Ep. 685: MeatEater Radio Live! A Cottonwood King, B&C Javelina, and a Sizable Meat Poll

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris touch on their turkey trips, get the skinny on a fat cottonwood from the University of Nebraska's Justin Evertson, play 1-Minute Fishing with Tyler Coleman of Trout Unlimited, climb the latest Meat Poll, and talk Boone and Crockett javelina with Jim Heffelfinger. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Steven Rinella?

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• 0:52Speaker 02

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• 1:24Steven Rinella?

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• 2:07Speaker 03

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

• 2:29Speaker 04

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's noon o'clock for our friends in Forest City, Iowa on Thursday, April 3rd, and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Neuharth. Joined today by Giannis Poutellas and Seth Morris. On today's show, we'll interview Justin Evertson about the new world record Cottonwood Tree, followed by One Minute Fishing with our friends at Trout Unlimited. After that, we'll find out how much Giannis and Seth know about their fellow outdoorsmen with a game of Meat Pole. And finally, we'll talk to Jim Heffelfinger about the addition of a new species to the Boone and Crockett record books. Now, I shouted out Forest City, Iowa there. That's where I went on my bachelor party back in the day. They had a music festival.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  I think it still goes on. It was like a three-day music festival. That's where I did for my bachelor party.

• 3:17Speaker 03

  What kind of music?

• 3:18Speaker 04

  Primarily country. So like, the headliners when I went. Alan Jackson, Big and Rich, Thomas Rhett. One of the surprising bands there, Phil, you'll like this, I think, was lit because it was right around when they decided to drop a country album. They're a one-hit pop punk wonder from the 90s. And then, I don't know, like 10 years ago, they're like, hey, maybe we try country music.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Was it good?

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Was their country music good?

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, their country album.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  No. So like, at a music festival, there'll be like an A-stage, a B-stage, a C-stage. They didn't even get on the B-stage. I think they were a C-stage act.

• 3:52Speaker 03

  Gotcha.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yanni, what'd you do for your bachelor party?

• 3:54Speaker 03

  What year was that?

• 3:55Speaker 04

  Seventeen? 2017, I think? Yeah. What'd you do for your bachelor party?

• 3:59Speaker 03

  My bachelor party was in 2003, Spencer. We, uh, we had some troubles with the bachelor party. Not the kind of troubles you're thinking about. I can see where you're going. I wasn't really gonna go conventional bachelor party.

• 4:15Speaker 04

  What would be conventional?

• 4:17Speaker 03

  Well, these days, it seems like you go to Nashville and walk around and get drunk and, you know, see some, hear some music, eat some barbecue. And I don't know, you know, you probably hit on gals you're not supposed to be. That's my guess.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:33Speaker 03

  No, we, uh, we got married at my wife's parents' house, which is in Morehead City, North Carolina. And great fishing there. And so we thought we would go fishing. And so we uh you sort of got a you know, did a little poll about who who wanted to go. I think we had two or three boats booked. I want to say the one boat was Miss Stacy.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Is that a boat I should know about?

• 4:59Speaker 03

  No, no, I just wanted to give those guys a shout out if they're still if they're still going, you know, twenty some years later. But uh the day we were gonna do it, we get a call from the captain and he's like, man, I don't do this often, but unless you guys are some just seagoing mariner sons of bitches, you guys don't want to go today. It's gonna be rough.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  And what'd you tell him?

• 5:22Speaker 03

  And we're like, you're right.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  I'm like, I'm like, the only person that'll probably be fine would be my wife. That was another way we weren't gonna go traditional is it was gonna be just like a group, kind of a party thing, you know, and so I had cousins, friends, a lot of people in town. And uh, he's like, alright, good call. I'm like, well, let's try to do it afterwards. In a couple of days after the wedding, excuse me. And uh, sure enough, that night that we canceled, we end up at a bar, doing some traditional, more traditional

• 5:57Speaker 03

  type stuff, which is just a bunch of people hanging out, playing pool and drinking.

• 6:00Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  And uh, we run into a mate that was gonna be on one of those charter boats. And he's like, man, everybody canceled, but me and a couple of the captains went out. Holy shit, we crushed them, of course, you know, he's like, he's like, man, it was so bad. He's like, I almost got sick.

• 6:16Speaker 04

  Crush what?

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Uh, mostly dolphin. If I remember, I don't know what else they call it, mostly dolphin. But we had a smaller group, just one boat, go out on the Miss Stacy like two or three days after the wedding, people that were still in town. And uh, we did pretty good too, you know, enough to have, uh, you know, everybody went home with a small cooler full of dolphin.

