Ep. 825: Snowflake Man and the Cadaver Otter | MeatEater Radio Live!

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris speak with Sue Richardson about her great-great uncle, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, and his groundbreaking nature photography, talk some gear, share Top 3s, and chat with Peace River K9 Search and Rescue's Michael Hadsell about the world's only search-and-rescue otter, Splash. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:06Steven Rinella?

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• 1:58Speaker 04

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

• 2:20Speaker 05

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's also 11 a.m. for our friends in Moab, Utah on Thursday, January 22nd. We're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host Spencer, joined today by Yannis and Seth. On today's show, we'll interview Sue Richardson about the historical figure Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Then we'll review some items for Gear Talk, followed by a batch of Top Threes, and finally, we'll interview Michael Hadsell about the world's one and only search and rescue otter. First Seth, Yanni, what have you boys been up to? Cold January.

• 2:59Speaker 06

  Uh, cold?

• 3:02Speaker 05

  Cold this weekend.

• 3:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, this is like the first week of cold we've had.

• 3:06Speaker 05

  Feels notable. Have you seen the forecast for like east of us? Northern Minnesota, negative 70 wind chill tomorrow.

• 3:13Speaker 06

  Well, northern Montana, like up on the high line, Malta, they're getting real cold stuff.

• 3:20Speaker 05

  Everybody's getting real winter besides us.

• 3:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, Pennsylvania's getting real cold stuff. A lot of snow right now.

• 3:28Speaker 05

  What you boys been up to?

• 3:30Speaker 06

  I went and did a little, my wife and I went out to eastern Montana last weekend, did a little looking around for things, fossils and whatnot.

• 3:37Speaker 05

  You're the only one that goes rock hounding in January.

• 3:40Speaker 06

  Well, I usually, I usually don't, but uh, you know, it's been warm and there's, everything's not covered up in snow, so. Yeah, it was perfect.

• 3:48Speaker 05

  What'd you find?

• 3:49Speaker 06

  Found some Bakuyalites.

• 3:50Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 3:51Speaker 06

  Um, which-

• 3:52Speaker 05

  How big? Show me.

• 3:53Speaker 06

  Uh, I found one that was probably four or five inches long.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  Very good.

• 3:57Speaker 06

  And then, um, we found like three of those, and then found, uh, the part of a bison vertebrae that has the thing sticking up real high on the, like the part of the-

• 4:09Speaker 05

  Like the hump on their back?

• 4:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Way cool. Show me how big that was.

• 4:13Speaker 06

  That was probably six, seven inches tall. And then, um-

• 4:19Speaker 06

  We found, I, I, I just, I can't like confirm how authentic this is, but we found some carvings in sandstone. That, uh, one was on June 25th, 1911, Frenchie the Trapper.

• 4:32Speaker 05

  Oh, and you're suspicious that may not have been in 1911 from Frenchie the Trapper?

• 4:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, you just can't tell, you know, like I wanna, I, I, it totally could be.

• 4:42Speaker 05

  I believe.

• 4:42Speaker 06

  It's hard, it's hard to tell. And then we found another carving that, um, you know, like the, the famous Western artist, Charlie Russell.

• 4:50Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 4:51Speaker 06

  Like the CMRs named after him. We found a CM carved in the sandstone that

• 4:57Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 4:58Speaker 06

  Looks very similar to his signature.

• 5:01Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  That's way cool.

• 5:03Speaker 06

  So.

• 5:04Speaker 05

  Kelsey's a big fan of.

• 5:05Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Huge fan.

• 5:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, we have his work, prints of his work hanging in our house.

• 5:10Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 5:10Speaker 06

  Um, but yeah, I can't, like you said, can't confirm if it's really authentic stuff, but.

• 5:17Speaker 07

  Are you gonna, are you gonna bring these findings to someone else's attention that could maybe authenticate them?

• 5:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we know a guy that's a part of like the, the Charlie Russell historic society thing or whatever.

• 5:31Speaker 05

  Wouldn't that be something?

• 5:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, it'd be cool. It'd be super cool.

• 5:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:35Speaker 06

  But yeah, that's what I've been doing.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  Yanni, Lion Man, you like the winter.

• 5:40Speaker 07

  Love it. You don't?

• 5:42Speaker 05

  I mean, if I were ranking the four seasons, it's an easy fourth place for me.

• 5:48Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  No question about it.

• 5:50Speaker 07

  I've never thought about ranking the seasons.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  You, would you, would you put it above four?

• 5:55Speaker 07

  I would not live in a place that doesn't have four seasons.

• 5:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, I agree.

• 6:00Speaker 07

  Um, but I don't know, like, yeah, that's one of those like Steve things of God's pointing a gun at your head and you have to pick, you know, the great, like, they're all great.

• 6:09Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:10Speaker 07

  Running is great in the winter. Running is great in the summer too, but for different reasons, right?

• 6:16Speaker 05

  Fall number one, summer number two, spring number three, winter number four. Easy. You go now. Gun to your head.

• 6:23Speaker 07

  Oh geez, uh, fall one.

• 6:29Speaker 05

  This is a good podcast.

• 6:30Speaker 07

  Two, two, spring, three, winter, four, summer.

• 6:34Speaker 05

  Wow. What an upset. See, you love winter, you freak.

• 6:39Speaker 07

  Lot of good things to do in the winter.

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Okay, tell me what you've been doing then.

• 6:43Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, we haven't been doing the normal winter activities because of our lack of snow here. But Mingus and I have been trying to catch lions, not doing real good at that, have not caught a single one yet. Been getting, not really messed up by the lack of snow so much, but I've had a lot of, uh, one time we had too much snow, happened while we were on a fresh track, that we knew was a fresh track from the day before. I might have already talked about this, but this track literally filled in. That was like the only snowstorm that we've had this winter, and I just happened to be on a track that day. But I've had a bunch where they've gone into private. That's just a thing with Montana, man. There's like, even though we have a lot of public, there's just always some private around.

• 7:25Speaker 07

  And then, you know, those cats take a left instead of a right, and they're going towards private, nothing you can do about it.

• 7:31Speaker 05

  Sure. And you could get access to that private, you know, especially if you're within an hour of Bozeman here. Like, that private could be very skinny, and then he's already three private parcels away.

• 7:42Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to call somebody to access forty acres or even a couple hundred acres. Now, if it's like thousands, it makes sense, and I've been, I've been calling them. Uh, but we did catch our first bobcat, uh, ever, solo, uh, two weekends ago, which was a, you know, it's a real proud moment for me as a hound owner.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  Does Mingus know the difference when he's like on a track? Like, this is a bobcat, or this is a cougar?

• 8:10Speaker 07

  Don't think so.

• 8:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:12Speaker 07

  I, no. I, I don't know. There's no way that I could, I, I would know. But what was cool about it is that he'd already tracked one for a while, and he's so poor at catching bobcats. A lot of times if I know it's a bobcat track, and it's early in the day, I'll kind of let him do it. But I'm gonna sort of start, like, keep meandering the way I'm gonna, I'm going because I want to see if we can find a lion track, right? Because, and the reason being, I've talked about this before too, but just to explain to everybody. Lions have small lungs. They cannot outrun a hound.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 8:46Speaker 07

  So when they get pressured by dogs, they immediately go up in a tree or they bay up or whatever. Sometimes there might be a quarter mile, you know, a little bit of a sprint or something, but they don't have the endurance to do things like bobcats do, which have much bigger lungs and, and, and I guess that it's just because a bobcat is prey to more animals than a lion is. Lion just sits on, to higher up the hierarchy. You know, the only thing that really chases a lion around might be a giant bear or, or a wolf. And they're probably not really chasing them so much as they're just running them off of kills.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 9:21Speaker 07

  And whatever. A bobcat though, he's, you know, pack of coyotes can take him out, you know, who knows what else? So they can stay ahead of hounds. And if they have a jump, then they start to do figure eights, backtrack, go up trees, jump from one tree to another tree, come down the other tree and do different things. So they're just harder to, to get close to, to put the pressure on. Cause again, you gotta put the pressure on to make them go up into a tree. Well, while they're doing these loops and stuff, like if you're in the zone, there's a chance you can see a bobcat, right? And it's never happened to me. But Jennifer was with me, my wife, and we're standing there and Mingus has been on the track now for, I don't know, half an hour.

• 10:07Speaker 07

  And I could hear in his voice that something had changed. Like there was a little more intensity to it. The, the barking was becoming more rapid. I'm like, yeah, he might've jumped him, you know, like they're, he might be on to something. And um, I said to Jennifer, wouldn't it be cool? Like if we just like saw a bobcat come sneaking through here, you know, while Mingus is, is on his track? And two minutes later, five minutes later, I look up the hill and here comes a bobcat. Not worried whatsoever that he's got a hundred pound hound somewhere a hundred yards behind him. He's just slinking through the woods, not looking over his shoulder.

• 10:45Speaker 05

  How far away was Mingus, you think?

• 10:47Speaker 07

  Hundred plus, hundred to a hundred and fifty yards. And, uh, yeah, his bobcat comes down the hill, comes by Jennifer and I at ten yards. I should have gave this video to Phil. He could have shared it. And, uh, it was cool. I got my camera out fast enough and got, you know, maybe three, four seconds of him walking through.

• 11:04Speaker 05

  Um, did you hear him coming or you just saw him?

• 11:06Speaker 07

  No, just happened to look up the hill and saw him.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  They just float across the earth, especially snow.

• 11:12Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, just silent and deadly, you know? Not butt deadly, but silent and deadly. Unfortunately, Jennifer's like digging in her backpack. When I look over at her, so I'm like trying to make noise, but not too much noise because she was, I don't know, fifteen feet away from me. Luckily, she heard me and looked up and saw it too. Um, we're both sort of so astounded at the, at what we had just seen. We're just sitting there in awe, being like, whoa, man, like, can you believe that? You know, that was so rad. And, uh, it takes me a couple of minutes and I'm like, oh shit, I better call Mingus over here. That's a hot track right there. There hasn't been a hotter track ever.

• 11:50Speaker 07

  And, uh, Mingus comes, call him over and, uh, it still took him probably fifteen, twenty minutes to put enough pressure on him to get him into a tree. Like, again, I wasn't thinking we were gonna catch it, so we continued down the hill, went to the creek, bought him, took off our packs, started snacking. And by the time we'd gotten a couple of bites in, I'm like, oh, he's bark intrigued. So we packed up and walked up there and sure enough, he had him.

• 12:16Speaker 05

  Good for Mingus. Did he, did he see the bobcat in the tree?

• 12:18Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, he knows.

• 12:20Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 05

  Good.

• 12:21Speaker 07

  He did not want to leave the tree.

• 12:24Speaker 07

  Cause I didn't have my, uh, wish Steve was here so he could make more fun of me about this, but in Montana, probably a lot of places, you gotta buy a fur bear license before the season starts. And you wanna kill a bobcat. I had not done that this year, just slipped my mind.

