Ep. 698: MeatEater Radio Live! Turkey Reports and Do Aoudad Dream of Bighorn Sheep?

Hosts Brody Henderson, Cory Calkins, and Corinne Schneider recap Cory and Corinne's TX aoudad hunt, chat with Froylan Hernandez of Texas Parks and Wildlife about bighorn sheep in the region, get letters from the turkey woods frontline, order from the MeatEater Menu, and talk with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks' Scott Thompson about aerial big game surveys. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 2:41Speaker 03

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

• 3:03Speaker 02

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on Thursday, May 1st, and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Brody Henderson, and I'm here today with Cory Calkins and Corinne Schneider, who is busy checking her stocks just recently.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  We'll talk more about that later, maybe if we have time. On today's show, we're going to talk about outed sheep with Corey and Corinne, and a special guest from Texas Parks and Wildlife. We're also going to get a field report from some of our favorite turkey hunting gurus. After that, we'll share some wild game meals we've made recently, and we're going to wrap it up by speaking to a Montana Regional Wildlife Manager about aerial big game surveys and a bighorn sheep hunting closure here in Montana. That's going to, that'll be pretty interesting. It's also kind of a bummer, but hopefully we'll get some good news out of it, too.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Before we get in the show, I want to send out another request to all of our dedicated diehard fans to submit a photo of their F'd up old truck for our 2026 calendar. We're still looking for images of unique hunting trucks.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Um, and for the folks who are watching today's episode on YouTube, Phil just put up an example of the kind of hunting rig we're looking for. We're getting a lot of good ones. We're getting some not so good ones and we're getting some bad ones. Um, but this is, this is like a prime example of what we're looking for.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  That's right. And Brody, this is what we're not looking for.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  That is what we're not looking for.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  We need to explain this to the audio audience though.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's just like some confusion on the effed up part of it.

• 4:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's effed up. All right.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Also, the, the formatting is wrong. See, I, I thought about, I thought about fixing it, but then I decided not to. That's part of the bad in it.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  We don't need pictures of wrecked trucks in ditches. So, uh, send us something like that first picture. And, uh,

• 5:06Speaker 05

  What was that? Classic looking red truck with a dead?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, with a big old gobbler hanging off of it.

• 5:11Speaker 06

  Couple of big spotlights on the front.

• 5:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a hunting rig. Yeah.

• 5:16Speaker 06

  You're not sneaking up on any elk in that thing.

• 5:18Speaker 05

  Is that a fresh kill or you think that guy drives that hunting rig with the bird on the front all the time?

• 5:24Speaker 06

  Fresh kill.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  I think that's a fresh.

• 5:26Speaker 06

  But I wouldn't doubt there's been a deer on that hood.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Well, as a matter of fact, that gentleman sent us a picture of that same truck with another good picture. With some bucks.

• 5:36Speaker 05

  Be kind of cool that.

• 5:37Speaker 06

  Calendar worthy?

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, man. We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to take a look at all of them, but here's the deal. Um, send us a picture of your truck to fucked up old trucks at the meat eater.com.

• 5:51Speaker 02

  And over the next few weeks, we're going to kind of get a collection of, I don't know, 50 to a hundred of the best pictures we get. We're going to put those on the website and then you can go vote for the rigs that actually make the calendar.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  So you, you'll have a hand in deciding which pictures get in the calendar. The people who get their rigs in the calendar are going to get a sweet prize package. A $250 meat eater store gift card that's good across all, all the meat eater brands. You're going to get a free BHA membership and, uh, BHA is going to throw in some additional swag. Um, the calendar is going to come out in a few months, like late summer, early fall. And here's why you gotta buy it because we're donating $2 from the sale of each copy of the calendar to BHA to help them keep fighting all these attack, never-ending attacks on our public lands. So it's all, it's going to a good cause. You put that thing up in your garage

• 6:51Speaker 02

  and you feel good about yourself.

• 6:53Speaker 05

  Love it.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  So send us your pictures. We need more folks. Um, moving on. You guys, Corinne and Cory, a little jealous. You just went to get, go to the like, west Texas desert mountains to hunt for Aoudad. So I want you to give us a rundown of that hunt. And then we're going to be joined by a guest from Texas Parks and Wildlife to talk about some of the problems that these non-native sheep are causing for native wildlife. First, just, just give us a rundown of your hunt.

• 7:28Speaker 06

  Yeah. Uh, let's see. Corinne, her significant other, Matt, and myself were invited down to west Texas by Dr. Phil Levretzky, who's been on the Meteor Podcast and this show, uh, more than once. Uh, the duck DNA, turkey DNA guy, good friend of ours. Uh, he invited us down to hunt Aoudad on the Indio Research, Indio Mountain Research Station, which is right on the border of Mexico, right on the Rio Grande, in the Trans Pecos region of west Texas there. Yeah, we hunted two full days. Uh, gratefully, it wasn't as hot as it normally is in early April down there. We got really lucky and never saw temps over 70 degrees, I don't believe.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 8:13Speaker 06

  Uh, the first day, we killed two ewes, which was kind of our primary goal down there was to do our, do what we can to minimize the Aoudad population on that ranch, uh, by taking a few ewes, females. Uh, there's Corinne's boyfriend, Matt, with a beautiful ewe, right at last light. That was pretty incredible.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's some cool-looking country, man.

• 8:39Speaker 06

  It was. It was way more rugged than I expected.

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Did you get any, uh, you step on any rat? There's or getting cactus spines in your ass?

• 8:46Speaker 06

  Definitely some cactus in the butt.

• 8:48Speaker 05

  Was it Steve or I forgot who it's like he said something about like the down there like the thorns having thorns. I mean, you can't, you couldn't grab hold of anything.

• 8:56Speaker 06

  Everything wants to bite you, sting you, tear you apart.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  It's all spot and stock, yeah.

• 9:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, all spot and stock. We drove around a little, but inevitably to find the sheep, we had to put a lot of miles boots on the ground. And, uh, yeah, we killed those two ewes on day one and then day two, uh, Corinne, Phil and I went out and glassed up this group of 23 odd add on this, the high, it was actually the highest point on the ranch, 40,000 acre ranch. And, uh, we were able to stock in, took a couple hours to stock into 400 yards. And I was able to put down this beautiful ram and Corinne actually harvested a nice, uh, sub adult ram as well.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  What we got, right?

• 9:34Speaker 05

  I thought it was a ewe, but no.

• 9:37Speaker 06

  In, in front of us is the

• 9:39Speaker 05

  That's your

• 9:39Speaker 06

  recently Euro mounted ewe. Uh, there was a lot of fun to Euro mount, actually. You gotta pop these horns off. Uh, and then you can boil the skull, bleached it. Kind of, uh, glistened up the horns and then glued them back on, uh, beautiful mount.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  Nice work.

• 9:54Speaker 06

  Uh, thank you. Yeah. But the, the ewe meat is delicious.

