Ep. 813: Stolen Elk and the Best Fishing Lures of All Time | MeatEater Radio (Not) Live!

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Cory Calkins, and Max Barta talk with Guns and Ammo's David Faubion about a wild confrontation in the field, share a round of Top 3s, chat with MeatEater's own Mark Kenyon about his favorite books for whitetail hunters, 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

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

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• 0:32Steven Rinella?

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• 1:16Steven Rinella?

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• 1:53Speaker 03

  Smell us now, lady. Welcome to MeatEater Trivia. MeatEater Podcast.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 1:30 PM Mountain Time. That's 2:30 for our friends in Santa Claus, Indiana on Wednesday, December 17th. And we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. We are currently at home with friends and family because it is Christmas Day. I'm your host Spencer, joined today by Corey and Max. On today's show, we'll interview David Fabian about having his elk skull stolen by a rancher while hunting public land in Wyoming. Then we'll have some top three lists, followed by an interview with Mark Kenyon about the best books for whitetail hunters. And finally, we'll answer some listener submitted questions. But first, Corey, my head hurts just looking at you because you have a black eye and a

• 2:59Speaker 03

  big bandage on your face. That's not normal. You had to cancel coming into trivia earlier this week because you said you got a concussion. And I said, oh, no. Did it happen while you were skiing? And you said, no. No, it's much worse than that. Long story. Tell folks what happened. Better or worse? Pretty embarrassing, but happy to share it with the world. Got my dog's frisbee stuck into a tree. How high up in a tree? Not, not high. Maybe 10 feet. You know, I could almost reach it with a stick. That was plan A. Plan B naturally was to throw a rock into the tree. Right? Just try and knock it down. Picked up a, I don't know, nine, 10 pound rock off the ground. How, how big? Show me with your hand. Like,

• 3:43Speaker 03

  softball size. Yeah. Bigger than a softball. Okay. Probably 10 pounds. Okay. You know, just easy enough to get some good velocity throwing it into the tree to knock the frisbee down. I hit the frisbee, but it was stuck in a weird little nest. It bounced off the tree, bounced off a limb, and then hit me in the face. It was headed right for like between my eyes. And I turned my head last second. It got me just under my eye, obviously. Yeah, pretty brutal. Nothing happened at first, but about 20 minutes later, I passed out.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  So minor concussion. Uh, it's been a couple of days staying at home relaxing. Yeah, I couldn't partake in trivia, which lucky for the other contestants, obviously. Uh, so yeah, no, feeling a lot better though. Thanks for asking.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, we're making him host radio despite he's him saying he's still a little foggy.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  A little foggy. If I pass out, uh, this will be one hell of an episode.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Good content. Yeah. Uh, does it still hurt?

• 4:41Speaker 04

  It's good. It's tight. Like everything in my right cheek is just tight. Just healing, you know? So no, it doesn't hurt anymore. Yeah. Just my pride.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, good on you for telling the truth. I'd have lied about that. I'd have been like, yeah, I was skiing a quadruple black diamond.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Took a ski pole to the face or something, you know? Yeah, I don't want that karma to hit me even harder than that rock did, you know?

• 5:03Speaker 03

  So well, it got you good.

• 5:04Speaker 04

  It did. Stupid rock, but I, I still need to go back to that tree, get the frisbee and I'm

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Oh, the frisbee's still out there.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then I'll bring home the rock too. And I don't know, put it on my mantle.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  We have gusts of like 80 miles per hour today. Uh, that frisbee might be long gone.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  It was up there, man. Let me tell you, the rock didn't knock it down and it was a hell of a throw too.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  And now, uh, now you get to answer this question all of Christmas. Hanging out with, uh, the family.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  Oh, can't wait.

• 5:32Speaker 03

  So you've, you've got a version of the story that's well told at this point.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Yep. Nope. It's all good. You're in good spirits about it. So it's good. Try to be.

• 5:41Speaker 03

  Thanks for coming today. And this show was coming out, you're going to be on the live show that we record tomorrow that is live. And so we're not even going to address it. We're just going to tell folks, if you want to know what happened to Corey's face, uh, you got to tune in next week.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  There you go. Leave them hanging.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  All right. Joining us on the line first is David Fabian, the editor of Guns and Ammo, Special Interest Publications. He had a run in on public land in Wyoming with a rancher earlier this fall that went viral on social media. He's here to tell us that story. David, welcome to the show.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Howdy, David.

• 6:11Speaker 03

  Thanks, Spencer. Hi, guys. Uh, first thing, tell us about the area you were hunting and how you accessed it.

• 6:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were hunting this, this junk of landlocked, public, public land that uh only way to get there, if you don't have a family connection or, or deep pockets is to, is to take a helicopter. So we parked our rig and we uh ordered a helicopter and flew about four minutes and set up camp and we could, we could look back in the distance, maybe four and a half miles, we could see our cars down there. But uh, yeah, can't walk there.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Uh, and it took a few years for you to find a pilot who was willing to fly you into these places. What was that process like?

• 6:53Speaker 05

  Oh, incredibly frustrating. I had this, I had this idea that, that you know, I want to hunt landlocked public land because it's gotta be the Shangri-La of

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 05

  of public land. And so I finally, I finally got the uh, the plan together and, and then I called air operator after air operator after air operator and no one, no one would do it. I think it was my, my 26th or 27th

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 7:16Speaker 05

  helicopter or plane pilot I spoke to that said, yeah, I'd love to do it.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Okay, you found, you found the right guy. I read that at one point you were talking to someone who could drop you in there with a hot air balloon, correct?

• 7:29Speaker 05

  No, no. I was so desperate to make a hunt happen that I called a hot air balloon manufacturer.

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 7:35Speaker 05

  And I said, I said, I said, guys, have you ever sold any hot air balloons for DIY hunters? And they go, uh, no, that's the first we've heard of this. And they say, they said to me, you do realize you can't steer them, right? And, and I did realize that. And I, and I still do think that it could be done. So maybe, maybe next year we'll be talking about my hot air balloon hunt.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Yeah, you were desperate. Uh, Max, our co-host has a question.

• 7:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. David, uh, what's Wyoming's rule about flying and hunting the same day? You can do it, no problem. If you use it for, if you use the aircraft for transportation purposes and not scouting, you're good to go. Okay, cool.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Okay, so you get the four-minute helicopter ride into your spot. Uh, tell us about the hunt itself, which took place back in November.

• 8:17Speaker 05

  So the hunt itself was very special. It, uh, my buddy had been scheming on getting on this land to hunt for like 20 some years. And he said, if you can get us a helicopter, then we'll have a great elk hunt. Well, we got the helicopter and we had, I mean, we had a great elk hunt. But, uh, but the hunt itself was, was overshadowed by, by two things. One, obviously we'll get to, uh, but we also happened to have that amazing, uh, northern lies display on.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Oh, that's awesome.

• 8:47Speaker 05

  After we, after we got a double on, on nice mature bulls, we went, uh, went back to camp and it was like a six hour show and the time lapse of the, the videographer got on it is, is just like, it gives me goosebumps even telling the story, thinking about it.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Uh, good stuff. So you were, you were processing when one of the bulls, uh, when, when the thing happened, uh, and, and you said, quote, "The strangest hunting encounter of your life." That's how you described in your article on Peterson's hunting. What happened?

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there's nothing that even comes close to this one. I've had, I've had issues with people like we all had on public land, but, but nothing like this. So, so my buddy and I, we left our camp and hiked to the kill site where we both killed, we killed two bulls that were probably a hundred and 50 yards apart. So we, uh, we hiked back to my, my bull and we got there at nine o'clock in the morning and we were gonna start packing meat and the other guys were gonna come meet us as soon as they got done doing some filming. So we sit down at my bull and we look down below and there, walking across this flat is, is a rancher or another hunter. He's got a, you know, elk anglers over his shoulder. And so I think to myself, huh, you know, whatever, we got, we got two elk in this place last night. The, uh, the rancher obviously shot one in there as well.

• 9:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:00Speaker 05

  Didn't even think anything of it. And my buddy, he said, "I wonder if that's our other elk." And just then this light bulb goes off in my head like, holy cow. Could we really have, could we really be witnessing an elk theft in the process from, from a rancher who obviously came on private, across private ground? And so. I just brought my binoculars. He didn't bring them. He left it back camp. But uh, but he said, let me see binoculars. And so he took my binoculars and looked down there 200 yards and he recognized the back forks of, of the elk as, as being one that our buddy Ryan shot. And he said, he said, I think that's our elk. And so I, I'm thinking, still no, no way. Like what, what are the, it's not even the realm of

• 10:44Speaker 05

  possibility. So he says, stay here, keep an eye on the brush line. Cause the guy walked into brush. So, so Ben looked at him for, I mean, he just had seconds to determine that that could be our, our elk. He said, stay here and keep looking down at the, at the brush line. So I stayed there and I expected this, this rancher, that'd be him. I expected this rancher would come out and go get a quarter and take the quarter and walk into the brush. It never came out. And so a few minutes later, once, once Ben had made it up to the other kill site, all of a sudden I hear this voice come booming down and he said, he stole our elk. Go after him. And it's like, okay. Now that's where it became the weirdest moment of my hunting, of my hunting career. And I mean, it's one thing to have interactions with people, but it's a whole

• 11:28Speaker 05

  different thing when you catch someone stealing your antlers and they don't want you there to begin with. I mean, that's just, that's just a given, but they go to the, go to the uh, degree of stealing, you're, you're stealing from you. And then they're hiding in brush line. You just caught them. Like approaching that brush line. I cannot even describe the, the pangs of fear that went through me. Like I was terrified, but, but we had to do it. So Ben got there first. Oh, go ahead.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  No, I was just going to recap. You, you've now, you've got three bulls down. Um, you, you've, you're working on the meat. You've watched this rancher from 200 yards away, walk into the brush uh, with your elk head. And then you guys march over there. Uh, what's the conversation like with the rancher?