• 12:38Speaker 05

  So they're safe.

• 12:40Speaker 07

  And so, um, yeah, we had to walk away from one in the tree. But honestly, it's like.

• 12:48Speaker 07

  I don't know, I'm trying to think how to put it, but if it's one or the other, like I'd rather just have my dog catching bobcats and looking at them, walking away. Like, that's way cooler than to say, I, like, I'd rather have three that Mingus had caught on his own and taking pictures of it than one he had caught and I got to kill it.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Good for Mingus.

• 13:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  More, more Mingus stories to come.

• 13:11Speaker 07

  So luckily, we have, uh, you know, it's only the end of January. We still have February, March, half of April, um, to, uh, to keep hunting lions and cats.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  The winter pervert lovers like Yanis. Lot of winter to go. Speaking of winter, let's go to our first guest of the day. Joining us on the line now is Sue Richardson, the VP of the Jericho Historical Society. Sue is here to talk to us about her great, great uncle, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley. Sue, welcome to the show.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Thanks. It's great to be here.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  Uh, first thing, Sue, please explain who your great, great uncle was and how he got the nickname "Snowflake."

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Well, if you grew up knowing that no two snowflakes are alike, it's because of Wilson Bentley. He was the first person to ever photograph an individual snow crystal. He went on to photograph more than 5,000 of them over the next 46 years. And he not only photographed them, but he studied. Each photograph had a corresponding entry in his journal with, which documented temperature, humidity, what part of the storm it came from, all of this weather data. And from that, he developed many, many theories on how these crystals form and what factors impact how they change and grow. And in fact, most of what scientists

• 14:32Speaker 04

  today know about snow came from his research in the late 18 and early 1900s. So the nickname was actually given to him by a reporter from the Boston Globe. We did a story on him in the early 1900s and gave him the handle of "Snowflake Man," which kind of morphed into "Snowflake Bentley."

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Uh, his images are beautiful. They're filled with so much detail that it's shocking that he pulled this off with technology from the 1800s. Uh, tell us about the setup that he used to capture these pictures, which we're looking at right now. Uh, you can see these on our YouTube channel.

• 15:06Speaker 06

  He had a Bellows camera.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  And he replaced the lens with a microscope. Figured out a way to attach it. Um, and that's how he got the magnification. And of course, those old, those cameras used glass negatives. So they were ver- it was very stable for the tie, for the timeframe, um. Photography was pretty much in its infancy. Only probably twenty, twenty-five years. The photo photographs had been. You know, real easily taken, if you will. But it was a, he was a brilliant man. He was seventeen years old when he started this process. When his mother bought him that camera and microscope for his birthday.

• 15:54Speaker 06

  And it took three years of trial and error to figure out how to put it together, how to make it all work. Um, he had to experiment with different stops to get the, to control the amount of light coming in. And he worked in an unheated woodshed at the back of the house because it needed to be cold. So the snow crystals wouldn't melt while he did the process.

• 16:15Speaker 07

  Uh, how, can I ask, how did he capture the snowflakes?

• 16:20Speaker 06

  He had a wooden tray they made with wire handles. Um, he would step out of this woodshed into the storm. Catch the falling snow on this tray. Then he would step back into the woodshed out of the wind. And grab a magnifying glass to do a quick scan to see if there was anything worthy of photographing. And if there was, he made a, he initially used a straw from an old broom as a tool. To touch it to the center of this little snow crystal and transfer it to the microscope slide. Um, in later years, he created a stylus out of wood with a sharp point and a larger end, so it was easier to manipulate. But he would transfer it to the microscope slide.

• 17:01Speaker 06

  And put it under his microscope, his observation microscope to make sure it was, again, worthy of photographing. And then he would, he had this weird process because the. The slide had to be vertical in the stage on the microscope slash lens. So he used a turkey feather because they're soft and would press the cold snow crystal to the cold glass. Slide it into the stage on the microscope. Go to the back of the camera, go to the black cloth over his head, you know, you've seen it in the old movies. That's legit how those work, um, and bring it into focus and take the picture.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  Wow. That's cool. Snowflake was doing something that had never been done before, and I imagine that this elicited some strong feelings from those around him. What did his friends and family think of his work?

• 17:47Speaker 06

  They thought he was crazy.

• 17:52Speaker 06

  These people are practical Vermont farmers and messing with snow to them, they just could not fathom any particular, any purpose, any sense in doing this. It doesn't add to your milk production for your dairy cows, it doesn't make your crops grow any better, they just saw it as a waste of time and, and pure foolishness. Later years, they did come to appreciate it after he became basically known all over the world. They did come to appreciate it, but they initially thought he was nuts.

• 18:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. What, what about the scientific community? What did they think of his work?

• 18:34Speaker 06

  Well, for the first dozen years or so that, that he was photographing these, he didn't write about it or talk about his, but he studied the, these, and he started developing all these theories. And when he was finally published in eighteen ninety-eight in a scientific magazine, he then worked prolific over the next decade and he was ignored by the scientific community for a decade. I think there was probably some arrogance there, you know, what does some Vermont farmer know that we don't know? And also, he was very eloquent in his style of writing, and of course, scientific writing is supposed to be purely objective,

• 19:20Speaker 06

  just factual, and he would go off in these flowery prose because he was so enamored with the beauty he saw in them, he couldn't help himself. So they ignored him until he couldn't. But in the meantime, colleges and universities from around the world were buying copies of his negatives and his prints for teaching purposes. And he uh, he charged five cents a piece for duplicate, which is exactly what it cost him to make a duplicate negative. And when he died in nineteen thirty-one, he was still charging five cents a piece. He never raised his price. He spent more money than he ever made.

• 19:52Speaker 05

  Uh, besides the five thousand snowflakes, what else did Snowflake Bentley take pictures of?

• 19:59Speaker 06

  Um, well, he took, he had another camera that he took pictures of clouds and snow rollers and different weather phenomena, in addition to family members and just life on the farm.

• 20:14Speaker 06

  He also photographed uh frost on window panes and on plants and dew on plants and spider webs and insects. Just, he was fascinated with it, with pretty much everything in the natural world.

• 20:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, Sue, please tell folks how they can experience Snowflake Bentley's work in person and online.

• 20:37Speaker 06

  Here in Jericho, Vermont, um, in a historic building called the Old Red Mill, which is a, an eighteen hundreds ghost mill, um, we ha- uh, we house this Snowflake Bentley exhibit, which is his cameras, his microscopes, all of the equipment that he worked with, some of his original photographs and negatives. Um, it's a, it's a neat exhibit. We literally have people that come from all over the world to see this exhibit and actually see the equipment he worked with. It was a children's book that was published in nineteen ninety-eight that's still in print that won the Caldecott Award. So we get teachers from all over the world because it's published in multiple languages. Um, so it's really, it's a fascinating

• 21:19Speaker 06

  exhibit. Definitely if you're anywhere in this part of the country, it's definitely worth your time to come by and see it.

• 21:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. Thank you for joining us, Sue, and thanks for continuing the legacy of your great, great uncle, Snowflake Bentley.

• 21:31Speaker 06

  You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

• 21:33Speaker 07

  Thanks, Sue.

• 21:33Speaker 06

  Thanks, Sue.

• 21:35Speaker 05

  I'm fixing to order me one of those pictures of, uh, Snowflakes, Snowflake. I'm gonna hang that up at home.

• 21:40Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:41Speaker 05

  I love that they're from the eighteen hundreds.

• 21:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, that'd be a great little print to have hanging on the wall.

• 21:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. All right, our next segment is Gear Talk.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  Yanni talking gear again.

• 22:17Speaker 07

  Great tune.

• 22:18Speaker 05

  What are you reviewing for us today for Gear Talk?

• 22:22Speaker 07

  Well, Spencer, I brought in my new favorite backpack.

• 22:26Speaker 05

  Okay. Loaded up with gear too. That thing must be what 30 pounds?

• 22:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's somewhere around there. Um, did you pick it up?

• 22:36Speaker 05

  No.

• 22:37Speaker 07

  Yeah, it doesn't have any water in it right now, so it gets about two pounds heavier when I go out. The reason being is because my pistol and my rifle are in here. And, uh, you know, guns just, they add a lot of weight. If I continue to not shoot bobcats out of trees, then I don't need to carry either of those.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  Just walk around with your camera gear. Alright, tell us about this backpack.

• 23:00Speaker 07

  Um, yeah, initial ascent, I found out about him, I think it was right about a year ago. Um, I was at the Western Hunt Expo and my buddy Duke Wassney from First Light came by, uh, our booth. Or we were maybe at the First Light booth and he's like, hey, you need to go check, come check out these initial ascent packs. And so I went over and I saw it. I'm like, yeah, whatever. It looks like a pack.

• 23:23Speaker 05

  Duke is the guy the First Light guys talk about as though he's a god in the mountains.

• 23:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 05

  Like Duke is the badass mountain hunter of the crew.

• 23:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  Okay, and he told you to check out this backpack?

• 23:35Speaker 07

  He told me to check it out. So, yeah, when Duke tells me to check something out, I usually pay attention. They had it, man, I can't remember the exact numbers, but they had the pack itself loaded with like 80 pounds. And I put it on, I'm like, alright, yeah, feels alright, feels heavy. And they're like, okay, now we're gonna add on, I forget what it was, 60 more or something. They basically hung these sand filled, uh, dry bags off of these hooks right here on each side. And then they're like, now go walk around for 10 minutes and come back. And after that little tour, it was enough to be like, okay, I definitely need to try one of these.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 24:15Speaker 07

  A lot of packs carry weight, I feel like decently well. Does this one excel at it, um, you know, better than the other ones I've been using? Maybe it's 1% better. I don't know. Like, I know I can carry weight with it. It's like, when you have a hundred pounds on your back, it all starts to hurt after a while, no matter how good the pack is. What I really like, though, is, because 95% of the time when I'm wearing this pack, it doesn't have 100 pounds of meat in it. Instead, it's got 30 pounds of gear in it, or maybe even just 20. And I'm sneaking through the woods, trying to put an arrow through an elk, or whatever it might be. And so how it rides in those cases, in those scenarios, is probably more important to me than how well it carries the weight, right?

• 24:58Speaker 07

  Um, it's, one of the things that stands out for this pack for me is that when it's on my back, my, there's, I have to really try to get my elbows or my tricep to touch the pack behind me. And so it's not like it's a big bulky thing sticking out my sides. It's very slim profile. And looking at it, it doesn't necessarily look like that when, when you see it. But, yeah, wearing it, like, I can draw my bow freely. Um, it's just not in my way whatsoever. I'm a fan of simple packs, too, and as you can see here, it's basically got the one main compartment. The main compartment has, I think, another two zippers inside of it. And then it's got this one outside compartment.

• 25:37Speaker 05

  Very tidy.