• 10:00Speaker 06

  Very blown away by the texture and the flavor of the meat. The ram's a little tougher, but got about a hundred pounds of meat off the ram.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  He got a ton of meat off that.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  They're burly animals.

• 10:09Speaker 06

  They really are. Yeah. He probably, uh, before we field dressed him weighed about 300 pounds. Uh, so he wasn't easy to roll around. We did make some, uh, there's a photo up of us making, uh, I think that was the ribs off of my ewe over the fire as we packed up camp. Uh, made some

• 10:28Speaker 05

  Great last meal.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Now Steve was here, he'd be tearing you up about how you're saying ewe.

• 10:34Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 10:34Speaker 05

  Ew?

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Ew?

• 10:36Speaker 05

  Ew?

• 10:36Speaker 02

  You.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  You.

• 10:37Speaker 05

  You.

• 10:38Speaker 06

  What did I say?

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Ew.

• 10:40Speaker 06

  Eh, did I?

• 10:40Speaker 05

  I thought I said ewe.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Phil, who, me?

• 10:42Speaker 05

  Ew?

• 10:43Speaker 06

  Audio.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  No, ewe.

• 10:46Speaker 06

  Classic.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  So you guys had a good time?

• 10:49Speaker 06

  We did. It was a hell of an experience.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, tough hunting. Tough hunting for sure.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Tough.

• 10:55Speaker 05

  Tough.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Meaning tough, like physically tough.

• 10:57Speaker 05

  Tough from, yeah, maybe toughest for me. Um, but yeah, the, it's, it's really punishing territory. I mean, and those, those animals are robust to be able to live out there. It's dry. I mean, they eat forage, cactus. Maybe that there's a little bit water, a little bit of water here and there, but yeah, they're, uh, it's tough, tough to hunt them.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Um, well, that's a great segue into our first interview. Our first guest is Texas Parks and Wildlife's Desert Big Horn Sheep Program Leader, Froylan Hernandez. Froylan, we got you on the line?

• 11:36Speaker 07

  Yep. No, thank you for having me on the show. Glad to be here.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Um, so Froylan, these outed are, you, you'll also hear them called barberry sheep. They're, they're native to like northern and western Africa, but you, in decades past, they've been cut loose in places like New Mexico and Texas to provide additional hunting opportunities. Um, can you give us like a brief history of the outed population in, in west Texas? And then we'll get into why there's such a big problem for desert big horn sheep?

• 12:11Speaker 07

  Yep. Yep. No. So again, thank you for having me. Uh, you know, ironically, the Texas Parks and Wildlife brought them in back in the mid, the early 50s. They brought them in, as you say, as an additional game species. And there was also some private, uh, reintroductions. And, and, you know, they were up in the, in the Palo Alto Canyon of the Panhandle of Texas and then some in the, in the, in west Texas. And at that time, I don't think anybody envisioned that they would do as well as they've done. And so now they occur in all the mountains in west Texas. Uh, they occur up in the Palo Alto Canyon and again in the Panhandle and also in central Texas. And they've done really, really well.

• 12:51Speaker 07

  Just in the, in the transpakers of Texas, we estimate that there's probably 20 to 25,000 odd that in those west Texas mountains.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Um, so there's 25,000 of those suckers out there. What, what's your best guess on like a historic high population of like, how many big horns used to occupy the, the mountains of West Texas?

• 13:17Speaker 07

  Yep. Well, and so back in the 1880s, uh, there were estimates of hunting of 1500, 2,500, not up to even 3,000. And up until recently, about five, six years ago, we had hit that historic high again. We were seeing 1500 animals, uh, 1500 big horns in the West Texas mountains. In 2019, we've got our first, uh, disease event and we are now, uh, we've lost over 50% of the herd. We, now we've got about 600 or 700 of big horns in the state when just five years ago, we were up to again, 1880 levels.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  And, and that disease event, that, that's pneumonia, I'm guessing?

• 14:01Speaker 07

  Correct. That's the, no, we've had three independent disease events since 2019 and that's the Mycoplasma ovum pneumoniae or the MOV that causes, uh, causes pneumonia.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Are, so are the AODAD transmitting that to, to the, the big horns or the AODAD just out competing them for resources? Like what, what kind of problems are the AODAD actually causing for the native desert big horns in Texas?

• 14:30Speaker 07

  Man, it's a, it's a combination of, of those two things and others, but the, but those two things. And so the AODAD do carry that MOV. Uh, we've done research in pen conditions, uh, pen setting and the AODAD are able to transmit that bacteria to, uh, to the desert big horns. Uh, we have not definitively proved that in a wild setting, but we've tested 13 different mountain ranges in West Texas. And in all 13 mountain ranges, we have found that AODAD carry that bacteria. And in some cases, up to 60% of the animals that we've, uh, sampled. Carry that bacteria. So it's a, it's a huge problem from a disease standpoint.

• 15:13Speaker 07

  Uh, the competition, they completely uh out compete the bighorns. Not just through uh because of numbers, uh but also they're just a bigger, heartier animal. Uh, they hoard the bighorn ewes and, and push off the bighorn rams. And so awdad rams create their own bighorn harem type of deals. So they're socially disruptive. I mean, it's, it's, it's just a, you name it. You know, they, they, they just out compete the, out compete the bighorns. And that's just a, you know, from a competition standpoint. Uh, in the numbers that they occur, they just devastate the habitat. There's places that the countryside is almost peeled to the ground.

• 15:56Speaker 07

  And that's simply just a density, uh, result of the high densities that they're, they carry in.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Yep. Um, so thi- this is like a problem that's not necessarily unique to Texas, but Texas is, I think, something like 98% private land. And, uh, the area where these awdad are living is also almost exclusively private land. A- and you've got a lot of landowners that are charging folks to go hunt for awdad. So my question is like, can hunting really have an impact and, and i- is it a challenge with getting landowners on board to really knock back those awdad numbers through hunting?

• 16:41Speaker 07

  Yeah. Well, and so, uh, you got two things going on there. One is the hunting aspect of it and

• 16:52Speaker 07

  the, it's supplemental income for, uh, for landowners. But just from a sheer number perspective, a density perspective, hunting alone is not going to reduce the numbers, uh, down to levels that aren't detrimental to the habitat or that they don't compete with our native ungulates. And, and, and so when you have 20 to 30,000 uh bighorns out on the landscape and only a few hundred uh bighorns, I mean, it, it, it, it's a

• 17:24Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, it's just, it's just a huge, huge challenge for us to, for us to overcome. I will say that the mindset is changing, landowner mindset is changing. And they are recognizing that the oddad not only uh have negative impacts on our bighorn, but, but also on, on mule deer.

• 17:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you about mule deer.

