Ep. 714: Enrolling At Backwoods Uni. with Lake Pickle and 'Old Trapper' Kate

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with Lake Pickle https://www.instagram.com/lakepickle/?hl=en, Kate Lospinoso https://www.instagram.com/oldtrapperkate/?hl=en, Maggie Hudlow https://www.themeateater.com/people/maggie-hudlow, Phil Taylor https://www.instagram.com/philtaylor25/?hl=en, and Corinne Schneider https://www.instagram.com/corinnesschneider/?hl=en. Topics Discussed: "Old" young trapper Kate; Lake Pickle’s new podcast, "Backwood's University," https://www.themeateater.com/listen/backwoods-university is out now on our network; Maggie's article on Why You Should Consider a Mutt as Your Next Hunting Dog https://www.themeateater.com/hunt/dog/should-your-next-hunting-dog-be-a-mutt; poaching turkey in a cemetery; buying someone else’s taxidermy; the origin of Lake’s name and fishing deer season; hunting the way God made you; looking at bobwhite quail habitat; the wonders of the flying squirrel; how it's rare to be a young, first generation trapper; Old Trapper Kate's Little Shop of Furs https://www.etsy.com/shop/littleshopoffurs/?etsrc=sdt; beaver blankets and muskrat bomber jackets; conservation coverage on themeateater.com https://www.themeateater.comhttps://www.themeateater.com; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 0:45Steven Rinella?

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• 1:26Steven Rinella?

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• 2:04Steven Rinella?

  This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless severely bug bitten and in my case underwearless.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast.

• 2:13Steven Rinella?

  You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. Welcome everybody. Joined today by two super special guests. We've got Lake, well, three.

• 2:39Speaker 00

  Am I a super special guest?

• 2:43Steven Rinella?

  It's not like Seth. It's just like, we're just, it's not like Seth.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  We're just regulars.

• 2:49Steven Rinella?

  Seth's a normal guy.

• 2:50Speaker 03

  They're here again.

• 2:51Steven Rinella?

  Seth's just hanging out, no one knows what he's doing.

• 2:53Speaker 03

  I don't even know what I'm doing.

• 2:54Steven Rinella?

  Joined today by three very special guests. Lake Pickle, the most memorable name in America. I was at the, I'm gonna get to the R2 guests, but when I was at this big commencement or like a graduation ceremony last weekend. Yeah. You know, I could tell you why.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  Congrats, doctor.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  Go ahead and tell us why.

• 3:20Steven Rinella?

  And they're like giving everybody's name, you know?

• 3:23Speaker 04

  Is there a doctor in the house?

• 3:24Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm. They're giving everybody's name and a guy comes up who had, I believe, changed his last name to Extravaganza. I was expecting like a professional wrestler to come across the stage, you know, just a regular dude.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  Really?

• 3:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I was like, oh wow, wrestler's here.

• 3:41Speaker 03

  Is that, is that speech, was that filmed?

• 3:44Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 03

  Is it somewhere? I looked, tried looking for it.

• 3:47Steven Rinella?

  Kylie has it.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I was, I was turkey hunting, so I couldn't make it.

• 3:50Steven Rinella?

  Kylie has it.

• 3:51Speaker 04

  It's somewhere, I think it's gonna be put up as a social post or a YouTube clip or something.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanna see it.

• 3:57Steven Rinella?

  It's called, "There Is No Plan B."

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Hmm, I like that. I think I've heard that before from you.

• 4:01Steven Rinella?

  Lake Pickle, the most memorable name in America.

• 4:05Steven Rinella?

  Um, the hardest name in America, which is Caitlin Loespinoso, which one can see why she just calls herself Old Trapper Kate.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:15Steven Rinella?

  Is it, am I saying it right? Loespinoso?

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Loespinoso.

• 4:17Steven Rinella?

  Loespinoso.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Close enough.

• 4:19Steven Rinella?

  Um, her handle on, uh, one of my, like a thing I love looking in on is her handle on Instagram is Old Trapper Kate. It's all about trapping. Um, and other kind of outdoors adventures, which I appreciate. So she's here today. Maggie Hudlow's here today, journalist extraordinaire. What are you working on right now? That's the most exciting thing.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Uh, most exciting thing. We've been having dog week. So I've been writing dog stuff, which is fun because I love my dogs. And I just got into training a bird dog. So I've got a year and a half old pup, Bill.

• 4:55Steven Rinella?

  What kind, what kind is it?

• 4:56Speaker 00

  He's a lab German wire hair pointer mix.

• 4:59Steven Rinella?

  Is that intention or did you get like a, like at a pound?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I, I really like mutts. We'll talk about this later. I, I just wrote an article about why maybe you should consider a mutt to be your next hunting dog. And, uh, we got sick of wading through the muck and the falling through the ice to go after our ducks. And we're like, all right, we can get one more dog. We started looking and somebody had wire hair lab pups. And we were like, oh shit, I guess we're getting a dog.

• 5:29Steven Rinella?

  That's interesting, man.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. The guy, he had a bunch of bird dogs. He had labs and wire hairs. And he was like, yeah, I was always interested to see what they would end up like mixed. And he's a good dog. He's huge. He's a big boy. Uh, he's kind of goofy. Lake saw him.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Tell him what he did. Yeah. The first day I was here. That was the funniest thing I've seen all week.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Lake saw him run full speed into a glass door the other day.

• 5:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but I've done that.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  Me too. He can still be a good hunting dog. He's still a good dog. He was, he was a little disgruntled. He, uh, the, the glass in our house isn't that clean, I guess.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  That dog was so embarrassed.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  Shame.

• 6:14Steven Rinella?

  Um, man, I've been meaning to spend a long time kind of explaining my buddy Doug Dern's new lab, but it's just too.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Mark?

• 6:23Steven Rinella?

  You know about this dog?

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. What, what do you like Mark? Do you not like?

• 6:29Steven Rinella?

  Listen, man, I think that, that, uh, dog can't see it.

• 6:35Steven Rinella?

  Dog can't see it, but I think that dog got hit on the head.

• 6:40Steven Rinella?

  I have never seen a dog that's so not aware of how dogs are supposed to be. Like any normal, like I've been around 50 years old, man. I've been looking at dogs my whole life. We used to have all kinds of dogs when I was a kid. Uh, this dog, there's like certain just things in the dog playbook. Right? Like if you're driving all around out in the woods and a dog is in like a can-am. You're driving all around and you get to an interesting spot. Everybody jumps out.

• 7:11Steven Rinella?

  Kids are like catching crappies, whatever. He's like, he doesn't get out. Do you know what I mean? Like any dog in the world would be like, well, dude, I'm gonna get out.

• 7:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:22Steven Rinella?

  And see what everybody's doing.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:25Steven Rinella?

  He goes into a house, he doesn't go check what's going on around.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Hmm, hmm, interesting.

• 7:31Steven Rinella?

  You know? It might be a good thing.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  He just kinda chills out?

• 7:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, Doug can't, Doug's like, Doug's like, if you said to someone, if someone had a baby and you said, man, I don't think the baby's not right. They're not gonna take that well. Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm saying?

• 7:45Speaker 00

  He's got love goggles.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Doug's feelings are getting hurt listening to this show.

• 7:51Steven Rinella?

  If he's like, if the thing's sitting in the side by side and he's like, come on. You gotta pull, he, and Doug won't, Doug won't pull it out. I'll pull it out. I'll grab, I can't handle it. I'll go, I had a couple of times, grabbed by the collar and pulled it out. Doug will come in the house. So there'll be a house full of people. Doug will pull up, Doug will come in the house. He leaves the door open and you, 20 minutes later, a dog's sitting in there.

• 8:17Steven Rinella?

  It's like, it's like amazing. It's one of the few dogs you could put it and just, it'll be there when you come back.

• 8:23Speaker 03

  That'd be, well,

• 8:24Speaker 05

  Well, it's kinda handy in some situations.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  That'd be like one of those dogs you see in Montana that's just on the flatbed.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  And you like go into a bar or whatever and they're like, the dog's just out on the flatbed.

• 8:33Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  This is a different thing.

• 8:35Steven Rinella?

  Different than that? This is different.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  That's like, that's like obedience.

• 8:38Steven Rinella?

  I know. This is not.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Not obedience.

• 8:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:41Steven Rinella?

  Cause I forgot to mention, Doug is imploring the dog to come out.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's different.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Maybe it just likes comfort.

• 8:50Speaker 05

  Maybe he ran into a glass.

• 8:52Steven Rinella?

  He's gonna be pissed that I'm saying this, man, cause like, if I just, if you, you know, if you disagree with Doug on something like CWD or something, he's gonna write you a mean ass email. So I can only imagine what he's thinking right now. I mean, hacking on his dog.

• 9:05Speaker 05

  You insult a man's dog. Them's fighting words.

• 9:07Speaker 00

  You know, you know, my old dog shooter made me believe in reincarnation because for one, I'm pretty sure this dog smoked way too many Marlboro Reds in his past life. He like, he's got a real smoker's hack and the vets are like, nothing's wrong with him. He also has favorite songs. He loves the band Cripple Creek.

• 9:28Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 9:29Speaker 00

  He just perks right up to that and just yowls.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  It's amazing.

• 9:32Steven Rinella?

  You should introduce him to this dog, Mark.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  So, so my theory from what I've heard on Mark is maybe Mark was like a big fat dude that just liked to ride around in can amps and like,

• 9:44Steven Rinella?

  Could be.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Drink a beer and just sit in the truck.

• 9:47Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  You know, you never know what a dog's past life was.

• 9:51Steven Rinella?

  No, he might get a nice email from Doug because he's gonna, he's gonna, I know they're talking about reincarnation, but this is gonna, he's, this is gonna speak to Doug. This is gonna speak to Doug.

• 10:02Steven Rinella?

  Lake, I forgot to mention, uh, besides having a very memorable name. Lake is an avid outdoorsman. Used to, used to be tangled up in, in the old days of Will Primos, which is super cool.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was, uh, for about a decade.

• 10:15Steven Rinella?

  God, man.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  And I,

• 10:16Steven Rinella?

  I love that guy.

• 10:17Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 10:18Speaker 03

  He's great.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  He was like, the way I explain it to folks, like when I grew up, In my house, you watched the Andy Griffith Show and Primo's VHS tapes. That's just what you watched. Like, he was especially like living in Mississippi.

• 10:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  And you've been around Will. Like, if he heard me talking about him like this, he would dismiss it because he's a pretty down to earth dude. But, yeah, uh, and it's, it's funny talking about my name. Like, uh, part of the reason I ended up getting tangled up with Will, this is a little stuff that happened before, but I saw Brad Ferris at a, um, local sporting show at home and I'd never met him in person, but I'd been emailing him, trying to get a job.

• 10:55Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  And

• 10:56Steven Rinella?

  He remembered your name.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  One thing I've always had going for me, someone might forget everything else about me, but they remember the name.

• 11:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  So I go up to him and said, hey, I'm Lake Pickle. You're like, you're that kid that's been emailing me about video. And I was like, yeah. And, uh, I didn't know it at the time, but like the week before they had some guys leave the video department.

• 11:13Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  So two days later, uh, my phone rings and it's Brad and he's like, hey, man, would you consider taking a semester off school because I gotta film a elk hunt in like two weeks? I was like, yep, I'm gonna do that. And

• 11:26Steven Rinella?

  Dropped out of school.

• 11:28Speaker 02

  So funny thing is, yeah, I went to the Primo's office. I'd never met Will in person. And, uh, they were interviewing me and Will comes in and he says, I'm not gonna hire you if you don't promise me that you'll finish your education.

• 11:40Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  So, uh, yeah, I was in school for wildlife science and that kind of stuff. But, um, yeah, that's how it all started, but it all hinged on Brad being like, oh yeah, you're the kid because he, my name's so odd, he remembered it.

• 11:54Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's great.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:55Steven Rinella?

  Um, so you did wildlife.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 11:58Steven Rinella?

  Still in the wildlife business.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 12:00Steven Rinella?

  Uh, June 9th. You will find Lake Pickle on the Bear Grease podcast feed with a new show we're doing called Backwoods University. Um, and we'll talk a little bit about that. We talked about old trapekate. We're gonna jump ahead to the news. Then we're gonna come back around. Um, Crin's got us all assed up.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 12:22Steven Rinella?

  Assed up? Are we returning? Sorry?

• 12:25Speaker 04

  No, no. I, I didn't get to talk to you about this. I wondered if we would change the order of, of things this time. But maybe that's all, oh, okay. So that part wasn't asked.

• 12:37Steven Rinella?

  No, because I have to remember.

• 12:42Steven Rinella?

  I can see just getting rid of, I can see just not having any news ever.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  That, yep, that, that's possible.

• 12:49Steven Rinella?

  But then how would I find out about the news?

• 12:53Speaker 04

  Brody.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Brody and the website.

• 12:56Steven Rinella?

  We should have a, I wish we could do one of those polls, like, should we not have any news? And then do a vote.

• 13:02Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  We could make something like that happen.

• 13:05Steven Rinella?

  Can you?

• 13:05Speaker 00

  We'll Instapool.

• 13:06Steven Rinella?

  Oh, can you?

• 13:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, we could do that.

• 13:08Speaker 00

  We could do it on a newsletter, we could do it on Instagram.

• 13:10Steven Rinella?

  It'd be like, should, um, the Meat Eater Podcast have or not have listener feedback and news?

• 13:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  I think they'd be sad about not having listener feedback.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Cause then we wouldn't have, like, stories and jokes that carry on for a few episodes. But what do I know? I, I just think we should separate it, like, news is separate from this team unqualified Wayne.

• 13:37Steven Rinella?

  Well, the problem with the news program here is that we have the same news article we had before in the news. We already covered the guy that killed the, that's in trouble for hunting the cemetery. I have additional thoughts.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Doug might like if he got rid of the news, then he wouldn't have to write it.

• 13:53Steven Rinella?

  Get mad.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Unless you start dissing his dog.

• 13:59Steven Rinella?

  Had the main interview be about his dog. Instead of the news, it's updates.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  We wouldn't touch on CWD as much as we do.

• 14:07Steven Rinella?

  I know, it'd save me a lot of Doug's ire, but then we, how would we goof on his dog? Unless we like focus, we had a dog psychologist in to goof on Doug's dog.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  We should get dog psychologist in.

• 14:20Steven Rinella?

  So the guy, the, the, some merging details, are you, are you, are you gonna follow this? Cause I'm just interested in this turkey deal.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:27Steven Rinella?

  What I had explained before is like, I feel it's between the guy and the people that are dead in the cemetery. Largely.

• 14:35Speaker 05

  They don't have much to say.

• 14:36Steven Rinella?

  If I was buried in a cemetery and I knew someone was turkey hunting the cemetery, I would be glad.

• 14:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 14:42Steven Rinella?

  But then I learned while he was hunting there, there were visitors in the cemetery.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  Oh, that's rough.

• 14:47Steven Rinella?

  Which tips, right? Like at a point you have to, like you gotta, when you're sitting there at night being like, man, I really want to hunt cemetery. And you think to yourself, with the people in there.

• 15:00Steven Rinella?

  You know, with the souls in there. How would they feel about it? And that's kind of regional. And then there's, how would the people?

• 15:11Speaker 05

  How the mourners?

• 15:12Steven Rinella?

  Those people.

• 15:13Speaker 05

  What would the mourners think?

• 15:15Steven Rinella?

  Cause if I was visiting a cemetery and I see a guy hunting turkeys, I'm gonna be jealous. And what do jealous people do? They lash out.

• 15:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 15:28Steven Rinella?

  And they don't lash out about being jealous. They think of another thing. And then they're gonna lash out about public safety. But the biggest question I have is, was he bushwhacking them? Because he got dropped off by a late model black full sized pickup. So did he get dropped off to the call? Or did he get dropped off to bushwhack? And did he use tombstones?

• 15:53Steven Rinella?

  Like how you might use round bales.

• 15:58Speaker 05

  You almost can't be mad about it at that point.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  I would know the nature of the visitors. Like was someone getting actively getting buried?

• 16:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, was this like a fresh burial or was this like a year anniversary thing?

• 16:09Steven Rinella?

  Were they turkey scouting? Maybe they're a turkey scout.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  It may be.

• 16:14Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh.

• 16:15Steven Rinella?

  It happened on Mother's Day.

• 16:16Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 16:17Steven Rinella?

  Ooh. Was this like a?

• 16:18Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 16:19Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. New Hampshire. Is this like a pri- uh, private cemetery?

• 16:25Steven Rinella?

  Doesn't say, but it says you're not allowed to hunt cemeteries.

• 16:30Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 16:32Steven Rinella?

  No. I guess it won't matter.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  Except for the ones on public, I'm assuming those like old abandoned eighteen hundred cemeteries.

• 16:37Steven Rinella?

  Jumped fence to get down to a creek.

• 16:41Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I used to stand next to a turkey and or stand next to a cemetery and listen for turkeys all the time.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Mm hmm. There you go.

• 16:48Steven Rinella?

  Well, Lake was saying, if you see an old church or a cemetery, there's a turkey around.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  That's a rule of thumb at home.

• 16:53Speaker 05

  Does it have to be like abandoned?

• 16:54Speaker 02

  No, like I I mean, it is a rule of thumb that I'm telling you we live and die by like if it's an old church or a cemetery, there is a turkey around there. I've never seen it not be true.

• 17:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah, I can see that, man.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Maybe it's the abundance of bug life.

• 17:08Steven Rinella?