• 25:38Speaker 07

  Very, yeah, super, super tidy. I'm, I'm not a fan of the packs with, you know, 50 pockets and, and 50 zippers. It just adds weight and complicates things. Um, then I don't need it. So, yeah, the, the frame, uh, carbon fiber frame. And, um,

• 25:55Speaker 05

  Who, who else does that?

• 25:57Speaker 07

  Uh, people have stays that are carbon fiber. I don't know anybody else that has a full frame like this.

• 26:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, that seems pretty unique.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Catches your eye right away.

• 26:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, for sure.

• 26:09Speaker 06

  The, the top part of the frame here?

• 26:13Speaker 06

  Can you like hook your, your uh,

• 26:15Speaker 07

  Your rifle sling.

• 26:16Speaker 06

  Guns rifle sling on that?

• 26:17Speaker 07

  Oh yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 06

  That's awesome.

• 26:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, definitely. Um, very easy to take the bag off um, and, and put it back on if you're gonna take it off just to ca- if you don't want to carry the bag itself while you're packing meat. It's got a load shelf in there. Um, so yeah, just simple. I like simple things that work and this pack definitely does that. So I put a few pictures up, up the Phil's showing now where um, I think I've packed at least half dozen animals in it. That was my bull elk there. The picture prior was my Idaho mule deer from this fall. And there's a caribou. Um, that was a short pack job right there. It wasn't like it really tested the pack out. But anyways, been putting it through the paces and uh, yeah, I'm pumped on it.

• 27:04Speaker 05

  So is that gonna be the backpack for the fall of 2026 as well?

• 27:08Speaker 07

  Hundred percent.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Okay. You're convinced.

• 27:11Speaker 06

  Sweet.

• 27:13Speaker 01

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• 27:43Steven Rinella?

  I travel quite a bit 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, C A H M B, 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

• 28:28Steven Rinella?

  your stack. One thing 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

• 29:10Steven Rinella?

  of vehicles that have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. Cause 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.

• 29:42Speaker 05

  I'm gonna go next for gear talk. I'm gonna talk about my favorite gloves that I have ever owned. They are the First Light Cody Gloves.

• 29:50Steven Rinella?

  Ever?

• 29:51Speaker 05

  Ever. I don't, I can't think of a pair I've liked more than these. Maybe my first pair of glomets. I had a pair of glomets from Cabela's back when I was in high school and I really loved those for ice fishing specifically. Do you know what a glommet is? It's like the flip over mitt. We still got the, yeah. So I loved those at the time. Now they wouldn't be as practical for me, but for ice fishing specifically. Anyway, the Cody Gloves from First Light, I love these things. They are soft but durable. They're, they're insulated, but you can still like use your fingers when you're wearing them. I've had these, I think for two falls. They're the gloves that I use the most for hunting and fishing and snow blowing. And you would think I just got these yesterday. Like they, they do not show.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  Much sign of wear at all, and I'm not doing anything to take care of them. I'm not like oiling them or something like that, or making sure that they don't get blood on them or water. Um, I, I think they are really special gloves and they are first lights. They say they are their ranch inspired hunting glove. I use these, um, pretty much all fall when I was deer hunting in Illinois, when I'm deer hunting in Montana, when I'm deer hunting in Nebraska. And in Nebraska, I have a rancher there that I have deer hunting permission from. Uh, he, he's a cattle rancher. He also farms. I asked him one time, I says, are, are you considered a farmer or a rancher? And he says, well, I farm so that I can ranch. Um, so, so, you know, beef are his passion. Anyway, I gave him a pair of these gloves

• 31:16Speaker 05

  that he's now used for two calving seasons. Caving, calving season, uh, for much of the north is happening right now, like January to, to March. Uh, he texted me the other day. He said, I love these gloves you gave me. Best winter gloves I've ever had for calving. So if that's not an endorsement, uh, I don't know what is.

• 31:33Speaker 07

  That's great.

• 31:34Speaker 05

  The first light Cody gloves.

• 31:35Speaker 07

  I bet his look a little bit more worn than yours. He's, he's doing real work.

• 31:39Speaker 05

  He's got extra fluid.

• 31:40Speaker 07

  By the way that yours look, you're, you're actually not doing that much work out there.

• 31:45Speaker 05

  I think so.

• 31:46Speaker 07

  I love that glove too. I have burned through it. The very first pair I have finally now has quite a few holes in the fingers, but that's, I don't know, three, four seasons and I wear them almost every single day, especially cat hunting. Um, you know,

• 32:00Speaker 05

  Those are your cat gloves?

• 32:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. Snowmobiling. Um, if I get that warm where I can't wear them because they're too warm, I just stick them in pockets and go gloveless. But you need something that's, you know, protecting you from the elements, but keeping, keeping you warm, not too hot. Mine will, if it's been wet, it's kind of snowy conditions, they'll start to, uh, wet out. And so I do nick wax them. Periodically, you know, I don't know, maybe three, four times a winter. And, uh, yeah, just when they're wet, I squirt, you know, a couple of tablespoons of that stuff on there and just rub it all in. And then stick them on a couple tines of a of an antler in the house, let them dry for a day or two and they're ready to rip again. But yeah, I'm a big fan of that kind of glove. I wear them skiing too.

• 32:47Speaker 05

  Oh, there you go. First light Cody glove, uh, they're $70. I'm looking right now. We have small through XL available in both colors. Seth, what do you got for gear talk today?

• 32:58Speaker 06

  Um, I got a little homemade piece of gear.

• 33:00Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 33:01Speaker 06

  So this is a.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  And it does not look homemade at all. It looks like you bought it like this, which is a compliment.

• 33:08Speaker 06

  It's a mobile power station, like, you know, like Jackery or Blue Eddie or Gold Zero makes. Uh, but those things are so expensive. What is the average price for something like that?

• 33:22Speaker 06

  Oh, look it up quick Spencer.

• 33:23Speaker 05

  Okay, uh, give me, tell me what brand I should be looking up.

• 33:26Speaker 06

  Look at, uh, Jackery.

• 33:29Speaker 06

  And this is no shade on these companies.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  You keep telling us about this.

• 33:32Speaker 06

  But anyway, this is, so what I, what I did here is I took just, uh, the Yeti. What are these things called? Like loadout box or go box?

• 33:43Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 06

  And, um, I went on Amazon and bought a hundred amp hour lithium battery. That was like 160 bucks and I put it in this box and then hooked up two cigarette outlets. And then this one is two USBs and a USB C for, for charging. And it's all kept in this little box. Nice and neat, waterproof.

• 34:10Speaker 05

  Very nice and neat.

• 34:11Speaker 06

  Um, and I, I use this thing to run my Dometic refrigerator. I use it to run my diesel heater. And, um, the lights in the back of my pickup truck bed. And yeah, I use it literally all, all season long. Every time I go on a trip, this thing comes with me. If I'm truck camping and yeah, it's just like a cheap alternative to the mobile power stations that you see online that are very expensive. And altogether, I think this box. And you don't have to buy a Yeti box. I just happen to have this one.

• 34:45Speaker 05

  Um, it fits it real nice.

• 34:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, it fits it perfectly. It, I think this thing's like 125 bucks. Batteries 160 and then, you know, another probably 30 or 40 bucks for all the, the outlets here. So.

• 35:00Speaker 06

  You know, very cheap compared to the alternatives.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm looking at a Jackery base model right now. It's on sale for 800, listed originally at 1500.

• 35:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, and if you look at that, it probably doesn't have 100 amp hour lithium battery in it.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  No.

• 35:17Speaker 07

  What does that mean? How many, like, can you go for a full weekend and not charge this thing? And do all, do all those things?

• 35:24Speaker 05

  I bet he could go for a month.

• 35:26Speaker 06

  I went, I went a full week.

• 35:27Speaker 07

  Run in a, run in a refrigerator?

• 35:29Speaker 06

  I go a full week with the refrigerator for sure on this.

• 35:34Speaker 07

  And charging phones?

• 35:35Speaker 06

  Yep, charging phones and stuff too.

• 35:37Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 35:38Speaker 05

  It's a great little tool and I bet you'll use that thing like 365.

• 35:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, totally. And, and like, you know, eventually the, the batteries do go bad in those things. And this one, I just go on Amazon, buy another battery and pop it in there.

• 35:50Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:51Speaker 06

  Keep on trucking.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  You got a, a nice little spot in the back of your pickup where that gets tethered down?

• 35:57Speaker 06

  Yep. Yeah. And then it's nice because I can just like pick it up and take it wherever I need it to.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  Bring it into the office.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  Yep. So, yeah. Check it out.

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Very good piece of gear.

• 36:07Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Uh, all right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say?

• 36:14Speaker 06

  Uh, yes. First, uh, shout out here. It's from Catherine Burglin Mama. Hey, gang. I was wondering if you could wish my beautiful mountain girl Isabella happy birthday. She'll be eight tomorrow and she loves Meat Eater.

• 36:26Speaker 05

  Happy birthday, Isabella.

• 36:28Speaker 07

  Should we sing?

• 36:29Speaker 05

  Uh, Yanis is gonna sing for you. Yes, go ahead, Yanis. Take it away.

• 36:32Speaker 06

  I'll sing with you.

• 36:33Speaker 07

  Happy birthday, Isabella.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  Happy birthday, mountain girl Isabella, uh, turning eight tomorrow.

• 36:39Speaker 06

  Another question for Yanis, well, another, the first one, is there any, uh, thought of a Meat Eater roast tournament? Either a 1v1 playoff bracket style or some sort of competition format where there's an elimination thing happening?

• 36:53Speaker 07

  There has been thought of a playoff bracket style cooking competition. Yes.

• 37:00Speaker 05

  You know what I think we should do before that is have Yanni compete?

• 37:04Speaker 07

  Like you and Steve or something.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  There you go, you versus Steve.

• 37:08Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  I get host, I'll volunteer to host, or whoever you want to host can host, but we should put Yanni on the spot.

• 37:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  Now and then.

• 37:15Speaker 07

  That'd be a good idea.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  What else you got, Phil?

• 37:18Speaker 06

  Melody asks for some tips on keeping toes and fingers warm during below freezing ice fishing trips. She has terrible circulation, she says.

• 37:26Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 37:27Speaker 07

  Hmm.

• 37:27Speaker 05

  Hot hands.

• 37:28Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 37:29Speaker 05

  Every, every person who lives north of the Mason Dixon can use hot hands and it will genuinely keep you warmer. What else you guys got?

• 37:37Speaker 06

  I, I went to a bunny boot this year.

• 37:40Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 37:40Speaker 06

  And it's been phenomenal.

• 37:42Speaker 07

  Oh, they're amazing.

• 37:43Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 07

  If you don't know what a bunny boot is, it's a, uh, it's like an air filled, old school military, all rubber boot. If you're, if you ever.

• 37:53Speaker 05

  Are they always white?

• 37:54Speaker 07

  No.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  No.

• 37:55Speaker 05

  What color are yours?