• 17:45Speaker 07

  Yep, so we've got research looking, uh, looking into that. And so you got, you know, uh, the oddad outcompeting the bighorns. They're also, uh, you know, wreaking havoc on mule deer populations and the habitat. And so landlords are, are, are finally realizing that, uh, too many oddad on the landscape are detrimental. So, we don't want, uh, we, Texas Parks and Wildlife, would like to see all oddad gone, but realistically, that's not a, that's not a realistic goal. And so we're working with landowners to lessen those densities, decrease those densities, the levels that, uh, that aren't detrimental to our native ungulates or the habitat.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  What, what's that kind of work look like? Uh, I mean, what, like, do you see a potential of oddad, you know, getting knocked back to the point where there's a, a healthy desert bighorn population again? And like, what kind of hu- human intervention does that involve?

• 18:43Speaker 07

  It's gonna, it's gonna require partnerships. I mean, there's no two ways about it. It's gonna require partnerships with Parks and Wildlife, with landowners, with NGOs, with the hunting community, uh, to, to be able to address the, you know, that, that monumental challenge. And it's not gonna happen overnight. And, and it's, again, it's gonna require everyone getting on that same ship and saying, okay, we've got to do something, uh, we've got to decrease the population, the oddad populations, uh, dramatically for, for there to be change. And, and again, I'm pretty optimistic. I like to consider myself an optimistic person. Uh, but I do realize, I'm also a realist, and I do realize that it's not gonna happen overnight. And so, and we got our, our work cut out for us.

• 19:27Speaker 07

  And when I say we, I'm not just talking Texas Parks and Wildlife. I'm talking landowners, NGOs, the hunting community, you know, just, everybody's gonna have to get on board to be able to, to move in a, in a positive direction.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Great, um, so can you crystal ball a, a future for desert big horns in say 20 years? Like even like if you're being super optimistic, like you, you like, like what you would like to see eventually happen?

• 19:57Speaker 07

  Well, and so my goal, uh, and I'm charged with, with that responsibility, but my goal, professional and personal goal is, is to see the West Texas mountains, all of the West Texas mountains that are considered, uh, historical bighorn range, for them to be occupied by, by big horns. And so can we do that? Yeah, absolutely. We can, we can do that. But again, as I mentioned, we all gonna have to, you know, you know, kind of roll up our sleeves and, and, and get to work. Uh, we just did a capture and translocation from our only clean source in the state, and that's Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area. We captured 77 big horns. We took them over, translocated them over to the Franklin Mountains, uh, which are situated within El Paso.

• 20:41Speaker 07

  And, and, you know, we hope that that population there does well, it takes hold, it becomes, uh, you know, sustainable on its own. And then it grows and we're able to do capture and translocations off of there to other mountain ranges. So, uh, you know, again, I'm optimistic that we're able to do that, but we need to address all that, uh, densities first.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Yep. Gotcha. Um, you mentioned, uh, some NGOs, uh, what are some NGOs people can throw a little cash towards to, to help out?

• 21:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, two, two of our greatest partners, uh, are the Texas Bighorn Society and the Wild Sheep Foundation. You know, we've, we've, you know, they've been with us through thick and thin. They've supported us, you know, financially as well as logistically. Uh, so those two organizations are, you know, have been at the forefront with us, you know, trying to, trying to attack these, these issues. But then you also have, you know, in fact, I was at a conference just last week and talking to some folks from, uh, Grand Slam Club, Ovis, we got the Texas Wildlife Association, Dallas Safari Club, Houston Safari Club. You know, any conservation organization, uh, they lend a hand. But our two greatest partners is, is the Texas Bighorn Society and the Wild Sheep Foundation.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Great. Uh, okay. Last question, Broylan.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  Aoudad get a bad rap as table fare. What's your, what's your favorite way to eat those things?

• 22:06Speaker 07

  Man, I love them. I love them and they, and they, and they do, they do get a bad rap and I think they get a bad rap because most of the animals uh, that are harvested are, are tough old rams. And so as you might suspect, you know, it's, it's, it's probably not as tasty as, as a lamb or a ewe. And so Corey was mentioning that, uh, you know, I heard that he, he harvested a couple of ewes and they were a great tasting man. I, I love them. I grew up on goat. I love it. To me it tastes very similar to goat. You know, you got cabrito, you can do it in birria, you can, uh, you know, do some steaks, you name it. I've done some sausage, I process uh, my own meat. And so I've done some, uh, oddad sausage and that's the best eating sausage that I've had so far. So

• 22:49Speaker 07

  they're good eating. I, I would like for, uh, people to try them a little more. Maybe change that perspective or change that, uh, change that attitude.

• 22:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I want to come down there and have you cook for us.

• 22:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna hit you up for some recipes after you jump off the line.

• 23:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. Y'all come down, I'll, yep, you know, y'all come down, I'll definitely burn some meat for y'all.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Well, great, Broilin. Thanks for checking in with us and, and, and learning us up on, on this. It was, it was real interesting talking to you.

• 23:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, man. Drive safe.

• 23:21Speaker 07

  No, you bet. Thank y'all again. Appreciate what y'all do. Uh, your interest in getting the story out, man. It's, it's awesome. Y'all do great work.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  Great. Thanks, man. Have a good day.

• 23:30Speaker 07

  You think likewise.

• 23:33Speaker 05

  Gosh, that's really interesting. I didn't realize that the oddad rams gather bighorn females?

• 23:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  I think he, yeah, I mean, I think he was more saying they, they

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Like push, like push them out, but I mean.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Real aggressive, yeah.

• 23:51Speaker 06

  Well, I guess there is evidence that the

• 23:53Speaker 02

  They'll try.

• 23:54Speaker 06

  Rams will gather harems.

• 23:56Speaker 02

  And then the bighorn rams just can't get to them.

• 23:58Speaker 06

  Right. Yeah. Got to wonder if, yeah, out competing, just, uh, in their blood to be kind of bullies and they think they're all badass until a bullet hits them.

• 24:09Speaker 02

  Yep. Well, you guys make me want to go down there and hunt them now.

• 24:11Speaker 06

  It's pretty fun.

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• 26:55Speaker 02

  But I'm a turkey hunter this time of year, and next up, we've got some regional turkey hunting reports.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Oh, that's music to my ears. Wow. It's my favorite, favorite two sounds in the world.

• 27:12Speaker 06

  Get him while he's gobbling.

• 27:15Speaker 02

  We got, we're going to check in with Yanis, Brent, and Doug, and get a report from those guys first.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  All right, turkey report from Southern Colorado. Yanis Patelas and Steven Rennella. As you can see, we've got a couple of dead birds. We actually had three in the last three days. But the turkey hunting has been tough. We found them on the roost. They've gobbled good on the roost. Once they hit the ground, they've been silent. We killed two of the latest birds we've ever killed. The one fellow that was here for the TRCP hunt killed a bird at about 7:30, 7:40, and I killed a bird almost by, at 8 o'clock last night.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  Now Steve, anything to add to that? Uh, no, it's been tough. They're glued to the hens. You know, guys will be like, "Oh, they're all henned up," but glued to the hens, the turkeys we've killed. I mean, to be honest with you, we've had to bushwhack our turkeys. We've had to like, uh, hunt them like spot and stalk turkey hunting. Um, after a lot of calling attempts, a lot of calling attempts.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  I'm hunting at one of my most favorite places with some of my most favorite people. It's Missouri turkey season, week two.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Yesterday, first day that I got here, it rained all day. It was cold and miserable, and my hunt was cold and miserable. But I was turkey hunting, and that beach worked any day. No gobbling from the roost, no gobbling from the ground yesterday. Didn't even see a gobble where I was hunting. This morning, a new day, a new hunt.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  No gobbling from the roost, just a little bit of wind and cloudy. You would think that'd been gobbling, but as luck would have it, you didn't. So it was discouraging to say the least, but if you stick with it long enough, if you're gonna be a turkey hunter and you're committed to being a good one, you gotta stay with it as long as you can. Sometimes patience is a virtue.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  It's gobbling time in Missouri. Nice.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  Well, we're hearing the report from Stan. What's that? What did you hear down there?