• 12:14Speaker 05

  Well, my buddy Ben did most of the talking at first and he was, he was obviously really pissed. He wanted the guy to come out. The guy was hiding in there. He wouldn't come out. He finally, he finally came out and it's a, it's a 70 year old dude and I'm just like, my mind is blown. Like I, I can't even say anything for the first, for the first few minutes, probably. I was just recording with my, with my phone because I knew this was evidence that we're going to have to use. And so that is one thing that anyone in this situation, like we've got amazing technology and just pulling out your phone and, and recording stuff. Will really cover your, cover your bases. But anyways, the conversation was, was, was very simple.

• 12:53Speaker 05

  Like, why did this happen? What, what, what purpose did you steal this elk head for? Like, like what's going on? And the guy, the guy didn't, didn't answer. He, he did a bunch of, a bunch of misdirection. Wouldn't identify himself as the rancher, denied even having the bull. We, we called him out and all of the stuff, but, but ultimately he said the reason was he didn't, he didn't want us hunting on this outfit. That's what he said. This outfit, meaning the public land that he's had sole access to for, I guess, probably 45 years that he's been there.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  And at some point in this process, when you guys are glassing him or walking over there, you, you heard a few gunshots, correct? Where do those play into the story?

• 13:32Speaker 05

  I, I can't, I can't confirm where those gunshots came from or who did it even. But I believe that that rancher shot three times that morning and I don't, I don't, I can't, I can't understand the, the, the logic behind that one. But anyways, when, when we saw him, uh, he never had a rifle. So I can't, I can't confirm it was him nor, nor what he did. But I'm guessing, I'm guessing he probably did it to, to signify like, hey, I got an animal. And then if, if someone sees him packing it out, like that's, that's what happened. But that's, that's just, that's just pure theory. I don't, I don't think he did it to scare us or anything. Like when you're, when you're on public land, people, people shoot and you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna get out of there because another hunter's in there.

• 14:12Speaker 03

  All right. So at the beginning of the conversation, the rancher is, is denying the whole thing, right? But at some point, uh, you get him to show you where the skull is. How did that go down?

• 14:21Speaker 05

  I know. Yeah. I think, I think he said to us the first, first time was a what bull? And, and Ben said, the one you just saw, the one we just saw you pack into the brush. And so, uh, and so after, after a few minutes of conversation, uh, Ben goes, you want me to get the bull? And he goes, have at it. So Ben walks in there and he looks down bottom of this little cut. And there's, and there's our buddy Ryan's elk antlers. So, so not only did he, did he take the bull and put it in the brush line, but he tossed it down this, this 10 foot, 10 foot ditch and, and climbed down. It was, it was, it was not easy to get down there. But he climbed down there and, and he placed it in a place where you could barely see it. I know when I went to recover the antlers, because I, I got them out. When I jumped down there, I, uh, I looked and sure enough, there was, there was fresh boot tracks in there.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  Like he'd actually gone to the effort of, of hiding them. So you could, you could barely find it.

• 15:10Speaker 03

  And then weirdly he like offers to help you guys at that point, right?

• 15:16Speaker 05

  Well, that's, that's interesting how that worked out because I was, I was relieved that we, uh, that we got the elk head back. And I was relieved that we didn't get shot. Truthfully, that was my biggest fear in the whole thing. But, uh, but after we, after we, after tensions cooled, I realized that, hey, you know, that guy packed this elk head down, you know, 300 vertical feet, so 300, maybe even 400 vertical feet and, and at least 300 yards. So I said, how in the hell are we going to get it back up to the kill site? Like we got to pack it up now. So what are you going to do? And I really, I, I thought, I thought he was going to say, look, guys, I messed up. You know, instead of, instead of taking out there, you can just come out my ranch, go get your cars, take your stuff out that way. I, I was waiting for that because I was thinking, okay, cool.

• 16:01Speaker 06

  Save you some money on the helicopter ride too.

• 16:04Speaker 05

  It would have saved us so much money if you would have, if you would have done that. But he didn't, he never did. He did, he did however, offer to pack it up. So I thought that was, that was a little bit of a redemption on, on his behalf.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. So you guys get the elk then back to your camp, you and the rancher go your separate ways. At what point do you contact the authorities and how did that conversation go?

• 16:24Speaker 05

  As soon as we had service. Yeah. As soon as we had service, we, well, we waited for our buddies to get back and we said, you said, you think, you think the hunt was a, was a cool story? Like just wait till you, wait till you see what we, what we just witnessed. And so, I mean, our friends were just. Slack jaw when we told them the story like they they thought they were that we were messing with them at first. And we're like, no, I promise you, we're not messing with you. But yeah, so we went, uh, we went back to camp that night. And there we had good service. So the phone calls made to the game warden and said, yep, this happened. We'll be out tomorrow. What do we do? And the the game warden said, uh, please meet me because that's a that's a very odd story. And so and so the next day we flew out and met with the game warden.

• 17:04Speaker 05

  And and told them and everyone in law enforcement, everyone period, that here's a story. They all say the same thing like. I can't even, I cannot believe that happened.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, is that considered like hunting harassment then? Or what did the game warden actually say?

• 17:19Speaker 05

  That's that's a great, that's a great question. And I don't, I don't fully know what what the long term legal outcome is going to be. But, uh, but yeah, we we asked the warden the same thing like, like, what's going to happen here? And he goes, he goes. Most I can do is hunter harassment. But he goes after seeing the after seeing the videos that we that we made. He said, uh, he said, this goes way beyond that. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna go up in the local sheriff's office and and they're gonna do an investigation. And then we'll we'll present our charges to the prosecutor, you know, entirety.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  God, this this has been about a month removed from when it happened. The legal process is still playing out at this point, right?

• 17:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, but. But I am, I am, I am optimistic because, uh, a few weeks ago, I did get a phone call from the from the sheriff's office. And and they actually said like, hey, we're we're pursuing this. We're about to hand this to the prosecutor. So he he will, he will be, he will be. Uh, punished for what he did. And and that's good. That's a good thing because the the part that scares me the most is. It's not the not the brazen act that, uh, that that a lot of these landowners go to. Uh, to deter you from legally accessing it with aircraft. But I worry if this guy gets off with just a slap on the wrist, that it's gonna, it's gonna put future flying hunters in danger. I mean, some ultimately, something bad is going to happen. Like, it's one thing to lose an elk head. But it'd be just a tragedy for someone to lose their life.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Uh, now, this was not your first flying hunt. Uh, have you had problems in the past with neighboring landowners?

• 18:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, when I, when I first started this, I thought to myself like, yeah, they're gonna be annoyed, but. What are they gonna do? It's not their land. You know, what really, what are they gonna do? Well, what I found out now is in their minds. It is their land. They don't have deeded, they don't have the deeded, deeded rights to it. But, but they genuinely do feel, and this is, this is a blanket statement. So I'm just, I'm just talking with the, the people we've interacted with. But every single landowner that we've had interactions with has been less than, less than welcoming. And, and, and some people, there's, there's a, there's a couple that has a massive, a massive ranch that surrounds. I mean, I don't know, maybe 30,000 total acres of, of public landlocked land.

• 19:29Speaker 05

  But, uh, but they, they're, they're so extreme that they, they pester us on the hunts. They find excuses to go in there looking for cows. They, they would, this lady would take her kids. Uh, like in October, we did a flying deer hunt and my dad and his, his high school buddy, two 75 year olds are in there hunting deer and cow elk. And, and this lady shows up above their ridge, middle of nowhere. And she takes her kids for a, for a loud walk right above their camp. It's like, it's so annoying. But, but she took it to, she took it to a level that, that, uh, it is still surprising me. She told our helicopter pilot. She said that, uh, if, if I can't have sole access to that land and you guys keep coming in by helicopter.

• 20:10Speaker 05

  Then I'm gonna go in there and ruin that land, ruin that land. So no one can take advantage of it. So no one can use it.

• 20:15Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 20:16Speaker 05

  That's what she said.