• 37:56Speaker 06

  There's, there's black ones that are, they call them Mickey Mouse boot.

• 37:59Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 06

  But the Alaska Gear Company is like, they're like doing a remake of the original bunny boot. Cause they're all like military surplus.

• 38:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 06

  And yeah, this company, Alaska Gear Company is making bunny boots now. And they make like a lighter version and like a heavy version.

• 38:17Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:17Speaker 06

  That are rated to, you know, minus 70 or something crazy.

• 38:20Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:21Speaker 06

  But, um.

• 38:22Speaker 05

  Keep you warm?

• 38:23Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very warm.

• 38:25Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:25Speaker 06

  And I struggle with my feet getting cold.

• 38:27Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:28Speaker 07

  I, the other thing you can do too is skiers have had, uh, heated foot beds forever.

• 38:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:34Speaker 07

  Um, and they're amazing. I don't use them. I don't need them that bad, but I don't know for a couple hundred bucks. Uh, you can get battery operated, you know, heated insoles and you're not going to have cold feet or cold toes going that way. Uh, if you don't want to go that route, I think having boots that are a little bit bigger than smaller. This is going to always help to keep a nice air layer in there because that's what's actually doing the insulating. Um, and keeping it dry in there. So once you get sweaty at all or you're getting cold, like take the time, undress, put on some fresh, dry socks, get them back in there and you'll be definitely tostier than you were beforehand.

• 39:14Speaker 05

  Other like reasonably cheap piece of gear that I love for cold weather is a hand muff. Especially for ice fishing. If you don't want to be rocking your biggest gloves and you want to be using your fingers. Hand muff, you can find a real good one for pretty cheap, or you can spend a lot of money on one. It's something that like, once it's below 40 and I'm doing something active outside, I like having a hand muff.

• 39:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, and you can load those full of hand warmers too.

• 39:38Speaker 05

  You can. You could put whatever you want. Load it full of cell phones, snacks, hand warmers, all kinds of things. Good luck ice fishing, Melody.

• 39:48Speaker 06

  Kale Flynn is in the market for a new spotting scope, debating between compact or full size, which do you prefer? And have you ever had a compact out hunting and then wished you had a full size or vice versa?

• 39:58Speaker 05

  Yanis, what do you got for Kale?

• 40:00Speaker 07

  Uh, I always go full size because the reason I'm packing a spotting scope is not to just see if it's an animal or if it's a deer versus an elk, it's going to be to see details, like how big the elk is or the deer, or you're looking so far out that you're going to need something big to to tell the difference between elk or deer. Yeah, the compact ones, I've just always felt like if I put my binoculars on in a, on a stable platform, I'm getting the same performance and getting the same result, doing it that way.

• 40:36Speaker 07

  Yeah. So yes, and I have been out there with small spotters and every time I'm like, oh, should have brought the big one because right now we could actually tell what's going on over there.

• 40:48Speaker 05

  Seth, what do you got for Kale?

• 40:50Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, I would say, I guess it also, he doesn't say where he's, what he's hunting for, where he's at, right? No, I don't think so. No, so. Pipe in Kale if you've got to. It just kind of depends on what, what you're hunting for and where, but I would always go full size. Because you can, you can use kind of full size for everything.

• 41:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 06

  Um, that covers all the bases. A compact is not gonna, you're not gonna wanna go couze deer hunting with a compact.

• 41:18Speaker 05

  My endorsement for full size is that, um, I have found, it's like obviously annoying to carry around because they're, they're so big and heavy. Um, but if I'm trying to like get the details on a mule deer bucks antlers, I have to now get like half a mile closer or something. If I don't have a full size, I would have saved myself that half mile of, of hiking and, and moving around. If I just would have had the full size with me. So it's like bigger and more annoying to, to, uh, hump around, but it, it might save you some like hiking in the end as well. Uh, Phil, let's do a few more.

• 41:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, sure. Um, we got multiple people, Seth, asking for more specifics on your build. Uh, uh, someone was even like, you should make a social video, kind of.

• 42:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, I do plan on doing that at some point.

• 42:05Speaker 07

  Cool. And then another one mostly for Seth, I would say is the great adventures of mitten men. He asks for just kind of like getting started in beaver trapping for someone that doesn't have people to learn from.

• 42:17Speaker 05

  And it looks like he's in the Great Lakes.

• 42:18Speaker 07

  For steps.

• 42:19Speaker 05

  Based on that photo.

• 42:20Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, I guess if you don't have anyone to mentor you, just go on YouTube and, you know, try and find as much info there to like get you started. Um, but then other than that, just, just get some, get some traps that are legal in your state and, uh, go look for some beaver sign and, and, and set them out. Like it's kind of the best way to learn without a mentor is just by doing it and sometimes doing the wrong things, you know?

• 42:49Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 42:50Speaker 06

  Makes you learn a lot faster, but, um, yeah, a lot of, a lot of resources on YouTube about beaver trapping.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Thanks to YouTube, the learning curve has never been smaller.

• 42:59Speaker 06

  I know.

• 43:00Speaker 05

  Comes to, uh, stuff like this. Uh, let's do one more, Phil, before we move on.

• 43:04Speaker 07

  Sure. This one got a lot of chatter in the chat, but Will asked for go-tos of American classic literature to read with your kids. I'm guessing outdoor themed stuff.

• 43:15Speaker 05

  I'm going to pass on this because I'm going to cover it in our next segment, but Seth and

• 43:20Speaker 07

  You're gonna cover it for reading with the kids?

• 43:23Speaker 05

  For top threes. I've got some book recommendations. I don't need to spend another minute beyond what I'm going to talking about books on this podcast. So go for it, Ian.

• 43:31Speaker 07

  I got it.

• 43:32Speaker 05

  What can you recommend?

• 43:32Speaker 07

  I'm trying to think the top, man, we read all the classics, which, which were Where the Red Fern Grows, Summer of Monkeys.

• 43:45Speaker 06

  What about Hatchet?

• 43:46Speaker 07

  Hatchet, for sure.

• 43:48Speaker 06

  A lot of Hatchet.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 06

  Hatchet's a great one.

• 43:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 07

  Gosh, what else? It's been a while now.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Seth, soon to be father, what are you gonna be reading?

• 43:58Speaker 06

  Well, Hatchet was the first thing that came to mind. There's a book called My Side of the Mountain. And have you guys ever heard of that? It's like this kid kind of leaves town and goes up in the mountains and, and lives in a hollowed out tree.

• 44:12Speaker 07

  Couple of people in the chat were suggesting that one, yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 06

  Really? That's a good one. It's cool. It's kind of like, tells the story of a young, young boy's like adventurous spirit and, and yeah, it's cool. Great book.

• 44:25Speaker 07

  Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  There you go. We'll have some more book recommendations for you in a second.

• 44:31Speaker 07

  And Spencer, actually, can I suggest we call an audible and switch segments since it looks like our next guest has his neck, has his guest with him right now?

• 44:38Speaker 05

  We're gonna do that. Joining us on the line next is Michael Hadsell, the founder of Peace River K9 Search and Rescue. He's here to talk to us about Splash, the world's one and only search and rescue otter. Michael, welcome to the show.

• 44:54Speaker 07

  Hey, thanks for having me on. I appreciate that.

• 44:56Speaker 05

  And you can see and hear Splash is with us right now. Please tell us about Splash. How old is he? Where did he come from? What kind of otter is he?

• 45:06Speaker 07

  Splash is a two-year-old Asian smallpaw otter and he came to us from the

• 45:12Speaker 04

  World Wildlife Wildlife Zoo out of Phoenix, Arizona. And so he was donated to the program and we've put him to work. So he's all trained up and out in the field right now working. What we call is proofing year right now. Working cases in the field.

• 45:30Speaker 05

  And those noises we're hearing, is he happy? Is he annoyed? Is he is he snuggly? What is Splash's current mood?

• 45:36Speaker 04

  He is, I think he's horny. I think that's what's wrong.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  Oh wow.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  I think he needs a woman. I think he needs a woman. That's his problem.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  But he's, he's actually just giving me a lot of, a lot of sass at the moment.

• 45:52Speaker 05

  Lot of sass. Um, what specifically is Splash trained to do?

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Uh, we use Splash, I'm gonna put him down real quick.

• 46:03Speaker 05

  Oh wow. Bye Splash. Cute and horny. Wow, just like said.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's, he's had enough. He's gonna go pick on Dutch for a while. That's my dog.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  Uh, what is Splash trained to do?

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Splash is a, what we call a recovery otter. He is trained to locate, uh, human remains underwater. So that's what he does. We use it for cold case work. Uh, his original concept of is, uh, a lot of our cases, murder cases and stuff in where the victim's been disposed of in water. You know, water environment and water is very harsh on human remains and the bodies go away fairly quickly. The tissue does and the bones sink down into the muck. And that muck can be a foot, two feet, three feet deep. And once the bones get down in there, the dive teams and myself being a forensic diver, uh, we won't ever find them. Uh, because we just no way to tell where they are.

• 46:57Speaker 04

  The cadaver dogs working from the boat, uh, can, uh, alert and say, yeah, the odor from the, the bones are coming up. It's there, but we get down to the bottom and we can't find it. So what Splash's job, original concept was, is to deploy from the boat, go down, find the area down in the muck where the bones have settled in, and then identify that area, tell us about it, and we put a grid over the top of it, and then we go in there with trawls and we start working our way down through until we finally get the bones and make the recovery. That's what his original purpose was. It's expanded now because I've got other agencies, law enforcement agencies, like Fish and Wildlife and stuff, they call him.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  And we have a fisherman that's fallen off the boat, they can't find him, he's drowned, their dive team's not having any luck finding him, they'll call him, he says Splash out and Splash goes and makes the recovery. So, um, his mission's kind of morphed. So, he's, he still does a lot of cold case work that we do, but his, his job kind of changed over. It's, it's expanded. And it's good, I mean, no one's ever done this before, we're the only ones that ever tried to do anything like this. And, uh, so he, uh, we're learning as we go along. Um, as, as, as need is needed, we can go out and change the mission around, whatever was required, so.

• 48:23Speaker 07

  Michael, I got a question. How does he notify you? How does he communicate with you that he's found something, or hasn't found something?

• 48:31Speaker 04

  Well, uh, if he hasn't found anything, he's not going to come back. He's, he's on what's called a refind, and a refind in search work means that he finds what it is that we're looking for, the target, comes back and tells me about it and then takes me back to it afterwards. Hi Splash, I see you're down there, thank you for chugging on my foot. Okay, so, he, uh, if we launch him from the boat, he goes out, and he'll swim around the surface, he finds the odor in the surface, just like the dogs do, and then he'll zoom down and he goes down. We live in about thirty feet of water, we don't want to get any deeper than that. And then, uh, he will come back up and start squeaking and making a lot of noise and letting us know that he's found something.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  And, uh, at that point, we tie a line onto him because he's free at that point, we don't have anything on him, just his harness, and we, we cook a line on him, he goes back down to where the, the odor is present, lays there, the diver will follow the line down to him, and then he waits for the diver to get there and, uh, and he comes back, and he can hold his breath. A minute, uh, we let him, five minutes is what we're average is, but he's done eight. And, uh, which scared the hell out of me, but he was, longer if he needs to. And, uh, so them, and that's, and he just waits for the diver to get there and then he comes back. Once he's, uh, the diver's on scene, we release him from the line and then comes back up to the boat.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  And, uh, gets his fish. He's, we feed him, his reward is salmon. He likes farm-raised salmon. That's his thing. And, uh, so he, uh, gets his salmon for his reward. He goes back in his crate and then his job's done for the day.