• 29:32Speaker 04

  You? One gobble this morning after six thirty. Wow. How about before? I heard, um, a couple of them. Huh. Well, so they quieted down. This is a report from southwest Wisconsin. I still think that if you're out hunting turkeys in this area, the best thing you can do is find a spot where they're likely to be wanting to move and be patient and stay there. Um, we certainly employ that strategy. The first part of the season, um, really sitting in blinds or finding a location and finding a good tree to lean up against and stay on. But, um, keep the running and gunning to a minimum, minimum.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  We've done really well with that strategy. We're seven for seven. Kiefer is the first one so far that hasn't got one, but this was just the first day of it. It's April thirtieth, uh, the first day of season C in Wisconsin. And that is the report from here. Be patient and stay after them.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, done.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Thanks, guys.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Man, I don't know about Yanis and Steve. Maybe they're just not good at calling turkeys. Everyone else is getting them.

• 30:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was interesting while they're filleting some breasts on the tailgate, but they had to earn them. It sounded like, it looked like it was hot down there.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yep, yep. Um, I've been out a couple of times here in Montana. Season opened the fifteenth. I killed one. Opening day, like classic. You know, gobbling on the roost, gobbling a little on the ground and then worked on him for an hour and killed him. And then went out last week and got a couple with my boy. So it's like, it's been good here in Montana. It's, I mean, it's always the thing where they gobble like crazy on the roost and they slow down for a while. And then it seems like an hour after they hit the ground, the hens leave them and the goblin picks up. So like, it's, it's been good here. Um, that, that's, that's really all I can say.

• 31:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, it sounds like there's been a lot of success around the office.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 06

  Opening day especially.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  And, uh, man, I think it's like any other kind of hunting, like someone's hunting in one spot. It's like, ah, they're not gobbling here. And like, you talk to someone who's hunting 10 miles away or 20 miles away and they're like, ah, they're gobbling like crazy. They came running in. So like regionals is, is a regional report's good, but I like, I think it's like real important to like, know what's going on on a like micro level, local level too.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  We went turkey hunting. I've only, this is only the second time I've ever gone. Um, we saw four, four different hens. Came real close, but no gobbles.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  No gobbles.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  No gobbles, no.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  You haven't been out, you've just been out bear hunting, huh?

• 32:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, I like to kill a bear before I go turkey hunting, which should have one down in 24 hours. Had a buddy miss one last Friday. It's a long shot, though. Make sure your dope's accurate.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  There you go. There's a good tip.

• 32:31Speaker 05

  Hot tip.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  All right, Phil, what do we got on the listener feedback here?

• 32:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, just a reminder. Let's get some questions in for the hosts, especially if they're specific to any of the hosts, Brody, Corinne, Cory. We had this question last week, but it's a whole different crew this week, and it's a popular question, I've noticed, but the dubster is asking for those favorite turkey recipes other than standard frying. I'm guessing like, you know, I hear about nuggets all the time. And schnitzel. That was the popular answer.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's all, it's like six different versions of frying turkeys. They're all good. Something I like to do, that's like my whole family loves, is just slow cook, braise those thighs and drums and wings, like it's a pain in the ass to cut turkey wings off of those birds, but it's worth it. Like you get two wings off of a gobbler and there's like a significant chunk of meat off of those wings. So you throw all that stuff in some stock, braise it for however long it takes, five, six hours. Then you then you pull all that stuff off the bone and just make tacos out of it.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  What's your, what's a flavor profile that you're normally doing that with?

• 33:46Speaker 02

  You mean flavors?

• 33:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, right.

• 33:48Speaker 02

  Citrus and cumin, a lot of that.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  You can fry that stuff, that that that pulled meat and get a little crisp on it.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  That sounds citrus and cumin.

• 33:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, go to the Meat Eater website and look for Danielle Pruitt's Tequila Turkey Tacos. That's my favorite way to eat those legs.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  Uh, this one is something I know nothing about, but Jeremy asks, uh, he says, I've been, I've recently been hunting pigs in close quarters with a lever 357. Has anyone else had success with hunting with a pistol caliber rifle? Cheers from either Australia or Austin or Austria. Uh, we don't know. He cut off the word there, but you know.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  I, I've never, never done it. I don't see why it wouldn't work great if you were shooting them up close.

• 34:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, never tried that.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Don't know.

• 34:40Speaker 06

  Thank God we don't have pigs up here yet.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Yet. Brandon asks, Brody, what was more fun, competing on Meat Eater Roasts or judging on the show?

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Oh. Um, it obviously it's like, it's just way more relaxing judging. Um, but it was fun cooking too. I don't know. I liked them both. You know, you got Steve and Jesse were a little harsh with their judging.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  They were harsh.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  They're being mean, but you know, I got thick, thick skin. Um, I liked them both. I'd like another crack at the cooking though.

• 35:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  This is gonna be a Brody specific question, I'm sure, but Nick asks, what, what advice does the crew have for someone trying to get their first turkey in Pennsylvania?

• 35:22Speaker 05

  Definitely.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Three years, zero turkeys, he says.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  I would, I don't know, like Pennsylvania is a big ass state with a lot of different kind of country. You could be hunting turkeys on a 20 acre chunk of private, or you could be hunting thousands of acres of state forest. So like, I don't know, man. Um, if I was hunting in the middle of the state where there's a lot of public land, I would kind of look at it like elk hunting out west and just like hike into some stuff that's just not getting hunted. But I don't know if that's, that's Nick's situation here. If there's turkeys around and you're hunting a small chunk of private,

• 36:05Speaker 02

  take Doug's advice and just like find a good spot where there's turkeys passing through and just sit there as long as you can. And just call now and then, and eventually something good's gonna happen.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Cool, let's see here. Jacob asks, "Hey Cory, I was going turkey hunting this weekend and I might see a bear. I was going to carry my slug barrel too. I'm using a 20 gauge. Do you think if I keep it under 100 yards, I'm assuming, I could kill a bear?"

• 36:32Speaker 06

  Hmm, man, I'd get even closer than that. It's a long shot with a slug, 50 yards.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and just the idea of having to like, "Oh, there's a bear, change barrels," and then it's like, that's... I'm not telling him not to do it, but he's making life awful difficult.