• 6:37Speaker 04

  Seth, what'd you do on your bachelor party?

• 6:39Speaker 05

  I didn't really have a bachelor party.

• 6:40Speaker 04

  Well, there was like a sort of kind of a low key party at your house.

• 6:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, there was, there was, it was like a, yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 04

  Chester was making beer brats.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was just like a little get together in the evening. I don't even remember exactly when it was, but it wasn't like some, like, you know, monumental. Bachelor party.

• 7:00Speaker 04

  I remember standing around your walleye boat a lot, though.

• 7:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. We should throw you a bachelor party.

• 7:05Speaker 05

  I'm down, man.

• 7:06Speaker 04

  Phil, what'd you do for your bachelor party?

• 7:07Speaker 03

  Absolutely nothing.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  Phil, okay, we got two bachelor, you boys come up with a combined theme for your, the second Phil bachelor party.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd love to see where that Venn diagram crosses.

• 7:18Speaker 05

  I'll go to a tiki bar, Phil.

• 7:20Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Okay, walleye fishing by day, tiki bar in by day.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Can't wait. Sounds like a pretty fun day.

• 7:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, it sounds like a country song.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  A bad one. Well, like an Alan Jackson country song. Him and Jimmy Buffett.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  I think it just depends on who writes it, you know, maybe throw that.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Tech Brown Band, they like that genre.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  Throw that bone to Isbell Brothers, they might be made.

• 7:45Speaker 05

  See if they come up with something.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Seth, you just got home from, right, you were in Florida and Texas?

• 7:50Speaker 05

  Florida and Texas.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  How many turkeys died on those trips?

• 7:53Speaker 05

  Um, two in Florida, me and my wife, and then, uh, three died in Texas.

• 7:58Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:59Speaker 05

  Steve got two and, uh, we're down there with Luke Combs and he got one.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Hmm, so you pulled the trigger once?

• 8:04Speaker 05

  I pulled the trigger once, yep.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  How was Florida? Were you hunting easterns or osceola there?

• 8:08Speaker 05

  Osceola. Yep. Um, Florida was amazing. We got a, an invite from a guy that, um, commissioned Kelsey to do some artwork for him back in the day.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 8:19Speaker 05

  And, uh, he's been inviting us to go down there for years and we finally took him up on the offer.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  What kind of artwork?

• 8:24Speaker 05

  Uh, just, uh, dog portraits.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  Yep. Um, so, yeah, we went down there and, um, he's part owner of this like awesome hunting club and the, the property is just like totally set up for epic hunting and full of turkeys. And, yeah, we, we ended up, Kelsey ended up missing a turkey on the first morning and then that, that evening, uh, called two in and we doubled up.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  First osceola for you?

• 8:52Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 8:53Speaker 04

  How did that compare to, uh, the rest of the subspecies that you've killed?

• 8:57Speaker 05

  Well, they don't gobble much.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 8:59Speaker 05

  They gobble a lot on the tree, on the limb, but they fly down and shut up. And that was. It's like not my favorite style of turkey hunting where you just gotta sit there forever and wait for them. Um, but still super cool.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Are they notorious for long spurs? Sent them and didn't, did you like take notice of that or did it look like any other bird?

• 9:19Speaker 05

  Kelsey's were inch and a half.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  And mine were inch and a quarter.

• 9:23Speaker 03

  And razors too.

• 9:25Speaker 05

  Right, yeah. Razor sharp.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  They'll mess you up if you're not careful.

• 9:28Speaker 04

  Them are big.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  They're super cool birds.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 05

  And just.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  How much they weigh though? They're kinda scrawny.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  Mine was 17, Kelsey's was 21.

• 9:36Speaker 04

  Oh, 21?

• 9:37Speaker 03

  21 is a giant.

• 9:38Speaker 04

  That's a heifer. That's like a corn fed turkey.

• 9:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a big one. I was surprised. Yeah.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 9:43Speaker 05

  But.

• 9:44Speaker 04

  Have you cooked anything yet with these Osceola birds? Did they taste any different?

• 9:47Speaker 05

  We did some schnitzel two nights ago. Um, but no, it was just like normal schnitzel.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Okay. Seth on the board first then. I think you probably killed the turkey before Yanni this year, right? Maybe the first in the crew?

• 9:59Speaker 05

  It might, yeah, maybe.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  What date was it?

• 10:02Speaker 05

  Uh, that was.

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Get this squared away.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Let's see, March.