• 50:10Speaker 07

  And when he's not working, is he just cruising around your house?

• 50:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, he lives in the house. Uh, he was out earlier when we were talking, he, he's out swimming in the kiddie pool and burning up some calories. And, uh, now he's in the house screaming at me. I don't know what he wants. He's been fed, so I'm not sure what he's after. He may want to go play or something. I haven't done a lot of work. He worked last week for, uh, we worked for Georgia Bureau, uh, Investigation GBI last week. And then, uh, this week, he's kind of not had a lot to do. So I think he's bored. I think he's gotten kind of bored. It's kind of like, yeah, we're kind of ignoring him, but I've had other stuff. We were training, it's our training season for the canines, uh, because it's cool right now in Florida. So we, we put a lot of time into getting the dogs tuned up and the horses. We have a horse team as well.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  And, uh, so Splash is kind of getting pushed off for a little bit and he's not getting his training as much. So I think he's a little irritated that he's not getting attention.

• 51:06Speaker 05

  What, what has the training process been like with Splash? Is it just like training a dog?

• 51:11Speaker 04

  Very similar in a lot of ways. The biggest problem with, uh, the otter is that he's not a dog. Dogs are brought up to work with humans through breeding programs, you know, and genetics. And, and so the, the dog that you buy now, it is very packaged to work with humans and to do its specific job. Um, otters are wild creatures and this is, even though this guy came from a zoo, he is, he's very much a wild animal. They have a different set of priorities. And, uh, so the biggest thing I have to do is find out what motivates him. What reward system will he work for? And can I get the trust from him to work for me and really work with humans? And so that's the big deal that we had to work on with him.

• 51:54Speaker 04

  And we did, uh, we found out he's actually about the fifth otter that we've trained up for this work. And we, we had American river otters before that, which are much bigger. Uh, they're very bitey. They're very aggressive. Um, yeah, you gotta wear thick gloves when you work with them because they can take your finger off in a heartbeat if they want to. And so you gotta be careful with them. Um, I've got a lot of scars. And they're stoic. They're not as animated. So one of the reasons that we went to Asian otters is that they're much more animated. They're very chatty. They're very vocal. When they get excited, they let you know about it. Uh, where the river otter doesn't do that. So, uh, as much, they're a little bit like that. But I had one that was named

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Squeakers. She was very animated. She was really good. Um, and did a great job. But, uh, the boy ones like Hondo and them, excuse me. Splash, go back there and pick them up.

• 52:50Speaker 06

  Mike, I have a question for you. How long, like, how many years will you get out of Splash? Like, how many years will you be able to work with them?

• 52:57Speaker 04

  They say, from talking to the zoo people, that, uh, that the lifespan of a captive otter can be 15 to 20 years.

• 53:05Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  So, um, his grandmother is 16 currently, and the otter's, oh, longest otter that I know, oldest otter, uh, that I know of in captivity was at the Miami Zoo, was 26 years old. And she just passed away recently. Um, so we're hoping to get 10 years. Uh, he, he's not, he is in a wonderful environment. He gets the best food, best medical care, lives in the house, sleeps with me at night. Um, he's down to the bed over the blanket, you know, that's where he likes to be at night. And then, uh, uh, so he gets exercise and stimulation and, you know, he's got a job. So he's got a pretty good life here. Uh, but he works in a lot of different environments, meaning a lot of different water environments.

• 53:49Speaker 04

  And sometimes the waters are not as best as we'd like him to be. And so he, that could probably cause a problem for him down the road, we think. We don't know. I, we had another otter, Squeakers, who we, uh, had loaned out to another law enforcement agency that was using her, um, over in Europe. And she got into some bad water and passed away about a month ago. So, uh, she got sick. So it's a, it's one of those things that we're finding out about, uh, as we, as we work with them. Otters are very susceptible to human diseases, so they get sick. It flus, colds, they picked them up from people. And then COVID wiped out a bunch of otters. When COVID came to the United States, I think we lost like a quarter of the otter population in the

• 54:31Speaker 04

  United States from COVID when it hit back in 2020. So I have to be really careful with him, making sure that he doesn't get handled by people that are sick, you know. So he doesn't pick up anything. But he's been, he's been really good so far. He's got a little frostbite from last week. We were working in Virginia when that storm hit and it got down to seven degrees. And he loves the cold, but he was walking on some concrete. I think his foot was sticking to the concrete. He had a little frostbite on his foot. So he's been, he's been nursing that back up.

• 55:05Speaker 05

  Michael, can you tell us about some of the successful missions that Splash has been on so far?

• 55:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's got one evidence recovery so far and one recent drowning and then three that are human remains related. And the evidence one was really kind of lucky. It was the first time out. We were working for a long question agency out in South Mississippi area and they wanted to check this lake area, which we did. And we had done it with the dogs and Dama, who was my canine at the time, she had been alerting like crazy that there was cadaver odor in this lake. And we couldn't locate it. And so the doctor, the doctor I was with, who's a forensic anthropologist, says, why don't you throw Splash in? And I said, well, he's only six months old. He's only had two months of training.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  And he said, well, go ahead and throw him in. Where the hell we're here, we might as well do it, you know? So we put him in and he identified an area down at the bottom that he was real interested in. So we dug it up and found a brick in there, you know, a clay, one of those clay red bricks. It's very common in the area for construction. And we brought it up and as soon as he brought it up, the detective says, I want that. And we gave it to her and she backed it up, took it in, matched it up to the big indemn and the x-ray for the killed the guy that the victim. And turned out there was still DNA on the brick because the clay and the clay soil had held it all together, so they were still able to get some DNA off of the brick and match it up. So that case, the suspect had passed away at this point because it was 22

• 56:42Speaker 04

  years old case and there was nobody to charge in the case, but the case was finally cleared, which made the sheriff very happy because he was one of the original detectives on the case. So he was happy to get that off. And that got him started. After that, things just started happening very quick. So we weren't originally intending on him using him for what we call law enforcement searches. We use it for private work. Most of that was for a lot of the universities like University of Tennessee, Florida State, University of West Virginia, these places, they get calls out to do private cold case work that they

• 57:22Speaker 04

  do using their sciences, what they call FAST Team stuff, forensic applied science work. And so Splash is going to be working in that category. But then, once law enforcement realized they had him available, we get calls from the Department of Justice, DOJ, FBI, FDLE, TBI, all these groups, all these three-letter, you know, alphabet groups call us up and say, hey, can you bring Splash out for help? So we've been really busy and having on the road consistently with him since he got discovered in this last year. So he's up to, he's got the one evidence recovery, he's got four body recoveries so far, and so it's a total

• 58:03Speaker 04

  of five recoveries, maybe six. We're waiting to hear on this other one that happened recently. So he's, he's on his way. So this is a satellite program. We don't know when we started it, if it was going to work or not. It appears to be working at this point. We do have some challenges, a few issues with him that we got to try to resolve, and we're working on it. But this is all new territory here. So we're blazing, blazing away here.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  He's the world's only cadaver otter. What gave you the idea to employ him? And do you think that this is something you'll try again in the future?

• 58:35Speaker 04

  Well, I had, I had...

• 58:39Speaker 04

  Seen otters used in the Orient, they use it for hunting, hunting fish and hunting clams and oysters and all kinds of stuff. They trained them up in the Orient to do this kind of work. And I was flying home from Los Angeles after working on a cold case. And I was reading like a Smithsonian type art magazine that had a thing about otters and how they use scenting abilities underwater to help locate prey and food and things underwater. "Hey Splash, what's the matter? Now you want to be held or what?" That's your deal. He may be hungry, I may have to feed him.

• 59:11Speaker 07

  He's a noisy bugger.

• 59:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, he is today. He's chatting today, so he's been quiet. That they use them for hunting and I thought, and they could do scent work, and I thought, "Well, I've been training scent dogs. I'm going in my 46th year doing this kind of stuff." And I said, "Maybe we could train an otter." Because I dive all the time. There's nothing more frustrating than diving on a case and knowing that your victim is somewhere in this lake or wherever you're at, river, wherever you're at. You've got visibility that's this bad, all right? I can't see my hands in front of my face. And we're using guide ropes and we're down there, it's all tactile, running along, trying to feel our way around down there, trying to find something, can't find it. And you got to end up, you try for a day, maybe two days at it, can't get anywhere near

• 59:55Speaker 04

  it, can't figure out what's going on, and you have to walk away from the case. And it's one of the most frustrating things that we do, knowing that this family is trying to get resolution and we can't get there because we just don't have the technology to do it. And hopefully with Splash that we would be able to figure out if he can do this otter, if he can do that, maybe we can resolve more of these cases. And that was my thing. I came back from there and I started doing some research on it. And we had an aquarium not far from me up here in Sarasota that I thought I would go up and talk to their people about it. And they said, "Yeah." And I said, "Can we try some, do some testing, test work with them?" And they said, "Sure." And so we went in and we started doing some testing and found out that they were very

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  good at otter work on land and in the water. But since we've been working with them, we found out that it's not just otter work and how they find things. They're very related to... First cousin to a Wolverine, but also a platypus. And platypuses have electromagnetic sensors. They use, uh, they sense magnetic fields. It's how they find stuff underwater. And we found out that the whisker array on the front of these otters, which is massive, are, is high in lead. And so it gives them the ability to, uh, detect magnetic fields with their whiskers. And we found out that they hunt the same way that the platypus does in using their whiskers to find what they're looking for.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  So they basically learn the magnetic signature of what a human being is. And they're down there with their whiskers plowing along there until they run into that same resonance frequency. And they're like, oop, hey, it's right here. And then you'll see them pump these bubbles out. And they start spitting bubbles out like crazy. And they taste some of them, they suck back in and they taste them. And it tastes, it has the odor confirmation because they have glands in their mouth that transfers this, this, uh, into a scent response. And so they say, oh, that's what I'm looking for. And then they confirm it that way. Uh, and, uh, and that's how they do it. So there's a two-pronged thing. They use magnetic field and they use the bubble scent technique in order to find what they're looking for. It's pretty amazing.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  We got a lot of video of it working. And, uh, trying to, cause I used to see him find stuff in the videos, but he wasn't blowing bubbles. And I kept looking at that going, how is this working? If he's scent working, he can't pull the scent through his nose because he'd drown. Okay, you can't do that. So if they're mammals like we are, they can't do that. So how is he? I, I see the bubble technique working. We figured out the bubble part and then, but then he would find stuff with his head and put it on there. And then all of a sudden he would start blowing bubbles at it afterwards. And I'm thinking, okay, what drew him to that, to, to want to put the bubbles on it? And then we realized that they're working magnetic fields. So we thought, okay, all right. So now we kind of figured out how this is working.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  And it's amazing. I mean, they're really very accurate. So he, he's good at his job. He's learned it. He seems to really like it. And he's gotten to where he's part of the family now, part of the pack. When I put this blue shirt on, which is my search shirt, and I'm going out working, he's right at the back door with the dog saying, all right, where are we going? So, you know, and we load up and he jumps up in the front of the van and gets in his crate, and the dogs get in their crates in the back of the van, and then we're off and running. So he's, he's become part of a pack, so to speak. Although otters don't have packs. They have what they call romps. They're not called packs. They're called romps. And so he's very much a part of all that. What are you doing?