• 20:17Speaker 03

  And you're just, uh, you're like pretty vulnerable back there in, in those situations.

• 20:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. It, I never, I've never been in combat, but it, it is like, almost like you're getting dropped off on an island. Cause, cause yeah, you could leave if you wanted to, but you really can't like.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  You're gonna be trespassing.

• 20:33Speaker 05

  You gotta trespass to get out of there.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  And the first time I went in, uh, the helicopter, the helicopter landed and gave us a big group briefing. And so we're sitting around the helicopter and finally after, after 30 minutes of, of how to avoid getting your head chopped off. We, uh, we boarded our, our flight for the, for the first trip in. And this, and this rancher came around us on this four wheeler and the helicopter wasn't running yet. But he said, uh, he said, good luck. We'll be seeing you soon. And he said it like such a, such a spooky villain kind of way.

• 21:02Speaker 03

  Almost like a threat.

• 21:03Speaker 05

  I assure you that, that first night in there, I was ready for a posse of landowners to come there and try to lynch us from a tree.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. Um, last question, David, you and I worked together about a decade ago when I was at Peterson's Hunting in Illinois. Uh, how much do you miss me?

• 21:18Speaker 05

  How much do I miss you?

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 06

  Loaded question.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  Me. Well, you could answer both. Yeah. How much you miss me and then tell us how much you miss Peoria?

• 21:26Speaker 05

  On a scale of one to 10, I miss you 9.8.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  All right.

• 21:29Speaker 05

  Yes. I really do. On a scale of one to 10 for Peoria, I just miss the people. I don't miss the place at all.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  Okay. Same.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  Good answer.

• 21:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  You can read David's full story about the hunt in his article called "A Landowner Stole Our Trophy Elk" on PetersonsHunting.com. David, thanks for joining us and telling the story.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  Thanks, guys. Take care.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  See you, David. See you.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Man, wild.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Crazy stuff.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 06

  I don't even know what to do.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  Well, and this crazy part is not only do landowners, not all of them, obviously, it's a few that get a little frustrated with this. But not only do they believe that the land is theirs, but the animals are theirs, too.

• 22:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  There's a lot of that going on that just is mind blowing to me. And there's a dollar amount on each one of those trophy animals.

• 22:13Speaker 06

  It's so crazy, too, because a lot of times when I see like, there's different land for sale and listing, the realtors will advertise like, oh, so and so much public land, landlocked.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:26Speaker 06

  You know, and I'm just like, that's not considered theirs, but...

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's wild timing that they like saw it go down. You know, if they'd have been five minutes behind in the process and didn't see it happen, who knows how that story would have been different.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Right.

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• 23:13Steven Rinella?

  And when I'm home, it's very easy to stay on a rigid food routine and eat the right kinds of food at the right time. But when you're on the road, it's hard to stay in your routine and like diet can really start to fall apart. I've seen it. And that's why I like Athletic Greens. Now AG1 is already the standard for daily foundational nutrition. AG1 Pro is what's next. It's built for people who don't want to stop there. Creatine, CAHMB, Advanced Gut Lining Support on top of everything AG1 Next Gen already delivers. You can get it in travel packs. One travel pack, 10 to 12 ounces of cold water every morning. If you're already taking creatine separately, AG1 Pro simplifies your stack. One thing

• 23:57Steven Rinella?

  in the morning covers more than your current routine might for less than a dollar more per serving. AG1 Pro supports protein synthesis, helps reduce protein breakdown, and supports muscle recovery and consistent training performance. Visit drinkag1.com/meateater and get an AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro Welcome Kit. Again, that's drinkag1.com/meateater. Grab yours now. If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean. A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that I have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one

• 24:41Steven Rinella?

  of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. That way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you've got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  All right. Normally at this point in the show, we take a break for some listener feedback. But since we're not live, these are questions that were submitted ahead of time. We'll hit a few of them now. And then a few at the end of the show. The first one is from Ryan Bowlinger. Favorite way to cook waterfowl. Max?

• 25:28Speaker 06

  If I could, every single time, I would cook skin on duck, for sure. But that's now is an option, especially like early season when they don't, they're not as fatty. They still have pin feathers. So a lot of times like duck or goose, just cook it like a steak. Trim it, trim all the silver skin off, salt, pepper, garlic. Turns out awesome, especially like the snow geese, the speckled bellies. Even like some of your dabbler ducks. Yeah, it's great. But yeah, I've done things like the crock pot, barbecued shredded meat tacos. Options are really endless. I know Steve's favorite way is like duck confit, which is also really good.

• 26:13Speaker 06

  But yeah, duck or goose pastrami, I just made some over Thanksgiving. Phenomenal.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  All these recipes on the meat eater.com. I think my best waterfowl I've had was when Cal and I were filming Pardon My Plate, when we did the coot episode, we did a side by side comparison with a mallard that the skin was left on, we cooked it on a hot grill, just like you said, with a steak. And it was, it was phenomenal. You would, you would struggle in a Pepsi challenge to identify that that was a mallard versus a piece of beef. It was, it was really great.

• 26:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think Steve is doing a comparison with a merganzer, goldeneye and a mallard. Here coming up.

• 26:50Speaker 03

  Dabbler and a couple of divers.

• 26:52Speaker 06

  So we'll see how that goes.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Corey, favorite way to cook waterfowl?

• 26:56Speaker 04

  Well, I don't really have much of a duck in this fight. I don't do a lot of waterfowl hunting, but just same exact, I would say the same exact way I cook any steak, which is in a hot cast iron pan.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  All right, next question from Will Palakangas. Uh, how do you guys wash your merino wool base layers? Uh, I reached out to the folks at First Light to get an official answer on this because I didn't want to lead anyone astray. Here's what they told me. Some companies make cleaners that are specifically for merino wool products. Uh, one of them is Granger's, which First Light really likes. Uh, some of the staff over there, me included, just uses dead downwind. Uh, and if you aren't buying a special detergent for your base layers, they say to look for labels that say gentle or mild on them. As far as the washing goes, uh, they say it's really important to wash on a gentle cycle with cold water. Try to separate different fabrics and colors. For example, you don't want to put a merino wool kiln hoodie in wash.

• 27:52Speaker 03

  It has a heavy coat with Velcro. It's, it's going to get beat up. Uh, for drying, they say do a tumble dry or, uh, a low dry. Uh, blasting the merino wool in a hot dryer might shrink it. Uh, so simply put, mild detergent or specialized detergent, uh, like Granger's and then wash and dry at cool temps.

• 28:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm so horrible, so horrible at this. I just throw everything together and wash it the same, dry it the same. But I do try, if I know I'm doing some merino wool, I'll like try to keep it on low for the drying aspect for sure. But yeah, I'm so bad at it.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, low and slow, same with down products too. So natural fibers, low light wash and then either a super light tumble or even just hang it outside. If you've got nice weather, hang it in a pine tree.

• 28:40Speaker 03

  Yep, uh, open air and sunlight can do a lot for, uh, your smelly clothes. Okay, Cameron J. O. Seven, best piece of hunting gear you use that's under $50? Uh, I'll do even one better. I'll go under $1. Hand warmers and toe warmers. Anyone, anyone you know who hunts or fishes north of the Mason Dixon line, uh, they'll find a use for some hand warmers and some toe warmers. I think they're still like 98 cents. Um, when I was hunting in Illinois, it was single digits. Um, having those hand warmers and toe warmers was like as important as my coat, you know? And it's like a $500 coat versus a $1 hand warmer. Uh, they'll, they'll really keep you out there longer.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  Do you find your feet, if you do the toe warmers, your feet get too sweaty or too warm? And they get, then they get sweaty and then they get cold?

• 29:26Speaker 03

  Um, no, but I'm, I'm also not like walking around in them either, right? Like it's like, okay, this is where I'm parking my butt for the next two hours. Um, so I'm throwing a toe warmer in there. Uh, favorite piece of gear under $50 max?

• 29:40Speaker 06

  Um, for me, it's gotta be like a neck gator or a buff. Um, yeah, actually got one right here. Um, this is the Tundra cold weather neck gator. 40 bucks.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:55Speaker 06

  It works as a face mask and it just works as just keeping the wind off the back of your neck.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 06

  Um, I love it.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  I like them if, you know, even if I'm hunting in September, obviously not that heavy of one, but yeah, just the sun and wind.

• 30:07Speaker 06

  I mean, just like something to help conceal your face a little bit. And then like if you can, it kills two birds with one stone. So.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Corey, tell Cameron, uh, favorite piece of hunting gear under $50?

• 30:19Speaker 04

  A cheap pair of aftermarket insoles. Obviously you could go big and get some custom orthotics that could run you a hundred to $200 or more.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  What's your favorite?

