Ep. 710: MeatEater Radio Live! Noodle the Morel Dog and Kayak Bassing

Hosts Spencer Neuharth https://www.themeateater.com/people/spencer-neuharth, Ryan Callaghan https://www.themeateater.com/people/ryan-callaghan, and Brody Henderson https://www.themeateater.com/people/brody-henderson, talk with Ellen and her mushroom-hunting dog, Noodle, find out how much Cal and Brody know about their fellow outdoorsmen with a game of Meat Poll, play a round of 1-Minute Fishing with Kristine Fischer in Oklahoma, chat with Brock Wahl about the newly formed North American Pronghorn Foundation, and review listener hot tips about parenting in the outdoors with a special guest judge 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

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 2:26Speaker 03

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

• 2:48Speaker 04

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 1 p.m. for our friends in Simpsonville, Kentucky on Thursday, May 29th, and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host Spencer, joined today by Cal and Brody. On today's show, we'll talk to Ellen and her mushroom hunting dog, Noodle. Then we'll find out how much Cal and Brody know about their fellow outdoorsmen with a game of meat pole. After that, we've got one-minute fishing with Christine Fisher in Oklahoma, followed by an interview with Brock Wahl about the newly-formed North American Pronghorn Foundation. And finally, we've got a hot tip-off with a special guest judge about parenting in the outdoors. First, Cal, Brody, I don't want a hunting update. I don't want a fishing update

• 3:32Speaker 04

  from you guys. I want a garden update. How the garden's looking?

• 3:36Speaker 05

  Garden's in. I mean, it's early days, right?

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. What's gonna be different this year, Brody?

• 3:41Speaker 05

  Oh, we do something different every year. I let the boys pick. We're doing some corn this year, which will be new for us.

• 3:47Speaker 04

  Okay. That was of interest to them?

• 3:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's what they wanted.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  So what'd you leave behind to?

• 3:52Speaker 05

  I just like buying the six dollars, like, six for three-dollar, you know, pack of corn at the grocery store.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 3:58Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, it's standard stuff. Tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, uh, pole beans, lots of herbs, just standard stuff.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  You feeling optimistic this year?

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, man. I grow an awesome garden every year.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  It doesn't like, just go to hell when you leave for a week to go fishing at Fort Pack or something?

• 4:18Speaker 05

  No. No, I just water the shit out of it and then put mulch down and it's good. Like, as long as it's later. If you did that this time of year, you'd be trouble, but in August, it's like...

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Cal, give us a garden update. How are things looking?

• 4:32Speaker 06

  We had a real, serious talk, the lady and I, um, and, and came to the conclusion that it's just not worth doing a garden this year.

• 4:42Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 4:43Speaker 06

  Um, because of lots of overlapping travel, like, nobody, and, you know, it's just not a high producer anyway, with our setup. Um, so we have garlic and onions.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:57Speaker 06

  Pretty decent staples. Yeah. Uh, but I, my mom is, if anybody needs a sweet little farm outside of the Billings, Montana area, uh, the folks are selling out. Ninety acres irrigated, right outside of Shepherd. It's a sweet spot. Kill geese there all the time.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Hmm. How many trees are on this property?

• 5:17Speaker 06

  Trees?

• 5:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:18Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  For tree stands?

• 5:19Speaker 06

  Well, a bunch of cottonwoods.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:21Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 5:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, would they fit, would a tree stand fit in one of them?

• 5:25Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:27Speaker 06

  Yeah. And you, you would attract wildlife because it is like zero, um, habitat anywhere around there.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:37Speaker 06

  Uh, cause it is just wall-to-wall farming.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Good salesman.

• 5:39Speaker 06

  But yeah, great spot. And, um,

• 5:44Speaker 06

  if it wasn't, just weren't so many people, I'd be buying that thing. Anyway, um, she's got a tremendous garden, always has. And

• 5:52Speaker 04

  Comes with the farm?

• 5:53Speaker 06

  Comes with the farm. And now it's, it's pretty funny, cause it's just like all the volunteer stuff that's coming up. And so we picked cilantro and, and lettuce and, uh, hit the asparagus patch. And this is where the conflict comes in.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 6:08Speaker 06

  We're pulling asparagus, right? Because I'm like, yeah, you guys aren't, place is gonna sell.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:14Speaker 06

  I'm pulling asparagus and my mom's like, what the hell are you doing? You gotta cut that off beneath the soil line.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 6:22Speaker 06

  Or it won't grow back.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:24Speaker 06

  And I was kinda like, well, you guys are leaving. What's the, anyway. Um, but Then hop on a plane, go to Wisconsin, see bubbly Doug and out there at the Durin Farm. They have a tremendous asparagus patch.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 6:39Speaker 06

  And I notice that Doug's lovely wife Trish, AKA Trish the Dish, as I like to call her.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  Who else calls you that?

• 6:47Speaker 06

  Nobody. I'm trying to establish it though. And, um, I mean, she is such a sweet person that I just try to make sure that Doug knows that as well.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 6:58Speaker 06

  And he does.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:59Speaker 06

  But, uh, amazing asparagus patch. And none of them are cut off low.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 7:06Speaker 06

  And so I said, Trish, man, what's the, what's the deal? Aren't you supposed to? And she's like, yep, you are. I just never do and look at the results.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  I just saw a Facebook argument about this, uh, like last week about the same thing. Someone was mad at their neighbor for stealing from their ditch asparagus patch.

• 7:26Speaker 06

  And doing it the wrong way?

• 7:27Speaker 04

  Well, not only were they thieving it, uh, but also those MFers, uh, were doing it the wrong way by not taking it down to the soil. Uh, it seemed like in the comments, folks were mostly on their side, saying you have to take it off below the soil. And then there were other people saying it doesn't matter. Never noticed the difference.

• 7:44Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, there's foraging etiquette rules, right?

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 7:47Speaker 06

  That we should all live by.

• 7:49Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 7:50Speaker 06

  Because if done properly, it's going to be there year after year after year.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  You hear the same thing said with Morel mushrooms?

• 7:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 7:56Speaker 04

  That like you're supposed to cut instead of pull. That one is totally false.

• 8:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, leave the stumps in the ground.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  You can pull those things right out of the ground. Uh, that's like plucking an apple off of a tree. Um, you're not, you're just taking the apple, even if you pull the whole thing out, you're not taking the whole tree away. Um, they're all that mycelium underneath, it's still going to produce a mushroom if it wants to the next year. That little stump isn't going to help or hurt anything.

• 8:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'd, but they, they'll grow in clumps, right? So I've like gone back and picked the same spot.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 8:24Speaker 06

  During that, like that same like week long period of real fruit harvest, right?

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:30Speaker 06

  Um, and have seen plenty of mushrooms growing up next to stumps, but.

• 8:36Speaker 06

  I know, I know you're right.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 06

  It's just.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  It's hard to break that.

• 8:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  It's also a little cleaner. Uh, if you, if you take the whole thing off, like if you, if you pull it out of the ground.

• 8:45Speaker 06

  You're gonna get some dirt.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, like five to 10% more mushroom, but you may trim that off at home anyway.

• 8:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. And then in the bag, that dirty stumps rolling around.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 8:56Speaker 06

  And it's getting in the gills of the mushrooms and it's just more cleaning.

• 9:00Speaker 04

  Plus you could look at it two ways. Either you are letting other folks know, because I'll come across someone else's Morrell stumps.

• 9:06Speaker 06

  Oh, which is horrible.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  They beat me here.

• 9:08Speaker 06

  It's like coming across a giant surface poop with tons of white flagging all over the place.

• 9:14Speaker 05

  Or a big gut pile.

• 9:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Fresh boot tracks that come in from some, you're the only truck at the trailhead.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 9:22Speaker 06

  Fresh snow on the ground to set the scene.

• 9:26Speaker 06

  Hell of a blizzard the night before. The time, like everything's right. You're, you're the first person there.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  One set of tracks and you're like, that whole spot's blown out.

• 9:34Speaker 06

  And for whatever reason, somebody hiked over the hill from a different angle and he cut boot tracks about a mile in.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 9:40Speaker 06

  Then you're just like, yeah, man.

• 9:41Speaker 04

  So when I find those stumps, someone else has bested me. They, they've like got me there, but now I know there were Morel there.

• 9:48Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  So they're, they're leaving me a little bit of information.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. It's like people who have to put a trail camera up everywhere.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Speaking of foraging, let's get to our first interview. Joining us on the line now is Ellen and her mushroom hunting dog, Noodle. Ellen and Noodle, welcome to the show.

• 10:05Speaker 07

  Thank you so much for having us.

• 10:07Speaker 04

  First thing, Ellen, tell us about Noodle. How old is she? What kind of dog is she? Where'd you get her?

• 10:13Speaker 07

  So Noodle is four and a half years old. Um, I got her actually, it was a long story of kind of fate how I ended up with her, but I ultimately picked her up at a children's rodeo in Northern California. She's a half lab, half border collie. As far as I know from an unwanted litter.

• 10:33Speaker 04

  Okay. And we can see Noodle. Noodle is with Ellen right now for the interview. Uh, you should go watch this episode. You'll get to see the dog we're talking about, plus Phil some has, Phil has some photos of Noodle foraging. Now, how have you ever met another mushroom hunting dog in your life?