  The cemetery I want to get buried in, I think that that'd probably be true of that.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 17:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, we used to hunt squirrels back there, but I was pre-turkey. Like, there weren't turkeys when I was growing up, but there's turkeys now, you know?

• 17:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was a there's a place where my grandma and grand grandma and grandpa got buried. And I got permission to hunt the land right behind it.

• 17:28Steven Rinella?

  From them.

• 17:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, they I know they would be okay with it. Yeah. But and that was the first time it happened to me like I pulled up to the cemetery like I was going to visit their grave and like as I pull up, there's turkey goblin right behind it. I was like, I gotta see if I can get access to that.

• 17:43Speaker 05

  Hmm, there's a hot tip off. You start asking for permission postmortem.

• 17:47Steven Rinella?

  Yep. Yeah, I talked to him. I know and be like, hey, you know, I know, like, uh, you're not feeling well.

• 17:55Speaker 02

  Listen.

• 17:56Speaker 05

  It's a crying shame what happened, but.

• 17:58Steven Rinella?

  Oh, I can picture dudes now just sitting there like trying to like make fake tears and stuff, just listening for gobbles, trying to be like they're mourning. This happened on um, what what how the guy got in trouble is somehow.

• 18:12Steven Rinella?

  He hits the bird, you know, like the saying you can't stop the flop, but he desirous to stop the flop.

• 18:21Steven Rinella?

  Tackles it.

• 18:24Steven Rinella?

  And and thereby gets himself on camera. Right there. The people claim he's wrestling it, but it would have been more accurate if journalists had explained that he was trying to stop the flop.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 18:35Steven Rinella?

  Which you can't do.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Was it?

• 18:37Steven Rinella?

  You can't.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Was it like a a bad shot and it was kind of getting away a bit or?

• 18:41Steven Rinella?

  I think he was trying to.

• 18:42Speaker 05

  It was just like the classic sprint out to it and.

• 18:45Steven Rinella?

  My my, I don't know. My guess is he was it was raising a raucous as they do. And he was trying to stop the flop and people think he was trying to wrestle it.

• 18:54Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 18:55Steven Rinella?

  Cause he's there's like visitors. He already shot.

• 18:57Speaker 05

  He's trying to be incognito by launching on the turkey.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  And when they go to flopping, it is, I mean, it's a racket.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  It's quite loud, not as loud as the shotgun blast.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  Was he on with the shotgun? Do we know?

• 19:10Steven Rinella?

  You know what?

• 19:10Speaker 05

  This doesn't seem like an archery kind of deal, but I could be wrong.

• 19:13Steven Rinella?

  Anyone with information on this incident, this is serious, please contact New Hampshire's fishing game department.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  This is also-

• 19:21Steven Rinella?

  You can make an anonymous tip. And us.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Just another one of those things where, like, this guy chose to post this video.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  What?

• 19:31Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 19:31Speaker 05

  That's always interesting.

• 19:32Steven Rinella?

  He didn't choose, he didn't post his own video.

• 19:35Speaker 05

  He posted on his own account?

• 19:36Speaker 04

  What I understand is that there was like, there was a hunter at the cemetery, someone who self-identifies as a hunter.

• 19:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  Because this, according to New Hampshire Game and Fish, around 10 a.m. on that Sunday, a hunter observed a male in camouflage apparel shoot a turkey in the cemetery on Klow Road. Uh, the poacher was dropped off by a late-model black full-size-

• 20:01Speaker 00

  So that guy was looking for turkeys in the cemetery?

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was jealous.

• 20:05Steven Rinella?

  Jealous.

• 20:06Speaker 05

  Jealousy, for sure.

• 20:08Steven Rinella?

  I think we need to get all-

• 20:11Speaker 00

  Allegedly.

• 20:11Steven Rinella?

  If Corinne was like, a good producer.

• 20:15Steven Rinella?

  She'd have the-

• 20:16Speaker 00

  I would've rounded up all the facts.

• 20:18Steven Rinella?

  Right now, we'd have the hunter, we'd have the, the witness- Yeah. And we'd have the family of who was in the closest grave.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. We'd have the-

• 20:27Steven Rinella?

  The descendants.

• 20:28Speaker 05

  We'd have whoever was in the closest grave.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  I can't believe I didn't think of that.

• 20:33Steven Rinella?

  And it'll all be here arguing about it.

• 20:35Speaker 05

  We'd have the casket that he was standing over.

• 20:40Steven Rinella?

  Here's the intere-, this guy's got an interesting problem. There's a guy that's saying that, for whatever reason, he's a, he's a magnet for poachers to come confess to him.

• 20:50Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 20:52Steven Rinella?

  I just think that's being alive.

• 20:56Steven Rinella?

  Like, that's not unusual. Like, I confess old poaching stuff every time I'm talking to anybody.

• 21:02Speaker 05

  Really?

• 21:02Steven Rinella?

  Cause when we were kids, when we were little kids, like, we didn't, it, it wasn't, it's just hard to explain. Yeah. You didn't know, you just did stuff, you didn't, you didn't know it was later.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Do people go and, do you get a lot of confessions?

• 21:15Steven Rinella?

  Yes, because, okay, when I started deer hunting, I wasn't old enough to hunt deer. When I killed my first deer, I wasn't old enough. My mom came and put her tag on it. It was, but it was like, you would've told anybody.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Here, but-

• 21:29Steven Rinella?

  It was like, there was no, there was z-, it was just like, I can't even explain it. It's just how it was.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  Some of the examples, some of the examples he uses, though-

• 21:38Speaker 05

  I'm not, I'm not sure that these are people just talking about stuff that they did a really long time ago. I'm just looking at one of the examples he cites and it's almost like someone.

• 21:49Steven Rinella?

  Let me make, I want you to hit the, hit the examples, but I want to make one more point. You know how I've been hip to that, um, Veterans Institute, they play the interviews with the World War II veterans, guys are in their eighties and nineties, it's, it's the best thing on YouTube. Well, I like world's greatest hockey goals in slow motion, but, um.

• 22:08Speaker 03

  I'll look into that.

• 22:09Steven Rinella?

  Next to the world's greatest hockey goals in slow motion.

• 22:13Speaker 05

  Hockey does go fast.

• 22:14Steven Rinella?

  The American Veterans Institute did this, has this huge series of interviews with World War II guys, um, in their eighties and nineties.

• 22:27Steven Rinella?

  They're down watching, I think I talked about this, I'm watching two of these guys together and they're talking about they would just kill SS.

• 22:37Steven Rinella?

  They would line them up and shoot them. And he said, "We weren't supposed to talk about it, it was a long time ago."

• 22:45Steven Rinella?

  Um, and he's like, "We were told to do that." Right? So you get a lot of like, "I will," because we grew up violating, but it wasn't like, it's just so hard to explain, man.

• 22:57Speaker 05

  You're past the statute of limitations, it's like a common ground kind of thing in the hunting community.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  When I was growing up, probably the same for you, you just, you didn't even know it was illegal, the shit, the stuff you were doing.

• 23:07Speaker 05

  You didn't even know of the like, you didn't know.

• 23:10Steven Rinella?

  The rationale.

• 23:11Speaker 05

  The severity or the implication or anything, yeah. Nothing serious.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  When I first got Onyx, I, I went and looked at all the old places where I used to hunt and it's all, it's all private. It's like, I, I thought this was, legit thought it was public land.

• 23:26Steven Rinella?

  I remember like, like just being young, you know, like teens and hunting wood ducks on the roost and it looking like a 4th of July display.

• 23:37Steven Rinella?

  By the time the wood ducks would come into that root. And you were sort of like, you, it's just like, but that's what all the guy, like the old, like your mentors.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:46Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? It was just, you were so.

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, cause the, the farther you go back in the timeline of hunting, the like.

• 23:54Steven Rinella?

  The gray or all that gets.

• 23:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 23:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:57Steven Rinella?

  Another, another thing that was just like, just another confession, here I am doing all these confessals. There was another thing, leading up to the largemouth bass opener. You would put your live well out on the end of your dock.

• 24:10Steven Rinella?

  And you would detain them.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  Oh, no.

• 24:14Steven Rinella?

  To then flay them on the opener. But it was like, this isn't like, you were like, shh, don't tell anybody.

• 24:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was just like, this is what we do.

• 24:21Steven Rinella?

  You'd walk down the damn beach, holding the largemouth by the bottom lip and throw it in the live well.

• 24:27Steven Rinella?

  And like your parent, like our parent, you know, I mean, people weren't like, don't. It's, it's so hard to explain, man. It's so hard to explain the. Then only later did I start to put it all together. I, like, you know, you get like in your twenties and you start, whatever, meeting people, reading. Reading San County Almanac, which like, you start putting it all together and you're like, oh man, that's like not. Like if everybody ran around doing that with that level of like. Passion.

• 24:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, you end up with the early 1900s.

• 24:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it would've been disasters, but it was just like, you weren't, none of this, like, I never, no one ever, ever said the word conservation when I was a kid.

• 25:08Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 25:10Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean and they'll get years and years of use out of a set.

• 25:54Steven Rinella?

  Visit weathertech.com for your holiday shopping today.

• 26:00Steven Rinella?

  What if you could save up for that new car or vacation just by buying the stuff you're already buying? With the One Pay banking app, you earn 3% cash back on up to $150 in monthly spending in categories you choose. So it's easy to save. So what are you saving for? Maybe you've got your eyes on a new truck, or a new boat, or you're saving up for your first house. Download the One Pay app, or visit onepay.com for banking that gives you more for what matters.

• 26:32Speaker 06

  One Pay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank or Lead Bank, members FDIC. Cash back is earned as points. Go to onepay.com/rewards/terms for redemption options and additional details.

• 26:47Steven Rinella?

  When you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back, your boots aren't gear you think about, they're what you depend on. That's why western hunters trust Zamborland. Man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamborlands. They are so comfortable, and just well-built, and feel great in the hills. Family-owned and handcrafted in Italy through three generations, Zamborland boots combine nearly a century of bootmaking expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit, game, and terrain. They're comfortable, supportive, resolable, and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamborland's perfected their craft to ensure your success.

• 27:29Steven Rinella?

  Head to zamborlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season. Zamborlandusa.com You're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these.

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Well, look at, look at the examples.

• 27:44Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  He says, "Poachers apparently see my BHA and Meteor merch and think," quote, and this is, these quotes are so specific, so you know someone told him this, quote, "I'm gonna tell this guy about unlicensed night hunting in a day hunting only state for game that's out of season, and I don't have a tag anyway." Or, quote, "Let me tell you how I pulled a fast one by hunting against regulations on a military base and got away with the trespassing citation instead of any real consequences." Ha ha.

• 28:13Steven Rinella?

  You know what they're trying to do? They're trying to get on Clay's Bear Grease Podcast.

• 28:18Steven Rinella?

  That might actually be true.

• 28:21Steven Rinella?

  But they don't realize that they have to have redemption.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:25Steven Rinella?

  Like when I was 15, Clay wouldn't have had me on. He would have had to wait till I was later, had an epiphany. And we would have stopped like our casual violating.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, this guy is just wondering like, what, what would you all do? Would you, he tries to educate? And, you know, these are instances that had happened in the past. And he said that in case he sniffed that there was any sense of a crime being about to be committed, he would say something, but

• 28:58Steven Rinella?

  I got another confession.

• 28:59Speaker 04

  Asking for advice.

• 29:01Steven Rinella?

  Is this what this podcast is turning into?

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Confessions.

• 29:04Steven Rinella?

  A little bored. It's like, I'm just, the more I think about, the more I'm interested in what are, like, I want to go back and interview our younger selves. So, high school, okay, like, just, just give you, for instance, high school.

• 29:19Steven Rinella?

  With my late friend, Eric Kern, smelt dipping.

• 29:23Steven Rinella?

  For whatever reason, like, Sam would come with the smelt during the spring smelt run. One day, we're standing out there, and we weren't at a river mouth. Like, you generally hit and smelt at the river mouths. But we were, we knew about these gravel beds that were way down on Lake Michigan. And the smelt would come up and spawn in these little gravel beds that weren't even in the stream mouth. They're like an anadromous fish, but they would sometimes spawn in the waves. And we're sitting there, and here comes a salmon, chasing smelt, and Eric gets in his dipping net.

• 29:55Steven Rinella?

  We're old enough to know that he ought to put that salmon in his waders. And he puts the salmon down the leg of his waders to hide it. And we like finished our smelt dipping, had a big laugh about how slimy his pants were.

• 30:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm sure that felt great.

• 30:11Steven Rinella?

  And we're like, old enough to drive. And there's no way I would let my kid do that.

• 30:17Steven Rinella?

  I would wring his neck.

• 30:20Steven Rinella?

  Just, I don't know, I can't explain it.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Different times.

• 30:23Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Guy wants to know if it's stolen valor to put, to buy taxidermy and decorate your cabin. Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  It's an easy one.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Hard stop.

• 30:34Steven Rinella?

  Unless it's like a crazy like a, unless it's like a specimen.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Huh. You're killing my market, Steve.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  What if it's like a jackalope?

• 30:43Steven Rinella?

  What's that?

• 30:43Speaker 04

  What if it's like a jackalope?

• 30:44Steven Rinella?

  That's not stolen valor.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 30:47Steven Rinella?

  Taxidermy.

• 30:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:48Steven Rinella?

  Like, I think if you bought, you know, if you're like a big deer hunter and you bought a like a big, you know, and then you kind of got it there and you know what it is? Do people coming in think that you got it?

• 31:02Speaker 04

  Hmm, true.

• 31:03Steven Rinella?

  That's-

• 31:03Speaker 04

  If someone asks like, "Do you shoot that?"

• 31:06Steven Rinella?

  And I-

• 31:06Speaker 04

  What's your answer?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  So, a real good friend of mine, he used to talk, tell me how comically bad his father was at hunting.

• 31:13Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  And the first time I went to his father's house, I walk into his living room, this is a true story, and there was like several shoulder mounted deer, and then there's a shoulder mounted elk in there. And I was like, "Jordan, you said your dad was bad at hunting." He said, "Oh, he didn't kill any of these."

• 31:29Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Bought all of them off eBay.

• 31:32Steven Rinella?

  You know, it's deeply nuanced because someday, like my, my father's taxidermy is still in my mother's home.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 31:40Steven Rinella?

  Someday, heaven forbid, I will take possession of my father's taxidermy and I will put it somewhere.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  That's different.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Does that count? Yeah, I don't think so.

• 31:49Steven Rinella?

  It's, it's deeply nuanced. Or if you had something where you're like, "Oh yeah, Wyatt Earp shot that buck," you know? Or whatever, it'd be like a specimen. But if people come in and they go like, "My God, this guy's gotten some tanks."

• 32:01Speaker 04

  And then you don't say anything, you just let that thought linger.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I, I have a, a European, a, a skull mounted elk that I did not kill in my house.

• 32:11Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  It's the first bull that I filmed Wilbur shoot. And he asked me, he said, "Do you want this elk?"

• 32:17Steven Rinella?

  That's okay.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Absolutely." But everybody that comes in the house, they're like, when I'm, I'm like, "Will shot that elk, not me."

• 32:23Speaker 04

  You need to make a plaque.

• 32:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Right, but then you, but then you tell the, the true story of that, right?

• 32:29Steven Rinella?

  Oh yeah, but it's like-

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Yanni's, Yanni has his dad's bull moose hanging in his living room.

• 32:33Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Totally fine.

• 32:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Totally, that's not stolen valor.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, Dirt has one of your kooz deer.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  You gave it to him.

• 32:47Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but Dirt's like a special guy.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was saying, it's not stolen valor. He was there, he filmed it.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think we're talking like, if you go to like, some kind of thrift shop and they have like, someone's random estate sale taxidermy.

• 33:04Speaker 02

  Man, you can, I don't know if you can anymore, you could, you used to could legitimately go on eBay and buy a taxidermy.

• 33:08Speaker 05

  Oh no, you still can.

• 33:09Steven Rinella?

  It's, yeah, it's like, it's like.

• 33:12Speaker 05

  Estate.

• 33:12Steven Rinella?

  Earlier I said yes, but I'm realizing how complicated, it just depends on the motive and what you're trying to get away with. If you're trying to be like, give visitors the impression, it's one thing.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Well, all right, here's an example. If you just bought a big mansion in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

• 33:29Speaker 05

  I was gonna bring in Jackson.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  You went down to this shop that has all the taxidermy for sale for thousands of dollars and you buy a big old elk head and put it in your big, big house that looks right at the Tetons.

• 33:41Steven Rinella?

  Stolen valor.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 33:42Speaker 05

  And you bought a cowboy hat.

• 33:44Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm, that's stolen valor.

• 33:45Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Um.

• 33:49Speaker 05

  What about furs?

• 33:50Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 33:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:52Steven Rinella?

  No, I don't think so.

• 33:53Speaker 05

  I don't think so.

• 33:53Steven Rinella?

  I'm showing my biases, but.

• 33:57Steven Rinella?

  It's just different, it's different. Um, guy has a moral bind. Well, let me give you a good example. I got a friend, very accomplished hunter, okay? He's got a display of every, male and female of all North American waterfowl that he got.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Huh, that's awesome.

• 34:18Steven Rinella?

  But he also has a big collection of many fur bears.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:24Steven Rinella?

  From around the continent.

• 34:25Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 34:26Steven Rinella?

  He would, he will be like, that's from so and so, that's from so and so. He's got one, he goes, someone left this because they knew I have a collection, and they remain anonymous. I don't even know who gave it to me.

• 34:38Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 34:39Steven Rinella?