• 30:29Speaker 04

  I really like super feet. Just cause they're, they're, I think they're maybe a little over $50 now, but just Google aftermarket insoles and you'll find some under $50 for sure. Anything's better than the junk that they give you in the boots. I mean, they'll last you a couple of months, but do your feet a favor and get aftermarket insoles. Make sure it matches your arch. So you might have to bump up a size to make sure it fits your arch. So if you can go into a, a boot store or any sport and a good store and try and put your foot on the insole. Make sure it lines up with your arch and then you can cut it to fit into your boot.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  I'm gonna put that on my Christmas list.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  The, the cutting is important. If you get slightly oversized and they start to roll in your, in your boots, uh, that's, that's no good.

• 31:09Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  Next question is from Mo, uh, Hesgawa. Uh, what is Phil's favorite ever podcast episode of Meat Eater?

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 31:19Speaker 07

  Thanks Mo. I don't know if I have a specific one that sticks out, but I love the, the authors that Steve brings in because you know, I can, I don't connect as much to, to all the very specific hunting talk, but I love it when Steve, specifically like a nautical disaster, which Steve loves, and I also love, um, you know, from the Edmund Fitz to having David Grand talking about the wager, because you can, they, those guys just know their stuff so well. And Steve, the, you can feel Steve's passion when he's asking questions. I also love the awkward part of every conversation with an author, when Steve tries to get them to talk about the end of the book and they don't want to. And he's like, oh, come on, it's fun. Uh, you know, it never fails to, to amuse me. And then it's like, I love the, the, the ones that stick out in my mind are the ones that we had to travel for. Like,

• 32:03Speaker 07

  I loved going, going to Werner Herzog's house was a trip. Going to LA with Spencer and Randall and doing the, the show with Rob Lowe at Sirius, or David Chang at The Ringer was, was fun. Um, yeah. So those are, those are my favorites. I love the authors and, and the comedians. Like Brad, Brad, Brad Leone was a lot of fun. Dan, Dan Adut was a lot of fun, too.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  All right. Corey's going to answer this next one from Red Beard Fly Fishing. If you were hunting in snow too deep for gators, what kind of pants do you like?

• 32:31Speaker 04

  I'd have to go with the First Light Omen Storm Shelter Pants. They got the built-in splash guard Velcro that goes around your boots, plus the bootlace hook like most gators have that keep them down when you're trudging through the snow. And they're waterproof, obviously. They're light, full vents, knee pads. I mean, I think that's my favorite thing First Light makes and they're actually-

• 32:52Speaker 03

  What are they again?

• 32:53Speaker 04

  The Omen pant. Omen Storm Shelter-

• 32:56Speaker 03

  So will you wear the gators with those or is that overkill?

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Man, if it was like melting snow and super sloppy, I've done it. Certainly gators, then those over the top, but dry snow, no, no need. They're great for whatever. I use them backcountry skiing, too.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  All right. Next question. Uh, we got two more left in this round. This is from Willie Scoe, or Will is Kohe? I'm not sure. Uh, what is Max's white whale for waterfowl?

• 33:22Speaker 06

  Ooh, that's a great question.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  I don't even have a guess. Something from the Arctic Circle or like-

• 33:27Speaker 06

  Not even that.

• 33:27Speaker 03

  Okay. Something banded. What, what is it?

• 33:29Speaker 06

  Yeah. No. Um-

• 33:32Speaker 06

  It's, I mean, people might make fun of me and, because they probably have many of these, but um, I've never killed, or never harvested a banded drake mallard.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Hmm, oh.

• 33:42Speaker 06

  Really? Um, so yeah, it's gonna be a banded drake mallard retrieved by my dog.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:47Speaker 06

  My dog has retrieved like three or four of them, but me personally, I've never shot one. Um, yeah, I've shot banded Canada geese, uh, pintail, teal, gadwall, snow geese, but never a banded drake mallard.

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Oh, okay.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  I've only killed like five ducks in my life and I've killed one. Really?

• 34:06Speaker 03

  Really?

• 34:07Speaker 06

  Oh my goodness. Not bragging.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  I've, I've killed one banded bird. It was a speckle-bellied goose.

• 34:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:14Speaker 03

  Came in a pair in December.

• 34:16Speaker 06

  But yeah, for the amount of mallards that I tend to harvest, I'm just waiting on the day.

• 34:22Speaker 03

  Where, where on the continent would you go to get that? Because there's dudes who will like, they know that this refuge bans this time of year. So if they go there, they can, you know, have higher odds. Where, where would you try to do it at?

• 34:33Speaker 06

  I mean, I know there's a lot of banning down in Arkansas, like in the flooded timber, but I necessarily don't want to go somewhere where it's like.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  You want to be organic.

• 34:41Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, for sure. Like, um, where we are around Bozeman, um, we see a lot of birds from Alberta, some Saskatchewan birds. Um, and they do a lot of banning up there, a lot of banning projects. And one of these days, Ruby's gonna come back with uh, something shiny on that orange leg. So hopefully it's this year, maybe.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  All right, last one. Uh, Wally Bloomer, he says, Phil, Destiny two Star Wars expansion, question mark. I don't know what that means. What's he asking, Phil?

• 35:11Speaker 07

  Destiny two is a video game. There's a sequel to the game Destiny. If you can put that together. It's a, it's a, it's a multiplayer, uh, online shooter from the same team who made the first three Halo games. So Bungie, based out of Bellevue, Washington. And so, you know, it feels a lot like Halo, feels great. Um, no one makes, like their, their art direction is unparalleled. I put over 1,500 hours into this game. But, um, let's see, Wally Bloomer. I haven't touched Destiny since the final shape, which, which for everyone else was the, was the last big expansion, downloadable content expansion. Um, but, uh, I, I had, I think I said it before, I had to quit at Cold Turkey. I was just wasting too much, too much time, um, playing that game. Uh, and I, to be honest, Wally, I didn't even know

• 35:54Speaker 07

  that there was a Star Wars tinged expansion, uh, and until I read this question. That is how checked out I am from the Destiny community, which didn't used to be the case, but, uh, yeah, it's a, so just a, for 15 more seconds of detail. The reason you waste so much time playing these games is, is because it's a multi, uh, massive multiplayer online game. So you play with like a bunch of people and it's like a looter shooter as well. So you're always trying to make your number go up. You, you, you get a gun and then that gun helps you fight stronger monsters. And then you get an even stronger gun and that gun helps you fight stronger monsters and you watch your, your, your number tick up and it's just that sort of serotonin hit.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Okay. Does learning about the Star Wars make you more interested though? Or you still just know?

• 36:31Speaker 07

  Not at all. No, no, I'm done. I'm done forever, Wally. Sorry.

• 36:34Speaker 03

  All right. Our next segment is top threes.

• 37:02Speaker 07

  That was not the right note.

• 37:03Speaker 03

  All right. Each one of us had. I'm tone deaf, Phil. A different top three list today. Corey, start us out. What is your top three list?

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Oh, boy. Well, we're kind of wrapping up 2025. Not officially yet, obviously, but, uh, it makes me always kind of reminisce the year. So I'm doing my, in no particular order necessarily, my top three outdoor adventures from 2025.

• 37:26Speaker 03

  All right.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  See what Phil brings up first.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I can't wait to see this.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Okay, yeah, so in April, Corinne and I went down to west Texas to hunt oddad. And had a successful hunt, harvested a ewe and a ram, but that was like a blur just compared to the the adventure down there, Montana boy. This is only the second time I've hunted in another state. First time I was just guiding, so I hadn't.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Where was that at?

• 37:53Speaker 04

  Colorado.

• 37:54Speaker 03

  Okay, cool.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  My first season guiding. So this just being invited was phenomenal and then being able to explore this super rugged, dry, arid country of west Texas. We were staring into Mexico the whole time. It was only in the seventies, but it was so dry that it felt so much hotter.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Not a cloud in the sky, no shade to get under.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  No shade. The wind was like really nasty, especially in that shot there up on the side of a mountain. Got to eat some oddad fresh over the fire, which was pretty cool. Just the whole experience was was awesome.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  Where's that skull at now?

• 38:27Speaker 04

  Hanging in my house as soon as you walk upstairs.

• 38:29Speaker 06

  Is that, is that a bull, a buck?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Ram.

• 38:33Speaker 06

  Ram, okay. I was trying to think of another one, but.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're more on the sheep side of things.

• 38:39Speaker 06

  Cool.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that was.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  Good adventure.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Number three, yeah, pretty awesome adventure. Uh, let's see, number two would have been my wife and son and I did a lot of camp floating. We like to take the drift boat down onto one of our freestone rivers and camp on public land, either on an island or off the, off a beach, just off the side of a of a river. Typically, we hit the Yellowstone River, which is a nice short drive here from Bozeman. But, uh, love to take the boat out for one or two days, one or two nights if possible. And, uh, figure out what sort of adventures we can go on. There's a shot of my kid jumping off the front of the boat. Super nonchalant. We either go by ourselves or with another family, but it's fun. Fish all day, pull into the beach wherever you want.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Bet you find some agate, some petrified wood.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, lots, lots of petrified wood. Uh, still don't quite have the eye for it, but even though I have found the one of the biggest piece.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  The biggest agate I've ever seen.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Uh.