• 10:50Speaker 07

  You know, I've spoken to a couple people online who are maybe training or trying to, and I actually used to live in Italy where a lot of people use truffle dogs. So I was inspired by that. Oh, you want your ball, huh?

• 11:08Speaker 07

  And so that did inspire me, but I haven't met anybody in person yet. I'd love to meet up with somebody else who has a mushroom dog, though.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  Okay, and how long has Noodle had this special talent?

• 11:18Speaker 07

  So I taught her about three years ago. She was a little over a year old when I first taught her our first Morel season.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  And tell us about the training process for teaching Noodle to find mushrooms.

• 11:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, so there's a lot of info out there on kind of proper scent training protocol. I'll just say I didn't do any of that. I just kind of winged it out in the woods. One day I pointed to a Morel and I just said, where's the mushroom? She sniffed it. I immediately threw a stick for her because she is a mushroom dog. She's just absolutely fetch crazy. She will die trying to get that ball. So I threw a stick for her. I called her back to the same Morel, pointed at it, threw the stick again. Then I went to a third Morel and she really, within 15 minutes, had just cracked the code. And she was off running 200 feet away, just waiting for me to throw the ball for her.

• 12:11Speaker 06

  That's that Labrador brain, right there.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Now, what was the most challenging part of teaching Noodle to find mushrooms?

• 12:19Speaker 07

  You know, honestly, it was surprisingly easy, but I'd say at the beginning, it was a little hard to get her to differentiate, okay, which mushrooms are good, which mushrooms are bad. But she did, I mean, she figured it out quickly. It's like if she sniffed the wrong kind of mushroom, I'm like, no, that's not a mushroom. You don't get a stick. So she figured it out fast.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  Now, in most videos, I see Noodle finding Morel mushrooms. What are the other good mushrooms that she'll help you find?

• 12:47Speaker 07

  So she has about seven varieties. We do Morels. We taught her chantrels afterwards. Then matsutake, we do porcini, um, handicaps she taught herself, which was pretty annoying. Uh, because she saw me collecting them and then she was like, I want to get in on this and started trampling them. But, um, uh, we also do black trumpets if I didn't say that one.

• 13:15Speaker 04

  Okay. Sounds like Noodle has taught herself this skill for the most part. Now, how does she alert you when she finds a good mushroom?

• 13:23Speaker 07

  You know that position that dogs get in when they're waiting for you to throw the ball and they're kind of crouched down? Just add attention. She just crouches by the mushroom and gets that alert look on her face. And if I don't see it, I'll often say, show me. And then she taps it with her nose. And if I, she thinks I'm being a total idiot and I really can't see it, she smacks it with her paw. Okay. She knocks them out of the ground completely.

• 13:49Speaker 06

  That's awesome.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  Extra helpful. Uh, now you said the reward is throwing a stick or a ball. That's, that's what you do every time she finds a good mushroom?

• 13:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, if it's a good one, if it's a little nasty, I say, ah, that's nasty, find another. Or if she's really found a cluster and she's going from mushroom to mushroom, I say, all right, you have to just lay down and wait for me to collect all of these and then you'll get your reward.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  That's great. Now Morels are not toxic for dogs. Does Noodle ever get to eat them or express any interest in eating them?

• 14:20Speaker 07

  Well, I will actually clarify that a bit because while Morels are not toxic, they're actually toxic raw. And there was even a poisoning that included some deaths in the last few years, I believe in Montana. That's kind of highly debated in the mushroom world. But they are toxic raw for both humans and dogs. Um, so always cook your Morels super thoroughly. You basically can't overcook them, but don't eat them raw. Um, I, you know, she'll occasionally bite them or lick them. Really not, not much of a bite. She's not enough to eat anything, but I have her pretty well trained on not eating food that I don't want her to eat. So I haven't actually given her any mushrooms before.

• 15:02Speaker 07

  I don't really wanna give her much of a taste for it. I've heard with truffle pigs, one of the risks, because they're not quite as trainable, they will bite the owner's hands or the trainer's hands while the trainer's harvesting the truffle. So I wanna avoid that more or less.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. What has been Noodle's best ever day of foraging?

• 15:23Speaker 07

  Gosh, I mean, that's a tough one. Every time she finds, every time I train her in a new species. So I would say the second, second species I taught her in was chanterelles, and it actually took her a lot longer than the morrels. We went up to Mendocino, and there's just, it's such a rich diversity of fungal activity. There were so many mushrooms everywhere. So she was getting distracted, but when she finally pinpointed like, okay, these are the ones that she wants. She doesn't want any of these other ones. We found over fifty pounds in like, you know, an hour or two, and I sold some to a restaurant. It was great. So that was a highlight for sure.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  That is great. How is the morrel season been for you so far this year in Northern California?

• 16:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's been pretty hit or miss. Um, I'd say we got hot, we don't, we didn't have great snowpack in the Sierra this season. Um, it dried up a little quickly, so my lower elevation spots, like three thousand, that, that range, the mid-range, really dried up fast. And then now we're having some, I, I'm not having a bad season in the higher elevation.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  Okay, good, good for you guys. Good for Noodle. Uh, if folks wanna follow along with you and Noodle's mushroom hunting adventures, how can they do so?

• 16:40Speaker 07

  We've got an Instagram page. It's really good noodle, and I've got a lot of videos of her running around in the woods, getting up to adventures together. And we do have TikTok as well, same name, not as active there, though.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  One of my favorite follows on social media, uh, is Ellen in Noodle. Uh, thank you, guys, for joining us. Please tell Noodle she's a good girl, and we're very impressed with her foraging skills.

• 17:02Speaker 07

  Thanks so much for having us.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 17:05Speaker 06

  That's sweet.

• 17:06Speaker 04

  Cal, I love Snort. Snort's a great dog.

• 17:08Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:08Speaker 04

  I'd rather have a mushroom hunting dog.

• 17:10Speaker 06

  I think

• 17:11Speaker 04

  That's special.

• 17:12Speaker 06

  Good hunting dog can hunt anything.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  That's right. Okay. I'd like to see you teach Snort. It sounds like if, if the dog is into it, uh, there's not a lot to, to do.

• 17:21Speaker 06

  Yep. And I mean, yeah. It's the prey drive plus the praise drive.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. What kind of praise does Snort get when she's, uh, being a good girl on a hunt?

• 17:32Speaker 06

  Well, you know, like she doesn't want to be, I, I give her praise.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  Uh-huh.

• 17:39Speaker 06

  Really, she wants food at the end of the day. Uh, she, but man, during a hunt, you can't hardly touch her.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, her praise is, her praise is just finding a bird.

• 17:49Speaker 06

  Right.

• 17:49Speaker 05

  That's all she needs.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Leave her alone.

• 17:51Speaker 06

  Oh, she wants that bird so bad. Yeah. Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  All right. Our next segment is Meat Pole. I said, show me a meat boy to take my pole. Welcome to me in radio. I got a game to play.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  Meat Pole is a test of how much you know about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed 500 Meat Eater listeners about the outdoors. Your job is to predict their answers. There are three questions. Whoever is closest to the correct answer between Cal and Brody gets a point and whoever gets two points will be the winner. Also, the chat should play along because Phil is going to watch your answers and give a shout out to whoever is closest.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  I'm not falling. What if, what if we both get two points?

• 18:38Speaker 04

  There's only three questions, so that won't happen.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Oh, I got you.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  One of you is going to get a point each question.

• 18:43Speaker 05

  I got you.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Um, and that's, that's how we're going to settle this thing. All right. Question one. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have washed their pickup in the last month?

• 18:55Speaker 05

  We supposed to write this down?

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Write, write down an answer. Hide your answer. That's right. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have washed their pickup in the last month? Now, for this question, I said for pickup owners only, uh, which happened to be about 90% of folks who took this survey. So what percentage of those people have washed their pickup in the last month? Cal, when's the last time you washed your pickup?

• 19:19Speaker 06

  I am not a good vehicle washer, never ever, ever have been.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Okay, that doesn't surprise me.

• 19:26Speaker 06

  But, part of my Memorial Day cleanup was vacuuming out the truck. And with the dog hair in the sand and all the stuff, and then I did, uh, what, I wasn't intending to wash the truck, but I needed to spray out the floor mats.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 19:44Speaker 06

  Cause they were real gnarly. And, uh, so I did, ended up hosing off the truck.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  I bet I go through a car wash, I don't know, four or five times a year, not that often. I'm, I'm conscious of it. If I go on a hunt where I think I'm gonna end up asking for permission.

• 19:57Speaker 06

  Oh yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  Because when I go knock on someone's door, and if, if I had just like a filthy, dirty, muddy pickup, they're gonna be thinking, this guy wants to drive through my field. Uh, that's gonna be a big no, because one of the first things, if I do get permission, uh, they'll say is just don't drive anywhere. Don't drive through any gates, don't drive through any fields. Um, so I, I try to be aware of that. I don't wanna show up with a, with a sparkling clean pickup either, because then that sends a different message. Uh, but if that thing just looks like I, I drove it through a big old mud puddle, that's no good for me.