• 10:05Speaker 04

  There's a title at stake here.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  Uh, well, it was like two weeks ago.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Two weeks ago? That was way before Yanni.

• 10:12Speaker 05

  No, it was before you went to, I think it was before you went to Texas.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  I killed, I killed mine on the 15th of March.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 10:22Speaker 04

  We'll, we'll do some date checking.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Oh, you know what? I, you might be earlier than us. Cause I think we were 17 through the 21st.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  All right.

• 10:29Speaker 03

  You're rooting for Seth, huh?

• 10:30Speaker 04

  I was rooting for Seth, yeah.

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Sorry Seth and Spencer.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  All right, let's get on with the show. Joining us on the line first is Justin Evertson, the green infrastructure coordinator from the University of Nebraska. He's here to talk about the new world record cottonwood that hails from the Cornhusker State. Justin, welcome to the show.

• 10:50Speaker 06

  Yeah. Hi guys. Thanks for having me.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  First thing, tell us about Nebraska's relationship with cottonwood trees.

• 10:58Speaker 06

  Well, yeah, you can probably imagine Nebraska doesn't have a lot of trees or it didn't that settlement about 3% forested. We're mostly a prairie state, but the cottonwood was a prominent tree growing across Nebraska even at the time of settlement. It was a tree that would grow anywhere there was a little moisture, especially on streams or low wet areas. And it was highly revered by both the native populations out here and the early pioneers. So it was kind of Nebraska's favorite or most common tree since the time of settlement. That's changed quite a bit with the advent of agriculture out here and

• 11:39Speaker 06

  we don't see as many cottonwoods as we used to have. But it is our state tree. It's the state tree of Nebraska, I think also Kansas and Wyoming. And part of that has to do with the fact that we lost a lot of our American elm trees, which used to be our state tree. That was from a disease in the 60s and 70s. So we just said, hey, how about our good old native cottonwood?

• 12:02Speaker 04

  I like it. Now, earlier this year, it was announced that a cottonwood there is the new national champion tree. How did that come to be and who keeps track of these records?

• 12:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, I don't want to speak for every state, but most states have a champion tree program. And here in Nebraska, it's with the Nebraska Forest Services, and I've been assigned to it here for the last several years. So we try to get out and document the biggest major trees in our state for our most prominent trees. And you'd be surprised, even here in Nebraska, where we were pretty much treeless, we can grow pretty big trees out here and also on the Great Plains. So we try to keep track of our champion trees, the most common ones. And then there's a national champion tree program too. And anybody could look that up, the National Register of Big Trees. And we try to align our standards

• 12:53Speaker 06

  with those standards because for about the last 25 or 30 years, the largest cottonwood, eastern cottonwood, has been measured or found in Nebraska. So we want to align ourselves with those standards. This particular tree actually grows up near Erickson in our Sand Hills region, north of Lincoln and Grand Island. So you wouldn't think you'd have a big tree out there, but the cottonwood loves wet ground, even in the Sand Hills. And a survey crew out there doing some survey work for the local conservation lake area nearby happened upon this tree and they said, hey, let's let the Nebraska Forest

• 13:35Speaker 06

  Service know about it. They did. We went out and confirmed the measurement and then we submitted it to the National Champion Tree Program and it became kosher as the National Champion Tree just this last summer.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  And tell us about the measurements that this tree has and the scoring system that you put together for these trees.

• 13:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, you bet. That picture you see right there, the guy who happened upon the tree is measuring it, Dana General, and he's measuring it and it turned out to be 37.2 feet in circumference. So if you can imagine, that would probably be six or seven of us big guys trying to hold hands to get around that tree. That's how big the trunk is. It's not super tall. It's only 85 feet tall. Cottonwoods out here don't get super tall when they grow in the open, you know, because they can get widespread. But the tree does reach out about 120 feet or so. The tree was nominated at just the right time because our former

• 14:36Speaker 06

  national champion and state champion was dethroned because we had to re-measure it to keep in line with the national standards. And so we were looking for a new tree. This came along at the right time.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  And you can see the pictures of this tree on our YouTube channel right now if you go watch this episode. Now, has this tree been on people's radar as a potential national champion?

• 14:59Speaker 06

  No. We were all surprised that it was out there. It's interesting when you see these trees from a distance, they're not very impressive, these cottonwoods that grow across Nebraska. There's probably 10 or 15 in our database that are over 30 feet in circumference. And you don't really notice them from a distance, but when you get up close to them, maybe 100 yards away or so, you go, oh, that's a big tree. And that's kind of what happened here. They were on the side of the lake that doesn't get a lot of foot traffic, so it had escaped notice for a lot of years. And to be quite honest with you, I'm a big tree hunter. I'm not a game hunter. I'm a big tree hunter. And we don't even see the biggest of our trees as often as you might think.