• 39:34Speaker 06

  You're multitasking in that photo.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, there I am rowing the boat with a boat full of gear, firewood, a dog, and two kids in the front. They were kicking, splashing the water, churning up all the fish, but I didn't catch anything, but I had to try.

• 39:48Speaker 06

  Isn't that called the San Juan shuffle?

• 39:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's when they actually kick up the rocks though. Yeah, yeah, so close, but so just the. Family float trips in the summer. Looking forward to that again next year.

• 40:00Speaker 03

  What is the San Juan Shuffle?

• 40:02Speaker 06

  It's basically like you walk and you're kicking up all this dirt and I don't, he would know.

• 40:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, like if you're fishing a hole.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  It's a beneficial thing.

• 40:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're kicking up a lot of bugs higher up in the stream and then they come down and they chum up the fish, if you will. It sometimes works. Other times I feel like any movement can put the fish down too.

• 40:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, spooks them.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, so.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  I like that name. I, uh, there's a driving maneuver I refer to as the Chicago sweep. It's where you cross multiple lanes at once. Say you're like four lanes and you gotta get from lane one to lane three.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  Pretty sure that's illegal. Been there.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah, it's the Chicago sweep. And I wondered one time, I was like, did I come up with that or did I hear someone say it? So I Googled Chicago sweep and I couldn't find it anywhere online. Um, so maybe I made it up. Let's, let's make it a thing though.

• 40:47Speaker 04

  That is good, I like it.

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Universe. That's a Chicago sweep move that you might see.

• 40:51Speaker 06

  But you remember, you might get pulled over doing it.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  Sure, that's, that's not in Chicago. That's like, you know, that's, that's driving up there.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  Pretty normal.

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Chicago sweep, multiple lanes at once.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  Four or five lanes.

• 41:01Speaker 03

  All right, number one, Corey, adventure of 2025 is.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  Number one, took my wife and son to my favorite place in the world and I'm not going to tell anybody where it's at. Uh, it's right on the edge of a wilderness, uh, here in Montana. But, uh, really cool spot. Uh, took my son and my wife up there, went up this tiny little creek to go look for some fish. And low and behold, we caught a giant west lob cutthroat. My boy caught that, which was really exciting. Just, he was finally old enough where I could take him on the journey, which just getting there obviously is very difficult.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  And he caught it.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 03

  Did you hook it and then hand him the rod or he did everything?

• 41:40Speaker 04

  No, he did everything.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Hell yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, the dog.

• 41:42Speaker 06

  Dry fly?

• 41:42Speaker 04

  Yep, caddis. The dog got in the way. We had to wrangle the dog and pull him out of the way, but, uh, yeah, super fun. Just super remote, hard to get to spot. And I've been waiting since the day he was born to take him back there, so.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  A fish that big on a dry fly would spook me a little. It had to really spook Marshall. Uh, what's going on there?

• 41:59Speaker 04

  He didn't want to, you could see he didn't want to touch it in the photo. Yeah, he's hesitant, but.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 42:03Speaker 04

  No, super fun. Uh, that won't be the last time up there.

• 42:06Speaker 03

  Good 2025 adventures for Corey. All right, Max, what's your top three?

• 42:10Speaker 06

  Oh, I got top three duck hunting accessories.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 06

  Um, for starters, I'll start without, start with these decoys. Um, I'm a big fan of a jerk rig.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:22Speaker 06

  Um, a jerk rig consists of.

• 42:26Speaker 06

  A weight.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 42:27Speaker 06

  A little bungee and a line of decoys. So basically you can imagine I put this weight out. I have this line come all the way back to me and it's exactly what it says. You jerk it, it produces water motion.

• 42:41Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 42:42Speaker 06

  Um, water motion goes a long ways. I would use this 10 times uh more than I would ever use a spinner. Um, it's natural. Ducks do it. Um, ducks produce so much water motion that people overlook. Um, and especially if you're hunting like a pond or something, it's super important to have some kind of water.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Only on a calm day? What, what if they were like, you know, seven mile an hour wind and you, and you had some small waves?

• 43:07Speaker 06

  It helps for sure. Um, cause a lot of times too, and people will do this in the south too, hunting the timber. They'll just rip on the jerk cord and it, the splashing sound.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 43:17Speaker 06

  Um, attracts ducks too.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:19Speaker 06

  It helps. Um, so yeah, that's my number one. I bring this with me. Almost every time I go duck hunting, for sure. Um, number two, I think I have a photo. Which one is it gonna be? Oh, uh, game tote.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 43:35Speaker 06

  I've also brought this with me too.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Beautiful piece of gear.

• 43:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a beautiful piece of gear. Um, it helps you keep your ducks in a row. Um.

• 43:42Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 43:43Speaker 06

  Haha, funny. Um, just easy. Hang, uh, hang the duck by the foot or the head. And a big reason why I like this is um, in waterfall hunting, you gotta keep your ducks separate. Like you gotta claim your ducks and it helps you keep you, keep, keeps you legal.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 44:01Speaker 06

  So like Cory and I went out, oh Cory would be this side, I would be this side.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:06Speaker 06

  Um, so yeah, that's a thing I bring with me every single time and.

• 44:10Speaker 03

  It's for a nice picture.

• 44:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, helps with good photos too.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 44:13Speaker 06

  Um, so yeah, that was a couple of weeks ago. Um, limited mallard, so.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  Very good.

• 44:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, just, you don't need it, but I like it.

• 44:22Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:23Speaker 06

  Um.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  What does that one run, you think?

• 44:25Speaker 06

  Uh, this one's probably a hundred bucks. It's.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  Custom, so one you're gonna have for the rest of your life?

• 44:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's custom, has Ruby's name on it, so.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Very good.

• 44:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, um, so yeah, uh, once Ruby goes, I'll retire this one and then

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:38Speaker 06

  get another one for the next dog, so.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  All right, number three, waterfowl accessory.

• 44:42Speaker 06

  Number three, I kinda touched on this earlier, um, a neck gator, um, this one's from First Light, uh, forty bucks, but like I was saying earlier, keeps you warm, keeps the wind off you, and also helps conceal you a little bit, so, um, yeah, every time there's, it's cold out, I'm wearing this guy, so, um, got a little fleece in that side there, but, yeah, that's my top three.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  And you don't realize how warm it's keeping you until you might take it off.

• 45:10Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, I mean, just, just a little wind on the neck is like brutal, so.

• 45:16Speaker 06

  That's my top three.

• 45:17Speaker 03

  All right, I'm going next. I've got my top three favorite fishing lures of all time. Phil has photos of them. Number three is the Johnson Beetle Spin.

• 45:26Speaker 06

  Nice.

• 45:27Speaker 03

  This is my favorite lure in the world for catching panfish. My best days of crappie fishing, bluegill fishing, are thanks to a yellow beetle spin, just like that one there. Uh, easy to cast, rarely get snagged, you can run them in any depth, uh, one of the last remaining lures you can buy that's under three dollars a piece. Uh, non-pan, non-pan fish like them too. I've caught some good bass on beetle spins. One day in college while I was fishing from my kayak, I hooked into a giant flathead, uh, fishing for bluegill that ate a beetle spin. I think he was probably like twenty pounds. I fought him for like fifteen minutes on my ultralight setup, got him to the edge of the kayak a handful of times. Eventually he broke me off, uh, on like my third attempt to, to grab him, uh, and he, and he broke my heart.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  It would have been one of my greatest catches of all time, a flathead on a beetle spin from the kayak.

• 46:14Speaker 06

  Hmm, that's cool.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Uh, anyway, I love the Johnson Beetle Spin, uh, so does the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame. They named it their number thirteen best lure of all time, uh, but for me, it's number three, the Johnson Beetle Spin.

• 46:25Speaker 06

  I'm excited to see what, what is two and one?

• 46:28Speaker 03

  Number two is the Rapala Shad Wrap. Uh, if I could only fish with one crankbait the rest of my life, it would be a number five shad wrap in Fire Tiger, just like that one there. Uh, it'll catch any game fish, bass, walleye, pike. You can size it down for panfish and trout, size it up for muskie and stripers. It's, it's a real do-it-all lure. You can troll them, you can cast and retrieve, good for fishing five to 10 feet of water, which is where I find myself most times. Also love the shad wraps broken cousin, the jointed shad wrap, those give even more wobble.

• 47:01Speaker 06

  A little more action.

• 47:02Speaker 03

  They're not quite as easy to tune as the OG shad wrap, and I would bet that I own 40 or 50 of the jointed shad wraps and the shad wraps.

• 47:11Speaker 06

  Not all in Fire Tiger.

• 47:12Speaker 03

  Not all in Fire Tiger.

• 47:13Speaker 06

  Just wanted to make sure.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  I bet Fire Tiger is not even top five because that's what I use so often and lose so often.