• 20:26Speaker 06

  No, it's not. Yeah, I mean, but there's also like the noxious weed side of things, right? Like vehicles are a huge vector for spreading bad things around.

• 20:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, and that stuff, like, you're driving around, say out in eastern Montana in the gumbo, and that stuff gets glued to the bottom of your truck, like, you gotta get rid of it.

• 20:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Hey Phil, do you have any bed of music to play while we, uh, while we do this?

• 20:47Speaker 06

  Uh, nothing original.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  Oh, that's okay. Do you boys have an answer for what percentage of MeDude listeners have washed their pickup in the last month? Go ahead and reveal your answers.

• 20:57Speaker 06

  This, I, the one came off.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  Okay, alright.

• 21:00Speaker 06

  So I'm not cheating?

• 21:01Speaker 04

  Brody says 71%, Cal says 41%. The correct answer. Is thirty point five percent. So Cal gets that first point. Thirty point five percent of Mead Eater listeners have washed their pickup-

• 21:17Speaker 05

  Bunch of dirtbags not washing their stuff.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  In the last month. One study showed that the average person washes their car thirteen times a year.

• 21:26Speaker 05

  Whoa.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  That same study showed that seventy-nine percent of people go to a car wash versus twenty-one percent of people who wash their car at home. But when it comes to the interior, the average person cleans the inside of their car once a year.

• 21:39Speaker 05

  Whoa. I just paid my boys to detail my truck.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  Oh, are they, are they, can I hire them too?

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Well, depends how much you wanna-

• 21:47Speaker 04

  What'd you charge, what'd they charge?

• 21:49Speaker 05

  The quality of the job is gonna be based on how much you're willing to pay them.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  What'd you pay them?

• 21:52Speaker 05

  I was a little underwhelmed and I had to up the ante for the-

• 21:56Speaker 04

  Was it about fifty bucks?

• 21:57Speaker 05

  They split fifty.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Okay. Did it seem like a fifty dollar job to you?

• 22:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was worth it to me. I didn't want to spend a couple hours doing that, you know?

• 22:07Speaker 06

  Montana Hunter said twenty-eight.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Oh, well done, Montana Hunter. You were two percentage points off. All right, question two. What percentage of Mead Eater listeners have ever bitten into a BB?

• 22:20Speaker 04

  What percentage of Mead Eater listeners have ever bitten into a BB?

• 22:24Speaker 05

  You're talking like any kind of pellet, like not a BB like a BB gun?

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, any kind of pellet.

• 22:29Speaker 05

  Shotgun pellet.

• 22:30Speaker 06

  But it does like bring it down-

• 22:32Speaker 04

  Thank you, Phil. That ups, that makes it so much better what we're doing here. What percentage of Mead Eater listeners have ever bitten into a BB? Cal, how many BBs in your lifetime? I'm gonna guess like five or six.

• 22:44Speaker 06

  Oh buddy, I got two cracked teeth in my face right now, so-

• 22:47Speaker 04

  Five or six a year?

• 22:48Speaker 06

  Oh yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  So how many? What's the number?

• 22:51Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  Twenty.

• 22:55Speaker 06

  I, I, I was gonna say thirty, but I thought that sounded dramatic, but it's definitely higher than twenty.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Do you think you've gotten better or worse in your lifetime about cleaning BBs out of stuff?

• 23:06Speaker 06

  Well, technology is a mother scratcher.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:09Speaker 06

  Number nine tungsten?

• 23:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:11Speaker 06

  Holy cow, dude. Buried like-

• 23:14Speaker 05

  In the bottom of a thigh or a breast. Uh huh.

• 23:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, you can't find that stuff.

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Probably swallowed.

• 23:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Several of them.

• 23:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:22Speaker 05

  Without knowing they're there.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  How about you, Brody? How many BBs have you bitten into?

• 23:25Speaker 05

  Dozens. Like, I mean, like, there's degrees of biting, too. It's like, oh, I feel it, and I just spit it out, no big deal. And there's like, wham, you come down on it with both molars. That's rough.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm at single digits, but it's because one, like, the last experience was really bad, where I'm like, I'm never gonna let that happen again. I'm gonna clean these things so thorough, or I'm gonna cut the meat so thin, a BB is never gonna make it onto my dinner plate.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, they just find a way in there, man.

• 23:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, when you get the one that, like, there's like a mammalian spinal reflex that happens when you're...

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's almost like, it's not, it's like, as shocking as a bad electric shock.

• 24:06Speaker 06

  Yes, oh yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 05

  It goes all the way down your spine.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Ruins the meal.

• 24:09Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  So what percentage of Meat Eater listeners have ever bitten into a BB? Are you boys ready?

• 24:15Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 24:15Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Brody saying eighty-eight percent. Cal says sixty-three percent. One of you is within three points of the correct answer. The correct answer is sixty-five point nine percent. Cal is on fire.

• 24:32Speaker 06

  Man of people here.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Eighty percent of Americans over the age of forty have had at least one cracked or fractured tooth in their lifetime. The most common foods that crack teeth are hard candy, nuts, ice, popcorn kernels, and bone-in meat. Uh, that study I was looking at never said anything about pellets, but I imagine our audience is very familiar with that feeling you boys are describing.

• 24:55Speaker 06

  I think, uh, you overestimated how many bird hunters we have. I think that's the...

• 25:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, but ducks, pheasants, turkeys, I mean...

• 25:05Speaker 06

  They're all birds. One thing in common.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  I know, just like, I'm a little disappointed.

• 25:10Speaker 04

  All right, question three.

• 25:12Speaker 06

  We had the Broke Three Gunner saying sixty-seven, so good job.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  Damn, one percentage point off. Here's question three. We'll see if Cal can get the clean sweep and make Brody run around the office naked, as is tradition, when you get skunked.

• 25:25Speaker 06

  Naked lap.

• 25:26Speaker 04

  What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer right now?

• 25:32Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 25:34Speaker 06

  That's a tough one for a Montana kid.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  You do. What do you got?

• 25:37Speaker 06

  Gertrude, leeches?

• 25:38Speaker 05

  From the garden? Got some crawlers and leeches.

• 25:41Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. How you gonna spend those?

• 25:43Speaker 06

  What do you mean, spend them?

• 25:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, it's fishing currency. What are you gonna do with them?

• 25:47Speaker 05

  Catch a bunch of walleye, hopefully. Maybe some perch.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer right now? I have some deer liver that earmarked for some catfish on the Yellowstone River later this summer, so I've got some in my freezer. How about you, Cal? Any bait in your home right now? It's staying cold.

• 26:09Speaker 06

  You already asked the question, but I feel like

• 26:13Speaker 06

  old meat doesn't qualify for this question, or shouldn't?

• 26:17Speaker 04

  Oh, I think folks would know if they put it in their freezer for the purpose of catching a fish. They'd probably answered honestly. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have fishing bait in their fridge or freezer right now?

• 26:33Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 26:33Speaker 04

  Boys, ready?

• 26:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 04

  Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying 38 and Brody saying 50.

• 26:41Speaker 04

  It's a clean sweep for Cal. The correct answer is 34.9%. Cal dominated today. Very close on every one of these questions. He's declared it before. He's a man of the people, but this game really proves it.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  Phil, we set higher hopes for people.

• 26:56Speaker 06

  Will you take that Spencer Neuharth sound clip? That might be the nicest thing he ever says about me, and we need to memorialize that someplace.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  Americans spend $1.5 billion on live bait and natural bait each year. That's 50% more than they spend on lures and flies and 20% less than they spend on boat fuel. Bait accounts for about 13% of all fishing-related expenses.

• 27:21Speaker 06

  And Ryan Carlson said 34.5.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Damn, .4 percentage points off. 35% of people who are listening to this show have bait in their fridge or freezer right now.

• 27:35Steven Rinella?

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• 29:59Speaker 04

  All right, moving on, our next segment is one minute fishing.

• 30:04Speaker 06

  Choosing bait.

• 30:06Speaker 06

  Well, do you?

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Find out in a second.

• 30:08Speaker 06

  Go ahead. Make my cast. You brought in a ringer here, didn't you?

• 30:13Speaker 04

  We were trying to. One minute fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish. And if they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. This week, our angler is Christine Fisher, aka Midwest Fisher Gal on Instagram. She's on Ten Killer Lake in Oklahoma and fishing for a donation to the First Wisconsin Chapter of Muskie's, Inc. Christine, welcome to the show.

• 30:39Speaker 07

  Hey, guys. How's it going?

• 30:40Speaker 04

  We're doing good. Christine is pre-fishing for a tournament today. So tell us about the tournament that you'll be competing in.

• 30:47Speaker 07

  So I am practicing for the Bass Master Kayak Open here on Lake Ten Killer in Oklahoma. I think it's the third open of the year. I've only fished here one time before. We had a championship here last year, different time of year, but this lake is gorgeous, has big, smallmouth, largemouth. I've had a pretty good bite going with the fish. The lake is about seven foot flooded. The fish are kind of spread out. They're post spawn. So bites are few and far between, but when you can get them to eat, they're pretty, pretty good size.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Okay, tell us about your kayak setup that you got there.