• 36:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, I've done that before. I've carried shotguns around and a bow on my back. Because tis the season for both turkey and bears to be on the docket for hunting.

• 36:59Speaker 02

  If you were hunting a spot where you could run bears with hounds?

• 37:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, there you go.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  That slug gun would work just fine.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, shoot them out of trees. Yeah, get tight, man. That's 100 yards would be tough, unless you're that confident, but I'd say get right in there and shoot them in the forehead.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  McKenna is asking you guys what caliber you used on your Aoudad hunt.

• 37:20Speaker 06

  Hmm, I had a 300 Win Mag. Very trustworthy caliber I've used since I was 12.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  I brought my 6.5, which would have been fine, but then I used Cory's rifle, just because of the whole situation.

• 37:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was all, we were set up on a rock pile, surrounded by cactus, and just found like the one little body-shaped size that didn't have cactus, and I shot mine and the oddad, most of the oddad went off the cliff, but a couple stayed there and Corinne jumped up and onto my gun that the dope was dialed and everything and got hurt.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  What rifle was that Sig Cross, that Sawtooth?

• 37:54Speaker 06

  The Sawtooth, yep.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Were you running a suppressor on it?

• 37:57Speaker 06

  Yep, got the...

• 37:58Speaker 02

  So the recoil didn't bother you with that suppressor on there?

• 38:01Speaker 05

  No, not at all. Normally recoil doesn't bother me too much for, for any kind of bigger guns I've shot suppressed or not. That normally doesn't bother me much, but a 6.5 would have been fine for that and probably a couple other calibers would have been just fine for that. I probably would have shot a, used my 308 too on that hunt.

• 38:21Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm, that would have worked.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  All right, we'll do one more here for this segment, then we'll move it along here. This is the big question, Corinne, but this is for you. Corinne, what is your most memorable moment outdoors? I think we can narrow that down to the last six years or so, since you've been working here.

• 38:42Speaker 05

  I would honestly have to say bits of this recent Aoudad hunt, I think, because it was so, so, so challenging for me, traumatizing, no, it was, it was just really tough. At one point, I was probably close to being dehydrated. The, the heights and the incline were pretty terrifying for me. So definitely memorable. There was a point where I was like, so, so, I guess weakened by it all that I said like, I'm very grateful for the experience, but I'd never do it again. And obviously, that's not, that's not true now that I've come through it.

• 39:26Speaker 05

  But, but that hunt was, was probably up there. And then probably my second solo mule deer hunt. It was just very gratifying to take something on my own. That, that's always a little bit of a, of a boost to know that you could be successful out there on your own.

• 39:48Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm. That's huge.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  And there you go.

• 39:51Speaker 04

  Cool.

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Is that it, Phil?

• 39:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, we've, we've got more coming in, but yeah, we can, we can tackle, there's going to be another segment at, at the end of the show, so don't stop submitting questions. And we might tackle a few that people have already asked, so.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  All right. It's time for Meat Eater Menu.

• 40:22Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Is that a new one, Phil?

• 40:24Speaker 04

  That's a new one.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  That's brand new. That's so strong.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Excellent job.

• 40:28Speaker 06

  You better do this again next week.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  I mean, that's, when I was editing that this morning, I was just laughing at how that's probably my most dumb one I've done.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Oh, really, Phil?

• 40:38Speaker 04

  So stupid.

• 40:39Speaker 05

  It brings smiles.

• 40:41Speaker 06

  Those notes made me cry.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  Oh, good.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  All right. Meat Eater Menu is when our hosts, uh... Cook up a wild, uh, wild food dish and we're gonna share those dishes wish with you and show you a picture and then we're gonna do something a little different this time. We're gonna, we're gonna let the listeners decide who made the best, best meal, which is only based on a picture, of course, you know, you can't taste it, but they, you know, the eyes are important when you're eating, eating food.

• 41:10Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 41:11Speaker 06

  Don't nobody be licking their computer.

• 41:13Speaker 05

  Well, I, I'm glad I didn't, um, end up cooking what I thought I may have had time to do.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  Why? That's what I wanted to see.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  I just had a busy, busy week.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Well, tell people what you were gonna do.

• 41:26Speaker 05

  Okay, so, um, this past fall, a bunch of us, uh, with Meat Eater Experiences, um, fished in Louisiana and there were, uh, we, when we were cleaning fish, um, Steve and I, uh, cleaned up some, some fish head. Um, and so I was gonna look into, I don't know.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  Tuna you're talking about.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  Well, no, there, well, there's, yeah, so we actually have, we have it in our, in our, in our freezer here. We have some ginormous tuna head.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I want one of those things.

• 41:59Speaker 05

  But, um, we've, we also cleaned up the heads of, uh, of the red fish and some others. So I think there were red fish heads that I brought home that I was thinking of doing some kind of, um, grill or stew.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  There's a surprising amount of meat when you start digging around in like certain kinds of fish heads.

• 42:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the cheeks and kind of that, uh, the collar and then there's actually like, I don't know, what do you call it? Forehead meat?

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 42:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 05

  Um, dome meat.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  I mean, if nothing else, you can make a big batch of seafood stock.

• 42:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's right, that's right. Yep. Um, and you know, for some people looking at a fish head, um, it does not conjure up like that real like, I wanna eat you. Um, you know, but it just, that just depends.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  People cook whole fish all the time.

• 42:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, for me, for me, I, I, I have associate looking at like fish head soup with, uh, yum, get in my belly, but I did not make that because I didn't have time and instead, um, we are gonna show some photos, uh, from the Canada goose stir fry that I made on a recent, uh, Meat Eater roasts.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  Episode.

• 43:11Speaker 06

  Wow, that looks good.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  So this was Yanni's Canada Goose from Arkansas, I believe. Uh, this is the first time I had ever cooked goose. Um, I've never hunted goose and this is probably, I don't know, the third time I've eaten goose. Um, so not that much experience with the bird. And, uh, it was a really beautiful, uh, breast and, um, stir fry is something, I mean, I guess I, I didn't really get creativity points, but stir fry is, is something I whip up at home. It's pretty easy and so, uh, I used, uh, soy, little bit of oyster sauce, I think was in the kitchen. Sesame oil, sugar.

• 43:53Speaker 02

  Nice thing about stir fries, you can just, like, it's perfect for roast, cause you can just kinda throw it together.

• 43:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. You can throw any sort of sauce or sauce combination, uh, uh, for a stir fry.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  That's delicious. So how'd it turn out?

• 44:08Speaker 05

  Uh, so one of the judges was, uh, my dear friend Linda Huang, um, who is a Chinese chef. And Yanni thought I was making a stir fry to like, I don't know, make it easy for myself. But I, I told him that it was actually gonna be more difficult because Linda's standards would be very high. So she was, she was surprised. I was surprised myself, but she was surprised that it turned out, um, that it turned out as it did. I just tried to not overcook the meat.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna ask. Like, that would be the challenge?

