in that.

• 1:19:36Speaker 07

  Well, thank you.

• 1:19:37Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  Got anything specific or?

• 1:19:41Speaker 06

  Oh, boy, I, not really. Just improve on all fronts.

• 1:19:47Speaker 05

  That's fine. That's all you, that's, that's good enough.

• 1:19:49Speaker 06

  Day by day.

• 1:19:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:51Speaker 06

  Baby steps. My resolution for, uh, weight loss comes with like, I, I have always kept like the same stable of T-shirts.

• 1:20:00Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:01Speaker 06

  Like the new ones come and go real fast.

• 1:20:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:03Speaker 06

  But I'm like, if I throw on an old T-shirt that I really like and go, oh my God.

• 1:20:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Speaker 06

  That's, that's my.

• 1:20:10Speaker 05

  I don't view you as someone who's got a weight loss problem.

• 1:20:14Speaker 06

  Oh, man, it's just like, you know, older we get, that, the old, old beer gut becomes like a real thing.

• 1:20:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:21Speaker 06

  And you go, oh, who, who is this?

• 1:20:25Speaker 07

  Oh, oh, oh.

• 1:20:28Speaker 05

  Cool. Uh, big one for me is I'm doing a marathon with a goal time of 3:30, which is, it's gonna be tough. Um, but it's doable if I stick with the training and, uh, get lucky and stay injury free. It's gonna be a tough one, but I'm, I'm giving it, giving it a good go.

• 1:20:45Speaker 07

  What's, what's your timeline?

• 1:20:47Speaker 05

  September. So I'll start like the, the actual like regimented training program in early April. So between now and then it's just putting miles on, you know.

• 1:20:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. Plus around here you'd need, um, you know, there's a good chance you need like, uh, indoor training.

• 1:21:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Like I, like, I was looking at spring marathons because you can't like, can't, too hot in the summer, right? A lot of places, but like Missoula has one in June. But then when you think about Montana's winter, it's like, do I have time to get ready for that one? Not really. So it's better that I'm doing one, doing one, I'm doing one out in Billings in, in September.

• 1:21:27Speaker 06

  Nice.

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, and then like for like our world, our hunting world, whatever you, we want to call it. Um, like Corey, it's pretty much the, I've kind of had the same one going for a few years and it probably shows my age and it's corny and cliche, but it's like focusing on the fun, the experience, the people, the places, like that's what I'm worried about these days rather than like what an animal scores or something like that. Um, I just want hunting to be like it was when I was a kid and everything was special and fun. And then there's like the old man element to it where you like grow wise enough to just like appreciate whatever you're given. You know what I mean? Like that. So that's my like hunting resolution for the year.

• 1:22:13Speaker 06

  That's a good one. Yeah. I need, I was gonna say, I have not done like my big wilderness backpack hunt for two years now.

• 1:22:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:22:24Speaker 06

  And, um,

• 1:22:25Speaker 05

  Time to get back to it.

• 1:22:26Speaker 06

  I, I, I have like for mental health purposes. I gotta make that thing happen.

• 1:22:30Speaker 05

  Yep, for sure.

• 1:22:32Speaker 06

  Yeah. And that's like a big buck dreams type of deal. But yeah, I mean consequently, like I haven't shot a deer in two years because I'd, uh, the, the whole scene is so important to me.

• 1:22:45Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:22:46Speaker 06

  Where it's like, Is way more.

• 1:22:49Speaker 05

  You're spending all your time protecting that stuff rather than going out and.

• 1:22:53Speaker 06

  Well, that's the attitude that I want to keep though is like, I, I don't want this to be a career. I want to like, put myself out of a job as soon as.

• 1:23:01Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:23:01Speaker 06

  Impossible. Right. So like as, as fast as people can onboard.

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  Make yourself obsolete.

• 1:23:07Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely, man.

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's great.

• 1:23:10Speaker 06

  And I think that is like a real difference in goal. Like career, people and all sorts of things like. Like there's people in this space that I think a third of the time. They're working. In a way that will never put this shit to bed.

• 1:23:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:23:29Speaker 06

  Right. I'm like, oh, great. You just created more enemies that are galvanized against you. I'm like, how about? We just do the good thing and, and get it done. And then everybody understands and respects this stuff and, and we can go. I'll go back to swinging a hammer. Being happy.

• 1:23:45Speaker 05

  Nice. I think that's a great place to end it.

• 1:23:48Speaker 06

  Well, what about Phil? Swing a hammer.

• 1:23:50Speaker 05

  Phil.

• 1:23:50Speaker 06

  Where's Phil? Phil?

• 1:23:53Speaker 05

  Phil, we're gonna jump back in time.

• 1:23:56Speaker 06

  Uh, what?

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  I, I need you to address something.

• 1:23:58Speaker 06

  Okay, I'm following. Uh oh.

• 1:24:02Speaker 05

  Phil, this, this, we're going back to a podcast question. I swear to God, we're gonna end it after this.

• 1:24:06Speaker 06

  Okay. Still a lot of pressure.

• 1:24:09Speaker 05

  From Tate Green, at the beginning of a some meat eater podcast on YouTube, there's a dude wipes commercial.

• 1:24:14Speaker 06

  I've never heard this commercial, but continue.

• 1:24:16Speaker 05

  There's a singing voice that sounds like it could be Phil.

• 1:24:19Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 1:24:20Speaker 05

  Is this you, Phil?

• 1:24:23Speaker 06

  No, I wish I could say it, it, it was me. It is not me. Uh, I'm flattered you think I can sing as well as that guy. He's, he's belting it and he's, he's really reaching for the stars there. Uh, nope, that's not me, but, um. I don't know. If I get tired of meat eater, I might like Nancy Kerrigan him and then I'll maybe take his job or something.

• 1:24:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:40Speaker 06

  Cause that's the only way. Yes, it's the, it truly is.

• 1:24:43Speaker 05

  I mean, you're already the best podcast engineer in the business and.

• 1:24:46Speaker 06

  Oh, shucks.

• 1:24:47Speaker 05

  In demand, stage actor, semi-professional gamer. World renowned dungeon master.

• 1:24:53Speaker 06

  World renowned.

• 1:24:54Speaker 05

  But you, you know, you might have time to get a side hustle singing jingles.

• 1:24:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, how's that song go?

• 1:25:01Speaker 05

  He won't sing it. He told me he wouldn't.

• 1:25:03Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, dude wipes needs to pay us more money if they want us to sing the song on the show.

• 1:25:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, nothing's free.

• 1:25:08Speaker 06

  Fork it out, dude wipes.

• 1:25:09Speaker 07

  What is your resolution? Don't we get a Phil resolution? That's what I was wondering.

• 1:25:13Speaker 06

  My mind is to read more.

• 1:25:15Speaker 05

  Hey, that's a good one. Solid. Always a good one.

• 1:25:18Speaker 07

  I'm with you on that.

• 1:25:19Speaker 06

  Any genre? Oh, nothing, nothing. I mean, it's fantasy, Cal. I don't know. I'm not reading any nonfiction around here.

• 1:25:27Speaker 05

  The Dungeon Master's Manual, uh, 23rd Edition.

• 1:25:31Speaker 06

  I, I, it's in my backpack up in my office right now.

• 1:25:35Speaker 07

  Amazing.

• 1:25:36Speaker 05

  All right, everyone. Happy New Year. Happy Holidays. Do good in 2026 and tune in next week. Later.

• 1:25:45Speaker 06

  Here, here.

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• 1:27:52Speaker 00

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