  So, it's just diff, it's like a, it's like a educational display.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:45Steven Rinella?

  Do you follow me?

• 34:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:46Steven Rinella?

  Where he's like, check all this out, but he doesn't, none of it's his stuff, but he's, he likes to.

• 34:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:52Steven Rinella?

  You know, he grew up trapping, he likes to have the stuff there, but it's not his first.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  Cause my main buyers are like the oddities market and they just like having them, it's like a novelty, like a novelty wall hanger, they're like.

• 35:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I'm not trying to screw your business.

• 35:06Speaker 05

  Like, take it easy, Steve.

• 35:09Steven Rinella?

  Here's a guy, I haven't read this yet, but he's in a moral bind. He lives in eastern Wisconsin. Far from dog, sounds like. Avid bow hunter. One of my close buddies owns a local tree farm and is currently planting new trees. This is a quote. He recently got a crop damage tag to take five deer in forty-five days as the deer are eating his newly planted trees. At first, I was excited to get the bow out. However, he has sent me videos of the deer pretty much walking up to him. The chase in which bow hunting.

• 35:46Steven Rinella?

  Not a great sentence.

• 35:49Steven Rinella?

  I think he's me, he means bow hunting is about the chase.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  I'm just saying it.

• 35:53Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, no, it is. It's like a very, it's like bad syntax, but it makes sense. The chase

• 36:01Steven Rinella?

  in which bow hunting is about is gone. Like a few commas could have salvaged that sentence. I don't feel like taking five deer will help the problem. And it's all very likely to take a deer holding fawns. However, he puts a lot of pride into his farm and I've even helped with planning and witnessed firsthand the hard work that goes into it. Does going forward with this pretty much give up all the ethics we believe as hunters? No, of course not. Or am I looking to, that was me editorializing. And yes, not a rhetorical question. No, it's a serious question. Or am I looking too much into and ultimately it's just simply what is protecting his crop?

• 36:42Speaker 04

  I think ethics is not really the right word there at all.

• 36:46Steven Rinella?

  No, if there's an outlet for, if there's an outlet for the deer, you want it, your buddy wants it, your church wants it. And the guy's got a crop damage permit and it's whitetail deer, which last I checked in Wisconsin are above objective.

• 37:07Steven Rinella?

  Don't see it being an issue. One more.

• 37:14Steven Rinella?

  Is this the last one? Another news bit. So in Alabama. This is from Alabama. The bill, ALHB509, passed the House and is moving to the Senate. This bill led by the captive deer industry. Which he, th- this person writing in claims that folks high up in the state legislature have family ties to the captive deer industry. I can't say that's true or not, he's just saying that's true. They want to declare high friends, they wanted to declare high fence deer. So they want to make captive deer private property instead of public. Okay. Some people might be surprised that it's already this way.

• 37:59Steven Rinella?

  Depends what state you're in. Some states, if you have captive deer, you can just do whatever you want. You hunt them year round, you do whatever you want with them. Some states, if you have high fence deer, you still gotta go by deer law. They want to switch it and they want their pet deer to be livestock, so they can do whatever they want. They don't want them to be wildlife. Why would they care? You can think of all kinds of reasons they'd care, because now they can hunt them whenever they want and do whatever they want and kills them as they want, whatever. But the main thing is, they're trying to get out from under regulation and inspections

• 38:41Steven Rinella?

  that would keep their captive deer, which I'm not saying, I'm sure, like CWD is in Alabama. They want, they don't want the state messing with them about the risk that their captive deer are going to spread diseases to wild herds. So they're trying to get free of that and get out of inspection services. That's what's in the back of their head.

• 39:05Steven Rinella?

  That's all.

• 39:08Speaker 00

  It's tricky. It's dirty.

• 39:10Steven Rinella?

  It is a tricky one, man.

• 39:13Steven Rinella?

  Cause I'm just suspicious of captive deer like in general, but I also get the argument that if it's in a fence and it's captive, it's like, whatever.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  But they get out of the fences.

• 39:21Steven Rinella?

  I know.

• 39:21Speaker 00

  They do frequently.

• 39:23Steven Rinella?

  That's, that's one of the problems.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  But so do cattle.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  It, that was, it strikes a little close to home, cause Alabama's right next to Mississippi.

• 39:29Steven Rinella?

  Okay, what's your take on it?

• 39:30Speaker 02

  I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

• 39:30Steven Rinella?

  You being neighbors.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  I don't like it at all.

• 39:32Steven Rinella?

  Tell me more.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  I, I mean, CWD, uh, obviously a problem there. I, I have a prob, I mean, like, I get the, they're, they're in the fence, like, they're not, I mean, they do get out, but I hinge on the thing, like, even without the CWD argument, it's like, the wildlife are, belong to the, belong to the people. They're a public resource. Like, saying that you can put a fence around that and all of a sudden that deer and everything in there becomes your private property. I don't like that at all. Um, and then there's just been, been a lot of stuff going on around home with CWD lately.

• 40:06Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Um, it's not, I mean, it's never good, right? But we had a, there was a case that popped up along the Mississippi River in Louisiana, but going off CWD management guidelines, it would have put part of Claiborne County, Mississippi, in so, CWD management. Well, there's a dude on our wildlife commission that was like, why would, uh, Louisiana deer make this go into CWD management? The river's right there. Disregarding the fact that those deer swim the river all the time. And so they had this vote and they were, you know, and next thing you know, within like, couple of months, they have a CWD case show up in Claiborne County.

• 40:40Steven Rinella?

  You kidding me?

• 40:41Speaker 02

  No, dead serious. Uh, and so, and obviously you know, CW is a very controversial topic, but.

• 40:48Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it is.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  So.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Uh, and seeing that, and using as like, uh, if they pass that, then they could get around some of the CWD stuff and I could just so very easily seeing that hopping over into Mississippi because there's some high fences there too. And I, I just don't like it. Too close to home.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, and there's a lot to learn about CWD still, but. We certainly know that concentrated areas of animals are one of the worst things that we can have. So promoting that and making that easier is not helping the CWD case at all.

• 41:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, and moving cervids has proven to be problematic, but a lot of the cervid movements are down now. An interesting casualty of the CWD is that it really put the nicks on elk recovery.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  Hmm, yeah.

• 41:41Steven Rinella?

  Because as they're like regulating relocating cervids, it's ground down that you're going to take elk from source populations and bring them into new places because people aren't wanting to transport cervids around.

• 41:51Speaker 00

  And now we have CWD on all of our feed grounds because the elk are in feed grounds. It's getting messier by the minute.

• 42:00Steven Rinella?

  There was the late Jim Pozzowitz, who was, he was from Montana, and he wrote these little pamphlets that you give kids when they're like, if your kid goes through hunter safety with the state, he might wind up with these Jim Pozzowitz pamphlets like, I can't remember what they're called, just little like, sort of things about ethics of hunting and stuff. He was a hunter, he was like a philosopher about hunting ethics. And he was always very suspicious of captive, the captive cervid industry and was involved when Montana, when it went to a vote in Montana, and Montana rejected canned hunting on captive cervid facilities overwhelmingly. Jim Pozzowitz was very involved in that fight. And he had

• 42:45Steven Rinella?

  this interesting point about it, which is like, if you look at the captive deer and elk industry, there's a friction because, this is just, this isn't proposing legislation, this is just like an observation of his. What gives those captive animals their value is the social value that the wild version has.

• 43:11Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? It's like, what excites someone about growing a big buck is the social value that a big buck in its wild form has.

• 43:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:23Steven Rinella?

  Meaning if you went and got a, you know, if you went and got a sheep, and you figured out to make a little ram, a little domestic ram have like slightly bigger horns, people are not, that's not exciting to people. Because there's not a social value attached to wildlife that you're trying to mimic.

• 43:44Steven Rinella?

  Right? You're, you're in a way subverting the thing that has social value to build a sort of artificial version of the thing that people are excited about in the first place. So he just questioned it from like, from a, from a philosophical angle. You know?

• 44:02Steven Rinella?

  It'd be similar to, um,

• 44:09Steven Rinella?

  I'm not gonna think of a bunch of things that'd be similar to this, insulting to bring it up, so never mind.

• 44:14Speaker 05

  Now I'm intrigued.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Worse than Doug's dog.

• 44:17Steven Rinella?

  I was gonna make a, I was gonna make an analogy to what some people refer to as the oldest profession.

• 44:23Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  Ten-four.

• 44:29Speaker 05

  Loud and clear.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  I got it, yeah, we got it.

• 44:31Steven Rinella?

  What some people argue is hunting, I don't know.

• 44:36Steven Rinella?

  All right, uh, select your central Mississippi.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:40Steven Rinella?

  Grew up in central Mississippi. What was your, how'd you get into, how'd you get into hunting?

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Man, I mean, you're kind of, you're put into it early just because central Mississippi is just kind of, just kind of the common thing around there. Everybody hunts or fishes to some degree. Uh, but my dad is, describe my dad, he hunts a little bit and fishes a lot. That's where, that's where the name Lake came from. My dad's an obsessed fisherman.

• 45:04Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Um, and so.

• 45:05Steven Rinella?

  I would've named you Crick Pickle.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  That's fair.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  Dill.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  That's really good. Yeah, so, uh, like, we were, you know, we, we bass fished a lot, like, I was telling you earlier about, you know, my dad, you know, it was like mandatory that me and my brother learn how to throw a bait cast. You know, we fished a whole lot, and then. Deer season would come around and you know, the rifle opener and maybe other one weekend a year and then opener, duff season was always a big thing down there. But that was about the extent of it. You guys would fish during hunting season? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you shouldn't be allowed to do that. Like, like fishing is the end all be all. Like the, when I was first getting into turkey hunting, skipping a little head, ahead here, but like, I remember one of the first mornings turkey hunting.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Like trying to hear a turkey and there's like a little pond down below and dad's like, I wonder if I got a buzzbait in my truck. I mean, that's all he's thinking about. So, um, and yeah, turkey hunting is a huge down home. And so I'd heard some buddies like at church and stuff talking about turkey hunting during the spring. It's like the cradle of turkey hunting. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I, but I just didn't get that early because my dad wasn't a turkey hunter. Um, and then this is a true story. People think I'm being hyperbolic, but it's true. We were on a, we were on a family like vacation thing over spring break. We stopped at a Bass Pro Shop and, uh, they were doing these like seminars and there was a

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Primos Pro Staff guy wheeled out this TV and I was a kid. So like, ooh, it's on the TV and he plays a turkey hunt. And I was like, holy smokes, that looks wild. So I start, when I'm at church on Sunday, I start like sourcing out people. I'm like, will you take me turkey hunting? Cause like my dad was willing to do it, but my dad was like, I have no idea what I'm doing, you know? Uh, and thank the good Lord, I found a guy, still close friends with him to this day, a guy named Keith Polk. And, uh, Keith was like- That sounds like a good turkey hunter. Oh, man. Keith Polk? Keith Polk. Hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Keith is a man. Yeah. I, I probably, I owe that guy a lot. Um, but he talked to my parents and they were like, hey,

• 47:13Speaker 02

  you mind if I take late turkey hunting over Mississippi youth weekend? And they were like, please take late turkey hunting. It's all the kid talks about. And so, uh, he rolls up Saturday morning, the youth season, takes me turkey hunting and, uh, we end up shooting a bird and I, like, literally I've not stopped ever since. I still, I mean, I could- How old were you then? Twelve. Yeah, I could, I can close my eyes and still picture that turkey strutting down that ridge. It was just burned into my brain. Like it, I never, and I, once, I remember thinking, like, because I was only, I was only 12. I remember shooting that turkey and we're carrying him out of the woods and I'm like, you're telling me I could have been doing this the whole other 11 years of my life?

• 47:54Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  I just, and, and that led to everything else. Like I got into bow hunting and, uh, really got into turkey hunting and, um, yeah, it just, it all spurred, turkey hunting was the catalyst of all of it.

• 48:08Steven Rinella?

  Isn't that funny that you got turned on to turkey hunting, watching a Primos video, then went on to make, how many Primos videos did you work on? Probably dozens and dozens and dozens.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  I mean, I was there for, I mean, nine years and some change, just, just south of 10 years. Uh, I don't know, man. It was, yeah, it's all, my, what I tell people is like, my whole life has been, like, just this series of like, how in the world did I even end up here kind of thing? Uh, but, yeah, I, Will Primos and, I remember the first time I turkey hunted with Will was kind of funny, but, uh, I would, I would watch Primos videos like, uh, like I was watching game film, you know, trying to, trying to, I was like, what did he do? Cause I told Will, like, oh yeah, I told Will one time, I mean, this was years ago, I said, Will, I used to watch those videos and I would listen to it, like, calling cadence, and then I would rewind it and listen to it over and over and over again and try to mimic it. Huh.

• 49:02Speaker 05

  Get muscle memory.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:04Speaker 02

  Cause I, I mean, like, ten, I just, I didn't know what I was doing. And then even after I got that first bird with Keith, like, there was still a whole lot of like, you gotta put it together for yourself kind of thing.

• 49:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Um, but yeah, yeah, it was, I was, um, like, Will Primos was, and the whole Primos crew, man, they were, like, they might as well hung the moon for me.

• 49:26Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house, they all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you've got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean, and they'll get years and years of use out of

• 50:10Steven Rinella?

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• 50:48Speaker 06

  One Pay is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Coastal Community Bank or Lead Bank, members FDIC. Cash back is earned as points. Go to onepay.com/rewards/terms for redemption options and additional details.

• 51:02Steven Rinella?

  When you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back, your boots aren't gear you think about, they're what you depend on. That's why Western hunters trust Zamberland. Man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamberlands. They are so comfortable and just well-built and feel great in the hills. Family-owned and handcrafted in Italy through three generations, Zamberland boots combine nearly a century of bootmaking expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit, game, and terrain. Comfortable, supportive, resolable and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamberland's perfected their craft to ensure your success.

• 51:45Steven Rinella?

  Head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season. Zamberlandusa.com. You're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these.

• 51:58Steven Rinella?

  When you're working there and you get your check, what's it say? Primos on it?

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it did. Yeah. Yeah.

• 52:05Steven Rinella?

  The thing I like about, I've said this before, I said it to his face.

• 52:10Steven Rinella?

  One of the things I like Will, Will's a very good communicator.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:14Steven Rinella?

  But to my awareness, I've never heard him say a negative word.

• 52:20Speaker 02

  Man, he's just.

• 52:21Steven Rinella?

  Like about anybody.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  I'll tell you a story about Will. Like, uh, he's so like, you used to say, like, you hear people say, there's people that want you to succeed. There's people that don't want you to succeed. Like, or Will like goes over and above, over and beyond. Like wanting to people, wanting people to succeed. And I had been at Primos for three or four years and been hunting with Will a lot. So I got to know him and, and he came by the office one day in the middle of the week and I saw him for like a minute, maybe two minutes. Just, he was just in and out. And that weekend is a Saturday morning, my phone rings, it's Will, not uncommon. And I answered the phone, he's like, hey, I need some help over at the house. You mind coming over? Not uncommon. I'm like, yeah, sure.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Right up there, he's not, usually if he called me, it was like something out in his yard, but he wasn't out in his yard. I was like, huh. So I go knock on his door and he's like just standing in casual clothes. Come inside, get some coffee. And at this point I'm like, uh oh, what did I do?

• 53:16Steven Rinella?

  Fire you. I gotta do something. Fire you like a man.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  And he says, uh, he says, man, get some coffee and go sit in the office. And so I sit in the office, that coffee, I'm like, what in the world did I do? Like my wheels are spinning. And he comes in there and he sits down and he says, Lake, when I came in the office this week, I could tell something was bothering you. I don't know what it was, but you and me, we're gonna sit here, we're gonna talk about it till we figure it out. Cause I don't like seeing you that way.

• 53:41Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  That's just kinda duty is.

• 53:44Steven Rinella?

  What was it though?

• 53:46Speaker 02

  Dude, it was like a, it was like a, it was like a breakup or something like that. Something miniscule, but it just meant the world that he cared that much, you know?

• 53:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. You're married now?

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Hmm?

• 53:56Steven Rinella?

  How long you been married?

• 53:57Speaker 02

  Uh, three years in July.

• 54:00Steven Rinella?

  Kids? No kids. Okay. Two dogs. Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 54:05Steven Rinella?

  Uh, that's the thing about Will, there's like, um, I, I've counted a bunch of people like this. Well, I'm gonna return to my commencement address I gave the other day.

• 54:16Steven Rinella?

  The no Plan B address. Yeah. What I was talking about was like, people trying to pick what the, selecting your Plan A. Hmm. For now, pick a Plan A and kill the Plan Bs, because you'll get seduced by your Plan B. It'll just be easier and you'll get, it'll seduce you. And I put it in terms of like cliff jumping, and watching my daughter, pick a real high cliff in Hawaii, that she was gonna jump off into the plunge pool at a waterfall. And then you could see in her mind, just wishing she hadn't have climbed out on that cliff, but there she is now. Yeah. And like, most people get on the ledge, and they quickly would go down and find another ledge and jump, but she just couldn't.

• 54:59Steven Rinella?