• 44:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was tender and she had, I don't, I think that was the first time she's eaten Canada goose. And she said, if she didn't know, she, she would've thought it was like beef.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 44:46Speaker 06

  Wow. Nice work then. What's your garnish on that?

• 44:49Speaker 05

  Oh, there's some, um, scallions and, uh, sesame seeds. Um, and then the vegetables were, it was yellow pepper and, uh, some mushroom.

• 44:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, it looks delicious. Tough to beat, that one.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Cory?

• 45:04Speaker 06

  Oh, let's see, well.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  Oh wait, here's another.

• 45:06Speaker 06

  Oh yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  I couldn't remember how many pictures Cory sent.

• 45:09Speaker 06

  There it is going in the microwave.

• 45:13Speaker 04

  This is not Cory.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  Here we go.

• 45:15Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, man, that looks good right now. Oh, let's see.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  It does.

• 45:18Speaker 06

  I made a black bear California Crunch Wrap Supreme.

• 45:22Speaker 05

  What?

• 45:22Speaker 02

  Black bear burger, is that like, what kind, like?

• 45:25Speaker 05

  That's so good.

• 45:25Speaker 06

  So I, I took a black bear shoulder roast and braised it for, gosh, nine hours or so. Kind of forgot about it honestly, but that was probably for the best.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Oh, look at the nice blaze on that bear.

• 45:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, from a bear I harvested last spring.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  What do they call that, a chevron?

• 45:41Speaker 06

  Chevron, yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 05

  Looks like a, he's wearing a suit, it's like a tuxedo.

• 45:45Speaker 06

  Good thing he had that going for him, because his back was rubbed off really bad. Got that late May and he had already rubbed too many trees, but yeah, big old bear, 15 year old black bear.

• 45:55Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 45:56Speaker 06

  Uh, meat's delicious, every single morsel of it, but this was the last chunk of it. I figured I might as well eat it before I kill another one this spring. Uh, but I tried to copy Taco Bell's Crunch Wrap Supreme. And it's the California Crunch Wrap, because I threw some avocado in there.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, explain the layering you got going on there.

• 46:15Speaker 06

  Let's see, it's bear, a crispy corn tortilla, cheese, avocados, and some hot sauce.

• 46:23Speaker 05

  Mmm.

• 46:24Speaker 06

  And then you just wrap it up all pretty, kind of like a quesadilla, but there's two flour tortillas all pressed and heated and warmed and melted and gooey. And then I got a little not homemade salsa to go with it there.

• 46:37Speaker 05

  That looks great.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  You're ripping off Taco Bell, you don't need homemade salsa.

• 46:41Speaker 06

  Oh, it was pretty easy to outdo Taco Bell. Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  Great. Alright, um, the old fried turkey, we were talking about fried turkey just a minute ago, um, that there is a fried turkey sandwich, so I just, you take a lobe or half of a turkey breast, slice that against the grain, and get your cutlets, and then just pound those things out.

• 47:07Speaker 02

  Then I like to soak them in buttermilk for a little while. And then it's a, you throw like one layer of the breading on. Like you just get them in a dry breading, then you dip them in an egg, egg milk wash and then get another layer of that breading on there. And I did these in my deep fryer. You can do them in a, in a cast iron pan, you know, with whatever half an inch of grease in the bottom. I did these in the deep fryer. Honestly, this is how in my family, we eat most of our turkey breast meat. Cause my boys love it.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  It on, it actually stretches it out more than making just a big batch of nuggets.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Like we always have leftovers for extra sandwiches from one, one lobe. Very simple and it's just like a solid meal that my kids love. I love it too.

• 47:58Speaker 05

  That looks so good.

• 47:59Speaker 02

  And it's a buffalo, I think it's like Frank's buffalo wing sauce on there.

• 48:05Speaker 06

  Might as well.

• 48:06Speaker 04

  All right. I'm going to put a poll up in the live chat right now.

• 48:11Speaker 04

  Who had the best meat eater menu dish? Was it Corinne's stir fry, Canada goose stir fry, Cory's black bear California crunch wrap? Or Brody's fried turkey sandwich?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  And we're just going to come back to that later.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  How about after the interview with our next guest, we'll check in there.

• 48:27Speaker 06

  I don't know if anybody's paying attention or they're all talking to Spencer in the chat.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, Spencer's always lurking in there, man. I don't like it.

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• 51:27Speaker 02

  Okay, our next guest is Montana Fish Wildlife and Park Region Six Wildlife Manager, Scott Thompson. Scott, you there?

• 51:40Speaker 04

  I am here.

• 51:41Speaker 02

  Gotcha. Welcome to the show and thanks for chatting with us today.

• 51:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, you bet. Thanks for the invite.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Scott, can you tell us about your role with FWP, conducting aerial big game surveys in northeast Montana?

• 51:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, you bet. So I am the Regional Wildlife Manager for Region Six. That area is a huge northeast corner of Montana from about North Dakota over to Sweetgrass Hills, about halfway over to the front. So my role is I have the privilege of leading a team of wildlife biologists. They get to do most of the fun work in the field in the backseat of a Super Cub, counting critters. In my previous life, I did a lot of that for about 14 years. I was an area biologist as well. So, yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  And you guys do those aerial big game surveys, like late winter, early spring? Is that typically the time you're out there doing that?

• 52:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, it varies, but that is right for most of our big game species, except for antelope, which are spring, or excuse me, summer surveys, where we're trying to get an idea of fawn production.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  And so we can react to changes in the population for the upcoming fall right away.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  Gotcha. So when these biologists are going out in the plane to do a count, are they focused on one, like each flight has the goal of doing a survey for one species? Or are they kind of gathering all the information they can? Or what's kind of the process?

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Most of them, most of the surveys are designed to collect data on one species. So for instance, some of the pictures here are during winter elk surveys in the Missouri River Breaks, of course, at high elevation in those photos. But so the primary target then is elk, but biologists do record what we would call incidentals, sightings or observations of mule deer, you know, other species encountered. The elk survey, we do also a bighorn sheep survey at the same time. So that is a dual purpose survey.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Gotcha. And what's the actual counting process look like? Like, are they sitting up there with a clicker? Or like, how are they doing the actual counting? Are these, are these guys just good enough? They can like, look at that photo right there and be like, man, that's like 30 right there.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. I challenge you to count elk once they get past about 30 to 50 in a bunch.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  It, it, so there's a couple, couple of things that the biologists will do. So, you know, the idea is to get the animals on a side profile. That helps us not only count how many animals, but then they're also classifying. They're looking for how many calves are in the bunch, how many bulls or bucks are in the bunch. So oftentimes it's finding a group of animals and circling them. If they're in a supercub, for example, if they're in a helicopter, you're kind of moving with the herd.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  But both trying to count and trying to classify. And so it's, it's a bit of a process. You might spend, you know, five, 10 minutes with a group till you really get a sense of what's in the group. Sometimes photography can help.