• 31:22Speaker 07

  I'm fishing out of a Hobie Pro Angler 14360. I'm heating. I got a little motor on the back because, you know, we get lazy in our old age. I have two low rants graphs up front.

• 31:37Speaker 07

  I've got about 15 rods with me right now. I've got a few different patterns going. I'm trying to just break down this lake. I didn't get a ton of, don't get a ton of practice on this one. But yeah, it's a pretty good setup. I love it. It's comfortable. I can stand up. I usually stand and fish and use these two little foot pedals right here for control steering. So I can set my motor on, you know, a mile and a half an hour, stand up, use my stands, power fish and run a pattern. It's, it's pretty effective for me.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Amazing little boat. Now Christine has fished in 171 kayak bass tournaments. She's placed in the top 10 in 60 of them and took first place in 10 of them. So Christine, give some advice to folks listening who want to catch more fish from a kayak.

• 32:24Speaker 07

  So the best advice I can give, you gotta get out there and do it first and foremost. Kayaks are great because it forces you to kind of really learn an area. So I always advocate for kayak fishing, but I always tell people, fish your confidence, fish your strength. If you, if you hear the doc talk that people are crushing them on a crank pan on a square bill and you don't necessarily love throwing a square bill, you're not going to catch those fish. So I always tell people, when it's tournament time, when it comes down to putting fish in the boat, you need to fish your strength, no matter where you're at, just try to find water that suits your strength. And, because at the end of the day, fishing how you like to fish, that makes it a lot more fun, too.

• 33:03Speaker 04

  Good advice. Now, for the one minute of fishing, what kind of area are you in and what kind of lure are you throwing?

• 33:09Speaker 07

  Well, so, like I said, my, uh, my big smallmouth, big largemouth bait is few and far between. Um, so I came out to this little, uh, little island out here in the middle of the lake and I found some scattered bait and there's some white bass. I've actually caught two of them while you guys were talking.

• 33:27Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 33:27Speaker 07

  So I'm just, I really wanna, yeah, I wanna be able to catch just a fish here. So I've got a little, little paddle tail swim bait and there's a scattered bait and there's some white bass kind of cruising in the area. I don't know if I can do it in a minute, but I'm gonna try.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  Okay, and standing or sitting?

• 33:43Speaker 07

  Um, I'm gonna sit because if I stand and I'm setting you guys down on my kayak, 90% sure my phone will go in the water. So we don't want to donate a phone to the drink. I've done that a lot, not, not today.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  Is it intimidating to know that all of your tournament experience is culminating right now at Meat Eater One Minute Fishing?

• 34:03Speaker 07

  I'm not gonna lie, I usually don't cave under pressure, but I'm feeling the pressure on this one, you guys. I want, I want the Wisconsin muskie guys to get, get a little donation because I fish muskies up there all the time and I, I don't know, I mean, this is more important than winning this tournament, honestly, in my opinion.

• 34:18Speaker 06

  I love that attitude. I'm rooting for you.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  All right, Christine, your one minute of fishing starts as soon as you make your first cast.

• 34:26Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 34:29Speaker 07

  Okay. Let's see.

• 34:33Speaker 06

  Pick your spot. Oh.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  All right, she's made her first cast. Got an interesting perspective here.

• 34:40Speaker 06

  This is great.

• 34:40Speaker 04

  I've never watched someone fish from the bottom of their feet before.

• 34:43Speaker 07

  Don't, don't put this on feet finder.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  Christine, you're 15 seconds in.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  So a little paddle tail, there's some overcast today. Conditions look good, maybe a slight breeze.

• 35:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, I like it.

• 35:03Speaker 07

  I got to cast again.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  30 seconds to go. She's gonna make another cast.

• 35:07Speaker 06

  Got time for another cast, I love it. That's some crucial mental game right there.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 35:13Speaker 06

  Do you keep playing it or do you recast?

• 35:15Speaker 04

  20 seconds to go, Christine.

• 35:19Speaker 07

  My heart's beating.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  10 seconds left. Smack it. Need one white bass.

• 35:31Speaker 07

  Oh, they just came after me.

• 35:33Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  She had a bite right at the end. Uh, your one minute is up. Tell us what happened there, Christine.

• 35:42Speaker 07

  Man, I had a little group of them right there and yeah, I, I didn't catch them. They came after it, but like I said, I've caught two here in the last couple of minutes.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 35:53Speaker 07

  Um, I think, I think I, I think they got smart to what I was doing.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  Okay, they knew you were now on the show and not just pre-fishing for the show.

• 36:03Speaker 07

  Dang thing. I probably just thrown the, I've been catching these big smallmouth on a big seven inch swimbait and under skipping in our docks and around some flooded cover. I probably just should have rolled the dice with that.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  I got one last question, Christine. Uh, 10 Killer Lake is known for a, a mythical freshwater octopus. Have you seen any evidence of the freshwater octopus this week?

• 36:26Speaker 07

  No, but I think isn't a unagi, isn't octopus, isn't that Japanese unagi? That's one of my favorite like shishimi things. So if I do find some, I'll let you guys know how that tastes.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  Keep your eyes peeled.

• 36:37Speaker 07

  But no, I have not.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  I'd love to know more about that.

• 36:40Speaker 07

  Definitely not, uh, not seen any.

• 36:42Speaker 04

  Okay. The 10 killer octopus continues to be elusive. All right. Thank you for joining us, Christine. Good luck in the tournament this week.

• 36:49Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 36:49Speaker 07

  Thanks guys.

• 36:50Speaker 06

  Good job.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  Have you ever seen a kayak like that?

• 36:55Speaker 06

  Man, it intense, like an arms race of kayaking, like all things.

• 36:59Speaker 05

  It's, yeah, it's impressive. I mean, there's guys that are like doing offshore blue water fishing in those.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  Oh, big time, yeah.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's, it's pretty cool.

• 37:09Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  All right, we're halfway through the show. Let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say?

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, Leland, our guy says, Cal, what are you looking forward to most about BHA rendezvous?

• 37:21Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, we got rendezvous coming up, uh, starting. I'm going to be there all week, but it's June, like 14, 15, 16.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Where at? Missoula?

• 37:31Speaker 06

  In Missoula, Montana. Yep. Um, great people, fantastic people. Uh, we got a bunch of stuff to recap. We gotta, uh, keep folks motivated on public lands. We got corner crossing cases is getting revived. Um, at this point, I kind of feel like we should be, uh, thanking Iron Bar Holdings because.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  They just keep, keep it.

• 37:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, because now it's going to the highest court in the land, which means corner crossing is going to be legal everywhere for certain. Um, and it's going to be on their dime, which is great.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  What, what's kind of the general temperature on that right now? Are people optimistic that they're going to side with the hunters and public land users?

• 38:10Speaker 06

  Well, you know, politics shouldn't come into play and stuff like this, right? Like a judge is supposed to be impartial. But I think that is the idea is that they're going to lean way more conservative and they're going to somehow turn it into a private property rights thing where I mean it just is not right. It's like you're stepping from public land to public land. There's a couple of bad actors out there that are trying to monopolize public land through the use of strategically purchased private land. But man, I feel really good about it. I mean, we have two federal court decisions.

• 38:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the thing is like the Supreme Court has to find a good reason to not agree with the decisions that were already made.

• 38:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think there's a high likelihood that the Supreme Court is going to be like, this is not worth our time or the taxpayers' time to review this. We defer to the lower courts.

• 39:06Speaker 04

  Sure. You expect there to be some chatter about that at the BHA rendezvous.

• 39:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, we'll have some panels on all the policy stuff and that's a huge reason that that people show up and we say like, here you get to follow your cash in person, right? Become a member. This is what you're paying for. This is what we're working on. Here's all the the issues that we're working across in North America. Plus, there's really good food and just it's it's a refreshing kind of refill your cup type of experience. It's not draining like like some of these events that we all put together are so.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  And Missoula is a good place to be in the summer.

• 39:46Speaker 06

  Missoula is a great place to be in the summer.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  What else you got, Phil?

• 39:49Speaker 06

  Uh, Spencer, I don't know if you watched the show last week, but there was some debate about if they preferred the Free Wheeling Yanni show or the professional, you know, show that that you run. But we've got a lot of people

• 40:00Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 40:00Speaker 06

  asking for random for hunting stories, for meandering hunting stories.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  You boys have any hunting stories?

• 40:07Speaker 06

  Haven't shared yet?

• 40:09Speaker 04

  I'm just trying to balance the shows out. You know, if we sat around and I don't want us to just talk about hunting stories every week. So I'm trying to be the yin to Yanni's yang.

• 40:19Speaker 06

  And I think I think that's good. I think I think it should be a different show, a different flavor based on who's hosting.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  I'll tell you this, Yanni is back in one of the host chairs next week. He's on a hunt right now. So expect some hunting stories then. But in the meantime, Cal Brody, anything to share?

• 40:35Speaker 05

  No, man, hunting season's over for me for a while. It's fishing season now.

• 40:39Speaker 04

  Garden season.