• 47:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  So it's my favorite, but I think I have colors I've recognized that just should be retired because I'm never going to grab that purple blue thing or whatever I have. All right, number one is the Strike King KVD Sexy Frog. Nothing in fishing brings me greater joy than a top water bass bite. And although I love like the scum frog and the zoom horny toad, my absolute favorite is the KVD Sexy Frog. Kevin Van Damme, he's the greatest bass angler ever, he's made my favorite lure ever. The Sexy Frog is totally weedless, you can cast that thing a mile, it has an internal rattle, which not all frogs do, so it has some added sound, great action, you can twitch it, you do a fast retrieve. They have 17 colors.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Now, I like the classic leopard frog, which is what that pattern is, because most places I fish in the north, the most common frog is a leopard frog. And here's a hot tip, take a scissors and cut off like a half inch of that hula skirt legs, and then also add a trailer hook, you'll get better hook sets that way. Throw it on a calm cloudy day for best results. That's the Strike King KVD Sexy Frog, my number one favorite lure of all time.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  I feel like, I was editing a Tony Peterson episode one time, and I felt like he liked a calm sunny day. Because it produces like a shadow.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 48:41Speaker 07

  Up top.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  I think you talk to 10 anglers, they'll tell you 10 different things. I like cloud and calm. Then I've got a few honorable mentions. The Eagle Claw Croppy Rig. Croppy rigs get a bad rap for being like the lure you associate with kids and beginner anglers. But that's stupid. Everyone should embrace the Croppy Rig. They're cool. You bait them with worms or minnows to catch any fish in North America. Fish it under a bobber, fish it on the bottom. Doesn't take any technique at all. And they're the perfect lure for using while drinking a beer. So that's the Croppy Rig. The Mr. Twister Curly Tail. They make the OG Curly Tail Grub. You won't find anyone that'll tell you it's like the best soft plastic for bass or walleye

• 49:24Speaker 03

  or anything, but just like as an all-around lure, you can't beat a Mr. Twister. Good for panfish and game fish. Paired with the VMC jig head, that's my favorite jig head. They'll catch anything. And then the Little Stinker Dip Bait Worms. If you love catching three-pound channel cats in slow-moving water, which I do, then you can't beat stink bait. My favorite vessel for Sonny's stink bait, that's my favorite stink bait, is the Little Stinker Dip Worm. They make it real easy to set the hook with that impregnated treble hook. I've caught more catfish, I think, on that pairing of the Little Stinker's Worms and Sonny's stink bait than anything else. Those are my honorable mentions.

• 50:03Speaker 07

  Very cool.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  All right, Phil, what's your top three?

• 50:05Speaker 07

  Okay, well, I ran into some technical difficulties this morning editing a meat eater podcast, so I had to pull Orion Callahan and just look around my office. So we have my top three tiki mugs that were in my office.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  How many did you have in there?

• 50:19Speaker 07

  Well, I've got like 20, but I brought down, I brought down five for some honorable mentions. The first one is this Cujico mug that I got at Smugglers Cove in San Francisco. Wow, that's cool. This is the mug that is pictured on the cover of the Smugglers Cove tiki book, which is kind of like the modern-day bible of tiki stuff. And it got a new matte glaze and it just, it looks real, real pretty. It's a little guy's covered in like barnacles and old nets and... And some coral and stuff. That is a big tiki mug. Uh, I, I don't use these if I, uh, sometimes I'll take, I'll take one home on the weekend if I'm, if I feel like making a tiki drink. But it's, it's few and far between. Uh, number two is this one I actually found at an antique store here in Bozeman.

• 51:01Speaker 07

  And so it does, it's not that flashy, but I, I saw it and I was curious. It's got, it says Harvey's Lake Tahoe on it. Cool. Um, so I looked it up and it was an old tiki restaurant, tiki bar that was at the top of a hotel in Tahoe. Um, that was very short-lived and apparently wasn't very good, but the hotel has a lot of history. Cause some guy who was in debt over a million dollars at the casino, put a bomb in a copier and, uh, Oh. To try to extort the hotel and, um, the FBI caught wind and detonated the bomb. Nobody was hurt, but I mean, it blew up like the first three stories of the hotel caused like 20 million dollars in damages. That's good lore. And here's, here's, and here's a, a, a relic from, from there. Good stuff.

• 51:44Speaker 07

  And then my favorite was one that I got at a bar called Woo Song Road in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just right outside Harvard Square. And this is, if you've seen, if you've seen the film Spirited Away, um, Nope. Uh, this is the, the, the radish spirit who works in the bath house. And I just think it's a great, I mean, it's, it's gorgeous. Whoa. Wonderful design. He's wearing a little kind of like cherry blossom, Japanese shirt, tiki shirt. His, his hat comes off. Ah. Um, and Like a cookie jar. And it's also just a really cool tiki, tiki bar as well. It's got kind of like this pulp comic book theme, uh, like, uh, it's, it's kind of hard, hard to describe, but it was a nice little, a nice little find there and, and near, near Harvard. Have you drank anything out of that tiki mug? Once, yeah. Most of these tiki mugs, I've had one drink out of them and I bring them to my office. Hmm.

• 52:29Speaker 07

  Uh, and, and then sometimes I'll bring them home for a special occasion. Okay. I thought you had a couple honorable mentions. Oh yeah, I got some honorable mentions here too. This one is from, yeah. This one is from Galaxy's Edge, the, uh, Oga's Cantina in, in Disney World and Disneyland. Wow. This is a sort of like Classic. It tells the story of the battle of Endor and kind of like a tribal artwork sort of thing, like, like as if it were designed by Ewoks. So you know, you've got the AT-ST there, C3PO and R2-D2 are somewhere around here. So the Ewoks just absolutely, uh, you know, doming some stormtroopers. Uh, that's a good one. And then I've got I'm surprised that didn't make top three. Oh, there's so many to choose from.

• 53:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 07

  And then I've got this one, which is, looks like an arcade cabinet made out of like driftwood. Um, that's, that was from Fun House, which is like an old, like a video game comedy site that I used to enjoy a lot. Very unique.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Jealous of that collection. That is fun. If you're not watching this on YouTube, you're missing out on a real visual treat there.

• 53:27Speaker 07

  Big tell. There we are. Thank you.

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• 55:08Speaker 03

  All right. Joining us on the line last is Wired Hunt host Mark Kenyon. He's here with a top five list of his own. Mark, welcome to the show.

• 55:18Speaker 08

  Hey guys, I'm just kind of in shock of Phil's collection there. Quite the, uh, quite the thing to try to follow up.

• 55:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Good luck, Mark. That's what makes Phil Phil. Uh, real, real quick, Mark, give us a deer movement update for where you're at, uh, for Michigan these last 30 days of your doe season.

• 55:35Speaker 08

  Yeah, well, we're coming off of a really great cold and snowy spell for much of the country. Uh, really the, the late season weather that you want. So we're all, we're coming off of this hive. Unfortunately, at the very end of the year, we're actually getting the opposite, which is a warm-up, which is not as encouraging. We have warmer weather coming in here into the upper Midwest, some rain. Uh, we're gonna miss out on the white Christmas that I thought we were gonna have and all that's probably gonna lead to a little bit slower deer movement than we've had over the last couple of weeks during this kind of Arctic spell. So not exactly what you want, but with the warmer temperatures, you're probably gonna see deer moving off of the grains like corn or soybeans and moving more towards greener forage, native browse, green food plots, winter wheat fields,

• 56:19Speaker 08

  that kind of stuff. So, super fast update, but, uh, that's what's coming down the line.

• 56:24Speaker 03

  All right, good info. Now, it's almost the off-season and a great way to keep the fire burning for deer in the off-season is by reading. And I don't know anyone who has read more books about whitetails than you. So today I want you to give us your top five list of best books for whitetail hunters. Let's start with number five. What do you have for us, Mark?

• 56:43Speaker 08

  Uh, first off, I'd like to say that I plan on using that, uh, bio line that I just saw below, Whitetail Enjoyer. That's gonna be my new title, maybe?

• 56:52Speaker 03

  Not expert, but enjoyer.

• 56:54Speaker 08

  Yeah, enjoyer. Uh, pretty accurate. Uh, number one, or because number five in your case, will be Mapping Trophy Bucks by Brad Herndon. If you're watching, here it is. This is a foundational text within the whitetail world from like a tactical perspective. This is basically the first, and I think kind of the- That that most established resource on understanding topography and terrain for deer hunting. So how hills and ridges and saddles and points and inside corners of fields and all that kind of stuff can actually lead to deer moving in different kind of ways and how you can take advantage of that as a hunter. And this uses maps, really teaches how to use maps and topography to predict deer movement. So really kind of foundational how to book in the whitetail world.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  It's got kind of a textbook look to it.

• 57:42Speaker 08

  Yes, yes, it does. There's lots of illustrations. You can see like very helpful actual diagrams and stuff. So if you're trying to get better deer hunting, this is like a must have book. It's hard to find, though, I think now is what I've heard.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  Okay, that looks like one. If you're not interested in a whole bunch of text and reading, you could just flip through and enjoy the visuals and learn stuff that way. All right, number four, Mark.