• 1:03:31Speaker 05

  Incredible stuff, Michael. Thank you for joining us and thanks for having this nonprofit and training Splash to do the work that you do.

• 1:03:39Speaker 04

  You're welcome. Thanks for having us on. It's always fun.

• 1:03:42Speaker 05

  Bye now.

• 1:03:42Speaker 07

  Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Michael.

• 1:03:45Speaker 05

  Cool stuff.

• 1:03:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's awesome. I could see a little Disney movie being made about Splash.

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  Finding dead bodies?

• 1:03:53Speaker 07

  We have a lot of people in the chat torn on whether to be pro or anti-otter, going between the, the women who were attacked.

• 1:03:58Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. That was an American river otter. This one was an Asian.

• 1:04:02Speaker 07

  As Michael said, they're not as, they're not as fun.

• 1:04:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I think he was, wasn't he talking about a, what did he say, a sea otter too? Or no, was he just talking about river otters?

• 1:04:11Speaker 07

  I think just.

• 1:04:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, biting his fingers. Yeah. And this one was some, some Asian fella. That'll be fun for our audio audience. Maybe not. They might get sick of that squeaking. But you should go watch it too, because you just see the otter running around in the background the whole time. I think one time he went in the pantry and then someone closed the door and he had to come scurrying out of there.

• 1:05:02Steven Rinella?

  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 have in my household, if you go look, open the door on any one 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. You guys have heard me talk all about Montana Knife Company for a few years now on the podcast.

• 1:05:47Steven Rinella?

  Hands down, these are my absolute favorite hunting knives. Every blade they make is a high-performance durable tool that you can rely on, whether you're butchering, hunting, working on the farm, out in the field, doing chores, whatever. And I've got a massive update for you. People have been asking for this forever. MKC finally did it. I've been asking it forever. The wait is over. They're launching their very first folding knife. It's called the Montana. It's gonna be dropping very soon. I'm telling you right now, these things are gonna sell out fast. If you aren't ready the moment they go live, you're probably gonna miss out. So here's what you need to do. Get over to MKC.com right now. Make sure you sign up for their email and text message notifications so you get the

• 1:06:31Steven Rinella?

  alert, the exact second the knife drops. Montana Knife Company, working knives for working people. Head to MKC.com today. That's MKC.com. I can't wait to check out one of these folders. We are now going to do our top threes.

• 1:06:54Speaker 06

  Such talent.

• 1:06:57Speaker 06

  That's a word for it.

• 1:07:08Speaker 06

  Wow, that's a heck of a note there, Phil.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  All right, this week, we've all brought our own top three list. Seth, start us off. What are you ranking today?

• 1:07:17Speaker 06

  I'm going top three turkey hunts.

• 1:07:19Speaker 05

  Okay, ever?

• 1:07:21Speaker 06

  Uh, well, yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Speaker 06

  That I can, that I one had in my phone and two that I can recollect.

• 1:07:27Speaker 05

  Sure, yeah, ever.

• 1:07:28Speaker 06

  Um, so this one, this was last year.

• 1:07:32Speaker 05

  Oh, a triple.

• 1:07:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, um, this was all, all in one morning. Um, night before, we put these birds to bed. And the forecast was calling for like a nice calm morning.

• 1:07:44Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:44Speaker 06

  Get up the next morning and the wind is just cranking.

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:07:48Speaker 06

  And if you know anything about turkey hunting, it's not great, you know, very windy mornings aren't great for hearing gobbles. So we kind of get down in the area where these birds were, we couldn't, the night before, we couldn't exactly like locate the tree that they're in, but we kind of had a general area where they were. So we get down there, get down there in the morning. Can't hear them. Um, so we just kind of start sneaking into where we think they are. And I eventually see one, like I just glassed it up. Um, so we moved into where we thought the birds could hear us start calling, do that for a while, nothing. Then we get up and move a little closer and I called again and struck them up. They were just like, they're pretty close, but there is, they're, they're about forty, fifty yards from us.

• 1:08:32Speaker 06

  But there was like a deep ravine.

• 1:08:34Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:35Speaker 06

  And turkeys don't like crossing that kind of stuff.

• 1:08:38Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:08:38Speaker 06

  Um, and we didn't really have any other play, so we, we sat down and started calling and eventually those birds went down in that ravine and came up the other side. There was five of them all together.

• 1:08:50Speaker 05

  All gobblers?

• 1:08:51Speaker 06

  All gobblers, yeah. All long beards.

• 1:08:54Speaker 05

  Pretty country.

• 1:08:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, we ended up getting three out of that pack.

• 1:08:58Speaker 05

  How, how far apart were the shots? Did you guys have a double and then later you get a single or what?

• 1:09:02Speaker 06

  Um, it was, Kelsey shot first and then I, I shot two after that. Yeah.

• 1:09:09Speaker 05

  It's great. So just three trigger pulls.

• 1:09:10Speaker 06

  Three trigger pulls, yeah.

• 1:09:11Speaker 05

  And Seth has his, his little otter with him there.

• 1:09:14Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, that's Wiley. She's always with us. She's been on multiple turkey hunts.

• 1:09:17Speaker 05

  What's her role during a turkey hunt?

• 1:09:19Speaker 06

  Well, so she's, she's a very smart dog and, and, uh, she knows now like once, like once I start calling and she hears turkeys gobbling, it's funny. She starts shaking like real, real bad. And she just like lays lays down on the ground and hunkers down, doesn't really move.

• 1:09:36Speaker 05

  Like a lab waiting for a cupping duck.

• 1:09:37Speaker 06

  Yep. Yep. And then as soon as you pull the trigger, she's up and like looking for whatever, whatever's dead.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  What does she weigh?

• 1:09:46Speaker 06

  Uh, I think she's like fourteen to sixteen, depending.

• 1:09:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, like a small gobbler.

• 1:09:51Speaker 07

  Less than those gobblers.

• 1:09:53Speaker 06

  Uh, yeah. And then this morning we end, so we took those birds back to the truck, got them all cleaned up and then um, ended up going about ten minutes down the road to another spot and struck up like a late morning bird and Kelsey killed that one. So we killed four in one day.

• 1:10:09Speaker 05

  Pretty Mariams, Snow White fans. All right, Seth's got another picture.

• 1:10:12Speaker 06

  Yep, this is the opposite end of the country. Down in Florida last year, um, Kelsey and I went down there and got our first Osceolas.

• 1:10:22Speaker 06

  This was a buddy's place. He invited us down to go hunt his, his little hunting club that he's a part of and this, this hunt's actually, um, I think on the First Light YouTube channel. It's called The Art of Turkey. It's kind of the story of Kelsey and her artwork and, and us turkey hunting together and stuff. So, um, you can go watch it if you want, but this one was, you know, your typical Osceola turkey hunting. They gobbled a bunch.

• 1:10:51Speaker 06

  In the morning on the tree and flew down, shut up and we got these guys midday, um, just sitting, kind of calling every once in a while and just sitting in the spot where we knew they were traveling through and those two gobblers came in and we doubled up and yeah, that was, that was our first Osceolas and, and man. It's like, Osceolas are cool because they're like, for me at least, the country you're in, it's just like super cool to hunt turkeys down and stuff. They're just not like your typical, you know, eastern or Mariams where they're just like coming in gobbling and, and hammering.

• 1:11:26Speaker 05

  Were you swatting mosquitoes that whole hunt?

• 1:11:28Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  That looks like, uh, the state bird would be a mosquito there.

• 1:11:32Speaker 06

  Uh, and then the next one, another triple. This was another morning. So the, the bird I'm holding there. Killed that one right off the roost. Um, was was trying to get Kelsey a bird and that that one ended up skirting around her and came into me. So I shot that one. And then about mid morning, we we struck up those two birds that she's holding there. And um, called those in. And she ended up shooting both of those with one shot.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Ooh, that's great.

• 1:12:03Speaker 07

  Purposely?

• 1:12:04Speaker 06

  No, no, not purposely, but she had two tags, so it worked out.

• 1:12:10Speaker 05

  Says top three turkey hunts. There's some open country there.

• 1:12:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  Difficult turkey hunting country. Unless that's just where you took.

• 1:12:16Speaker 06

  Well, it was just where we took the pictures. It was, it wasn't that open where we killed them.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  How many turkeys are you gonna kill this year?

• 1:12:22Speaker 06

  This year's gonna look a lot different with the baby coming in March. Uh.

• 1:12:27Speaker 05

  Still like five or six.

• 1:12:30Speaker 06

  We'll see. We'll see how much, see how much time I get, but.

• 1:12:34Speaker 07

  Well, no, you just gotta take the baby and Kelsey with you.

• 1:12:37Speaker 06

  Oh, that's the plan. Yep. We're.

• 1:12:39Speaker 07

  When they're that little, they're, well, yeah, when they're that little, they're easy because they're, they don't require much.

• 1:12:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Speaker 07

  They're not moving. You don't have to wa, they're not gonna get in trouble unless you put them in trouble.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  Easy.

• 1:12:52Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Speaker 07

  I'm telling you.

• 1:12:53Speaker 06

  We're fully planning on it.

• 1:12:54Speaker 07

  That's some good advice I got, man, from a doctor early on. They're like, man, before they start actually being able to grab and walk and move. Take advantage of it and go do things. Because you won't have that time later. Because when they're two, it's not like you could have them out on a turkey hunt.

• 1:13:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12Speaker 07

  I mean, let's say, unless you can just plan it like they're falling asleep, right? When they're gonna come off the roost or something.