• 55:42Speaker 02

  I was gonna ask if that plays a role, like you come back later and count from, from pictures that you're taking.

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to get the classification data from a photo. Sometimes you can, but the photo really helps verify that, you know, it's a snapshot. You can count it. Um, when you have almost 400 elk in a group and you're trying to count that and they're all moving, that's pretty difficult.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Gotcha. Um, so one of the main, other than getting the lowdown on how these surveys works, the, the main reason we wanted to talk to you today is, um, Montana FWP was recently forced to close hunting for bighorn sheep in District 622, um, after a really drastic decline in sheep numbers in that unit in recent years. Um, how, how many sheep were in that unit, say 10 years ago?

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, so sheep numbers in that district have ranged between 150 and 300 animals that we observe on the survey. Um, we, our population objective is about 200 animals. So obviously it, it kind of varies through the years. So 10 years ago, we had over 300 animals.

• 57:12Speaker 02

  Gotcha. And things, things were looking good back then, maybe too many in that unit.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, that really signaled to us to be a bit more aggressive, especially with you harvest and provide a lot of either sex or ram harvest at the time. And so we were pretty aggressive, allowing quite a few hunters access to hunting there and trying to bring it back to about 200 sheep, which we did for a period of about five or six years.

• 57:41Speaker 02

  And so how many, when you went out there to do your, your survey this spring, I'm sure you guys were already aware that there was a decline going on, but this spring, when you did your aerial survey, how many sheep did you guys see in that unit?

• 57:57Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, we were prepared for a reduction, but probably not what we saw. And that was five.

• 58:04Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  Five rounds. Um, you know, Hunter's previous fall had kind of had some trouble finding sheep. So we knew something was going on.

• 58:14Speaker 02

  And, uh, what it, what is going on? What's the main driver for the decline in that unit?

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Well, it, it is disease related. Uh, you know, we, we were able to get some samples from both hunter harvested sheep last fall. Um, an additional sample this spring. Um, pneumonia, um, is a driver here, um, visible pneumonia in the lungs of, of several animals. Um, in some recent lab work, um, from those samples, um, you know, there, there's a number of uh, bacterias and pathogens in the herd. And we've known that for years, uh, but this is the first time we've detected. One of the key ones is, uh, mycoplasma oval pneumonia. Uh, so we did detect that in the herd for the first time.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  Um, so yeah, it's, it's a complex thing. There's a lot of, a lot of bugs that can affect sheep. And, uh, respiratory health and it looks like it hit them hard in six 22.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  And, and so the habitat there is, is in good shape. Like that, that's not playing a role at all here.

• 59:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, habitat's good. Um, you know, we see the ups and downs with, uh, drought events. Uh, and a couple of years of dry conditions and we see land production suppressed during those times and then they bounce back. But, so no overlying habitat issues that we see.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  So like I've, I've spent a little bit of time up in that part of the state and, uh, I'm, I know there's sheep nearby. You know, where, where these sheep kind of dropped off to nothing. Is there a concern about the sheep and, and units that are adjacent to six 22 where these, these sheep had a really tough time?

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it did, this, this style did

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  cause us to do just a quick check on those neighboring herds and it looks like we're not seeing the same thing happen there. Thankfully, we have a pretty good separation. There's about forty to fifty miles between those populations. So we can expect to have minimal interchange between those populations of sheep, but it can happen. Rams do go wandering at times, but at this point, we don't have any major concerns for those populations.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Is there any hope for recovery in six twenty-two? Will those, will, will sheep from those adjacent units maybe fill in or will you guys maybe get active and putting sheep back in there? Or are you just gonna like, kind of see what happens?

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, a common question and a good question. I would say there's a lot of decision points between here and

• 1:01:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's early.

• 1:01:15Speaker 04

  We're probably on about step two of ten in where do we go with this herd? And I think at this point, we really need to know more about, you know, where did, you know, MOV, it appears to be a new strain. And so, learning more about, well, what does that mean?

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  And then there are a few individuals and we've learned of a few other individual sheep that hunters and recreationists have seen out there. So, you know, there's a handful of sheep left, so it would be good to know what is, what is their status before we take any additional steps.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Gotcha. Well, thanks a lot for, for talking to us. I know this is not necessarily the happiest discussion to have, but it's important for people to know what's going on out there. I mean, you're, you're talking about like a pretty Pretty well-known, pretty well-regarded area for sheep hunting. It's a place people, you know, dream about drawing a bighorn tag. So hopefully the future's got, got some bright spots in it for those sheep up there.

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I hope so too. And, uh, yeah, we'll, we'll certainly be working hard to see if we can't, uh, recover that, that herd. Uh, it's, it's still good habitat and, um, uh, you know, we have, we have a lot of support to do that.

• 1:02:40Speaker 02

  Great, great. Well, thanks Scott. It's, it's been good talking to you and I hope you have a great day.

• 1:02:45Speaker 06

  Thanks Scott.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you guys. Bye.

• 1:02:49Speaker 02

  All right, Phil. Who made the best food in this room? Uh, I would love to let you know. Let's end this poll. In third place with 16% of the vote, it was Corinne's Stewery Fry.

• 1:03:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, that got my vote. That looked good.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  And now in second place with 30% of the vote, it was Brody's Sandwich making Corey the winner as Black Bear Crunchwrap with 52% of the vote.

• 1:03:16Speaker 05

  I feel like that's the, yeah, Taco Bell and Bear. People just want to eat Bear.

• 1:03:20Speaker 06

  That's the way to everybody's heart, a little 2 a.m. Taco Bell.

• 1:03:24Speaker 02

  I guess, man. I guess. Real rough.

• 1:03:27Speaker 06

  Well, thanks, everybody. Uh, it was just as good as it looked.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  We got any other feedback to check in with, Phil? Uh, well, yeah, if you want to, want to answer a few more questions. Yeah. Here, uh, I'm going to answer this one for Ben unless Corinne has some, uh, specific examples from the media podcast, but I can't think of any, but there, there might be some black bear hunt recaps. But Ben asks, is there a podcast devoted to DIY over the counter black bear hunts in Montana? Like, for degrees of difficulty, et cetera. I would direct you to the wonderful Cutting the Distance podcast, which is hosted by, uh, our good friend Jason Phelps and Dirk. But yeah, you can go through that whole catalog. I'm not sure if he has a specific black bear in Montana one, but I can almost guarantee if you go even further back, when Remy Warren was the host, you'd probably be able to find some stuff there as well. Cause

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  that's the podcast where you're, you're going to find some very specific instances, um, specific situations and how to cut the distance. It's kind of the whole thing of that podcast. So I would check that out.

• 1:04:25Speaker 06

  Agreed. Go back into the archives on that one. Remy has multiple podcasts just related to that. Made not Montana specific, but Western bear hunting.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  A lot of questions for Corinne. This one's from Andreas. They all have a similar theme. How, why she started working at a company like MeatEater with minimal hunting experience.