• 15:43Speaker 04

  So how old do you think this tree is?

• 15:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, cottonwoods grow fast here, so it's, they're not nearly as old as we might think they are for as big as they are. We would guess, we guessed on this tree, maybe 120 years old or so, going back to historical photographs of the adjacent lakes. So, they grow fast, and then they kind of die young. Now, 120 years is a good age, isn't it? But compared to an oak that size, an oak that size would be 500 to 600 years old.

• 16:13Speaker 04

  My goodness. Now, what is it about that tree's home that allowed it to grow to such enormous proportions?

• 16:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, cottonwoods like a wet spot, and this particular spot is a former creekside, a natural stream flow through the sand hills, and then they converted part of that area to a lake about 100 years ago. And that cottonwood was just in the right spot to stay with a moist root zone all its life to this point. Plus, there's not a lot of activity around it. They don't farm right up to it. People don't drive over the root system or anything like that. So it's been able to just kind of do its own thing for over 100 years now, which is really what we need. One issue we're running into in Nebraska with our agriculture,

• 17:03Speaker 06

  the way we do agriculture now, there's so big equipment and we use a lot of herbicides, it is impacting a lot of our native trees. And this tree thankfully doesn't have a lot of that agriculture happening right around it.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  Hey, Justin, this is Yanis here. I would think that the number one threat to a tree like that would be a beaver.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  I mean, just, you know, I floated by thousands of cottonwoods in my days as a fly fishing guy in Colorado, and it seemed like the number one thing that would take down some of these giants would be a beaver. But I guess that, like, are there beavers nearby? Is that something that you guys would worry about and maybe protect that tree from if they were, if they were found in the area?

• 17:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a really good point. To be quite honest with you, we don't see the beaver. This tree got big enough that it must have escaped the beavers, but we see beavers chewing on trees right around it. And so this tree must be big enough that they don't want to try to tackle it. But boy, do we see beaver damage on our young trees, especially cottonwoods and willows and anything that grows across the creek. I was just out creaking the other day, and wow, the beavers can do quick damage on things. So if any of you are looking for a beaver hunt, come on out and help us, I guess.

• 18:23Speaker 05

  Justin Seth here. What about lightning strikes? Has that tree ever been struck by lightning? Is there any signs of that?

• 18:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, thankfully, no, we couldn't see anything in it. The trees that get big out here on the plains, right, they are a lightning rod.

• 18:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, sure seems like it.

• 18:42Speaker 06

  You know, so there's a lot that has to happen right in this tree's life, escaping predation and lightning and all of that to survive to this point. So, but it's, you'd be surprised, these big old cottonwoods are all over the plains, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, even out in your part of the world, they, they transition into a subspecies called the, we have the eastern cottonwood, the subspecies is the plains cottonwoods out in Wyoming and Montana. And I think that subspecies national champion is actually out in Montana somewhere, just about as big as this tree. So it's, it's just neat to see that across the plains, these cottonwoods can grow big and old. And boy, the Native Americans revered them as the tree of life. They used them in most of their Sundance

• 19:27Speaker 06

  ceremonies. Another fun fact is that bees, our native bees and our honeybees use the resin of the buds of these trees. This time of year, they're gathering it to build their hides, and they have antimicrobial possibilities there. And so that's kind of a main ingredient in the balm of Gilead, and early settlers used that as kind of an antimicrobial salve for different things. So yeah, the cottonwood, wow, it's a tree of the plains, and we're happy it's out here.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  So at this age and size, what kind of threats do exist for that tree?

• 20:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, you've named them there for sure. I would say lightning. Yeah, here's another sad fact of the big trees here in Nebraska. Our Champion Tree Program, once a big tree gets to that status, its life is maybe about up because when they get that big, you know, they're running out of steam a lot of times, especially a cottonwood. They grow fast and they kind of die young. But if we can maybe squeak out another 30 years on this tree, that would be pretty good. The second biggest cottonwood we had growing in Nebraska did suffer from both wind damage and a lightning strike a few years ago, and now it is gone.

• 20:45Speaker 06

  So, yep, maybe we shouldn't designate it as a champion because it might be due for succumbing one of these days.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  If someone thinks they know about a bigger cottonwood, or any tree that's of record book proportions, what should they do?