  She picked it, and there she was. And now she had to cope with the selection, Hmm. and how intimidating it was being up there. And I was talking about, there's people, when you're on your Plan A ledge, there's people that want you to come off that ledge bad. And there's people that want you to do it, and they want you to break your back when you hit the water. Yep. Do you follow me? Oh, a hundred percent. And, um, that's the sense I get from him. Another dude that has that, like,

• 55:27Steven Rinella?

  he, he doesn't talk about it, but he has it like, like to unbelievable degree, is, uh, Joe Rogan. Hmm. You know, he gets into podcasting early, and encourages all of his friends to start a podcast. He opens a comedy club in Austin. You'd think that if someone wanted to open a comedy club down the road on the street, you'd be like, damn it.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  He's like, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, it's different like ways of viewing the world. And man, and that's one of the biggest things I got from Will. Man, well, like, so this podcast, you know, like, it all kind of all started like I met, like Clay came down to Turkey on with me and Will for a few days. And then we just kind of kept going every spring and hunting other stuff. Will and Clay became buddies, Clay and I became buddies, but when all this happened, we were working on like the first episode of Backwoods University. And it just so worked out. I was like, Will would actually be a perfect guest on this. So I call Will and I tell him, I don't, you know, I don't just say, hey, I need to interview you. I tell him, hey, man, I got this opportunity. This new podcast is going to be on Clay's feed.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  And Will is like ecstatic, not to be on the interview. He's just like, man, that's so great. And like, just like cleared out and I, and he's pretty like, he stays busy, that guy. But like cleared out a time for me to come and make that happen just because he's, that's just how he is, man. He's like, how can I help push you up the hill?

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the sense I got watching. That's how he is, man, with everybody, not just me. Like, he's just that kind of guy. Well, talk about the podcast, what it's going to be like. So Backwoods University, very wildlife biology based, but also like Clay, we were kind of

• 57:14Speaker 02

  putting together a list of like topics and episodes we would do. And I was like, Clay, there's not a species of wildlife, because we're doing some episodes, just kind of like an overarching view of a certain species. Yep. And then we're doing some, it's like getting more specific and like, like wildlife processes or whatever. And I was like, Clay, there's not any of these that I can talk about where you can't mention the influence of humans on these animals, positive or negative. Got it. But the influence is usually very strong, one way or the other. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not so great. Yeah. That's what it's kind of focusing in on. Yeah. Nothing has escaped us. No. It's, it's, man, I was talking to the quail biologist named James Martin,

• 57:59Speaker 02

  and he was talking about some of the strongholds in the southeast. And he was talking about like, he started about a particular stronghold. I said, man, why, why was that? Was it habitat thing? Was it this, that and the other? He said, that's where the railroad stopped. Oh, you're kidding me? Yeah. He's like, he's like, if the, if the railroad would have kept going, the stronghold would have been somewhere else.

• 58:20Steven Rinella?

  We had an anthropologist on recently and we're talking about the Pleistocene extinctions.

• 58:26Steven Rinella?

  And he was saying, there's a really good formula for places where megafauna, like large, there's a really good formula for places where large mammals continue to exist. There's never enough people there to get them all.

• 58:39Steven Rinella?

  And he starts like rattling off cases of like refugia. Where things like managed to survive. It's like managed to survive because the human population, it couldn't support a bit. No, it was more than that. It wasn't just happen chance. It was just places that weren't going to support a large human population at a certain time.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  It's, it's astounding, man. Like there, there's an episode that I'm working on right now that delves into the state of Mississippi. Cause we, Mississippi is one of the last states to put in a formal game and fish agency and have established laws. And that's when loophole made his trip down there and he wrote, and he wrote a report in 1929 where he basically just goes over the status of all these game animals. And it's astounding, especially like now, the, the whitetail deer population in Mississippi now is like, like 1.5 million. Like our game agency is asking, they're imploring hunters, like please shoot more deer. We have too many. When loophole was there in 1929 in his report, it was, it was estimated we had 1,200 deer in the entire state.

• 59:37Steven Rinella?

  You've got to be kidding. It was that bad down there?

• 59:41Speaker 02

  It's, it's wild and talking about like turkey hunting being the, like the epicenter of turkey hunting culture, which I would argue that it is, which I'm biased, but. One of the first, like we established a game and fish agency in 1932. One of the first things they started working on was wild turkeys. Because loophole wrote in his report, he was like, y'all have wiped out almost all of your turkeys. He said, I can't, I'll butcher it, but it was like the upland stock, the turkeys left in the uplands are gone. The only thing you have left are in the swamps because, because humans couldn't get to them. But it's like going through it and like how bad, and it wasn't from, a lot of it was during the great, great depression.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  And people weren't, uh, they're mainly just, this is how I feed my family. But again, it's just like really trying to grasp how. Heavy of an influence we have. It's wild.

• 1:00:32Steven Rinella?

  What are the first episodes gonna be?

• 1:00:34Speaker 02

  We've got one on bison, but bison in the eastern United States.

• 1:00:38Steven Rinella?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  Um, then we've got that one.

• 1:00:40Steven Rinella?

  Did you talk to Ted Franklin Blue?

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  I didn't. Uh, we referenced his book a lot. I actually talked to a guy named Jeremy French. He works for Duane Estes.

• 1:00:49Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  The coolest part of that whole process is, uh, Jeremy took me to a property where they're doing a lot of prairie restoration.

• 1:00:56Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  And, uh, I didn't know it. He said, um, he said, from the original Cumberland settlements, they digitized a bunch of the, they'd mapped out the buffalo trails. And so there's a place on that property. I mean, it looks like someone drove a bulldozer through it. And he said, there's your bison trail.

• 1:01:13Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Like you can still see it.

• 1:01:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  And we, we walked down in there, stood in it. It was, it was crazy. But, uh, that was a fun episode. We're doing one on, um, Bob White Quail. Um, and then the one that I was just talking about, I referenced loophole a lot, but the subject of the story is actually a woman named Fanny Cook. Uh, which again, I'm biased, but I would argue she's one of the greatest conservationists to ever live because she was pretty much the first wildlife biologist in the state of Mississippi.

• 1:01:42Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  And she fought to establish the game of fish commission. There's, there's not like hard evidence of it, but there's reasonable evidence that she's the one that got loophole to come down and make the report.

• 1:01:54Steven Rinella?

  Huh, oh.

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  She's a pretty incredible woman.

• 1:01:58Steven Rinella?

  Have you, has anybody in Mississippi ever gotten a full body mossy oak tattoo or real tree tattoo?

• 1:02:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, yes. Yes, there is.

• 1:02:06Steven Rinella?

  Cause it's hot.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:08Steven Rinella?

  Y'all run around in that stuff all the time anyway?

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  Somebody, uh, one time we were at a local sports show and like Primos used to have these logos, like they had like these little bitty individual animal logos.

• 1:02:19Steven Rinella?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  And this dude just runs up to the, the Primos booth that he was like, check this out. And he pulls up a sleeve and he has the Primos turkey logo on his arm.

• 1:02:27Steven Rinella?

  Uh, but no full body sleeve camo. So you can just hunt. That'd be a good idea. Just hunt the way God made you.

• 1:02:38Speaker 05

  We should start selling temporary tattoos.

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Steven Rinella?

  So is your, is Backwoods University gonna have like, um, how, how far north will you allow yourself to go?

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm going like.

• 1:02:49Steven Rinella?

  You'll do Yankee stuff.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  Oh, a hundred percent. That's like, uh, it's just been regional right now, just because it's just weird.

• 1:02:55Steven Rinella?

  Clay's got, you know, he's got like, you know, Clay will say stuff like, well, you know, people in the south are very interested in music.

• 1:03:07Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? People in the south, you know, they love their families. It's like every day he talks to me, he tells you something, I'm like, oh, we wouldn't know about that.

• 1:03:19Steven Rinella?

  You know, music is very important in southern culture. I'm like, I, you know, ever heard of Motown?

• 1:03:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I've actually, uh, while I've been up here, I've interviewed some grizzly folks. So yeah, yeah, we're not.

• 1:03:34Steven Rinella?

  So you're talking to Yankees?

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to go continental wide. Yeah.

• 1:03:39Steven Rinella?

  Okay, good.

• 1:03:40Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 1:03:41Steven Rinella?

  Not gonna talk foreigners, but you will talk Yankees.

• 1:03:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:03:44Speaker 05

  No Canadians, get out of here.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Draw the line there.

• 1:03:48Steven Rinella?

  And then how, how, what, what's the frequency you're shooting for?

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Biweekly right now. Yep.

• 1:03:52Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:03:53Steven Rinella?

  Good, man. How long will an episode be?

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  Man, I think the first couple of ones, anywhere between like 30 and 40 minutes.

• 1:04:00Steven Rinella?

  And you're gonna hear interviews?

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's basically like, we end up landing on, it's kind of a bear grease format. We just, just condensed. Like the, the quail episode has Wilbur in it and, uh, then a guy named Dr. Mark McConnell.

• 1:04:12Steven Rinella?

  Oh, yeah, because he's a big quail hunter.

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  Man, again, such a, I'd known Will for over 10 years at this point. And when he was sharing like, because what I was going for is I wanted to get a scope from what happened to Bob White quail from a biologist's perspective.

• 1:04:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  But then like Will, like some of his first hunting experiences was hunting with his uncle when he was eight. And so like a real sense of what the culture was like. So you, you get kind of a balance. You get biology, but then you get hunting culture.

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  The human dimensions.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 1:04:43Steven Rinella?

  Can I make a, uh, episode recommendation?

• 1:04:46Speaker 02

  Please.

• 1:04:48Steven Rinella?

  I think you should go, this, I'm dead serious.

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:04:51Steven Rinella?

  It'd be a lot of fun. I think you should go to Wisconsin.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:55Steven Rinella?

  Team up with Doug Durn.

• 1:04:58Steven Rinella?

  But he can't be all the way in it, but team up with Doug Dern. And go around bars in southwest Wisconsin and interview people. Interview anyone in a bar that can tell you about what's wrong with deer management.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  That would be interesting.

• 1:05:18Steven Rinella?

  It would be a really, I think it would be deeply entertaining and very informative.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  That would be interesting.

• 1:05:24Steven Rinella?

  You would get such a disparate view of the state of deer man, like it doesn't need to be Wisconsin, but it needs to be like, it needs to be someplace where there's a lot of factors at play. Um, you know, like increased predation, uh, where there's a lot of slot in the soup.

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's a lot of different sauce.

• 1:05:46Steven Rinella?

  A lot in the stew, you know, like, like, let's say you went to an area where you're kind of on the southern edge of, of wolf expansion.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:05:54Steven Rinella?

  And you got CWD in the mix.

• 1:05:58Steven Rinella?

  And whatever, and do like deer biology according to dudes and bars.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  See, man, you actually.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Bar biology.

• 1:06:06Steven Rinella?

  Bar biology.

• 1:06:07Speaker 00

  That's a whole new podcast.

• 1:06:08Speaker 02

  You're kicking me down a whole line of thought because you could do the same thing, like again, like southeast. If I went around to, and was like, hey, man, what's going on with wild turkeys? You would get such a wide spectrum of answers.

• 1:06:22Steven Rinella?

  Bar biology.

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  Oh, man, it's the fire ants.

• 1:06:25Steven Rinella?

  But I tell people that and I quit drinking.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  You would get such a widespread of answers, man.

• 1:06:33Steven Rinella?

  The only bummer is I don't drink. I'd have to go in there like, I'd just go sit in there and drink water, hoping you come in. I'll be like, lakes in town? I'm gonna go down to the bar.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Just hang out.

• 1:06:43Steven Rinella?

  I need to get interviewed for this show. Bar biology.

• 1:06:46Speaker 00

  Man, Steve seemed toasted in that one. He must've been just drinking straight vodka.

• 1:06:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's so funny because I was like, he's so high. I'm like, no, I'm not.

• 1:06:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, that'd be a good one. That is a good idea. It might work so good, you could do more. But yeah, just like, hey, man, what's like, if you went in and chill, don't go on a weekend. Don't go way late. Don't go mega late. You want the dudes that are in there 8pm.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Yeah. Post dinner, pre.

• 1:07:13Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:14Steven Rinella?

  Right?

• 1:07:14Speaker 05

  The happy hour crowd.

• 1:07:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Steven Rinella?

  Go in chill and be like, hey, man, I'm just trying to get. I'm just trying to get everybody's perspectives. I'd love to just, I'm trying to just get like, I don't want the agency guys. I don't want the government guys. I want to hear the guys on the ground.

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  Oh, my God.

• 1:07:29Steven Rinella?

  The guys in the field.

• 1:07:30Speaker 05

  That would be insane.

• 1:07:31Steven Rinella?

  The guys in the field. Meaning in the bar.

• 1:07:36Steven Rinella?

  The guys that were once in the field. Yeah. Like, what's going on, man? What's going on with turkeys? Yeah. Non-resonance wolves.

• 1:07:43Speaker 05

  Blue collar biology.

• 1:07:44Steven Rinella?

  Resonance poachers, fishing game.

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  Man, that sounds like my average call with a landowner.

• 1:07:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, let's talk about that. Um. Let's talk about what you do as a research tech. But hit me with the dates and everything. Lake Pickles, Backwoods University. June 6, Bear Grease Podcast feed.

• 1:08:08Steven Rinella?

  Tune in.

• 1:08:09Speaker 05

  And video on YouTube.

• 1:08:10Steven Rinella?

  Learn all kinds of stuff about wildlife. Yeah. Start with the quail. Start with. Me and Crin are in hot water with the quail community. I don't know if you know this. I've, I've heard, I've heard.

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  Why's that?

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  The quail community should listen to your two episodes.

• 1:08:25Steven Rinella?

  Cause we did a thing and we had a guy on that was a guy that knows what's wrong with quail. And, and there's a.

• 1:08:34Steven Rinella?

  It's a rich stew. I talked, I talked to the biologist about it.

• 1:08:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's a, yeah. I'm aware.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  All, all the people wrote in from their bar stools.

• 1:08:43Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  To let us know.

• 1:08:44Steven Rinella?

  We had a guy, there's a, just, there's a. An alarming. Decline in bobwhite quail numbers, which has been going on for a long time across an enormous geographic area. We had a person on talking about his feelings about what's happening to quail in a, in a relatively isolated geographic area. And has a solution, has a proposed solution. That in some people's minds does not adequately address the root cause. And to hear him out. Um, is bad.

• 1:09:24Steven Rinella?

  Right?

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it pretty much sums it up, yeah.

• 1:09:29Speaker 02

  I did learn, you want the, the first noted declines that they can find in the, in the North America. You know when it was?

• 1:09:38Steven Rinella?

  You tell me, where?

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  No, when, like when the first notable declines of Bob White Quill.

• 1:09:44Steven Rinella?

  Barroom declines or like decline declines?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  From the, from the biologist, like.

• 1:09:51Steven Rinella?

  Uh, what's the question again?

• 1:09:52Speaker 02

  When were the first noted declines?

• 1:09:54Speaker 05

  First, like statistically significant decline, yeah.

• 1:09:59Steven Rinella?

  1920.

• 1:10:00Speaker 02

  1890.

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Wow. Industrial revolution.

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  But, yeah, most people, now if you want to go back to the barroom side, he's like, everyone normally says 1966. But that's, they started doing, uh, brood surveys in the 1960s, so that's why they say that.

• 1:10:17Speaker 05

  So where does the data come from?

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  I don't know. I'd have to go back and listen to that interview again.

• 1:10:22Steven Rinella?

  Well, you just learned this the other day.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:25Steven Rinella?

  Barstool biology.

• 1:10:26Speaker 02

  And they had.

• 1:10:27Steven Rinella?

  Hopefully don't get sued by Barstool Sports. No, it's Bar Biology.

• 1:10:29Speaker 05

  Bar Biology, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bar Biology.

• 1:10:32Steven Rinella?

  He's a kind of an anti-Hunter.

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Is he?

• 1:10:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I've always wanted to have him on. Dave Portnoy?

• 1:10:36Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, no, he is. I didn't know he was anti-Hunter. What about like Barstool Outdoors and all that?

• 1:10:40Steven Rinella?

  Uh, well, Portnoy is kind, I guess he like, uh, I think he's kind of like, uh, waffles on the edge of, um, humane society kind of stuff. Yeah, I'd like to have him on, if you're listening.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  Probably not. It'd be weird if he was.

• 1:10:55Speaker 05

  He likes pizza, just sitting there stewing like Doug.

• 1:10:58Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, we'll get, like, if Dave comes on, if you come on, I'll buy you, I'll take you around and you can get all kinds of pizza.

• 1:11:04Speaker 05

  Common ground in pizza.

• 1:11:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I'll take you.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, he probably hasn't done pizza reviews in Bozeman.

• 1:11:07Steven Rinella?

  No, you can do like a whole, dude, come on.

• 1:11:10Speaker 05

  You know who loves pizza? People in the South.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  Southern folks, yeah.

• 1:11:15Steven Rinella?

  They don't eat pizza down there.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  I don't know about Yankees, but so the southern, the South, yeah, they love it.

• 1:11:19Steven Rinella?

  You know what you guys are on to is um boiling them peanuts.

• 1:11:23Speaker 02

  Oh, man. I didn't even know that was unique to us until there was someone from out of town that was like boiled peanuts. Oh, the Asians do that. Yeah.

• 1:11:30Steven Rinella?

  I had no idea.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  I've never heard about that.

• 1:11:32Steven Rinella?

  I remember going to South Carolina and the guy I was with pulled over and get a hot, sopping wet, steamy bag of peanuts.

• 1:11:40Speaker 00

  They're so good.

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  There was a.

• 1:11:42Steven Rinella?

  I was like, dude, that's good, man.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  So there was a fella used to, he had a setup and you had to drive right past him if you're going to the local sporting goods store. He had his, his old pickup truck, he'd have him a little pop-up tent out there, he'd be boiling peanuts with jalapenos in them.