• 1:04:48Speaker 05

  Putting me on the spot. I'll make this short. My background is in journalism and news production. I moved to Montana seven some years ago.

• 1:05:04Speaker 05

  Came upon MeatEater and I guess the background parlayed into what I do now, but the subject matter was, did not. And the culinary aspect of MeatEater was always appealing to me. I grew up eating all the things, as I've stated throughout the years.

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  And I've loved the outdoors and just was, was open to, open to what MeatEater was, was doing. You'd probably never, have you, had you even shot a gun? I had. You had? Yeah, my dad, my dad, my dad's hobby is firearms. So, so. So that part wasn't. Indoor range stuff wasn't, yeah. But long distance rifle, all of that was new to me.

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  And yeah, I was just, I was just open to it and I've loved every bit of it. I've learned so much. I'm so grateful to all of my colleagues for the mentorship. I'm grateful that I have full freezers and I get to get outside and do this for a living, so. Yeah, seven years later, you're just a stone cold killer, Corinne.

• 1:06:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's for sure. I think that's one of our most viewed clips on YouTube is you shooting the hog in Texas.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Oh, that get excited thing about that. I do that all over again.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  And this is also, I'll say too, that's a credit to Steve finding Corinne, because Steve actively looks, was looking for people and still does look for people that are outside the kind of usual hunting bubble. Like who are people that are just killers at their jobs who, who are outside of this whole industry.

• 1:06:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 1:06:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, let's see here.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Devin asks, "Hey, is Dan Flores's The American West an extension of the Media to Podcasters? Or is it going to be an upcoming book release? Looks really good." First question, I would say it's neither an extension of the podcast or an upcoming book release. It's going to be on its own feed. So if you haven't checked it out, the trailer is up now. Historian author Dan Flores, who taught Steve's, who taught Randall at the University of Montana, has a brand new podcast. It's all about the American West, but not sort of like Cowboys and Monument Valley. It's going deep, deep further into deep time. First peoples, history of the land itself, the animals that have been there and will be there and are there. It's gonna be great.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  We've recorded a bunch of episodes, getting cracking on them now. And the first episode launches on Tuesday, the 6th of May.

• 1:07:43Speaker 05

  On Tuesday, so everybody, please subscribe.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, big thing. It's on its own feed. It's on its own feed, so you're gonna have to do some very minor Googling or clicking of links in podcast descriptions. We should just, I'll link, I'll make a link in the description of this show, Media to Radio Live today. A link to the new Dan Flores American West feed.

• 1:08:03Speaker 05

  And there will also be accompanying video episodes on, right here on the YouTube.

• 1:08:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got some visuals that go along with the show too, so check it out on YouTube as well. And it's not going to be an upcoming book release, but I will direct you to Dan Flores's whole bibliography. Is that, is that the right word? Especially his last book, which was why-

• 1:08:26Speaker 06

  His catalog.

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, his whole catalog. Check it out. Very, super, super nice guy, incredibly smart. It's gonna be a good show. Samantha asks, or says, "Phil, don't skip everyone's questions for you." Mogor asks, "Question for the team, when you're in an area with a game species that requires a lot of glassing, what do you use against mosquitoes?" The big mosquito question. You guys have any go-to tips?

• 1:08:51Speaker 06

  Go ahead, Corey. Ah, man. Last couple of springs have been pretty brutal. Bear glassing, glassing for bears and trying to swat mosquitoes at the same time. I'm usually prepping my clothes with some permethrin for ticks, but it also works well for mosquitoes. It kinda works for mosquitoes, they still will get ya. I don't have a great tip, just keep swatting them or move around. I mean, like, in the fall, it's just like- In this part of the country, it's just not a problem. Yeah. I have hunted in Alaska, like tail end of summer, early fall. Where mosquitoes and these little things called, uh, white socks. Teeny little biting flies.

• 1:09:36Speaker 06

  And, and really like a head net and gloves is like.

• 1:09:42Speaker 06

  Like you can put all the deed on in the world in that situation and they're, they're still gonna get to you. But yeah, I, I mean, I know it's not practical for glassing to have a head net on, but.

• 1:09:54Speaker 06

  I mean, other than permethrin and DEET, there's not a whole lot you can do. Yeah, wear clothes down works well, even if it's hot out, you can wear a light down jacket. Is, uh, as long as you're like glassing far off and it's not gonna disturb the critters, like just build a fire. There you go, smoke them out. Smoke them out, yeah. That's a good point. Hope for a breeze.

• 1:10:15Speaker 02

  Cool.

• 1:10:15Speaker 06

  Good question.

• 1:10:16Speaker 02

  Well, I, I guess I, I will just cause so many people are asking if I'm going, uh, tur- turkey hunting at all this, this year. Nick says, will Phil T. Engineer be hunting turkeys this season?

• 1:10:25Speaker 06

  He's pretty serious.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  I have.

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  I have, I have no plans currently because I, I always feel weird asking people to, to, to take, to take me hunting. But do you know what I would love to do? And because he's not in the room, I don't feel weird about it. And because he's also never shot a turkey yet, as far as I know, I'd love to go out with Randall. Because, because we are, we are both turkey virgins.

• 1:10:45Speaker 06

  There's a video right there. Boy. Go follow you two around.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  So Randall, if you're listening, this is my weird passive way of asking you to take, take me out.

• 1:10:55Speaker 06

  He better be listening.

• 1:10:57Speaker 02

  Cool. Uh, I thought that was a pretty good show, guys.

• 1:11:00Speaker 06

  Uh, yeah, yeah. Super interesting. Great show. Before we go though, uh, I got a little, little announcement. I wanna let people know that the paperback edition of our, uh, number one New York Times bestseller. Our kid's book, Catch a Crayfish, Count the Stars, is coming out and, and, uh, on, in paperback on May 27th. So it's just in time for Father's Day and summer vacation for the kids. And if you're not familiar with the book, it's, it's a book that's full of dozens of activities that are gonna get your kids off screen. And get them outside and doing cool stuff out in the natural world. If you bought the hardcover, great, we appreciate it. Buy the paperback too, because your kids probably already destroyed the, the hardcover.

• 1:11:45Speaker 06

  If you haven't bought the hardcover, then get the paperback now. It's a really cool book. It's got a bunch of great illustrations in it and my kids love it. I don't know if your kids have gotten into it yet, if they're old enough yet or not, Corey, but it, it, it's just, it's a great book. And you can get on Amazon and preorder that thing now, so it'll be at your door the day it comes out. Yeah, man. Last winter, my kid opened up the book and the first thing he saw was how to build a fish tank in your house. Yeah. Stock and aquarium. And, yeah, we did not go find some little perch. Well, now is the time to do that right now. Right. That was a winter project. Yep. Yep. That was fun.

• 1:12:25Speaker 06

  Um, so yeah, that's it for today's show, folks. Uh, good luck to everyone that's, uh, headed out turkey hunting or bear hunting this weekend and we'll see you next week. Adios.

• 1:12:34Speaker 05

  Thanks.

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