• 58:06Speaker 08

  Number four, this is for those of you who do want to do a lot of reading, and this is not tactical or strategic or how to at all. This is a book called A Hunter's Heart: Honest Essays on Bloodsport. This is a collection of essays edited and collected by David Peterson. This is going to be getting to the why we hunt, not just deer, but anything, and how we go about it. So there are just some amazing short essays in this collection that talk about whitetails and a whole bunch of other stuff and really gets kind of into that deeper, you know, philosophical side of things. One of the best hunting essays of all time, in my opinion, is in here. It's called The Heart of the Game by Thomas McQuain. It's a legendary

• 58:50Speaker 08

  piece. Highly, highly recommend for all whitetail hunters and hunters of all kinds.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  All right, we are now to the top three. What do you have for us next?

• 59:01Speaker 08

  Next is Whitetail Nation, and this is by a guy named Pete Bodo. This is an under the radar book. I don't think a lot of people know about it. It came out, I don't know, maybe 15, 20 years ago. And it's a really interesting story about this guy's kind of exploration and journeys. He went from kind of being a standard. Everyday deer hunter to to finally trying to kill that first big buck. Kind of the thing that you read about over the whole course of your life is someday getting that big trophy buck. Well, he decided to document that journey as he went from kind of where he was to to going to that next level. And all along the way, traveled across the country, was in hunting in Pennsylvania, New York, Texas, Montana.

• 59:45Speaker 08

  And then through it all, really ends up doing a really interesting kind of. I don't know if it's an analysis, but he he documents the culture of deer hunting. He documents the history of deer hunting and does it in a really compelling way. This is like a real writer. He wrote for Gray Sporting Journal and the New York Times and all that. So it's it's a really well articulated, interesting story that that has that kind of narrative, nonfiction. Set of lessons you can learn throughout too. So really good one. Not a lot of people know about this one, but I highly recommend it.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  And a very pretty book. Uh, Mark, you seem like a dusk, uh, dust jacket guy. Do you always keep those on your books?

• 1:00:22Speaker 08

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. I couldn't, my, my wife removes them. I kind of feel like that sacrilege. It's, there's a lot of time and energy that goes into designing these book covers and packaging them, right? Uh, so I would never take that off.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  I get rid of them right away. I feel like it, I'm reading a book from the library if it has the dust jacket on it.

• 1:00:42Speaker 08

  Interesting.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  All right, number two, Marcus, what do you have?

• 1:00:45Speaker 08

  Number two, this is a tactics book. This is a how to, this is my favorite how to book. It's called Whitetail Access. And it's a funny story. The title and the subtitle, which is how to hunt top whitetail states cheaply and effectively. It's actually not really that kind of book. It was, it's a story that I heard from the author that was kind of like the publishers want to try to make this seem more like a very clear how to book. And so they packaged it with this title that they thought would get people to buy it. But really what it is, is a story. It's the story of Chris Eberhart's season in which he lived out of his minivan, traveling across the country, hunting deer, DIY on the cheap. From Michigan to North Dakota, Missouri, Ohio, uh, maybe somewhere else.

• 1:01:34Speaker 08

  But the Eberharts, Chris Eberhart and John Eberhart, his dad are kind of, you know, OG whitetail hunters. They've really, unfortunately, Chris passed away, which is, which is really sad, but his dad is still one of the legends in the whitetail world. It's taught me and thousands of others a lot about how to effectively hunt whitetails in heavily pressured states. And so this story is all about that season, but then throughout it, he's got very detailed notes about how he did what he did, his strategies, his perspectives, his plans. Um, there's diagrams and maps in here again, too. So kind of similar to the other book, you can actually see where his stand setups were and follow along with all the hunts and the tactics. So

• 1:02:15Speaker 08

  a really good how to mixed with a story. So that's why it's, it's probably my favorite recommendation for people who want to learn, but also enjoy the story along the way.

• 1:02:24Speaker 03

  All right. Here's a recap so far. Number five was mapping whitetail bucks. Number four was a hunter's heart. Number three, whitetail nation. Number two, whitetail access. What is number one?

• 1:02:36Speaker 08

  It's kind of cliche. The number one book that all whitetail hunters and every hunter in the world should read is a sand county almanac by Aldo Leopold. Probably anyone listening to Mediter or Mediter Radio Live knows this book, but if not, highly recommend it. It is, I think, kind of like the, the, the, I don't know, like the equivalent of the Bible for people who are into hunting and fish and wildlife and conservation, anything. It's like a foundational text. It's the thing that kind of sums up how we can think about ourselves as stewards, as wildlife managers. There's, there's great essays in here and thoughts on, you know, how to be a hunter and connect with wildlife wilderness, the importance of a land ethic.

• 1:03:20Speaker 08

  Um, you've heard it come up a thousand times from Steve and Doug Durn and so many others, and it's for good reason. Um, the opening text here, the opening line here is, um, there are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot. And I think that sums it up really well. If you care about wildlife and wild things, this is a book that just has to be on your bookshelf.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Okay. Good stuff, Mark. Uh, thank you for the list. I'm going to pick up some of those this off season. I wrote them all down. Uh, and good luck on, uh, the rest of your season there in Michigan. Thanks for joining us.

• 1:03:54Speaker 08

  Thanks, buddy. Merry Christmas, Mark.

• 1:03:56Speaker 06

  Yeah. Merry Christmas.

• 1:03:57Speaker 08

  You guys too. Tell the family hi. Right back at you.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  All right, that brings us to the end of the show. We have some more Q and A to wrap this up. Here are some questions listeners submitted last week. First one is from Field of Dreams 731. What types of wine do y'all pair with Wild Game? I don't have a great answer for this, but when I'm cooking like a big meal for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and it's got courses in Wild Game, and my wife is really trying to like put on the rits, she will go ask ChatGPT. She'll tell it exactly what we're having, in what order, and what the meat is, and where it came from, and then that spits out some recommendations. So that's the best thing I can tell you. Do you guys have any thoughts on wine and Wild Game?

• 1:04:41Speaker 06

  Uh, red wine?

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 1:04:44Speaker 06

  Or white wine? I'm not a big red wine, or just not a big wine guy in general, so.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  I married a wino. My wife loves wine, whether it pairs or not. And she's got me hooked on Malbecs, which is an Argentinian wine, real dark, bold, fruity flavors, which pairs very well with red meat especially. But I'm a big fan of the boxed wine.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:05:08Speaker 06

  Slap it a little.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  Phil, any input on wine and meat?

• 1:05:12Speaker 07

  Nah, I'm not a big, I'm not a big wine guy. Sorry.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  If you're interested in beer pairings, we have two articles on TheMeatEater.com for you. The first one is from Chef Justin Townsend, "How to Pair Beer with Wild Game." And then the other one is from Cooby Brown, "How to Pair Beer with Fish." We can help you out on that front. Again, for wine, I think ChatGPT does a really nice job. If you tell it exactly what you got going on.

• 1:05:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, we're not, we're not wine people here, I guess.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  The next question is CJ Ropekey21, "What is the best Wild Game Phil has eaten since working at MeatEater?"

• 1:05:50Speaker 04

  Great question.

• 1:05:50Speaker 07

  Uh, I think I've talked about this before, but the best bite of Wild Game I've ever had was at the old office, probably five, four years ago. Brody brought in some elk tenderloin, and then Michael Hunter, who's the chef at Antler in Toronto, Canada, who's been on the podcast a couple of times and done some stuff with us. He just had a little, just like induction burner, and just like seemingly, without even thinking about it, just made like a huckleberry demi-glaze and cooked this elk. Just perfectly and it just like it felt like it melted in my mouth. It was the best tasting meat I've ever had.

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  We did not have much of a kitchen at the OG office.

• 1:06:32Speaker 07

  Oh, no, it is non-existent. Yeah.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  Uh, Jeremiah Donahue says, if you could ask Santa for one piece of outdoor gear, what would it be? Corey?

• 1:06:44Speaker 04

  Uh, man, I've been on the hunt for a good wall tent. I'd love a Montana canvas wall tent. We're shooting for the stars here.

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  Hard to fit under the tree.

• 1:06:53Speaker 04

  It is. Yeah. Well, wrapped up maybe.

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  12 by 12 wall tent.

• 1:06:58Speaker 03

  Okay. Uh, with, with or without a floor?

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  Without.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Without a floor. Okay. They're always without a floor from Montana.

• 1:07:04Speaker 04

  You can get them with floors. Yep.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Yep. With frame, uh, maybe a stove too, since we're at it.

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah.

• 1:07:10Speaker 06

  Tell Santa to look at Facebook Marketplace.

• 1:07:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Speaker 06

  I've seen a lot of good deals on there.

• 1:07:14Speaker 04

  Yep. Okay.

• 1:07:15Speaker 06

  I was so close to pulling the trigger, but I didn't.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  I'll see Santa this weekend.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  He's, he's listening. Uh, Max, what are you asking Santa for?