• 1:11:56Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  And you pull up to him, you roll down the window and he'd walk up to you and he'd say, you want a big fat bag or a little fat bag?

• 1:12:03Speaker 00

  Did he wear a trench coat?

• 1:12:05Speaker 02

  Oh, no, he had, he had overalls on, yeah.

• 1:12:09Steven Rinella?

  All right, old trapper Kate.

• 1:12:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:11Steven Rinella?

  Thanks for coming on, man, I appreciate it.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, thanks for the invite.

• 1:12:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, well, I just, like I said, I just wanted to talk to you because you like trapping.

• 1:12:16Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:12:17Steven Rinella?

  But first tell me, what, what do you do at Kansas State?

• 1:12:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, um, so I'm a, I'm a research technician, um, so doing, out in the field, doing the, the down and dirty work for all the, all the research projects. And started on a, an elk survey when I first got into town, um, moved over to flying squirrels.

• 1:12:37Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:12:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:38Steven Rinella?

  Is that a demotion?

• 1:12:40Speaker 05

  You know, uh, it depends who you ask, I think. Um, it was, it was cool. I mean, flying squirrels are cool.

• 1:12:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, tell me something about flying squirrels. I don't really know much about them.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  Few people do.

• 1:12:52Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 05

  Um, but, uh, they love suet cakes. So that's how we would bait them in for the cameras.

• 1:12:59Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:13:00Speaker 05

  Peanut butter suet cakes.

• 1:13:01Steven Rinella?

  So they'll eat meat?

• 1:13:02Speaker 05

  Um, well, I guess that's an interesting.

• 1:13:06Steven Rinella?

  Well, no, in fact, I know they do because they'll, they'll turn up, they'll get onto Martin sets.

• 1:13:10Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and all, I think all squirrels are kind of opportunistic omnivores in that way.

• 1:13:16Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:17Speaker 05

  But, um, yeah, suet cakes, um, and we would do camera traps to try to survey them during the summer. And then, uh, sort of a nest box kind of set up to get, get colonies in the winter. And that's when you go in and tag them because they're all holed up together.

• 1:13:32Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  In these little nest boxes. And so, yeah, you just kind of sneak up to the box, cover the entrance.

• 1:13:37Steven Rinella?

  And how many are in there?

• 1:13:39Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh, there could be like five or six, I think.

• 1:13:42Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that's gotta be cute.

• 1:13:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, oh, my gosh, they are adorable, those big old eyes. Um, but, yeah, and then, uh, And then I got moved over to the Turkey Project in September of 23. So I've been doing that, doing that since then.

• 1:13:56Steven Rinella?

  And what's that looking at?

• 1:13:58Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh, everything. So it's statewide and we're looking at resource selection, just kind of general landscape scale. Where are they going? What are they? Like, what does it look like they're preferentially kind of selecting for? Rouge tree selection.

• 1:14:15Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, which is actually pretty interesting seeing the the difference between like the western side of the state, just kind of across that longitudinal gradient. Um.

• 1:14:25Steven Rinella?

  You mean in what, in what types of trees they want to be in?

• 1:14:28Speaker 05

  The height of the tree, the diameter of the tree, the species, like everything kind of there. So we're doing.

• 1:14:36Steven Rinella?

  In that area, how apt is a how apt is a turkey to use the same tree two nights in a row?

• 1:14:44Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh. Um, it depends on the region.

• 1:14:49Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:49Speaker 05

  Um, because the farther west you go, the fewer their options are for like a suitable size and um, just anything that's like that can reasonably hold.

• 1:15:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 05

  So they're, they're more, they have more roost fidelity in the west versus the east.

• 1:15:06Steven Rinella?

  I could put, that's like just observationally, that's been my finding where, I mean, it's kind of obvious, but places where there's not any trees.

• 1:15:12Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:15:13Steven Rinella?

  Um, under down in Sonora, Mexico, where there's just the only possible roost tree is a sycamore grove in a canyon bottom. So like, no kidding.

• 1:15:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:22Steven Rinella?

  Like, because within 10 miles, there's, it's just the sycamore grove. And so they're like a magnet, but we hunted in Colorado this year and got to kind of wash different groups.

• 1:15:29Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:31Steven Rinella?

  I mean,

• 1:15:33Steven Rinella?

  they would be, they would be 800 yards, 900 yards, these different groups every day.

• 1:15:40Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:41Steven Rinella?

  Like no sense of going back to where they came from.

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:43Steven Rinella?

  But it's tons of ponderosa.

• 1:15:45Speaker 05

  So many, yeah, so many options. Yeah. So that's kind of, that is kind of what, what we're seeing there.

• 1:15:51Steven Rinella?

  They drift around.

• 1:15:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. When they have like the, when you're, when you're in like the, the bigger kind of woodlots or bigger, bigger creek bottoms, river bottoms in the east. They'll kind of move around a little bit on a rotation or just kind of have they'll bust bust off into like different groups within one flock. And kind of end up on different roosts each night.

• 1:16:11Steven Rinella?

  Do you guys go find out what killed them when they die?

• 1:16:13Speaker 05

  Oh, that's impossible.

• 1:16:15Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it is?

• 1:16:15Speaker 05

  They get scavenged so hard, so fast.

• 1:16:18Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  Um, it's really hard to tell like what exactly got them. Um.

• 1:16:23Steven Rinella?

  That's a tough one.

• 1:16:24Speaker 05

  It's so hard. Um, same with the nests, like they get scavenged so fast. Um, that trying to pinpoint exactly why a nest failed. Or if it if it was actually predated, or if it was just abandoned and then scavenged afterwards, like. Unless you're literally sitting there like 24/7 watching that nest, it's it's almost impossible to tell. You can kind of tell like what ate the egg, like if the egg was eaten. Like if you just find like eggshell, you can kind of tell what ate it.

• 1:16:53Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:16:53Speaker 05

  But whether or not it was like the hen abandoned it first and then something else found it.

• 1:16:58Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I got it.

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  After.

• 1:16:59Steven Rinella?

  Like she got killed and therefore.

• 1:17:01Speaker 05

  She got killed or she just some, we've noticed that they just sometimes they just walk away.

• 1:17:06Steven Rinella?

  Cause what would cause them to do that?

• 1:17:08Speaker 05

  We're not sure.

• 1:17:09Steven Rinella?

  They'll ditch it.

• 1:17:10Speaker 05

  They'll just ditch it. Yeah.

• 1:17:11Steven Rinella?

  But you feel that the eggs are viable.

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  They'll lay like a couple eggs and then just ditch it. Yeah.

• 1:17:14Steven Rinella?

  Too stressful or who knows?

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  So, yeah, who knows? Yeah, it's it's interesting. Um, but yeah.

• 1:17:21Steven Rinella?

  I never knew, I didn't realize that the forensics is tough on turkeys.

• 1:17:24Speaker 05

  It is so tough. I mean, they're like, they're such a nice little snack for just about anything that, you know. If they're out there longer than 24 hours before you get there. It's the odds of something finding finding the the body.

• 1:17:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, cause you show up and some possums sitting there, that doesn't tell you what happened to kill it.

• 1:17:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, you don't, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's why like. A lot of studies, people are like wanting to put cameras on the nests, but just like having that camera there and the smell of the camera and stuff is. That that increases the the risk of predation, because a lot of predators will actually key in on that little bit of human scent. Like they'll key in on the scent of like another predator in that like one specific spot and they they like actually learn like, okay, there's. There's something there. And so you're increasing the risk of predation on this nest. By putting a camera there, but that's really the only way to know exactly what happened. So it's, we're kind of stuck in a. A dead zone there.

• 1:18:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:22Speaker 05

  Of not, not really being able to exactly say what happened.

• 1:18:26Steven Rinella?

  I've talked to guys that, that work on collaring studies.

• 1:18:30Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:30Steven Rinella?

  Where they're collaring, you know, big game animals with big, visible collars.

• 1:18:35Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:18:35Steven Rinella?

  That are probably hard to get used to.

• 1:18:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Steven Rinella?

  And it's, I mean, they factor in and it's an open question.

• 1:18:42Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:43Steven Rinella?

  But, once you do that, how accurate is the mortality study?

• 1:18:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:48Steven Rinella?

  Cause when something's chasing or whatever, or they recognize like something's wrong with that thing.

• 1:18:53Speaker 05

  Something's different, yeah.

• 1:18:53Steven Rinella?

  Do you know what I mean? It's got like, however they read that collar.

• 1:18:56Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah, so we have, um, on the hens that we're, we're tagging, we have backpack transmitters.

• 1:19:03Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:03Speaker 05

  And they're, you know, they're slick and they're, they're black. Like, they're not, they're not obvious, but, um, you have to be careful about like how it affects the movement of that hen. Like, you have to make sure she has full extension of her wings. Like, it's not, you only, only put them on hens that are hefty enough. Like, it can't be over a certain percent of their body weight.

• 1:19:24Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:19:24Speaker 05

  Um, otherwise, like, it's gonna impact their ability to get up in a roost and it's just gonna wear on them, like, having that, walking around with that weight. Um, but, we also, we also ditch all the data from anything that dies within two weeks of capture.

• 1:19:37Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:19:38Speaker 05

  So that, like, if it's a mortality that could be directly related to either capture stress, or like, something to do with the transmitter, like, just not adjusting well.

• 1:19:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Steven Rinella?

  That starts to address what I'm getting at. That you could just never get used to it.

• 1:19:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's typical with any kind of collaring, um, any kind of tagging study is like, i- if you have a mortality within a certain window of time after the capture, you just omit it from the data because it's, you, you just write it off as a capture-related mortality.

• 1:20:06Steven Rinella?

  Like, you freaked it out too bad, or whatever.

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, they can get, uh, like, capture myopathy, just like their, their muscles just melt, basically.

• 1:20:14Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:20:14Speaker 05

  From the stress. Yeah, and they just kinda, they just kinda can't move anymore.

• 1:20:19Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you've got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean, and they'll get years and

• 1:21:02Steven Rinella?

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• 1:21:42Speaker 06

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• 1:21:56Steven Rinella?

  When you're miles deep in the mountains and carrying everything you need on your back, your boots aren't gear you think about, they're what you depend on. That's why Western hunters trust Zamborland. Man, I'm telling you, I've been running around in some Zamborlands. They are so comfortable, and just well-built, and feel great in the hills. Family-owned, and handcrafted in Italy through three generations. Zamborland boots combine nearly a century of bootmaking expertise with premium materials and new innovations for any pursuit, game, and terrain. They're comfortable. Supportive, resolable and built for the long haul. From rocky desert to steep shale slopes, Zamberland's perfected their craft to ensure your success.

• 1:22:39Steven Rinella?

  Head to zamberlandusa.com for handcrafted boots for every season. Zamberlandusa.com. You're gonna love getting your feet into a set of these.

• 1:22:51Steven Rinella?

  You know what I'm remembering right now, and I meant to put it on Instagram, but like I totally forgot about till you just said it to me. Is a guy rolled us, rolled us in.

• 1:23:02Steven Rinella?

  And he had been out hunting and found a turkey nest.

• 1:23:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Steven Rinella?

  And put a camera on it. And man, do you, did you, has anybody else seen this video? Well, I don't think I have. I don't know what it was. It was like 12 hours later, there was a coyote standing there eating all those eggs. Right away.

• 1:23:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, so part of this, part of this study is a wide scale, uh, camera. Wide scale camera survey for predators. And this is like not related to the turkey location. So we're just, based on the capture locations, we're doing like a broad kind of placement, random placement of cameras around the capture sites. Just to kind of see what the predator communities are in those areas.

• 1:23:45Steven Rinella?

  Hanging out.

• 1:23:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then we'll try to kind of see if there's a correlation between what the predator communities look like. And what happened to those, like what kind of patterns we saw in the turkeys in those areas. But, um, I noticed going through, I mean, we have, uh, 600 plus camera sites. Per survey season and we're on our third now. So there's, I mean, over 500,000 photos at this point. And I noticed going through those photos that immediately after the cameras would be deployed. Like if there was going to be a bobcat on that camera, it was usually like that night.

• 1:24:21Steven Rinella?

  Like, what is that?

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  They just smell.

• 1:24:23Steven Rinella?

  Why is it not repelling them?

• 1:24:25Speaker 05

  Their cats are, cats especially are so curious. Like coyotes are a little more wary.

• 1:24:30Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:31Speaker 05

  Um, and this is actually a big thing with trapping, like cat trapping versus coyote trapping. You can be really flashy with cats and they'll, they'll come in because they, they're more prone to just investigate.

• 1:24:40Steven Rinella?

  Like what's going on here?

• 1:24:41Speaker 05

  They have a lot more confidence.

• 1:24:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:43Speaker 05

  Um, so when they like smell that human scent in a random area that they don't normally smell it, like they come right.

• 1:24:49Steven Rinella?

  Like they got some association with humans and food.

• 1:24:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:53Steven Rinella?

  Gut piles.

• 1:24:54Speaker 05

  Or they're just like, what's going on? Like just curious. Yeah. So I, I noticed that like really quickly. I'm like, the first thing on most of these cameras, like if there's gonna, if there's a cat on it, it's gonna be like the first thing.

• 1:25:06Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:06Speaker 05

  That's on there. It's really interesting.

• 1:25:08Steven Rinella?

  Have you ever had the ethical issue of, um, you got all these turkeys running around?

• 1:25:13Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:25:14Steven Rinella?

  How do, what, how do you view that it would influence your hunting activities?

• 1:25:18Speaker 05

  Oh my God. I, I don't pay attention to it at all. Like I, I have, I did so much turkey hunting before I got on this project that I like already had spots picked out and stuff on public to where, you know, it's far removed from anywhere. We have turkeys tagged.

• 1:25:35Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:25:35Speaker 05

  And I have like no desire to go anywhere near those tagged turkeys.

• 1:25:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:39Speaker 05

  Um, so yeah, I just, I, I hunt the spots that I found, you know, way before I got involved. No insider trading.

• 1:25:45Steven Rinella?

  Yep. I, I got, I got a friend that worked on, uh, he's worked on some wolf collaring project. He's a pilot.

• 1:25:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:51Steven Rinella?

  He has no access to the data.

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:25:54Steven Rinella?

  But he's a pilot for the thing.

• 1:25:55Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:25:56Steven Rinella?

  And, but he's also a wolf trapper.

• 1:25:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:58Steven Rinella?

  And he says, man, I go the other direction.

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:01Steven Rinella?

  He goes, I don't even have access, but just what people will say.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Steven Rinella?

  He goes, I don't, anything that happened when I worked on that, I go the other way because just perception.

• 1:26:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. And just really like, I wouldn't, I, I would be kind of bummed like if I shot a tom and it had a tag on it that I'm like, I could have tagged that tom.

• 1:26:19Steven Rinella?

  For sure.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:21Steven Rinella?

  You know what's puzzling is, um,

• 1:26:25Steven Rinella?

  We I I've brought this up a bunch of times over the years that like like would you shoot a if you saw a collared whitetail? Would you want to shoot a collared deer?

• 1:26:33Speaker 05

  Uh, being like where I am now, like actually involved in the kind of wildlife tagging business.

• 1:26:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:41Speaker 05

  Um, I don't, I I would say I don't really have a desire like that would probably make me less likely to want to shoot that one.

• 1:26:49Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:49Speaker 05

  Um, which I know is you're not supposed to do that.

• 1:26:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Speaker 05

  Um, for the science of it, but like, I definitely am not more inclined to shoot a tagged animal.

• 1:26:58Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, which is which people bring up was like, why it's so coveted to get a tagged duck.

• 1:27:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:04Steven Rinella?

  Or a tagged goose, but people don't want some collar on a deer.

• 1:27:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Steven Rinella?

  It's like, it's like hard to explain, man, because I feel like the deer's been, uh, not corrupted, but he's like, he's lost his.

• 1:27:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:16Steven Rinella?

  He's lost his.

• 1:27:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:27:18Steven Rinella?

  His wild juju, you know what I mean?

• 1:27:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. You have the image in your head of some someone like tackling this deer.

• 1:27:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it just feels like you're not, you're not like the first person on the scene, you know, there's been some other person.

• 1:27:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:31Steven Rinella?

  Monkeying with it.

• 1:27:32Speaker 05

  You know, like, there's not a lot of, there's at least one bit of mystery in that deer's life that is like no more.

• 1:27:38Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:38Speaker 05

  Like, you're like, I know at least one thing that happened.

• 1:27:40Steven Rinella?

  You know, he got manhandled. Do you guys ever have, are with all your collaring projects or tagging projects, do you ever have get a mortality? And then or get whatever and go there and be like, someone shot this thing, like someone poached the turkey?

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  Um, you know, I don't think we've had that issue yet.

• 1:28:01Steven Rinella?

  Like it turns up, I remember talking to a guy that was in a coll or in a turkey, you don't call it collaring, what do you call it, tagging?

• 1:28:07Speaker 05

  Um, well, we use an unscientific term of transmittering.

• 1:28:13Steven Rinella?

  His transmitter turkey wound up in the middle of a wood stack.

• 1:28:18Speaker 05

  Ooh.

• 1:28:18Steven Rinella?

  Missing its, missing its breast, missing its breast.

• 1:28:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, there's a clue.

• 1:28:24Steven Rinella?

  He went as far to breast it out. Yeah, which felt very suspicious.

• 1:28:28Speaker 05

  Figure out what happened to it.

• 1:28:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, they like buried it in their own wood pile.

• 1:28:32Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 1:28:33Steven Rinella?

  Fan's gone, the beard's gone.

• 1:28:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. What killed this guy, I wonder?