• 1:13:19Speaker 05

  All right, I'm gonna go next. I'm ranking the top three books that I read in 2025. Um, I read 40 books last year. Most of them about the outdoors. Or history, or in some cases, both. And so here are my three favorites. Uh, number three, In the Heart of the Three, In the Heart of, In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. Uh, this was written in the year 2000. Uh, it's about a routine whaling voyage, uh, that's flipped on its head when a sperm whale attacks and destroys the two. 140 ton Essex ship. This happened in 1820. It's actually the inspiration for Moby Dick. The book explains the whaling industry and its global impact and its impact

• 1:14:01Speaker 05

  on New England at that time and how it just changed the economy and the culture. And then it also tells the story of the 20 men who were aboard the ship that day. They spend months floating across the open ocean just getting destroyed by the sun and saltwater. And here's a spoiler. There is some cannibalism in the book. One of the most shocking things about this story, though, is just how young the crew is. Most of the men are in their twenties. Six of them were actually teenagers with the youngest crew member being 14. So it just makes like this whole awful adventure really hard to fathom. That is in the heart of the sea. I love this book. That was my third favorite book that I read last year. Number two, The Art Thief by Michael Finkel.

• 1:14:44Speaker 05

  And this was written in 2023. This is about Stefan Breitwiser. He's a 20 something year old from France who steals $2 billion worth of paintings and artifacts in the 1990s. He does it over the span of six years. He lifts 239 items from 172 museums in Europe. Some of the things that he thieves include a medieval crossbow, ancient pottery, ivory statues, an antique pistol, Napoleon snuffbox, a Rembrandt painting. And you're probably thinking he does all this with elaborate heists that resemble Ocean's Eleven, but it's actually nothing like that. And I won't spoil how he does it. You'll just have to read the book for those details.

• 1:15:27Speaker 05

  This is a super fun read if you're into true crime or artifacts or museums. And the author of the book actually interviews the man. So you get all the details just as they happened. And there's a really tragic ending for the stuff that he stole. And it's a surprise ending for the actual thief himself that the author, you know, tells you about when he meets this man. All right, the number one book that I read last year was Endurance by Alfred Lansing. And that was written in 1959. This is about Sir Ernest Shackleton's attempt to reach the South Pole in 1914. He has a 28-man crew aboard the Endurance ship, and it gets crushed by ice. They then spend two years stranded at the bottom of the globe.

• 1:16:12Speaker 05

  They're fighting the cold, and snow, and starvation, and depression, and the ocean, and leopard seals, and each other. It's a really incredible story, and it's so fantastical that you'd think that this is fiction. But what makes Endurance extra special is that it was written in the 1950s, and the author, Alfred Lancing, got to interview a bunch of the people who were on the expedition. So you're getting firsthand details from the men who experienced this. The storytelling is just as good as the story itself. That was my favorite book I read last year, Endurance by Alfred Lancing. And then I've got three honorable mentions here, other books that I really loved. Killers of the Flower Moon, that was written by David Grand in 2017.

• 1:16:55Speaker 05

  It's a historical account of how Oklahoma's Osage tribe became the most wealthy and the most hunted people in the world. The story is probably well-understood by people who live in that area, but I had never heard of this, and it's just like a really fascinating bit of American history that more folks should learn about. I have not seen the movie yet, but I hope it's as good as the book itself. Killers of the Flower Moon. And then God's Country by Percival Everett, this was written in 1994. This was the best fiction that I read last year. It's a clever spoof on the Western genre. The book follows a drunk gambler, Kurt, and the best tracker in the West, Bubba, as they go on a big misadventure. It's got a lot of colorful dialogue, ridiculous characters, dark humor, and it's a really

• 1:17:39Speaker 05

  quick read, just 200 pages long. God's Country, Percival Everett. And then Squato by Andrew Lippman, 2024. This is the best account of how Squato traveled from North America to Europe, and then back to North America, and then he changed the history of both continents. The story of Squato has been very Disneyfied, I feel like, and this book does a great job of giving the truest possible Squato account. And this would be an extra fun read if you're from the New England area, specifically Massachusetts, because it talks a lot about that part of the world, you know, before written history really existed. Squato. Those were my six favorite books that I read last year.

• 1:18:18Speaker 07

  Cool.

• 1:18:19Speaker 05

  Have you guys seen Killers of the Flower Moon?

• 1:18:21Speaker 07

  I haven't. I saw it, yeah.

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  Phil, give me a review. Did you love it?

• 1:18:24Speaker 06

  I loved it. I know people complained about it being too long, that it didn't feel long at all to me. Um, I thought it, I thought it managed different tones very well. There was some really striking imagery in it.

• 1:18:36Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:18:36Speaker 06

  That I had never seen before in a movie.

• 1:18:38Speaker 05

  You also loved Leo's most recent movie, right?

• 1:18:41Speaker 06

  One battle after another.

• 1:18:42Speaker 05

  Did you say it was the best thing you've seen, what, this year?

• 1:18:44Speaker 06

  It's my favorite movie I've seen this year. Yeah, I thought it was.

• 1:18:47Speaker 05

  In 2026?

• 1:18:48Speaker 06

  Blast. No, well, I mean, 2020, I said this year, 2025.

• 1:18:52Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:18:52Speaker 06

  I, I, I'm talking movies in terms of this year, just because there's a lot of Oscar talk happening. The nominations are released this morning. So it just makes me think this year.

• 1:19:01Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:19:01Speaker 06

  But yeah.

• 1:19:02Speaker 05

  Big Leo fan. All right, Yanni, what's your top three?

• 1:19:05Speaker 07

  We were gonna watch that, but these days we have to do like a, uh, there's, there's some kind of website where you can check to see exactly what the rating means.

• 1:19:14Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:19:15Speaker 07

  And then like if you're a 12 year old.

• 1:19:16Speaker 05

  Which movie?

• 1:19:17Speaker 07

  Can watch it, the one battle after another.

• 1:19:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:19:20Speaker 07

  And, uh, turns out that it's not for 12 year olds. And so it might be a little bit till I get to watch it.

• 1:19:27Speaker 05

  What age is it for?

• 1:19:29Speaker 07

  Oh, I don't know exactly, but just like reading like what's actually in there and, you know, the, the, the things that happen that, uh, yeah, it's not for a 12 year old.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  Yannis, your top three.

• 1:19:39Speaker 07

  For lime.

• 1:19:40Speaker 05

  What do you have?

• 1:19:40Speaker 07

  Top three. I chose to tell you about my top three filmed hunts for 2026. It's, it's hard to pick these like favorite hunts for, for 2026 because, uh, I get to go on a lot of them. Uh, if I could just have it my way, I would just go on hunts with my kids, uh, and my gal, not do any hunts with Spencer, Seth, or Bran, or anybody else. But for work, I'm gonna go do a, an Alaskan, uh, bear hunt with the Newcombs. Uh, both Bear and Clay and myself, uh, drew Prince of Wales Island bear tags.

• 1:20:17Speaker 07

  And, uh, we're gonna go up there and test the theory if, uh, hunting those bears with a wet, in a wet suit is the way to get close. So all three of us are.

• 1:20:28Speaker 05

  That's the theory.

• 1:20:29Speaker 07

  Well, yeah, cuz they did it last year and in a couple of stocks, Clay gets to like 10 yards and kills a bear. Maybe it's two years ago now.

• 1:20:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37Speaker 07

  And, uh, you know, after that happened, they're like, wow. That worked.

• 1:20:41Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:20:42Speaker 07

  Like, everybody should do this.

• 1:20:43Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:44Speaker 07

  And so now we're gonna go and test to see if, if that's truly the case.

• 1:20:47Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Sweet.

• 1:20:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, should be fun. Uh, I've got a Wyoming elk on my dad. He's got enough points to draw.

• 1:20:53Speaker 05

  How many points?

• 1:20:54Speaker 07

  Wyoming elk, I think seven or eight.

• 1:20:56Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:20:57Speaker 07

  Um, it's a good general, uh, tag, but we've got a, through a friend of mine, we've got a sweet ranch that we can get in on. Um, it's very much a, uh, old, old guy hunt, you know?

• 1:21:08Speaker 05

  Bow or rifle?

• 1:21:09Speaker 07

  Uh, we're gonna go during, uh, archery season. Uh, there you can use a crossbow. Um, so my dad has graduated to crossbow use.

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:21:16Speaker 07

  And, um, yeah, it sounds like he's been doing, getting in shape for that hunt, so that'll be, it'll be fun. Uh, I don't know how many elk hunts, you know, he's got left in him. It's coming up on mid seventies.

• 1:21:30Speaker 07

  Chomping mountains is not, not in his future, you know?

• 1:21:33Speaker 05

  He's in his crossbow prime, though.

• 1:21:35Speaker 07

  Crossbow prime.

• 1:21:36Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:21:36Speaker 07

  We'll see, as long as he can see down the scope, you know, and take good aim. Uh, and then, uh, Kansas deer hunt with, uh, Mr. Brent Reeves.

• 1:21:44Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:21:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, super fun, uh, human that, uh, I've gotten to hang with a little bit. And, uh, I'm excited to hang with him more, get to know him some more, but, uh, he's also got a friend who runs an outfit in Kansas, uh, who said that we can, uh, come and hunt.

• 1:22:00Speaker 05

  An outfit like an outfitter?

• 1:22:02Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:22:02Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, and we're gonna go hunt his spot. Uh, it sounds like this guy's quite the character, too. I'm not gonna spoil that cuz he's gonna be a big part of the episode, but Brent and I are going to, uh, self-film the whole thing.

• 1:22:14Speaker 05

  Mm.

• 1:22:15Speaker 07

  So we're sort of gonna film each other, self-film. We're not gonna have, uh, videographers there.

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:20Speaker 07

  And, uh, I think it's gonna be a hoot, something different that I've, uh, we've never done that.

• 1:22:25Speaker 05

  What season are you going for?

• 1:22:25Speaker 07

  That way.

• 1:22:28Speaker 07

  Like archery.

• 1:22:29Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Speaker 05

  Primer out you're going.

• 1:22:31Speaker 07

  I don't know if we'll go primer or not. We're gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let the outfitter, you know, point us in the right direction as long as that lines up with, with schedules.

• 1:22:40Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:22:40Speaker 07

  Uh, we'll do that, so.

• 1:22:42Speaker 05

  Kansas has some unique seasons. They've got like the October muzzleloader, I think, and then they've

• 1:22:47Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:22:48Speaker 05

  Uh, rifle season in December.

• 1:22:50Speaker 07

  Mm-hmm. And that October muzzleloader, a lot of people like that for, especially for finding big bucks. It sounds like it's fun spot and stalk, but, uh, uh, you know, Brent and I both like hunting with a bow.

• 1:23:02Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:23:03Speaker 07

  And so we're gonna, yeah, go do that, so.

• 1:23:07Speaker 07

  Top three hunts I'm looking forward to.

• 1:23:08Speaker 05

  Good stuff.

• 1:23:09Speaker 07

  And filming.

• 1:23:09Speaker 05

  Not jealous at all. Phil, your top three, what do you got?

• 1:23:13Speaker 06

  Oh goodness. Okay, on a previous, um, episode.

• 1:23:16Speaker 05

  She saw one of his slides.