• 40:41Speaker 06

  On that note, Sebastian says, two days left of turkey hunting in New York, run and gun or sit and wait?

• 40:47Speaker 04

  Go find him, Sebastian.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  New York's a big state. Gotta know a little more.

• 40:52Speaker 06

  I mean, if you're already on birds, I would say sit and wait.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  Especially this time of year and things just are slowed down.

• 41:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, if you can get them to talk to you one time, I'm like, okay, they know we're here. That's kind of like the best, best move you can make, so.

• 41:10Speaker 04

  But this late in the year, there's probably a lot of vegetation for you to be sneaking around in. What else you got, Phil?

• 41:16Speaker 06

  Another one from Sebastian. Any update on the venison beef jerky contest?

• 41:20Speaker 04

  Oh, um, yeah, kind of. It's probably not going to happen, Sebastian. Uh, the suits here at Meat Eater said we shouldn't do that. We shouldn't invite folks to send us, uh, food that we're then going to eat, uh, because someone's going to get poisoned and then we're going to wind up in a lawsuit. So I, I think we're maybe working on a pivot. Um, I pounded the table hard for us to do this. The, the idea being that we're gonna, you know, bring in 30 venison jerkeys from across the country from listeners. We're going to eat them. We're going to rank the top three. Uh, we're going to hand out some big prizes, but the suit says, no, you're not. So that's where we're at right now, Sebastian. Maybe later this year, maybe 2026. Uh, that's, that's your update.

• 42:03Speaker 06

  Russell says he's going out for Idaho Spring Bear, June 13th to 14th, a little later than usual. Should I not use the distress call or, yeah, should I not use the distress call or stay with it? He says he always spots and stalks, but this lady's looking for a cruising boar.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  Cal?

• 42:17Speaker 06

  Man, yeah, that, believe me, I don't plug stuff just to plug stuff, but that Phelps, uh, fawn in distress call, and you just make it sound like in your mind, you want a crying human infant.

• 42:32Speaker 05

  Like sick and dying human infant.

• 42:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. And you just have that, you have that in your mind as you're hitting that call. And you are not going to see like a crazy amount of action, but it weeds out smaller bears. So you're either going to get a big sow or a very confident. And should be large bore.

• 42:56Speaker 05

  Could end up be right, happening right in your face, too.

• 43:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I, yeah, I'm not afraid to scream on that thing. Love it.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Find yourself a sick baby, Russell.

• 43:06Speaker 06

  All right, one, one more quick one. Cody, can Phil make a new drop for the trivia tiebreaker question? I think you're a, you're a plant from Spencer, Cody, because he's also asked for that. And I think I've got, I've got some spare time in the next couple of weeks. I'll try to knock one out.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  Okay. The people are looking forward to it. Now he's, he's made a promise on air, so it's gonna happen. Oh. All right, moving on. Joining us on the line last is Brock Wahl, the founder of the newly formed North American Pronghorn Foundation. Brock, welcome to the show.

• 43:35Speaker 05

  Hey, guys. Thanks for, uh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, we are too. The, the North American Pronghorn Foundation is the only conservation group that's dedicated to antelope. Tell us about how and why it was formed.

• 43:49Speaker 05

  Uh, sure. Yeah. Uh, first I would like to say too, that there are a couple of state-based uh, conservation groups dedicated to pronghorn in Arizona and South Dakota are the, are the two that I know of. Uh, but we are indeed the only nationwide one that is focused on uh, pronghorn throughout North America, the entire continent. So, uh, just wanted to, to make sure that those, those state-based uh, groups gets, get some, uh, some love there. But, uh, we really got started on, um, Randy Newberg's Hunt Talk forum. Uh, there was just kind of a conversation that took place. Um, some, some guys are asking why, why one doesn't exist. And, uh, a few of us got together and said, well, uh, there's no, no, no better time to start than now. So,

• 44:33Speaker 05

  um, we filed articles of incorporation and, uh, in 2024 and, and got started. And, uh, we really felt like, you know, there, there's a variety of reasons in terms of our why, but, you know, everything from, you know, pronghorn populations just struggling a little bit, you know, habitat problems, migration issues, uh, to also just, you know, the, with the amount of development that's going on and the amount of uh, pressure that, you know, this Western hunting is receiving, uh, there's also just this need. To get more resources on the ground, whether you know, whether that's the pronghorn or sage grouse or mule deer, I mean, there's a whole host of species that benefit from the same landscapes that pronghorn do. So we really just felt like there was just no reason not to have this group

• 45:18Speaker 05

  and no reason not to get it started.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  And what are the current initiatives of the North American Pronghorn Foundation?

• 45:27Speaker 05

  Well, right now, you know, we're still new. So we're just just over a month old. We went live on April 21st here of this year. And so so far, the things that we've been focused on are trying to get some policy comments out there in for some BLM stuff and for some migration corridor designations. And then we're also working on trying to set up a fencing project here in Northeast Montana. Not 100% sure if that's gonna all come together here this year, but we're we're super excited about it because we're able to, you know, get some local stakeholders on the ground, both landowners, other conservation groups, and utilize some GPS caller data from

• 46:10Speaker 05

  pronghorn in that exact area. So we're really hoping to to bring that added value to that pronghorn research in cooperation with a bunch of partners. And then, you know, really, I don't know that this will be really qualify as an initiative, but really, membership growth is a big priority right now. You know, we have some really lofty goals and we'd really like to be able to do some big things around around the entire West. And in order to do that, we're gonna need a lot of money. And so, membership growth is really something that we're focused on and really trying to grow that membership so we can take that money, turn it around, and put it right on the ground.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  Data shows that pronghorn populations are down about 20% across the entire continent over the last few years. Talk to us about what the greatest challenges they're facing is and why that might be.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's a few things that pronghorn are really struggling with and one is winters, obviously, and I think, you know, you probably wouldn't be correct to say that, well, there's not much we're going to be able to do about winters. And that's true. However, you know, it's when we, when we highlight the fact that winters are increasing mortality, there's a couple of variables there that I think are really important to point out as to what is making those winters, you know, so hard on pronghorn. And certainly, you know, extreme winters with a lot of snowpack, there's, there's going to be some die-off and you can't really do anything about that. However, you know, we have examples from other research

• 47:38Speaker 05

  data, from observational data, anecdotal data from, from landowners, where they're noticing that during those storms, those, those pronghorn are trying to migrate and they're getting stuck in certain areas because of fences or, or man-made barriers. Or another element would be, you know, maybe their winter range habitat, where they're, where they're only planning or intending on being at in the winter is degraded so much or nonexistent, that, you know, they just don't have the nutrition on the landscape to make it through that winter. And, and, you know, related to that, I mean, something that's really interesting to, to think about when we think about habitat degradation for, for pronghorn, is that in the last 20 years, so I think it was the USDA, or maybe it was the USGS that came out with

• 48:21Speaker 05

  a, a study, and they looked at sagebrush from the years 2001 to 2020. And over, over that 20-year time period, they found that western United States was losing a million, just over a million acres of sagebrush per year. And that's, I mean, that's prime forage for pronghorn, it's prime winter habitat, it's prime fawning habitat. So, you know, it's, it's things like that, that we would really like to be able to throw some money on, throw some, some volunteer power on and some, some attention to, to, to really get things turned the other direction.

• 48:58Speaker 04

  Now, I saw that your first policy action was to support the removal of feral horses from BLM land in Wyoming. Tell us about that.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I know this can be a controversial issue and we certainly don't want to be insensitive to the folks that are really big horse fans. I mean, we have nothing against horses. My, I grew up with horses. My mom was really big into horses and so I'm used to being around them. But you know, it's pretty hard to deny and then there's a lot of, you know, published, peer-reviewed research that supports this idea that, you know, wild horses or feral horses can be really hard on the landscape. One, because their populations just blow up. They don't really have any natural predators. And so, you know, it's really not uncommon

• 49:48Speaker 05

  for them to, you know, double their population in a really short period of time on a landscape that is really not suited for them. And so what you end up getting is you end up getting a lot of damage to sagebrush, a lot of damage to winter range, damage to water infrastructure. And it's just, you know, those horses are out competing native species, particularly pronghorn, mule deer and sage grouse are really, you know, some of those species that are most affected. And so the BLM has really been on a sort of initiative to try to get this under control and try to remove some of these horses from the landscape. So we can start doing some work for the native species that I know a lot of the hunters and anglers like myself are really want. And so that we can start making some headway

• 50:32Speaker 05

  on sagebrush restoration and things of that nature. And so for us, it was really just about prioritizing pronghorn and their habitat over the feral horses that are not native and are in almost everywhere. In every case, they are vastly overpopulated.

• 50:50Speaker 06

  Brock, I just spoke with a rancher in California who's got a native population of pronghorn on his ranch, not Huttlemel, but he's going to join us at Field to Table this year at rendezvous. So you got to meet up with him and talk. He's actually has a fencing business where he goes through and does some of that mitigation work for wildlife passage.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  Very cool. Yeah, I'd love to meet him.

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. Brock, I also read you say that Wyoming has some of the best infrastructure in place for antelope and some other states need to catch up. What does that mean exactly?