• 1:28:37Steven Rinella?

  Um, I feel like they were telling me that it was, uh, at that time, I feel like they were telling me it was glued onto it. Glued into the feathers, is that not right?

• 1:28:45Speaker 05

  That's not right. If that happened, that was not a good. Idea.

• 1:28:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I feel like they were super gluing.

• 1:28:52Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:28:52Steven Rinella?

  They were super gluing it into its feathers.

• 1:28:56Speaker 05

  When was this? How long ago?

• 1:28:59Steven Rinella?

  When did I have this conversation? Over 10 years ago.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  I wonder.

• 1:29:01Steven Rinella?

  He's still alive.

• 1:29:02Speaker 05

  I don't know if that was.

• 1:29:03Steven Rinella?

  For what it's worth.

• 1:29:04Speaker 05

  I want to say that that was never supposed to be the standard for for putting transmitters on. Um, you, we do use super glue, but we use super glue. So we use marine shock cord.

• 1:29:16Steven Rinella?

  What's that?

• 1:29:17Speaker 05

  To make like the, it's, it's kind of like a, it's almost like a, a, if a bungee and paracord made a baby.

• 1:29:25Steven Rinella?

  I got you. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

• 1:29:27Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:29:28Steven Rinella?

  What do you call it? Marine?

• 1:29:30Speaker 05

  Marine shock cord, just marine grade. So it can stand up to the weather and everything.

• 1:29:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:34Speaker 05

  Um, so we use that to make the, make like the little backpack straps.

• 1:29:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Speaker 05

  And then when we knot it, use like a surgical knot to, to tie it off, then we'll put super glue on that knot. But we put like a piece of cardboard underneath so that none of the super glue gets, gets on the feathers because you don't want that.

• 1:29:49Steven Rinella?

  Understood.

• 1:29:50Speaker 05

  And you do not want to glue the transmitter to the bird.

• 1:29:55Steven Rinella?

  Well, this might've been the pioneering days of turkey.

• 1:29:57Speaker 05

  Maybe. Yeah. That's why I'm like, you know, I don't know. Maybe we got to this, this strategy because the old one

• 1:30:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:04Speaker 05

  of super gluing them directly to the bird turned out to not be a great idea.

• 1:30:08Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:08Speaker 05

  But, um.

• 1:30:09Steven Rinella?

  Might be abandoned now. So what's your like, well, I want to get into your trapping business too, but what, what, how, how does? How's your career? How, how'd your career path go and what happens to you next?

• 1:30:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, um, I, I always knew I was going to go into some kind of science. Um, and some kind of like biological science. I was always super interested in the outdoors and like insects and birds and all kinds of things. Like that was just always my jam. And, um, so I knew when it came time to think about, okay, what kind of degree do I want to get? I was like slam dunk. Well, some kind of wildlife biology, environmental science, something like that.

• 1:30:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:49Speaker 05

  Um, so I graduated in, uh, December of 21, uh, with a wildlife biology degree.

• 1:30:55Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:30:56Speaker 05

  Um, immediately went into a TA job for that program, uh, which was just like a temporary thing. There's a. Um, I went to NC State. There's a mandatory summer program for all of the wildlife biology folks. Um, and it's all, it's six weeks in the field. You go and do like hands-on IDs and tagging and all kinds of stuff. It's super cool. Um, so that was my first job out of undergrad was that TA job. Um, then I moved to Kansas and, uh, found my way into the, uh, the wildlife, uh, the wildlife departments there. Um, and that's when I got into the elk, the elk project.

• 1:31:31Steven Rinella?

  And that's just like a salary job, full-time salary job?

• 1:31:34Speaker 05

  This is hourly. Um, yeah, most, most tech jobs are hourly. Um, but you know, it's, it's like always just 40 hour. You just put in 40 hours a week.

• 1:31:44Steven Rinella?

  And that's what you're still doing now?

• 1:31:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:31:47Steven Rinella?

  And then what happens next?

• 1:31:48Speaker 05

  Um, ideally, um, I would absolutely love to turn trapping somehow into a full-time business of like trapping, fur handling, uh, taxidermy at least. Like I've tried to dabble in like actual mounts and stuff. Um, I still have a lot to learn there, but, uh, I had a dermisted colony. Uh, I just moved really recently, so I don't have it set up again yet, but I had a dermisted colony and that was like a really good kind of side gig to run was, uh, skull cleaning.

• 1:32:22Steven Rinella?

  Sure.

• 1:32:22Speaker 05

  Um, and for my own skulls that I got from, from trapping and everything, I, I sell, sell all those. So I would just, you know, run them through the beetles and, and sell those.

• 1:32:31Steven Rinella?

  You don't have it now?

• 1:32:32Speaker 05

  No, I gotta get it started back up again. I don't have like a great place to set up. You know, you know how they smell?

• 1:32:38Steven Rinella?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:32:39Speaker 05

  The dermisted colonies. So I'm like-

• 1:32:40Steven Rinella?

  It's like nothing, it's like nothing you've ever smelled.

• 1:32:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:43Steven Rinella?

  There's probably like things, little tricks you can do.

• 1:32:45Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:32:46Steven Rinella?

  But I've been to some that are just horrific, man.

• 1:32:48Speaker 05

  Yeah. If you have like the right ventilation system, that's the biggest thing. Like you have to have it really well ventilated.

• 1:32:53Steven Rinella?

  They create their own kind of funk, man.

• 1:32:55Speaker 05

  Yes. And God forbid you get flies. In it.

• 1:32:58Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:32:59Speaker 05

  Somehow the like the Beatles don't smell that bad if you have them ventilated right. But if maggots get in there, I don't know what it is about a maggot that they just smell so much worse.

• 1:33:10Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:10Speaker 05

  And, uh.

• 1:33:10Steven Rinella?

  Well, they probably come in on people's bringing in maggoty stuff.

• 1:33:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's the problem. And like, you can't really kill a ma- like, you can freeze the skulls like indefinitely. And it feels like the second you thaw it, the maggots still just pop out. Like, it just doesn't kill them. So, yeah, you gotta be careful about like not leaving skulls out where they're gonna get flies.

• 1:33:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:30Speaker 05

  On them. And, uh, and you gotta be careful about the, uh, cause I, I did, I took in, I took in a skull at some point that had been left out where it got maggots in it and it just destroyed the colony.

• 1:33:41Steven Rinella?

  God, oh, really? That was it?

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  I mean, you just got, yeah, you just gotta ditch it and start it, start fresh.

• 1:33:46Steven Rinella?

  You have to kill all those thousands of lives.

• 1:33:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yep.

• 1:33:52Steven Rinella?

  Let's say, I got a hypothetical for you. Let's say you're at Meat Eater Trivia.

• 1:33:56Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:33:57Steven Rinella?

  And the answer to the question is dermasted.

• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:01Steven Rinella?

  Okay. And, and someone, and you're the judge.

• 1:34:04Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:34:05Steven Rinella?

  And someone writes dermifted. Would you give it to them?

• 1:34:10Speaker 05

  Dermifted? Uh, I probably would.

• 1:34:15Steven Rinella?

  It's a good, it's a good thing you're not the judge then. Dude, I gotta revisit.

• 1:34:20Speaker 05

  There's like, like what else, what else could you be going for? Right?

• 1:34:25Steven Rinella?

  Exactly my point.

• 1:34:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. I'm guessing that you said dermifted.

• 1:34:30Steven Rinella?

  That was me, yeah. And I did not get it.

• 1:34:32Speaker 05

  You're asking for a friend.

• 1:34:34Steven Rinella?

  Did not get it.

• 1:34:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's, I, I call bullshit on that one. That.

• 1:34:39Steven Rinella?

  You're changing your answer?

• 1:34:40Speaker 05

  No, no, no, no, no. I call bullshit on not giving it to you. Yeah.

• 1:34:43Steven Rinella?

  All right. So, so get me to, um, how'd you get into trapping?

• 1:34:48Speaker 05

  Um, so.

• 1:34:49Steven Rinella?

  Cause there's not a lot of young trappers.

• 1:34:51Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:34:51Steven Rinella?

  And there's not a lot of female trappers.

• 1:34:53Speaker 05

  Yes, and not a lot of first generation trappers.

• 1:34:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I remember a startling statistic from Michigan.

• 1:34:59Speaker 05

  Mm.

• 1:34:59Steven Rinella?

  I never looked to see if it's true, but the guy that told me would know. He's like, he was telling me that, and this, this is some years ago. He said the eh, every year. The average age of a trapper in Michigan.

• 1:35:14Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:35:14Steven Rinella?

  Goes up.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  By a year.

• 1:35:15Steven Rinella?

  A year.

• 1:35:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:17Steven Rinella?

  The more you think about that dude, it's like stunning.

• 1:35:20Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah. Um, so I, I just like never really hit a limit with what I want to do in the outdoors. Like, I've taught myself pretty much everything.

• 1:35:33Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:35:33Speaker 05

  Um, I'm kind of in the same boat as Lake where, you know, my dad was like a casual deer hunter. Um, and but really into fishing and my mom as well. So I grew up fishing a ton and I was just obsessed with it.

• 1:35:48Steven Rinella?

  Good.

• 1:35:48Speaker 05

  And my dad would go out, you know, a couple of times, a couple of times a season, go walk around. He literally would just go for a hike with a gun and just hope he bumped into something.

• 1:35:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like deer hunting.

• 1:35:58Speaker 05

  Um, yeah. Um, so he didn't even, he didn't get his first, uh, his first deer until I was, um, I want to say I was like six or something. Um, and my mom like wouldn't let me go anywhere. She's like, don't look, don't look. I don't want it like, keep the meat away. Like, don't, I don't want her seeing this.

• 1:36:17Steven Rinella?

  She thought it traumatized you.

• 1:36:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, she, she herself was kind of like, oh, I don't like this. Um, but yeah, the more, the more and more I got into fishing, um, the more I was like, I just wanted something else. And the natural next step was like, oh, you know, what about hunting? And my dad's like, I don't know. Kind of same with you and the turkey hunting. Like, my dad's like, I don't know what I'm doing. Um, so he took me to an outfitter, um, got my first deer. He was like super nervous that I was going to be turned off. When I shot my first deer, I was going to have like a emotional breakdown or something, but I was so stoked. Um, I shot two on my first, my first hunt, uh, the last like afternoon after sitting in like cold rain the whole time.

• 1:36:59Steven Rinella?

  Where did he take you to go on a guided deer hunt?

• 1:37:01Speaker 05

  Uh, northeastern North Carolina.

• 1:37:03Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:37:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So this was, so I was actually born in New Jersey. Um, lived there until I was six. So we hunted or we fished a lot um up north uh did a lot of fishing up in like upstate New York and stuff, just worm and bobber.

• 1:37:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:16Speaker 05

  Moved down to North Carolina and we could not get on fish to save our lives. Like we could not catch a thing.

• 1:37:22Steven Rinella?

  Like your old tricks weren't working.

• 1:37:23Speaker 05

  No. I mean, uh, there was no trick like up north. I mean, we would just take any kind of live bait and chuck it in there and you'd catch like a nice molly or yellow perch or something like there was just nothing to it.

• 1:37:34Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:37:35Speaker 05

  And yeah, get down to North Carolina. It's this like muddy ass water. We're like sitting there with like minnows and stuff. We're like, why can't we catch anything? And everybody was kind of giving up. Like my parents were like not interested anymore. My dad's like, I think I'm going to sell the boat. And I was like, this can't happen.

• 1:37:52Speaker 05

  Like I just loved it so much. And so I was like, I gotta figure this out. And um, that's when I got into bass fishing because I was, I was like researching, you know, what kind of fishing is good around here and large mouth bass? So then I started learning how to fish artificial, learned how to use a bait caster. Um, and ended up getting really into that. And then that was what led me into, like when I got super into bass fishing. I was like, there's gotta be something I can do, you know, in the, in the winter when like bass fishing's not like super fun. Um, and uh, I know someone might be making a face at that because there are a lot of people that fish bass in the winter out there and think it's amazing.

• 1:38:31Steven Rinella?

  There's nothing you can say, there's nothing you can say that someone's not gonna dis- yeah, that someone's not gonna disagree with.

• 1:38:35Speaker 05

  But for me, I was like, I love fishing, like the weed beds in the summer. That was my thing. And I'm like, I want something to do in the winter, fall and winter. So um, it just seemed like if I like fishing so much, I probably will like hunting. And so got into hunting. Um, and then when I kind of got, got my feet under myself with hunting. Um, then I started to find myself being like, okay, but what about, what about like after deer season and before turkey season?

• 1:38:59Steven Rinella?

  The February problem.

• 1:39:00Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly. I was, I'm sitting there like, uh, you know, I can go shed hunting, go just hike around. I'm like, it's just not really scratching that itch for me.

• 1:39:08Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Speaker 05

  And I actually watched the beaver trapping episode, the Wyoming beaver trapping episode. And I was like, hmm.

• 1:39:14Steven Rinella?

  That was a long time ago.

• 1:39:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:39:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:17Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, I was like, I wonder. And this this creek bottom that I had been hunting on public for for deer for several years, this beautiful swamp bottom, full of beavers. And I was like, that seems like a very easy, like, first step is like, just trying to snare a beaver in that creek. I'm like, I know it like the back of my hand.

• 1:39:37Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:37Speaker 05

  Like, I can get in, get out pretty easily. Snares are like a super straightforward thing to use. They were legal there, only for beaver. But, yeah, so I went in, beginning of January, and this was in 2021. I went in, made all my sets, two nights later, got my first beaver.

• 1:39:58Steven Rinella?

  With a snare?

• 1:39:59Speaker 05

  With a snare. And it was, I, it was just like, it just clicked. I was like, this is it. Like, this is the thing. It just felt so natural. And so, like, there was like, it was like a kind of a puzzle that hunting doesn't really give you.

• 1:40:15Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:16Speaker 05

  And it was like exactly what I'd been craving. So I, I went so hard that season. I think I ended up getting 11 beavers out of that little creek bottom. I got a couple otter, which is awesome.

• 1:40:27Steven Rinella?

  And snares?

• 1:40:28Speaker 05

  Um, no, so you're not allowed to use snares for otters there. I started using 330s after I got kind of confident with, uh, because at first, when I was looking at a 330, I was like, oh, that's terrifying. Like, my arm's gonna come off.

• 1:40:38Steven Rinella?

  Good way to break your wrist.

• 1:40:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, once I got a little more comfortable, I got some 330s and I put those out. And so I got a couple otter. And then, kind of towards the end of the season, I started trying raccoon, too, because there's so many raccoons, any creek bottoms.

• 1:40:51Steven Rinella?

  What'd you do with your otters?

• 1:40:53Speaker 05

  Um, I put, I just skinned them out. I actually have all of the, I've only gotten three otters, because, you know, that place was stacked with them. Kansas is not.

• 1:41:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Speaker 05

  So, I wasn't in North Carolina very long before I moved to Kansas, and I only got three. And I just love otters so much. I'm like, I couldn't let go of them. So I have all three of those pellets up on my wall.

• 1:41:13Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 1:41:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:14Steven Rinella?

  And then now, you got, then you got in, like, pretty sophisticated, like, bobcats and stuff.

• 1:41:18Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:41:18Steven Rinella?

  Like, top tier, top tier trap.

• 1:41:20Speaker 05

  Yes, which is amazing. That was like, Super unexpected to me. I mean, I knew everyone always says like, if you can catch a coyote, you can catch a cat. Like cats are just so much more confident and so much more predictable, really.

• 1:41:35Steven Rinella?

  And so much more not as many of them running around.

• 1:41:37Speaker 05

  Well, yes, that is. Yeah. So like, I'm always getting more numbers of coyotes than cats. Like if I'm running a pretty even line, um, but like if I find a cat track, it's like, I'm gonna get that cat.

• 1:41:48Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:41:48Speaker 05

  Like you can, you can just be so much more confident if you like, if you have the right.

• 1:41:53Steven Rinella?

  Within how many nights? You find a cat track in Kansas, within how many nights he's gonna, you're gonna have him?

• 1:41:58Speaker 05

  Oh, that's tough. I would say within a week because they do kind of run, they usually run kind of a, a loop.

• 1:42:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:05Speaker 05

  It within their territory. Same with coyotes. So like, if I see like, super fresh sign, I'm like, okay, maybe I'm like a little bit behind here and it's gonna take, you know, four or five nights before that cat comes back around.

• 1:42:18Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but he's gonna come and walk in that spot.

• 1:42:20Speaker 05

  Yep. He's gonna come right back through there and he is going to clue in on any kind of new smell, anything in there. And yeah. And like you can put out, cats are one of the few things that you can like, just drop a cage right there and they're just like, looks good to me and just walk right in.

• 1:42:36Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:37Speaker 05

  And, uh, a lot of times, like even when the cage closes on them, they're like, oh, well, and they'll just eat the rest of the bait.

• 1:42:43Steven Rinella?

  Eat the bait and hang out.

• 1:42:44Speaker 05

  And they'll just lay down. Yeah.

• 1:42:45Steven Rinella?

  So were you selling your bobcats this year?

• 1:42:47Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:42:47Steven Rinella?

  On the open market or do you, everything you sell, you sell yourself to your own customers?

• 1:42:51Speaker 05

  No. So if I get like a really, really nice cat, um, I prefer to sell them frozen whole.

• 1:42:57Steven Rinella?

  To taxidermy trade.

• 1:42:58Speaker 05

  Taxidermy trade.

• 1:42:59Steven Rinella?

  And they care about whether it's nice?