• 1:07:22Speaker 06

  Ooh, I got two ideas. Uh, more decoys.

• 1:07:26Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:07:27Speaker 06

  Yep. Never have enough. Or, um, there's this duck plucker out there called the fall plucker.

• 1:07:32Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:07:33Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, my thumbs are pretty strong, but they get tired a little bit. So.

• 1:07:37Speaker 03

  How many ducks do you think you have to kill a year to justify having one of those?

• 1:07:41Speaker 06

  They're pretty spendy, to be honest with you.

• 1:07:42Speaker 03

  Put a number on it, like 50 ducks a year, 200 ducks a year?

• 1:07:46Speaker 06

  I don't know. Um, I feel like in order to like, for like guides and outfitters, it'd be a no brainer.

• 1:07:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:55Speaker 06

  Um, for, for like a personal, if you got to hunt with a lot of friends, I would probably say like a couple of hundred.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Do they have any other purpose? Like, could, could they function with a pheasant?

• 1:08:05Speaker 06

  Uh, no.

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:08:06Speaker 06

  I mean, not in my experience. Um, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, those are two things that I would love is more decoys or a duck plucker. So. Santa, if you're listening.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  Oh, you know he's listening.

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  I'm good on gear, Santa. I just want permissions. Just give me land. Yeah, that's another good one. Just a lot of land, Santa. That's all I need.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  That's really hard to put under the tree.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  Uh, deeds are pretty small.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Well, true.

• 1:08:31Speaker 03

  They could fit, yeah.

• 1:08:32Speaker 04

  True, or a phone call.

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Uh, next question is from Will Sanchez. He says, favorite state for fossil slash rock hunting? Uh, there are great rocks and fossils across the whole continent, but the main thing is being legal, Will. So, BLM has the loosest restrictions when it comes to where you can collect, what you can collect, how you collect as far as, you know, picking up a shovel and digging a hole. Um, so any state that has a lot of BLM land, which is, you know, mostly in the west, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, uh, those are my favorite states for fossil and rock hunting, just because you can do it legally. Yep. Uh, the next one is from Doug, uh, Chiason. Are there any hunting video games Phil likes?

• 1:09:15Speaker 07

  Uh, the short answer is no, and that's not because I, I don't think they, they exist. I just haven't really tried a whole lot. I've tried the Hunter Call of the Wild, which I think is probably the biggest one, maybe. People might yell at me for that, but they've been making, putting out expansion packs for that game for years now. And I've, I played it for like about an hour and a half, uh, a year or two ago, and I just couldn't get into it. It seemed like there were a lot of systems that I just needed to get familiar with. So it, it was kind of like a steep, a steep learning curve, but there is a game coming out, uh, called Cast and Chill.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:09:45Speaker 07

  Which, which came, which came out on Steam, which is like the, a PC marketplace a few months ago. But it's, as, as of the recording, it's coming out on, on the Nintendo Switch 2 tomorrow. And I put it on my wishlist just a couple of days ago, and it looks fun. It just seems like a very laid back, kind of gorgeous looking, uh, like pixel art fishing game, but it looks pretty dense. Like you can go to it, there's a whole, whole ton of fish to catch. Did different bait to do, different, um, seasons and stuff, so I'm excited to try it. Maybe I'll stream it. Maybe I'll stream it.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  He's going to play that over Christmas break.

• 1:10:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, I will, yes.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  Someone in a future live chat needs to ask Phil for his review, so we can all find out together.

• 1:10:21Speaker 07

  And let me know if there are any hunting games that I should, I should get into. I don't want anything too realistic. Like if it's a, kind of like an arcadey element to it, like that's more fun than, than hardcore realism.

• 1:10:31Speaker 03

  Another video game question for Phil. This is from Fro Alex. Ask Phil if he ever played RuneScape back in the day, or if he still plays.

• 1:10:40Speaker 07

  I did play RuneScape. Speaking of MMOs that we talked about with Destiny, this was massive multiplayer online. So it's like a big, you know, you get on a server and there's thousands of people that are all in the same, playing in the same area and you can, you know, squad up and take on dungeons and fight, you know, go on quests and stuff. RuneScape was one of the, was one of the OGs. I played it a little bit. That was my, my brother was way more into it than me. My big MMO was, it's called Ragnarok Online, which was a 2D pixel art one. But then I also played World of Warcraft a lot back. I was, I was playing WoW from the ground floor, like 2004, like right, right when it launched.

• 1:11:20Speaker 03

  Do people still play RuneScape?

• 1:11:22Speaker 07

  Oh yeah. It's got a very active community. I, but again, that's like a blind spot for me because once you have kids and a job, MMOs aren't the healthiest thing for you or your family, which is why I stopped playing Destiny.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  Last question today is from Casey Jacobson 23. What's your plan when out of state deer hunting in previously unexplored areas? I'll answer that on behalf of deer and then Max is going to answer about waterfowl and quarry for elk. My, my plan when hunting in an unexplored place for deer, the first thing I'll look for is food. And that doesn't matter if I'm hunting in Idaho in October or Illinois in December, which is, you know, one of my, my spectrum this year. That was my first hunt, my last hunt. That's the easiest thing I can find on, on X. And then when I'm there in person, I can work my way backwards. If this is where the deer are feeding,

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  it's very easy to, you know, put together where they're probably bedding at and traveling to get from point A to point B. Be so look, look for food for me. A lot of times that is probably big agriculture. I spend most of my time hunting between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River. So I care about where the alfalfa is, where the cornfields are, what point in the harvest it is. And if there's no ag around, what, what acorn trees there might be on X does a great job of allowing you to sort by the crop coverage that you can see if was, was this field last year corn? Was it alfalfa? Was it hay? Was it sorghum? So, so starting there, thinking about what deer would like in that area. That, that'll give you a big piece of the puzzle.

• 1:12:58Speaker 06

  That's great.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  Max, uh, answer for waterfowl.

• 1:13:01Speaker 06

  Well, I'm going to kind of go the opposite of you. My first thing is water.

• 1:13:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:13:08Speaker 06

  Not only the lakes, rivers, streams, um, but I have a big obsession with, um, keeping up with current weather and rain forecast. So there's different areas that get a bunch of rain. And two months later, that rain is still gonna almost be there as in forms of flooded fields, flooded agriculture, you name it. So, um, there is this spot, um, that I went up to Saskatchewan this last September, um, where they got eight inches of rain a month ago before I hunted. And I went there, put a pin on, on the map and I went there and there was just so many dogs.

• 1:13:52Speaker 03

  And you can DIY waterfowl in Saskatchewan.

• 1:13:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Sons of bitches need to let deer hunters do that.

• 1:13:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  They make you have a guide or a buddy or whatever.

• 1:13:59Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, um, I went up there and, uh, hunted flooded fields for three days and it was just incredible. So, um, yeah, look for water. Um, and then another big thing too, is like, if I, if I'm going to a general area, I will go and make a list of landowners, names and phone numbers. In case there's ducks there.

• 1:14:19Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 1:14:20Speaker 06

  Case there's waterfall there feeding in their fields or just using their water because it's going to be a lot easier to just already have their names and phone numbers already on a list than spending the time looking it up. Oh, there's their house kind of thing. So I do all that stuff and ahead of time.

• 1:14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think to piggyback off that, going back to deer, I think it's really important to have a plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G. A lot of times I go in thinking that it's going to happen for me at plan A or B and it ends up being like my fifth or sixth option where I actually, you know, find the deer that I want to hunt. All right, Corey, previously unexplored areas when it comes to elk, what are you looking for?

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, for elk, I mean, time, like length of time of your hunt is everything. So if you can add any time to actually physically scouting, e-scouting is great, but you're never going to know exactly what the country's like, how long it takes you to get to a spot unless you're physically on the ground. So if you can add a couple of days, whether it's like opening day or you got a, you know, weekend even that you're just hunting a new area. If you can get out there in the summer, late fall or early fall, late summer and get boots on the ground and physically see the country, you're going to just have a massive leg up when you're, when you discover elk in that part of the world. And elk are going to be everywhere, right? Like they need the same things deer need and ducks. But

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  then they're going to be everywhere on top, like they're everywhere and they're nowhere at the same time. So you can either stick to one spot and hopefully they'll move in or keep roaming around. But adding just a day if you can, or a couple of days to your, you know, days that you're committed to hunting is massive just to see the country, get a feel for it. And then if it, you know, doesn't work out in your mind as to how good it's going to be, then you can go to plan B and move on to the next spot. So add some time.

• 1:16:11Speaker 03

  All right, that brings us to the end of this episode. We have another pre-recorded episode of Radio Live next week, but then it's back to our regularly scheduled programming after that. Thank you for listening. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas.

• 1:16:25Speaker 06

  Merry Christmas, everyone.

• 1:16:26Speaker 03

  We'll see you in 2026. Bye now.

• 1:16:40Steven Rinella?

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• 1:17:23Steven Rinella?

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• 1:18:05Steven Rinella?

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• 1:18:28Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.