• 51:29Speaker 05

  Well, I don't want to make that sound like, you know, the other states aren't doing or pulling their weight. I think part of what we're observing here is just the fact that Wyoming is sparsely populated, which gives them a little bit of advantage when they're trying to deal with some of this stuff in terms of wildlife and habitat. But, you know, they really have devoted a lot of resources, you know, they've gotten a lot of support for these things on a political level, through a management level and administration level. And so, you know, they, they just have the right resources in place. They've had the right support for it, the right public support for it. And I think it's just put them in a position where they're able to utilize, you know, cooperative research unit funding, you know, through the Wyoming Migration Initiative,

• 52:09Speaker 05

  who's done some fantastic and incredible, you know, really groundbreaking work on migrations for a variety of species. And so I think, you know, when we look at places like Colorado or Montana or Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, you know, we're starting to see some of that similar migration research and things like that being done. But I really think that what we say when we mean, what we mean when we say that is really just to try to get everybody else operating sort of with that same intent to really try to figure out what pronghorn need, where they, where they're at on the ground at different times of year and what their challenges are.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  And there's just, you know, very few tools out there that will beat a GPS caller to tell you all that stuff.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  Last thing, how can listeners support the North American Pronghorn Foundation?

• 53:01Speaker 05

  Right now you can go to our website, which is pronghorns.org. So that's pronghorns with an S dot org and that is our website. You can buy memberships there. You can go to our merch store and order t-shirts and hats, things of that nature. And then we also have an Instagram, which is napofficial, so N A P F underscore official. And then you can look us up on, on Facebook as well. And we really want your membership. Like I said, we are really trying to grow this organization into something that's impactful. And so we would love for you to give us $35 and let us prove to you that we are who we say we are and we're going to do what we say we're going to do.

• 53:43Speaker 04

  Again, that is pronghorns.org. Brock, thanks for joining us and thanks for sticking up for Antelope.

• 53:50Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate it.

• 53:52Speaker 04

  Cal, it's been too long for us to not have a pronghorn federation or foundation at a national level.

• 53:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, for such a crazy, iconic, unique native species, like truly native. It's really wild, once you understand how pronghorn are managed differently state to state, or you could say not managed at all.

• 54:20Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 54:21Speaker 06

  State to state. It's like a giant loophole. So putting some more focus, getting that magnifying glass on this species is certainly needed, and Brock's correct, right? Like that sagebrush ecosystem, our grasslands, we're losing about 2 million acres a year right now. So it's the most imperiled ecosystem in the world, not just the United States.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  Again, that's pronghorns.org. Consider joining the North American Pronghorn Foundation.

• 54:53Steven Rinella?

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• 55:37Steven Rinella?

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• 56:13Steven Rinella?

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• 56:40Speaker 02

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• 56:55Speaker 04

  All right, last thing for today is the Hot Tip Off.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  H-O-T-T-I-P-O. Turn your head and give cock. What's that face? Don't use Scott. There aren't many words that rhyme with "off." H-O-T-T-I-P-O.

• 57:09Steven Rinella?

  I don't have any hot tips.

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Let's all do a Hot Tip Off. H-O-T-T-I-P-O. Let's all do a Hot Tip Off.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  Hot Tip Off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. And after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one-minute video on your phone and email it to [email protected] with the subject line "Hot Tip Off." This week, it's Matt Short versus Ben Hunter, and they're competing for a copy of Catch a Crayfish: Count the Stars, paperback edition, as well as an MKC Flat Tail Knife. And we have a special guest judge joining us today, Stephen Rinella, because these are hot tips about parenting, and Cal and I have yet to reproduce, and you have, so we brought you into the studio to decide who's gonna win.

• 57:59Speaker 05

  So you guys, are you guys even voting, or is it?

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Well, I think the listeners vote.

• 58:05Steven Rinella?

  This is like very identity politics.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  Maybe Steve can sway their vote.

• 58:09Speaker 05

  I think the uncle vote is... I thought we were weighing in, Corey.

• 58:13Speaker 04

  Everybody can weigh in.

• 58:14Steven Rinella?

  You can weigh in, but I'm the judge, right? If I'm not, I mean, am I the say or not the say?

• 58:20Speaker 05

  Listen, what do we think? I'm a parent too, man. I got rights.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  We're gonna let the chat decide.

• 58:27Steven Rinella?

  Brody's like, "That's my truth."

• 58:29Speaker 04

  We're gonna let the chat decide. Those hundreds of folks are gonna vote on it.

• 58:33Speaker 05

  Listen, before we go, both of the people that are competing get a copy, not just one.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 58:39Speaker 05

  The real prize is the second blade right here that they're gonna give to their kid and so their kid can...

• 58:45Steven Rinella?

  Yep. Remember, tell your kid, "Cut towards your buddy and not your body."

• 58:48Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 58:49Speaker 04

  So, Steve, you're gonna need to watch the screen behind you. Phil is gonna play these hot tip offs. Take it away, Phil.

• 58:57Speaker 04

  Benjamin Hunter.

• 58:59Speaker 07

  Wow. My name is Benjamin Hunter and here's a hot tip for taking kids fishing. Make your own lures. Go to the thrift store and buy some cute spoons from the Silver Island. Then go home and cut off the handles with a hacksaw. File off the sharp edges and drill a hole about an eighth of an inch from each end. Now what you have should look something like this. Now attach a split ring to each end and put a treble hook at the bottom. Tie it off to your line and go fishing. Not only can this be an effective lure, but it is also fun to catch fish on a lure you've made.

• 59:34Steven Rinella?

  It's gonna be hard to beat that.

• 59:35Speaker 05

  That's strong.

• 59:36Steven Rinella?

  I'd really wanna see the other one.

• 59:38Speaker 05

  Matt Short.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Hey, what's up Meat Eater Crew? My name's Matt Short from Firestone, Colorado, and here is a hot tip. Every parent knows that the success of their outing with kids is dependent on keeping them fed, warm, and dry. But nothing will end your family fishing trip, day hike, upland hunt faster than a bathroom emergency gone wrong. I can't even count on my two hands how many times my own kid's inability to judge when their next valve movement should be has ended one of our trips. That's why I've come up with kid poop bags. Pretty simple concept, Ziploc bag, toilet paper, dog poop bag, right? If you wanna get fancy with it, grab yourself some sanitization wipes.

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  If you don't have a dog and don't have readily access to these poop bags, run down to your local park. I guarantee you, there's a lovely little dispenser there. You can grab a couple for yourself. I put every single one of these in every single one of my bags. That way, I'm always ready. Kid needs to take a dump, I go, "Great, drop it on the ground, pick it up like it's a dog, wipe him up."

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Hand sanitize myself. Everything goes back in my Ziploc baggie. I pack it out and we keep on trucking. Don't let your kids incontinence or lack of judgment of when is a good time to drop a load and your next family adventure.

• 1:01:01Speaker 06

  Oh, that's got Steve thinking hard.

• 1:01:03Steven Rinella?

  It's a tie.

• 1:01:04Speaker 05

  We only got one knife, Ben.

• 1:01:06Steven Rinella?

  We're gonna have to find another one. I'll give him one of my personal knives out of my personal box of knives.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  You're, you're gonna pick Matt poop bag over the little kid who's making his own fishing lures?

• 1:01:16Steven Rinella?

  Well, I like the kid because he's cute.

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Steven Rinella?

  The whole thing's cute.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:19Steven Rinella?

  It's just cuter and all get out.

• 1:01:20Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:20Steven Rinella?

  The whole thing. Making lures, the fact that the kid presented well.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Steven Rinella?

  I love everything about it.

• 1:01:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:01:27Steven Rinella?

  That's good. I mean, it's all good.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:31Steven Rinella?

  Normally, what would happen, normally I would watch and I'd belittle one of them.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? I would be like, but they're, they're so strong.

• 1:01:38Speaker 04

  You're in a good mood today.

• 1:01:39Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:01:39Speaker 06

  And they have DIY components, right?

• 1:01:42Steven Rinella?

  The material is so strong.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:45Steven Rinella?

  And, and, and notice the guy with the poop bag. He's also getting into cleanup.

• 1:01:50Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  Pack it in, pack it out.

• 1:01:52Steven Rinella?

  He's not like, hey, just grab some toilet paper because then you just leave it behind.

• 1:01:55Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:56Steven Rinella?

  He's bagging it up.

• 1:01:59Steven Rinella?

  When it happens in an inopportune location. There's no way that I can in good conscience.

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  That's why the chat is gonna vote.

• 1:02:07Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:02:08Speaker 04

  Phil, is, is the chat voting?

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  I'm voting for the kid.

• 1:02:11Speaker 06

  I didn't put up an official poll. I can if we've got like, uh.

• 1:02:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, give us a poll.

• 1:02:15Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna bring in a personal knife from my personal stash.

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:02:19Steven Rinella?

  And where I.

• 1:02:20Speaker 05

  Benjamin, this new one's yours.

• 1:02:23Steven Rinella?

  Sure. That's the kid, right?

• 1:02:24Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:02:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't, wouldn't it be more special for the kid to have Steve Rinella's knife, though?

• 1:02:29Speaker 05

  Oh, there you go. You could sign it.