• 1:43:01Speaker 05

  Yes. They, well, they care about the spotting. That's really the big thing. So it's not, it's not really the length of the fur when you're selling to taxidermy market. It's the, the, the, uh, pattern and the coloration.

• 1:43:12Steven Rinella?

  They want nice spots.

• 1:43:13Speaker 05

  They want nice spots.

• 1:43:14Steven Rinella?

  Not just the belly, but the body.

• 1:43:15Speaker 05

  The body. Yeah. Like you can have a super plain belly, but if it's got like awesome spots and like the, um, rosettes and stuff down its sides and its back, like that's, cause they want something that's gonna be, they're usually buying these to make, uh, competition mounts.

• 1:43:29Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:43:29Speaker 05

  And so they want something that's like really striking, like super eye catching.

• 1:43:33Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:33Speaker 05

  Um, and even like kittens, a lot of times like kittens are, are really hot on the market. Um.

• 1:43:40Steven Rinella?

  What?

• 1:43:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. If, if like they'll, they'll sell so fast and you can get a decent chunk of change for them because it's like a. If you can get a kitten mount, like really, really nice, super realistic, it's so good in a competition.

• 1:43:52Steven Rinella?

  You know, when I was growing up,

• 1:43:57Steven Rinella?

  the, the worst thing you could do to an otter is touch it with a knife.

• 1:44:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:02Steven Rinella?

  The taxidermy trade was

• 1:44:03Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 1:44:04Steven Rinella?

  Hot for them.

• 1:44:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. It still is.

• 1:44:06Steven Rinella?

  And it'd be like,

• 1:44:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Steven Rinella?

  It'd be way more money.

• 1:44:10Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah.

• 1:44:11Steven Rinella?

  It wasn't even like, it was just, it was a completely separate deal.

• 1:44:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:14Steven Rinella?

  Did you have that? Like, did you sell stuff, Seth, the taxider-

• 1:44:17Speaker 03

  I never did, no, but I knew people who, who did. Like, every once in a while, someone would catch like a black coyote or a black red fox.

• 1:44:25Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:44:26Speaker 03

  Um, those typically went to, uh, taxidermy.

• 1:44:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's funny. You put all that work into, like, you can put all that work into an otter.

• 1:44:33Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:44:33Steven Rinella?

  Flash it, stretch it.

• 1:44:34Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:44:35Steven Rinella?

  25 bucks.

• 1:44:35Speaker 05

  It's worth more just on the round.

• 1:44:36Steven Rinella?

  Freeze it and bring it to a taxidermist, 100 bucks.

• 1:44:39Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:44:39Steven Rinella?

  And that's without calling around.

• 1:44:41Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:41Steven Rinella?

  That's just like, they don't even know, I never got, with the internet, you could probably get pretty targeted.

• 1:44:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, Facebook, there's, there's all kinds of, uh, Yeah, there's all kinds of trapper to taxidermists. You can start like a bidding war for, like, if you get something really awesome and you put it in one of these like trapper to taxidermist Facebook groups.

• 1:44:58Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 1:44:58Speaker 05

  Like, yeah, you could start a bidding war on some of that stuff.

• 1:45:02Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you got WeatherTech, you're gonna be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean, and they'll get years and years of use out of a set.

• 1:45:46Steven Rinella?

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• 1:45:52Steven Rinella?

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• 1:46:35Speaker 06

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• 1:46:50Steven Rinella?

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• 1:47:32Steven Rinella?

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• 1:47:45Steven Rinella?

  So do you sell anything into the trade, like into the normal market trade?

• 1:47:49Speaker 05

  No, I don't. I've never sold to a fur-

• 1:47:50Steven Rinella?

  So you're divorced from the market?

• 1:47:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, I do my own thing. I, I get everything dried, sent off to the tannery and I sell it in my Etsy store.

• 1:47:57Steven Rinella?

  What tannery do you use?

• 1:47:58Speaker 05

  Sleepy Creek in Iowa. They're, they're kind of, kinda new, um, but they do a fantastic job and really good pricing.

• 1:48:07Steven Rinella?

  Do you ever use, uh, Moil Mink and Tanner?

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  I haven't. Um, I went right to Sleepy Creek, um, cause they're, they have very, very competitive pricing and I like that.

• 1:48:17Steven Rinella?

  Alright, good.

• 1:48:18Speaker 05

  I'm in it for the profit margins.

• 1:48:20Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, so everything you catch, you, you sell wall hangers?

• 1:48:24Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:25Steven Rinella?

  Skulls?

• 1:48:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:48:27Steven Rinella?

  And you, you have enough of an outlet where you never get excess that you gotta go dump into the market?

• 1:48:31Speaker 05

  Nope. No, yeah, cause I'm, I'm trapping all on public. I'm doing it in my very limited free time outside of work. Um, so I, I can only run like a dozen sets at a time. Um-

• 1:48:44Steven Rinella?

  That's still fun as hell though.

• 1:48:45Speaker 05

  So much fun.

• 1:48:45Steven Rinella?

  I'm jealous.

• 1:48:46Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, so much fun. And yeah, so every catch to me is like, it's a big deal and I don't, I don't usually get into, I, if I get into double digits on any one species, that's like a really solid year. So it's nothing I can't handle myself.

• 1:49:00Steven Rinella?

  So even right now, like the way cat prices got kinda crazy this year, and some people think that they overbought, I don't know why, for some weird ass reason, I follow fur markets very closely.

• 1:49:12Speaker 05

  Well, it's, it's really interesting. There's so much nuance, yeah.

• 1:49:15Steven Rinella?

  It's a hobby of mine.

• 1:49:16Speaker 05

  It's like the stock market.

• 1:49:17Steven Rinella?

  Yes, well, no, I can see that. There's like a relevance argument to the stock market, but for me to follow fur prices is just like, it makes zero sense. I don't, I'm just into it. Anyways, there's suspicion

• 1:49:29Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 1:49:31Steven Rinella?

  That people overbought.

• 1:49:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 1:49:34Steven Rinella?

  Or like overpaid on cats.

• 1:49:35Speaker 05

  I can see that.

• 1:49:36Steven Rinella?

  But cats got crazy, so, but even then you can still do better. I don't want you to give all your trade secrets. You can, even with crazy cat prices, you can still do better not selling in the cat market?

• 1:49:46Speaker 05

  Um, I would say if you're not in one of like the high desert kinda states.

• 1:49:51Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:49:52Speaker 05

  Where they have like that crazy long fur, big white belly, nice spots, like Kansas cats, uh, were like a little too far east to have like-

• 1:50:00Steven Rinella?

  Like a middle tier cat?

• 1:50:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, but- Amazing spots on a lot of them. Um, like whenever someone says, oh, the cats here aren't spotted like that. That's not, that, that's bullshit. Cause they're, they're out there like it, it might be different percentages of ones that are super spotted. But like everywhere has spotted cats in there.

• 1:50:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:23Speaker 05

  Um, and part of the reason why I know that for certain is running this statewide camera survey.

• 1:50:29Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:50:29Speaker 05

  The number of just like unbelievably spotted cats that I'm seeing on these cameras. Like it's a pretty even mix of like the really like sandy kind of plain ones.

• 1:50:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:40Speaker 05

  And super spotted ones and like almost everyone I talk to, like when I catch a super spotted cat, they're like, oh man, that's crazy for around here. Like we don't get them like that. And I'm like, they're there.

• 1:50:52Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:50:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:53Steven Rinella?

  God, this is making me just irritated, man.

• 1:50:55Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um.

• 1:50:57Steven Rinella?

  When I get buried in Twin Lakes Cemetery, my grave is gonna say, um, he should have been a cat trap.

• 1:51:03Speaker 05

  It's not too late.

• 1:51:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:05Speaker 05

  They're, they're straightforward. If you can find.

• 1:51:07Steven Rinella?

  I've got, I've got a couple, but I mean, like really just doing it all the time, all day.

• 1:51:11Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. I am pretty jealous of like the high desert trappers that are just like, it hits that certain date of the season. And they get up in the mountains and they don't come down for like a month, month and a half.

• 1:51:23Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:24Speaker 05

  With like a whole truck loaded, just beautiful, like $800 cats. But yeah, for me like.

• 1:51:32Steven Rinella?

  You've got some nice looking cats on.

• 1:51:34Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:51:34Steven Rinella?

  On old, on old Trapper Kate.

• 1:51:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. I know. I've been, I feel very fortunate, um, to have gotten the ones that I have. They're beautiful, but those are, those are taxidermy market cats. Um, those are not fur market cats. Uh, I, I don't think I've gotten, I haven't gotten one yet that I was like, oh, that would do really well on the fur market. They just don't have the belly for it.

• 1:51:52Steven Rinella?

  So tell people where, where, how do they go find your market?

• 1:51:55Speaker 05

  Oh yeah. So I'm on Etsy, Little Shop of Furs is my shop name.

• 1:52:00Steven Rinella?

  So cute. Old Trapper, Old Trapper Kate's little shop of furs.

• 1:52:04Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 1:52:05Steven Rinella?

  And you got, so you got nothing, like no sewn goods?

• 1:52:09Speaker 05

  I do sometimes.

• 1:52:10Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:52:11Speaker 05

  Um, I, I've just kind of fallen behind in that. Since I started the Turkey Project, it's a lot to keep up with. So I haven't done quite as much, uh, like pillow making and stuff. Um, but I do have many unfinished pillows that, uh, once this survey season, once the summer season kind of dies down a little bit, I'm gonna get. Yeah. And once my furs come back from this season, cause I have a, a big, a big shipment that needs to go out. I have two more beaver pelts of flesh and I want to send it out all in one shot. So I'm waiting, waiting to get that done.

• 1:52:41Steven Rinella?

  Do some more beaver pillows and stuff, yeah.

• 1:52:42Speaker 05

  For sure. Yeah. And I, I got, uh, I'm, I'm torn because I do want to make myself a blanket.

• 1:52:49Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:52:49Speaker 05

  And so I don't, I'm not sure how many beavers I want to give up.

• 1:52:52Steven Rinella?

  Me and Seth beaver blankets?

• 1:52:54Speaker 05

  I ha- I haven't seen, I've seen pictures.

• 1:52:56Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:52:56Speaker 05

  But, uh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:52:58Speaker 03

  My most favorite thing I own, I think.

• 1:53:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

• 1:53:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. My, my wife is like largely indifferent. I mean, when I'm gone hunting, she doesn't know where I'm at or what I'm hunting for, kind of things, you know?

• 1:53:09Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 1:53:09Steven Rinella?

  Largely indifferent. When I, but the beaver blanket.

• 1:53:12Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:53:13Steven Rinella?

  That, she's like, that is badass.

• 1:53:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:17Steven Rinella?

  Like all the thing, anything I've ever brought home. And I just got her a full muskrat bomber jacket, which she, I got her at the end of the season, but she likes it.

• 1:53:25Speaker 05

  Uh-huh.

• 1:53:25Steven Rinella?

  But like the beaver blanket, she's like, like, like work of art.

• 1:53:28Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:53:29Steven Rinella?

  You know, loves it.

• 1:53:30Speaker 05

  Just amazing.

• 1:53:31Steven Rinella?

  It's the only thing I never have to, cause otherwise she'll take a lot of time. She'll take my stuff, like put it somewhere.

• 1:53:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. Scroll it away.

• 1:53:37Steven Rinella?

  But she just squares the beaver blanket out and lays it out.

• 1:53:39Speaker 05

  That's awesome.

• 1:53:40Steven Rinella?

  It was, it was good. It was a good call. You know, it's beautiful.

• 1:53:43Speaker 05

  Is it like?

• 1:53:43Steven Rinella?

  How many, how many do we put? Cause we did, me and Seth had 50 beavers.

• 1:53:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:53:47Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 1:53:47Speaker 00

  Is that one year?

• 1:53:49Steven Rinella?

  Well, I don't know. It was during COVID, man. We were, uh.

• 1:53:53Speaker 05

  Just cranking on them.

• 1:53:55Speaker 03

  We got a lot of beavers during COVID.

• 1:53:57Speaker 05

  I kind of miss those days.

• 1:54:00Speaker 03

  It might have been like a fall.

• 1:54:01Steven Rinella?

  No, I wish the pandemic.

• 1:54:02Speaker 05

  It was amazing. Dude, I was so. It's like two years of like hunkering down. Yeah, so I was still in, I was still in school at the time and all the classes went online. And I'm like, I cannot sit in front of my, dude, I would, I would take my phone because I'm like, I have to just like be in the zoom call. Like I can't just be not there all the time. But I would put it on, on zoom on my phone and tuck my phone into my waders. And I'd just be out there beaver trapping the whole time while my lecture is going. And they'd like kick us into like little groups to do some kind of a, some kind of like little like side assignment. And I'm like, hey, guys, I'm a little indisposed right now. You're gonna have to do this by yourselves.

• 1:54:41Steven Rinella?

  All the, all the, all the bad parts notwithstanding, there were aspects of it of like a lot of camping, a lot of beaver trapping.

• 1:54:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:49Steven Rinella?

  Um, anyways, we had 50. And we like kept some primo, we kept some premier ones, had those two blankets made and still a lot left over. And those are big blankets.

• 1:55:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:55:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't know how many went into one.

• 1:55:03Speaker 05

  Oh, I want to say.

• 1:55:05Speaker 03

  That was gonna be my question.

• 1:55:06Speaker 05

  I want to.

• 1:55:07Steven Rinella?

  Beaver amount per blanket.

• 1:55:08Speaker 05

  Well, it depends on the size of the blanket, obviously. So do you guys have like throw blankets or is it like a comforter?

• 1:55:13Steven Rinella?

  No, no, they're full blankets. No, no, no, they're like, they're six feet by, six by five, maybe? I don't know. They're big.

• 1:55:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:22Steven Rinella?

  Six by six.

• 1:55:22Speaker 03

  And they're like strip, it's like strips.

• 1:55:24Steven Rinella?

  He let them all out. You know what that means? When you let them out?

• 1:55:28Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:55:29Steven Rinella?

  You cut them, you cut them so that one beaver makes a big, long piece.

• 1:55:34Speaker 05

  Gotcha.

• 1:55:35Steven Rinella?

  And then there's like, there's literally miles, there's miles of thread.

• 1:55:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:41Speaker 04

  How do you do that?

• 1:55:41Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:55:42Speaker 04

  You like cut it like.

• 1:55:43Steven Rinella?

  Because you have less seams.

• 1:55:44Speaker 04

  Corn and apple kind of a thing?

• 1:55:46Steven Rinella?

  No, it's like you, he explained it on the phone. I didn't, I was doing one of those things that I tried not to do.

• 1:55:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, like you go in like a spiral.

• 1:55:53Speaker 04

  Do you spiral it?

• 1:55:54Steven Rinella?

  Microphone.

• 1:55:55Speaker 05

  Do you spiral it?

• 1:55:56Steven Rinella?

  He told me and I did the thing I don't like to do where I acted like I understood.

• 1:56:02Speaker 05

  This would have been a good opportunity to not do that.

• 1:56:05Steven Rinella?

  You've been doing so well. And I was like, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. And in my mind, I'm like, I can't picture it. It's a common thing in furs. What it does is you gives you, it's very labor intensive. But you take a wide.

• 1:56:21Steven Rinella?

  You take a wide fur and it makes it that you can, that you then sew it together and it gives you a big, long strip.

• 1:56:27Speaker 05

  Oh, you are sewing it together.

• 1:56:29Steven Rinella?

  You're making these like, you're making like a type of panel.

• 1:56:32Speaker 05

  I see.

• 1:56:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:32Steven Rinella?

  And the panels are very long and, and homogeneous.

• 1:56:35Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:56:36Steven Rinella?

  So you wind up these long, homogeneous panels.

• 1:56:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:56:40Steven Rinella?

  So then you can line the furs out and let's say they're not uniform. Like every animal's, you know, they're all different.

• 1:56:47Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:56:47Steven Rinella?

  But you kind of let, you arrange them where maybe there's like a reddish.

• 1:56:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:52Steven Rinella?

  You take your reddish ones.

• 1:56:53Speaker 05

  You kind of match the color gradient.

• 1:56:54Steven Rinella?

  And the reddish around the edge and it has a gradual fade.

• 1:56:57Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:56:58Steven Rinella?

  To a dark. And then it'll gradually fade the other way.

• 1:57:01Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:57:02Steven Rinella?

  If they, I think if they were all exactly the same, like that's the thing with ranch mink. Why ranch mink became a thing is like every mink's huge and every mink's the same.

• 1:57:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:57:11Steven Rinella?

  And you don't have the variability to deal with. But it's a way to like make big, long panels that are homogeneously colored.

• 1:57:18Speaker 05

  But those individual panels are stitched quite a bit.

• 1:57:22Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:22Steven Rinella?

  He told me and well, I'll say who did it. He did a beautiful job. He's not looking for work. Don't even bother calling him. Uh, Clifford's Critter Creations, Don Clifford.

• 1:57:31Speaker 05

  Right, that's right.

• 1:57:32Steven Rinella?

  Not looking for work. You have to beg him. Call him, beg him if you want. He's doing, oh man, I shouldn't have said it. My next thing is I'm doing, I'm doing, I'm doing a raccoon, full raccoon blanket. And I'm doing a full Kyle blanket.

• 1:57:46Speaker 05

  Raccoon is so underrated.

• 1:57:46Steven Rinella?

  He wants 18.

• 1:57:48Speaker 05

  Oh, okay.

• 1:57:49Steven Rinella?

  He wants 18 good ones.

• 1:57:51Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah. Oh, that would be so easy in Kansas. I'm sure it's, well, how's the raccoon population?