• 1:23:18Speaker 06

  On a previous episode, I, I went over, uh, my top three video game characters that I would like to eat, uh, consume. Um, so this, this time I decided to go with nineties cartoon characters that I would like to eat.

• 1:23:29Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 1:23:29Speaker 06

  Uh, so first up, we've got, we've got Cat Dog.

• 1:23:33Speaker 05

  Oh, great.

• 1:23:33Speaker 06

  Um, you know, I, I don't, I don't know if cats or dogs taste very good. I've had mountain lion before. It was, it was, it was alright. Um, but you know, I just, it's, it's an abomination and I want it off of the planet.

• 1:23:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Speaker 06

  Um, also, you know, long backstrap, it's kind, kind of lean, I don't know, that might be, might not, not be a, a great thing, but I'm, honestly, I'm just curious.

• 1:23:53Speaker 05

  That thing's like all backstrap.

• 1:23:54Speaker 06

  Yeah. Um, so anyway, it could go either way. Uh, next up, we've got Mr. Krabs from SpongeBob. I've, I've always been a crab, crab over lobster guy. It's the Pacific Northwest in me. Um, I think Bikini Bottom is technically, I think can't, canonically, it's like in the Marshall Islands, like between Hawaii and like Malaysia.

• 1:24:16Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:24:17Speaker 06

  Somewhere around there. I don't know what kind of crabs would be there, but I'd like to imagine that he's like a, like a, like a human-sized dungeon nest that I could just dig into, and that's what I choose to believe.

• 1:24:26Speaker 05

  He's got some real meaty claws on him, too.

• 1:24:28Speaker 06

  Definitely. I think, I think that would be tasty. Number one, we've got Crumb from Ah, Real Monsters. Again, this could go either way. For those, for the audio listeners who haven't seen Ah, Real Monsters, Crumb is just kind of like a big blob of flesh. He has arms for eye stalks and holds eyeballs in his hands. Got some hairy armpits and really disturbing looking feet. Basically no leg. It's all just kind of cankle and foot. But you know, I bet he tastes incredible.

• 1:24:55Speaker 05

  He's kind of humanoid.

• 1:24:56Speaker 06

  Little humanoid. I'm just gonna look past that.

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:00Speaker 07

  He also could be a scrotum.

• 1:25:05Speaker 06

  That could have been the artistic inspiration, Yannis. You're not wrong. And I'm just gonna move past that.

• 1:25:13Speaker 05

  Testicles do taste good.

• 1:25:15Speaker 06

  They do. Yeah. And then under honorable mentions, we have Reptar from Rugrats, who's a fictional dinosaur in a fictional cartoon. So I don't know if that really counts. We've got the angry beavers. And then from season four, episode 11 of Doug, this isn't a character, but they just make a really cool looking lasagna. That's the episode where Judy

• 1:25:33Speaker 05

  That's good.

• 1:25:33Speaker 06

  has a date with her art school boyfriend and she wants her family to be cool. So she makes them pretend to be different people. And there's a bomb, a fake bomb in the lasagna that Doug pretends to deactivate by diving into the lasagna.

• 1:25:47Speaker 05

  Is Reptar, is he the mascot for a chocolate bar? Or is that wrong?

• 1:25:52Speaker 06

  No, I don't think so. They might have, they might have made like a tie-in candy after the cartoon, but no, he's his own thing. Yeah, he's just kind of his own cartoon character within the show.

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  He's like the Mickey Mouse of that universe.

• 1:26:04Speaker 07

  Seth, I'm lost, buddy. All those cartoons? I just, I don't, I don't even know what's going on anymore. Are you following along?

• 1:26:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, you were. Okay.

• 1:26:13Speaker 05

  Here's where we're at, Yanni. That's the end of this week's show.

• 1:26:16Speaker 07

  Oh, okay.

• 1:26:17Speaker 05

  So we're gonna get some final feedback from the chat. Phil, what do you got for us?

• 1:26:20Speaker 06

  Oh, I haven't been reading it for a while, but we've got someone, and I've, I've heard this feedback before. Some people said that people who read the book didn't like the Killers of the Flower Moon movie adaptation because the book doesn't really reveal what's going on. It's more of like a mystery. I don't know if you can speak to this, Spencer. It's kind of like a mystery until the end, whereas the movie lays it all out in the beginning and you just kind of like live in the horror and the rot that's like kind of consuming this community.

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, you certainly are not told off the bat in the book as to what is happening. So if the movie does reveal the whole plot at the beginning, that would be a different.

• 1:26:55Speaker 06

  Basically does. Yeah.

• 1:26:56Speaker 05

  Just do have both. Have the movie and the book.

• 1:26:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, uh, this is an update from Christie Holmes, who was part of the 36 women who went smelting, uh, and, and, and asked for good luck from us on the show. They had a wicked good time and the smelts were running and they're inviting us next winter. Christie, that sounds like a blast. So we glad you had a good time.

• 1:27:14Speaker 05

  Christie, I think last year joined us for one minute fishing while she was smelting. She had a baby on a hip and did not catch any smelt that day. So maybe we need to bring Christie back again to see if she can redeem herself for a $500 donation.

• 1:27:29Speaker 06

  Uh, Young Trow, uh, says, Yanni and Phil, which one of you two could grow a better mustache to compete with Seth and Spencer? I've never seen Yanni with facial hair, but I can al- almost guarantee that he could grow a better mustache than I could.

• 1:27:41Speaker 07

  I would have said the same about you, Phil.

• 1:27:45Speaker 06

  Well, maybe we should make this happen.

• 1:27:46Speaker 07

  Next week, I'll, we'll can put up a picture because I, there's one time where I grew some facial fair hair. It was COVID. It took me the entire pandemic to come up with a beard and a mustache and it still looked like shit. So, um.

• 1:27:59Speaker 05

  You gave up. You're not, not going to bring that back?

• 1:28:01Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:28:02Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:28:03Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:28:04Speaker 06

  Any recommendations from CSC Broncos fan on red dot sites for a turkey shotgun?

• 1:28:12Speaker 06

  Do you guys use red dots?

• 1:28:13Speaker 07

  I don't use red dots. No, I do. I use a Sig, I believe it's the Romeo XL now. Uh, nice and low, whatever you get, uh, make sure it's low profile because there's nothing worse than having a sight that makes you get, have to get your cheek up off the, uh, your shotgun. Uh, so yeah, get, get the mount to be low profile, the, and the, the red dot itself to be low profile.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  Let's do two more, Phil.

• 1:28:39Speaker 06

  Well, I don't even know if we have two more. Um, or at least ones that I have, uh, flagged.

• 1:28:45Speaker 07

  There was a geared talk question about the, uh, about.

• 1:28:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, if you guys have seen anything.

• 1:28:51Speaker 07

  Instead of doing a wall tent, he was going to save some money and just like double up on, uh, ice shelters. What do you think about that Seth?

• 1:28:58Speaker 05

  Hmm. I feel like that's become very popular.

• 1:29:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  In the last like five years, uh, guys will take their, what, like their Eskimo, that'd be a classic example, insulated ice shack and, and front country camp out of that.

• 1:29:11Speaker 07

  Well, they're, they're, a lot of those, uh, a lot of those.

• 1:29:13Speaker 06

  Companies that are making ice shelters like that are building them for ice camping.

• 1:29:18Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:29:18Speaker 06

  And I'd imagine if you camp on the ice with them, you can camp on hard ground. So, um, yeah, they're, they're, they're just putting in features that are

• 1:29:26Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:29:27Speaker 06

  more conducive to like camping.

• 1:29:29Speaker 05

  I have buddies that have done it. I've slept in a few of them, um, and, and most of them don't have floors. So they'll take and they'll lay down like the sort of mat that you would put in a workout room.

• 1:29:40Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:29:40Speaker 05

  Um, just put laid on that as a floor.

• 1:29:42Speaker 06

  All locks together. Yeah.

• 1:29:43Speaker 05

  Ready together.

• 1:29:44Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:29:44Speaker 05

  Um, that seems like a pretty important thing to have with you and not very expensive to make happen either. Um, yeah, it seems, seems like it's become quite popular.

• 1:29:52Speaker 06

  Yep. Floors are for babies.

• 1:29:55Speaker 07

  Yeah. The only thing I would say about.

• 1:29:57Speaker 05

  Is gonna have a baby soon.

• 1:29:58Speaker 07

  Yeah. The only thing I would say about that is that the, uh, the wall tent I think is gonna outlast like the, the ice fishing pop ups.

• 1:30:06Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 1:30:07Speaker 07

  I feel like those have a little bit of a, um, a disposable feel to them.

• 1:30:12Speaker 05

  But maybe you're, you're just like solo hunting. So you don't need a whole wall tent set up. Uh, maybe you only got $300 instead of 1500.

• 1:30:21Speaker 07

  Sure. Yeah. But, but I'm just saying, yeah, that if you, yeah, you only spend 300, like it's not gonna last you your life.

• 1:30:28Speaker 05

  Your kids may not inherit it.

• 1:30:30Speaker 07

  No.

• 1:30:31Speaker 05

  Uh, is this the gear talk thing you wanted to cover, Yanni?

• 1:30:35Speaker 06

  That's the thing he was talking about. Yeah. I just had it on the.

• 1:30:37Speaker 05

  You have any more, Phil?

• 1:30:38Speaker 06

  We'll do one more shout out. I don't really know the specifics because this question came in or statement came in an hour ago, and I don't know if he's can provide more details, but he just, uh, he said he's, this is from actually T. Says he's here in South Carolina. He just formed a state branch of, and of the National Deer Association, consolidating local chapters into one statewide branch. Maybe send a shout out to spread awareness. I don't know if it has a name or anything, but South Carolina people.

• 1:31:01Speaker 05

  South Carolina branch of the National Deer Association. Uh, maybe they could receive some trivia funds in the future from a winner like Yanis. Or Seth, you keep that in mind for actually T. All right. That's the end of this week's episode. We'll see you guys back here the same time and place next week. Bye now.

• 1:31:30Steven Rinella?

  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 in my household, if you go look, open the door on any one 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. OnX Hunt is full of great features. I always say it's, it's my favorite app. I use the

• 1:32:13Steven Rinella?

  thing on a daily basis. Here's a new feature I'm very excited about. OnX Hunt's location sharing puts your whole group on one live map. So you can look and tell where everyone is. And if at night, it gets dark and someone's not back yet, you don't gotta guess what happened to them or where they are. You can just look and tell where they are. It has implications for safety, coordination. I can't even list all the ways in which this is helpful. You opt in, and then when you guys are done, the data goes away. It's not stored. Keep the folks in your deer camp on the same page with location sharing from OnX Hunt. You need credit to buy, well, pretty much any big thing. So how do you get started?

• 1:32:55Steven Rinella?

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• 1:33:32Speaker 00

  OnePay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank or Lead Bank, members FDIC. Builder Card results may vary and aren't guaranteed. Learn more about banking through OnePay at onepay.com/podcast. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.