• 1:02:31Steven Rinella?

  I don't care. I'm just not picking between the two.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  I, I would vote for the kid.

• 1:02:35Steven Rinella?

  Cause he's a kid.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Cause he's a kid. Yeah.

• 1:02:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but that's identity politics.

• 1:02:38Speaker 04

  Brody, Brody, who are you voting for?

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  I'd vote for the kid. Um, I'm, I'm not down on the other one. You can always dig a hole and, and honestly, man, I don't know how many times that's actually happened to me with my kids.

• 1:02:52Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:02:53Speaker 05

  Like a total like, oh my God.

• 1:02:55Steven Rinella?

  Brody just begs me to eat a bag of cheese curds before he goes out.

• 1:03:01Steven Rinella?

  Eat this sack. We're gonna fish all day. Eat this sack of curds. No water.

• 1:03:05Speaker 05

  It's just not like something that's happened to me enough times to like.

• 1:03:09Steven Rinella?

  Well, if I came down, listen, did I come down here? Are we whistling Dixie or are we, or am I the judge?

• 1:03:15Speaker 04

  You can be the judge. It's all you.

• 1:03:17Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna send him a private, personal knife.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  The kid.

• 1:03:21Steven Rinella?

  The kid gets the nice fancy new knife. I'm gonna send the guy.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  The dull used one.

• 1:03:26Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:03:28Steven Rinella?

  I'm gonna send him something from my personal stash.

• 1:03:29Speaker 04

  Uncle Cal, what do you think? Who would you pick?

• 1:03:34Speaker 06

  Man, I like them both a lot. They're both super prepared. If I had to pick one.

• 1:03:44Speaker 06

  I like the recycling and the packing in, packing out stuff too.

• 1:03:48Steven Rinella?

  And he's not swayed by the kid being a kid. Today's kids are tomorrow's enemies.

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  That's what they say.

• 1:03:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, I have a running joke where I'm like, I'd like to shove that kid down. When I see, I'm like, why can't people?

• 1:04:01Steven Rinella?

  Cause it's easier now than when he gets big.

• 1:04:03Speaker 06

  Why can't the community enforce parenting?

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Now granted, I think that like if everyone had the same attitude about the poop thing. Like adults are bigger culprits than kids, I think.

• 1:04:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:16Speaker 04

  Bigger poops.

• 1:04:17Steven Rinella?

  Like, the kid, I love kids. I mean, I got.

• 1:04:21Speaker 05

  Most of them.

• 1:04:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I mean, like, like, most of the time I like mine. Like, I like, like, I like the idea of them. I like mine most of the time. Love them. He did a great job. Presents well. Great material.

• 1:04:33Speaker 06

  He's after 30 seconds left of it.

• 1:04:36Steven Rinella?

  I, I just can't disrespect the dude. So let the kid win. Let him win. He wins. But I'm sending the guy a little something from the private stash and he gets a book anyway.

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  There's, there's a good reason I'm not a dad, but it's hard for me to fathom picking up a kid's poop out in nature.

• 1:04:52Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:04:53Speaker 04

  No, thank you.

• 1:04:53Steven Rinella?

  I got a story about that for you. Not mine.

• 1:04:58Speaker 05

  Listen, after you change a few diapers and get some poop under your. You get poop under your fingernails. It's like not a big deal.

• 1:05:04Steven Rinella?

  Do I really only have 30? Do I really only have 30 seconds?

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  He was saying the vote. For the whole, the people voting.

• 1:05:09Steven Rinella?

  Okay, tell a quick story.

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, go for it.

• 1:05:11Steven Rinella?

  So one time when I was in high school, we got a job where there's a guy building a log house.

• 1:05:18Steven Rinella?

  And he bought, there's this. Farmer, old man Burns. And he had a big red pine plantation and he bought all these red pines from Mr. Burns. Who one time on his farm, this is a little side story, a bull killed a kid on his farm one time.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:05:35Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, a bull killed a kid on his farm.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  Like stomped on him?

• 1:05:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, so. Before my time, this is a deep past. He was a pumpkin farmer. I used to go and help him load the pumpkins and drive them down because he sold them to the local grocery stores. Anyhow. This guy buys these red pines. From him, but he needs them cut and hauled out and stuck in a field. So we signed a little contract with him. He's going to give us five dollars apiece. And use a Ford tractor of his to cut. Limb. Move out to where they can be picked up in a truck and put them up on stickers. To get them off the ground, 100. Trees, five bucks a tree. Well, we get done and we had popped a hole as well as brine filled tires.

• 1:06:23Steven Rinella?

  We'd hit a stump and put a big hole in the brine filled tire. We get all done with the job and he informs us, hey, we're even.

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 1:06:33Steven Rinella?

  We're even because it costs so much to buy a new tractor tire.

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  How old were you?

• 1:06:38Steven Rinella?

  High school. We go home and tell our dad. And that is just not acceptable to our dad. Our dad gets him on the phone and says, here's what's gonna happen. With this $500. And then my dad says to us, he's waiting with your $500 at the job site. So. We go to the job site and he's gotta give us 500 bucks, but you know what the main thing, our main takeaway was, he happened to be there. With his grandson and his grandson had just shat his pants. And as we show up, he's trying to clean up the grandson and we thought at that time before we had our own kids. We thought that that was the comeuppance.

• 1:07:18Speaker 04

  Oh, you got him.

• 1:07:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like, ha, ha, ha. Right now, I've done that myself. I don't know how many times.

• 1:07:27Speaker 04

  Oh, so you, you had something coming to you then?

• 1:07:29Steven Rinella?

  Well, I just felt like a punishment worse than losing 500 bucks would be to clean up a child's fecal.

• 1:07:34Speaker 05

  And then you had kids.

• 1:07:35Steven Rinella?

  Then I had kids and then we just, we just eat it now.

• 1:07:42Steven Rinella?

  That you're just drowning in it. You're drowning in it.

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 1:07:44Steven Rinella?

  Not anymore.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  You were just telling me how great kids are.

• 1:07:48Steven Rinella?

  Huh?

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  You were just telling me how great kids are.

• 1:07:50Steven Rinella?

  For a while.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  You're not selling them very well.

• 1:07:52Steven Rinella?

  And you're just drowning. It's just everywhere. It's on everywhere.

• 1:07:54Speaker 05

  They puke a lot, too.

• 1:07:55Steven Rinella?

  Just wiping on your pants.

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Norovirus every other week.

• 1:07:58Steven Rinella?

  Now, love that kid, though. That was great. Thanks for having me down.

• 1:08:01Speaker 06

  Uh, with 72% of the vote, uh, Ben the Kid wins.

• 1:08:05Steven Rinella?

  Wow, landslide.

• 1:08:07Speaker 06

  But we had a lot of people in the chat basically agreeing with Steve, saying that the poop bag's probably a more practical, helpful tip, but the kid, uh, kicks ass, so.

• 1:08:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:08:17Speaker 05

  Well, as the guy who has to filter through about a dozen entries for this, thank you, everybody, but this was tough. Next time, we can't, we shouldn't mix kids and adults. We should do kids and adults.

• 1:08:28Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 1:08:29Steven Rinella?

  Pit the kids against each other.

• 1:08:31Speaker 05

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:33Speaker 05

  Survival of the fittest. Lord of the Flies.

• 1:08:35Speaker 06

  And then eventually you could see if there's a bracket system where the kid could outcompete the adult.

• 1:08:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Steven Rinella?

  Pit the kids again. Yeah, pit the kids against each other.

• 1:08:46Speaker 04

  Uh, well done, Ben. Well done, Matt. Thanks for sending those in. Steve, you got time to, uh, stick around for the chat?

• 1:08:53Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 1:08:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:08:54Steven Rinella?

  I'm having a good time in my life.

• 1:08:57Speaker 04

  Oh, okay, great. Phil, what, what questions you got? This is the end of the show. We'll answer a few questions and Steve is gonna stay around to help us out.

• 1:09:03Speaker 06

  If you have any questions for Steve, get him in there right now. You don't have a lot of time. I would say, let's see, uh, Leland, our guy, once again, favorite way to prepare rainbow trout. Steve, if you've got something.

• 1:09:15Steven Rinella?

  Oh, you know, it's a lot of fun. There's a, there's a dish called, um, it's in French. What would be blue trout?

• 1:09:21Speaker 05

  Blue.

• 1:09:22Steven Rinella?

  Troutable, trout.

• 1:09:24Speaker 05

  That's the poaching with vinegar one.

• 1:09:26Steven Rinella?

  Where you, you drop them. It's gotta be real fresh and brand new. It's gotta still have its nice color and you make this, this heavily vinegar'd, like poaching liquid. And for whatever reason, I don't understand the chemistry of it. When you low, when you drop that brand new fresh trout. And it, like the French will do it where they'll drop the, the, they'll like stun the trout and do it. You gotta do it that fast. And the trout turns blue. I'm not kidding you. It turns blue, electric blue.

• 1:09:55Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:09:56Steven Rinella?

  It's his favorite preparation. If it's like some old trout that's been tied to a string out in the creek, you know, it's not gonna do it.

• 1:10:02Speaker 05

  Throw that one in the smoker.