• 1:57:57Steven Rinella?

  It's easy anywhere.

• 1:57:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was gonna say it's probably easy here too.

• 1:57:59Steven Rinella?

  The, the problem is the, the bottleneck is Don sewing three miles of thread together.

• 1:58:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was gonna say. I don't, uh, I don't have a machine. I do it all by hand. Um, so the, the concept of a blanket is intimidating. But I do really want to do it.

• 1:58:18Steven Rinella?

  You know who you should be buddies with? Are you buddies at all with Heather DuVille?

• 1:58:22Speaker 05

  Uh, no, so I've never actually interacted with her.

• 1:58:25Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:58:25Speaker 05

  But, super interested.

• 1:58:27Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:27Speaker 05

  Like, she's like, right in my wheelhouse.

• 1:58:29Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, she's working with like coastal northern stuff.

• 1:58:31Speaker 05

  Oh, my gosh, yeah.

• 1:58:32Steven Rinella?

  Different critters, but you guys should talk shop.

• 1:58:34Speaker 05

  I'm looking at her power washing setup like, oh, please, I wish.

• 1:58:38Steven Rinella?

  No, you guys should, you guys should talk a little shop.

• 1:58:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't think my neighbors would appreciate me blowing a bunch of, uh, beaver fat out all over the...

• 1:58:45Steven Rinella?

  Well, she's gotten very sophisticated about sewing. So she used to sew needle and thread.

• 1:58:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:58:49Steven Rinella?

  And got with the machines and like, is, like, has gotten sophisticated about sewing.

• 1:58:54Speaker 05

  Elsewhere, yeah, yeah, I need to get, I definitely, I definitely would not describe myself as a sophisticated, uh, fur handler.

• 1:59:03Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Sophisticated trapper.

• 1:59:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I, I got to think about it, I'm like, man, this was only, I only started in 21s, I'm, I'm only four years in of like completely self-taught and there's, there's so much to learn.

• 1:59:17Steven Rinella?

  Oh, it's bottomless pit.

• 1:59:18Speaker 05

  So much, yeah, yeah.

• 1:59:20Steven Rinella?

  It's the most, it's the, it's the most bottomless pit.

• 1:59:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, arguably, yes.

• 1:59:24Steven Rinella?

  It's the hardest part.

• 1:59:25Speaker 03

  There's constantly new, new techniques coming out.

• 1:59:27Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, and between like the actual like...

• 1:59:29Speaker 03

  New tools and...

• 1:59:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, between like the actual, like trapping and then the fur handling and the tanning and I tried to do tanning myself and, uh, that took a little bit too much apparatus to get everything actually broken the way that it needed to be.

• 1:59:43Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you can't, you can't scratch the surface.

• 1:59:45Speaker 05

  God, no. So, yeah, so I started sending to a tannery.

• 1:59:48Steven Rinella?

  Okay, so the, the little fur shop.

• 1:59:50Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:59:51Steven Rinella?

  On Etsy.

• 1:59:51Speaker 05

  Little shop of furs on Etsy, yes.

• 1:59:52Steven Rinella?

  Little shop of fur on Etsy.

• 1:59:53Speaker 05

  And it is quite dry right now, but, uh...

• 1:59:55Steven Rinella?

  Like, you're low on product.

• 1:59:56Speaker 05

  Low on product, cause I, cause I don't have my dermostids and I, I'm waiting, I sold out pretty much all of the furs from last season and I'm waiting on the, the next round to be back from the tannery. So, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get to work when I, uh, settle down from this, uh, summer.

• 2:00:12Steven Rinella?

  Good lord.

• 2:00:13Speaker 05

  Turkey season.

• 2:00:14Steven Rinella?

  Thanks for coming on.

• 2:00:15Speaker 05

  And I'm gonna do it, yeah, thank you, thank you for having me.

• 2:00:17Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, and hope you, when you get your fur shop refilled, it empties back out again.

• 2:00:20Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:00:20Steven Rinella?

  All right.

• 2:00:21Speaker 05

  Hope so.

• 2:00:22Steven Rinella?

  Uh, Maggie, what, what are you working on that people are gonna be most excited about for, uh, for journalism type stuff?

• 2:00:29Speaker 00

  Most excited about, I think mostly we're just trying to stay on top of all the crazy policy stuff that's happening. It seems like, you know, there's a, there's a new executive order every other day.

• 2:00:42Steven Rinella?

  It's impossible to follow.

• 2:00:44Speaker 00

  And...

• 2:00:44Steven Rinella?

  Well, hard to follow.

• 2:00:46Speaker 00

  It's difficult and you know, things are getting snuck into the budget bills like selling off public lands in Nevada and Utah in the dark of night. There's just shady shit going on right now and we're doing our best to stay on top of it and to get it out to the audience so everybody else can stay on top of it, call their representatives, make a fuss.

• 2:01:09Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:10Speaker 00

  Cause it's pretty much the only way we're gonna keep our public lands secure and our wildlife protected and.

• 2:01:16Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:17Speaker 00

  All of that. So, you know, it might not be the most exciting stuff to read, but I think it's the most important stuff.

• 2:01:23Steven Rinella?

  So you've been putting a lot of energy into that, just trying to track it?

• 2:01:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:01:27Steven Rinella?

  If, if, if, if people followed like how dizzying it was to follow the tariff situation, just like how rapidly evolving and it continues to be, like if you imagine with, with, with the wildlife world and the public lands world, it's been as, as chaotic, as hard to follow.

• 2:01:49Speaker 00

  And Pat Durkin.

• 2:01:49Steven Rinella?

  It's just a really rapidly changing environment.

• 2:01:51Speaker 00

  Pat Durkin just wrote an article about how tariffs are impacting hunters and anglers.

• 2:01:56Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:57Speaker 00

  Because you know, it's, it's impacting every, everyone in every which way. Um, but yeah, it's to the point you made, I mean, it, it's happening so fast and it's, there's so much happening all at once. Um, like there's these water monitoring stations from the USGS that now have to be shut down this summer all across the country.

• 2:02:22Steven Rinella?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:02:22Speaker 00

  The USGS doesn't totally understand like what's going on with that, how that's gonna can like affect smaller, you know, water monitoring stations on individual rivers. It's just, there are so many changes that are happening without too much public comment, too much, you know, is this a good idea? They're just being written in and we're going from there. So trying to stay informed is really important right now.

• 2:02:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it is. One of the.

• 2:02:57Steven Rinella?

  One of the things that I've liked least is the sense that a lot of the management decisions aren't coming from the agency heads and the people that are familiar with the policy. And so it has a, some of it winds up having a kind of ham handed, machete like quality to it that, and that's why you see things get reversed.

• 2:03:27Speaker 00

  Like the federal firings.

• 2:03:28Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:28Speaker 00

  That happened too high up. There was no good reason all those people should have been fired, so.

• 2:03:35Steven Rinella?

  And then there's people that are like, dude, if you made it easier for me to get rid of people, I got a big list of people I get rid of, but my hands are tied and like, talk to me about cuts.

• 2:03:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just these like big brushstrokes.

• 2:03:48Steven Rinella?

  At the local level, because I know, like, I know what, I know where the problems are and you're not hitting the problem right.

• 2:03:52Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 2:03:53Steven Rinella?

  Well, that's been frustrating.

• 2:03:55Speaker 00

  And, and that's happening, you know, with, Jordan wrote an article about this, I think it was Jordan, but the, the zero based budgeting for environmental policy, it's, it's looking at all of these things like the migratory bird act, the clean water act, and it's going through that and saying that we need to look into everything that carries these acts out and they have to be, you know, you can either keep them going for five years or we have to like totally overhaul things. And it's like, I think it's asking to do too much at one time. Like, look at where there's issues, look at individual agencies, ask them to pinpoint

• 2:04:40Speaker 00

  where there are things that need to be fixed. Not just say, here's this whole list of everything, let's swipe this down and start from zero.

• 2:04:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:49Speaker 00

  Because a lot of those acts were made for a reason.

• 2:04:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:54Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:04:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's like, what happened?

• 2:04:59Steven Rinella?

  Wow.

• 2:05:01Steven Rinella?

  Wow.

• 2:05:01Speaker 00

  Uh oh, you're never gonna hear the end of that.

• 2:05:03Speaker 04

  Even if my phone's on silent.

• 2:05:05Steven Rinella?

  Dirty dog.

• 2:05:06Speaker 04

  The alarm still goes off.

• 2:05:08Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that's.

• 2:05:09Speaker 04

  Sorry about that.

• 2:05:13Steven Rinella?

  It it it's like, I don't want to beat the beat a dead horse in this one. It's not a dead horse. It's a living horse.

• 2:05:20Speaker 00

  It might have a busted leg.

• 2:05:21Speaker 05

  I was gonna say, it's a little gimpy.

• 2:05:23Steven Rinella?

  Like, if you look, if you look at how sort of like expertly, oh, expertly executed things around the border were and how like quick and sort of like, wow, how'd that not happen a long time ago? Right? And certain other, certain other things that have happened with the administration has been like, where it feels like expert. Right? And motivated and expert. I just think a lot of things around the land management agency just hasn't felt like it's coming from the most educated perspective. And like, really, I, I, like, I, I wish things were, were happening at a level where, happening at a level where you had reform minded insiders that were doing things in a, in a slower, more thought out

• 2:06:08Steven Rinella?

  way. Cause I think there's, we're gonna do things and then we're gonna realize that we've made big costly mistakes. Especially around a lot of fisheries management issues and other things where you're gonna do a thing and in a couple of years are gonna go by and you've made like a very expensive mistake.

• 2:06:23Speaker 05

  Yep. Yeah.

• 2:06:25Steven Rinella?

  And then, and then need to throw money at it because you're, because you're killing, because you're killing industries.

• 2:06:31Steven Rinella?

  Costs and jobs, you know?

• 2:06:33Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 2:06:34Steven Rinella?

  Now, stay on it.

• 2:06:38Steven Rinella?

  Stay on it.

• 2:06:40Speaker 00

  Working on it. China, I've been getting articles sent into me while I'm sitting here. I actually, I got some, you know, we were talking about the turkey in the graveyard earlier. I just had a writer send me one in. This guy got pulled over, had a live turkey in the back of his car.

• 2:06:56Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:06:57Speaker 00

  It was wounded. He shot it, but he was driving around with a live turkey in the trunk of his car.

• 2:07:02Speaker 05

  Did he know that it?

• 2:07:04Steven Rinella?

  Clinton and I talked about this yesterday, but it was a different person.

• 2:07:08Speaker 05

  Cause I I I've seen before where like a deer got hit by a car and they loaded it up. And and it was just like knocked out. And then it stands up in the bed.

• 2:07:17Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, we've had that. I had that when I was a kid, happened to us, yeah.

• 2:07:21Speaker 00

  Uh, no, cause this guy got pulled over like the next day, I think. I was just quickly reading this right up.

• 2:07:27Steven Rinella?

  He had shot it.

• 2:07:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:07:28Steven Rinella?

  And kept it.

• 2:07:29Speaker 00

  He had a turkey and a squirrel in the back.

• 2:07:31Speaker 05

  Uh, interesting.

• 2:07:32Speaker 00

  And then.

• 2:07:32Steven Rinella?

  Was the squirrel alive? What a spread.

• 2:07:34Speaker 00

  Uh, uh, from from understanding, the squirrel looks pretty dead in the picture. Turkey, you can tell the turkey's alive. It's looking at you.

• 2:07:42Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 2:07:43Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 2:07:43Speaker 00

  And then, so he gets a ticket and then he gets pulled over like the next day or something, driving a different truck. And he's got two dead turkeys, still no license or nothing, that he shot with a 22. Which it's illegal to hunt turkeys with a 22 in his state, so.

• 2:07:59Steven Rinella?

  Was he cemetery hunting?

• 2:08:02Speaker 00

  I haven't heard anything about that.

• 2:08:03Steven Rinella?

  Was it old church or was it cemetery?

• 2:08:07Speaker 00

  I did, I was reading about the cemetery and it was right next to an old church, so.

• 2:08:11Steven Rinella?

  Every time, I'm telling you.

• 2:08:12Speaker 00

  Double whammy there.

• 2:08:14Steven Rinella?

  Giving out one of my best tips on here, I'm telling you, it holds true.

• 2:08:17Speaker 03

  Spot burning, spot burning the whole country. I recently came across an Instagram account, this dude, he like, I think he's a fishing guide and up in like Washington or something, but he has a pet turkey he takes in the in the boat with him.

• 2:08:28Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:08:29Speaker 03

  I saw a video, he was halibut fishing. And like he pans over and his turkey's like in the boat gobbling and it's like reeling up a halibut, it was like the coolest thing I've ever.

• 2:08:36Speaker 00

  Oh my god, yeah.

• 2:08:38Steven Rinella?

  If you go way back in our archive, we have a episode called The Brown's Back and the Wiffle Ball Bat.

• 2:08:46Speaker 00

  Uh-oh.

• 2:08:46Steven Rinella?

  And it was an expert turkey caller named Guy Zuck. And he grew up with a turkey. And he would call that turkey in. And then he'd whap it with a wiffle ball bat.

• 2:08:59Speaker 05

  A wiffle ball bat?

• 2:09:00Steven Rinella?

  To disincentivize it from coming in.

• 2:09:03Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:09:05Steven Rinella?

  And then he'd call it in again, because he was like, he wanted it to be like, getting tricked is bad.

• 2:09:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09:11Steven Rinella?

  Not hard.

• 2:09:13Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:09:15Steven Rinella?

  He'd just alarm it. Well, he's, no, it's just pet turkey.

• 2:09:17Speaker 05

  Rolled up newspaper on the nose.

• 2:09:18Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like it's pet turkey. He wanted it to be that like, he wanted it to be not wanting to get duped.

• 2:09:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

• 2:09:27Steven Rinella?

  And that's how he turned to call.

• 2:09:28Speaker 05

  Ten for. That was his version of putting a hunter orange collar on a pet deer.

• 2:09:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Like, you know, I don't know. I don't know. In the old days, when your dog did something bad, you'd give it a little.

• 2:09:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Little whap.

• 2:09:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Not trying to hurt it, but the dog's like, yeast, not gonna do that again.

• 2:09:46Speaker 05

  I spaced out. I thought you meant he was like hunting the turkey with a wiffle bat. I was like, that's gonna take a lot of force. I was gonna say, like, I can't even be mad about that.

• 2:09:55Steven Rinella?

  Let me put this way. He'd hide, call it in, and then scare it the hell out of it. So a while later, when he called in, the turkey's like, like a hunted turkey. He's like, man, I don't want, I want to go over there. I mean, there's turkeys over there. What I don't want is for that to be the dog.

• 2:10:09Speaker 05

  That guy in the bush with the bat.

• 2:10:12Steven Rinella?

  And that's how he became really good at calling turkeys, because he kept fooling that bronze bat, who was paranoid.

• 2:10:19Speaker 02

  Oh, so he wasn't trying to keep the turkey safe from other hunters. He was trying to make a challenge for himself.

• 2:10:23Steven Rinella?

  He was trying to make a challenge.

• 2:10:24Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 2:10:25Steven Rinella?

  He was trying to make a challenge. Like, if I went out, I could go out. Like, you could probably, if you had a handful of corn, and every time you called, you gave that turkey a handful of corn, he's gonna become real easy to call in.

• 2:10:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:37Steven Rinella?

  But if you hit him with a bat.

• 2:10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:40Steven Rinella?

  A love tap with a wiffle ball bat, he's gonna get tough.

• 2:10:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like, the same scenario of the turkey gets missed a couple times in actuality.

• 2:10:47Speaker 05

  That's that biology.

• 2:10:48Speaker 02

  He hears it, and he's like, not this time.

• 2:10:50Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. He's like, I'm not going over there, man. So like that. Um, thanks, everybody.

• 2:10:57Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:10:57Steven Rinella?

  Appreciate everybody coming on. Yep. Yeah, thanks for having me.

• 2:11:00Speaker 04

  Listen to Lakes podcast.

• 2:11:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, listen to Lakes podcast. Yeah, please do.

• 2:11:04Speaker 04

  Today, because this episode will drop on

• 2:11:06Steven Rinella?

  June 9.

• 2:11:07Speaker 05

  He is going to be the missing link between biology and policy and human dimensions.

• 2:11:13Steven Rinella?

  Oh, wow. I appreciate it.

• 2:11:15Speaker 05

  No pressure.

• 2:11:16Steven Rinella?

  You can go on and leave a little review. That might be nice. Yeah, type that in on Apple.

• 2:11:23Steven Rinella?

  That's a T-shirt right there.

• 2:11:25Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 2:11:26Steven Rinella?

  All right. Thanks, everybody.

• 2:11:54Steven Rinella?

  I'll tell you one thing that binds together all of the vehicles in the Rinella fleet at my house. They all have WeatherTech floor liners. When we get a new car, the first thing we do, out with the junky factory carpet mats, in with WeatherTech. They really are the best. They're indestructible. You can pull them out, hose them off. It doesn't matter what happens on the floor of your rig. If you got WeatherTech, you're going to be covered. I love these things. If you're looking to get a great gift for someone, especially if they're a big time outdoors kind of person, like if you really want to do them a favor, get them some WeatherTech floor liners for their truck or car. They'll have a way easier time keeping their rig nice and clean, and they'll get years and years of use out of

• 2:12:38Steven Rinella?

  a set. Visit weathertech.com for your holiday shopping today.

• 2:12:45Speaker 07

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• 2:13:44Steven Rinella?

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• 2:14:18Speaker 00

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