• 1:10:04Steven Rinella?

  Yep. Uh, trout blue is a lot of fun. Just to, just to watch the, the thing happen.

• 1:10:09Speaker 04

  It's like a traditional, like, uh, gut them, leave the head on, stuff their tummy with, uh, lemon and herbs and, uh, that just looks fun. Just looks nice.

• 1:10:17Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  Cal, Brody, anything to add?

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  Tinfoil packets. I mean, Leland, your program, you're, you're running a bunch of volunteers out there. I'd have an assembly line with tinfoil packets, like. Yep. Yeah. Lemon, slices of lemon. A lot of butter. Lot of butter.

• 1:10:35Steven Rinella?

  My dad used to, they used to talk about wrapping them in leaves and then packing them in mud.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  Mmm.

• 1:10:40Steven Rinella?

  And cooking them.

• 1:10:41Speaker 05

  Oh, that's cool.

• 1:10:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I'd like to try that sometime.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Phil, what else you got?

• 1:10:44Speaker 06

  Trey asks, well, first he says, I love having bears on my land, but they're starting to tear feeders down. What can I do to keep them around? But not have them tear things up.

• 1:10:54Speaker 05

  Remove your feeders. Bird feeders kill a lot of bears.

• 1:10:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  And birds.

• 1:10:58Steven Rinella?

  Oh, is he talking about deer feeders?

• 1:10:59Speaker 04

  I imagine he's talking about trying to feed deer. Be my guess.

• 1:11:03Speaker 05

  Well.

• 1:11:04Steven Rinella?

  I don't know that you're gonna dissuade him from that, man.

• 1:11:06Speaker 05

  No way to.

• 1:11:07Steven Rinella?

  Cause you ever see that time they took that dead deer and electrified it?

• 1:11:10Speaker 05

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 1:11:11Steven Rinella?

  And then grizzly bear is like, go! Then like five minutes later, he's like, go! And he's just like, eventually he just gets the deer.

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, eventually he just gets angry.

• 1:11:20Speaker 06

  Angry enough to where he's like, I'm just gonna take it.

• 1:11:22Steven Rinella?

  He starts unplugging stuff.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think if you love having them on your land, you're just gonna have to learn to coexist with them. If you got deer feeders out.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  What else you got, Phil?

• 1:11:32Speaker 06

  Uh, Mogor asks Steve, when was the last time you went on a hunt, uh, without cameras or?

• 1:11:38Steven Rinella?

  Last week.

• 1:11:38Speaker 06

  Yeah. I think people think that you are constantly being followed by, by cinematographers, but you go, you're, you're out there all the time.

• 1:11:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, mostly, I mean, a lot with my kids, so a ton. But generally with my kids, but we just got back from hunting.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  How'd that go?

• 1:11:53Steven Rinella?

  Great. My boy got his first bear.

• 1:11:55Speaker 04

  How many more bears died on that hunt?

• 1:11:58Steven Rinella?

  Our party had three.

• 1:11:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:12:00Steven Rinella?

  Well. Yeah. Our, our little group had three, but we weren't all together. I was there for two of them. I was present for two and I was 300 yards away.

• 1:12:09Speaker 06

  Everything went well?

• 1:12:10Steven Rinella?

  Oh, yeah. We had a great time. Bad weather.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  You guys saw some, some bear lovemaking on that trip, didn't you?

• 1:12:15Steven Rinella?

  We killed two boars that, uh, I was there for one, not for the other one that, that we watched a boar breed a sow for 20 minutes. I'm not kidding you. You think people think like, like I'm saying 20 minutes, like, meaning it was seven, but I'm saying 20. We watched a boar breed a sow for 20 minutes.

• 1:12:30Speaker 04

  Did, did the 20 minutes end when the boar was shot or would have it like kept going?

• 1:12:35Steven Rinella?

  I don't know why, but he walked away and started feeding.

• 1:12:37Speaker 04

  Okay. And you don't know why he walked away?

• 1:12:39Steven Rinella?

  No, I mean, I, I should say, I don't know why he walked away, but they would like, like.

• 1:12:47Steven Rinella?

  It was, I, I don't know. I haven't watched enough. Like, like the, the first one they watched, the, the sow was receptive.

• 1:12:55Steven Rinella?

  In this case, it was hard to tell like what level of receptivity there and what level of sort of like, just so there's like a, a lot of display and a lot of.

• 1:13:03Speaker 05

  Foreplay?

• 1:13:04Steven Rinella?

  Well, like, like fit, I don't know, like fitness.

• 1:13:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:07Steven Rinella?

  Like you're like testing fitness. You're like, she's like sussing out the cape, whatever. A lot of like theatrics. There were sometimes like our, our, my initial instinct was those two boars. Fighting. Then at a distance, when I couldn't see clear, I was like, maybe it's just like two, you know, cubs always fight. It's like, maybe that's what's going on. Then eventually I'm like, oh no, it's like a mating ritual.

• 1:13:31Speaker 04

  Surprised it was that ambiguous that it, uh.

• 1:13:33Steven Rinella?

  Cause it, cause they were through, there was, they were obscured. You could just see like a lot of black, like, you know? But, but once we got clear, I mean, we were like.

• 1:13:42Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:13:42Steven Rinella?

  We were, we were sixty yards.

• 1:13:44Speaker 05

  Your, your comment about like perceived time versus actual time?

• 1:13:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49Speaker 05

  Uh, I ran a little experiment during turkey season. And because you're always like, you're like, oh, this major saga is playing out and, and how, you know, we gotta allocate the right amount of time to this and when to move and when not to move. So when I struck the bird, I hit the timer on my phone.

• 1:14:08Steven Rinella?

  Oh, smart.

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  Yep. And then, and then we have this huge saga, like no calling and then not responding and what the hell's going on? And then eventually the bird calls and oh my God, he's coming in and, and he skirts us. And then lo and behold, there's another Tom down there and oh, now he's coming in and, and all these mental gymnastics.

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  Shotgun goes off. I hit the stop on the timer. Thirteen minutes. Man, and it felt like way longer.

• 1:14:38Speaker 04

  He shut up on us.

• 1:14:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Ah, it's so painful. You're getting ready to walk somewhere else. Go get in the truck and on somewhere.

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  Phil, let's do a couple more before we close this out.

• 1:14:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, sure thing. Uh, Nick says, question for Steve, any plans to do some upland hunting in the near future? And I would rephrase that by saying, Steve, what do you have against upland hunting?

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  Does hunting blue grouse count?

• 1:15:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:15:04Speaker 04

  Upland birds.

• 1:15:04Steven Rinella?

  Absolutely.

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:15:06Speaker 05

  Boy, we can't, we did some camping this past weekend and those blue grouse were doing their thing. Oh, yeah. It's everywhere, man. But I was trying to get my boys to sneak up on them and that noise is so like, you think you know right where they are. You go there and then you're like, he's over there. You go over there and you're like, he's over there.

• 1:15:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you just feel the noise.

• 1:15:28Speaker 05

  Yep. That dude's struggling with his four wheeler again. Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:15:31Steven Rinella?

  We were in a cool spot there today when I was with my little boy, uh, Matthew there. We were in a cool spot where you could hear blue zan roft at the same time.

• 1:15:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, we had that. Yep.

• 1:15:40Steven Rinella?

  And I was like, it's like, no, he's doing that with his wings.

• 1:15:42Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:15:42Steven Rinella?

  He's doing that with his mouth, you know? Um, yeah, I like hunting blue grouse a lot.

• 1:15:47Speaker 04

  Let's do one more, Phil.

• 1:15:49Speaker 06

  Sure, there was a favorite summer lure for largemouth? From Bradley.

• 1:15:55Speaker 05

  We're in Montana, that's a tough one.

• 1:15:56Speaker 06

  Nightcrawler.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  Favorite, if the, if it, or top water friendly conditions, there is nothing more exciting in freshwater fishing than watching a largemouth just explode on a frog. So, that's my favorite.

• 1:16:11Steven Rinella?

  Can I give one from 1985?

• 1:16:12Speaker 04

  Please.

• 1:16:14Steven Rinella?

  Back when I was a boy, when I was a boy, the thing that we most coveted in life was like, you get those pre-rigged, it'd be a purple crawler with an orange spot and the three hooks.

• 1:16:24Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:16:25Steven Rinella?

  The three hooks on it, and it had a snelled loop, like, you know, and you'd see them in the bait shop for like 79 cents. Dude, we, that was the lure. That was the lure, man. We called them purple crawlers.

• 1:16:37Speaker 04

  There you go. So Bradley, favorite again would be something, anything top water. But if you just want to catch bass, throw a spinnerbait or a worm. That's like, like Steve said. Alright, that's the end of this show. Next week, the Meat Eater Movie Club returns with hundreds of beavers. You can stream it on Tubi, Pluto TV, Amazon Prime, Freevee, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. We'll see you guys back here, same time and place, next week. Thank you.

• 1:17:18Steven Rinella?

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• 1:18:03Steven Rinella?

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• 1:18:46Steven Rinella?

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• 1:19:05Speaker 02

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• 1:19:19Speaker 00

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