• 21:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, it depends on the state you're in. Most states do have a Champion Tree Program, and they're happy to, and it's often with the state forest agency or their university system. So you can, that's where I would start. Now, you can take that tree to the National Champion Tree Register. They have a portal that you can log in as a visitor and nominate. Anybody can do that, nominate a tree. So that's the, I don't have the website, but it's the National Champion Tree Program. Log in there and you'll find it. Poke around in there, people, too. You'll be amazed at some of the grand and fantastic trees that grow across this country. One of the most spectacular trees is actually the Rio Grande

• 21:45Speaker 06

  Cottonwood. I think the national champion is down in Arizona. You wouldn't believe how big around that thing is. So it's fun to just get out and see these trees.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Thanks for joining us, Justin. Congrats on the National Champion Tree. Nebraska should be proud.

• 21:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, thanks, guys. I really appreciate the time today.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  Have a good one.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Thanks, Justin. Hey, that was a good one, Spencer. How'd you find, uh, Justin? I enjoyed that.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Um, I, when I saw the news of Nebraska dethroning, I don't remember what the last day was. Wyoming, maybe? He, he might've said it. Um, it was, so they found this tree in the summer. It was measured late summer and then I think again, measured earlier this year. Uh, so it was confirmed in March that that was the new national champion tree. Um, when I saw that, I, I thought we have to have somebody on the show to talk about that because I didn't know that record books existed just for trees. Uh, and it makes me really interested in, in that whole world.

• 22:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Like you couldn't really get me to go look at big rocks with you. But if you're like, hey, Yanni, let's go look at a giant oak tree that I know about. I, I do, I would go for sure. It reminds me, in Latvia, there was a book at this, uh, apartment that we were staying at, uh, called like Latvia's, uh, 100 Dž Wozwols is what they call it. And Dž means like mighty, Wozwols is oak. And so it was like Latvia's 100 biggest oaks. Latvia, the country is only the size of West Virginia, so it's not a giant place. But it had literally coordinates and directions to get to like the 100 biggest, coolest oaks across the country. A lot of them are on public, or on private land.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  But I guess they, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that you can, you know, go knock on a door and say, hey, can I go, you know, check out the tree? Cause a lot of those big giants.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Even way back in the day, they were revered and so they were kept, not cut down. And they've, you know, only gotten bigger. So it's pretty cool.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  The, uh, the stat I would love to know is how many turkeys roosted in that tree over its lifespan?

• 23:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, 125 years. That thing, uh, was born in 1900 then. And the tree's seen everything.

• 23:45Speaker 05

  It's seen a lot.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  There's just something special too, when you see a big old tree. And I think cottonwood specifically to outdoorsmen from like our part of the world, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, uh, is like kind of the tree that you associate a lot of, um, time spent outdoors with.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  So, good for Nebraska. Happy they got the record.

• 24:05Steven Rinella?

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• 24:49Steven Rinella?

  a set. Visit weatherTech.com for your holiday shopping today. Listen, we're all trying to save up for something. I've got buddies saving up to buy their new house. I've got people eyeing a new boat. I know buddies that are trying to switch out trucks and getting an upgrade in their truck, whatever. People are always saving up for stuff. In reality, though, we see that it can be hard to actually save money. But that's what's great about the One Pay app. It makes saving money easy. First, you earn 3% cash back on up to $150 in monthly spending. You choose categories, okay, like Walmart, gas, or dining, and then get rewarded when you spend in those categories. So you're rewarded

• 25:32Steven Rinella?

  for what you're already buying. And with high-yield savings, your money keeps growing. Download the One Pay app or visit onepay.com for banking that gives you more for what matters. 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. Cold mornings spent outside and long days of hard work can really take a toll on your hands. Whether you're outside cleaning fish, digging around in your garden, or grinding through a long day of your day job, your hands take a beating. That is why. O'Keefe's Working Hands.

• 26:14Steven Rinella?

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• 26:58Steven Rinella?

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• 27:17Speaker 04

  All right, moving on, our next segment is one minute fishing. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? Go ahead. Make my cast.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish. If they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. And for the whole month of April, our friends at Trout Unlimited are joining us for one minute fishing. This week, our angler is Tyler Coleman, the Lower Bear River Project Manager at TU. Today, he's on the Bear River Basin in Utah and fishing for a donation to Trout Unlimited. Tyler, welcome to the show.

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Thanks, thanks for having us on and thank you for doing this for Trout Unlimited. It's awesome to even raise awareness if we don't catch fish. Really appreciate you guys doing this.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  We're excited. A lot of pressure on you, Tyler, as the first TU guest of the month. Now, we asked Trout Unlimited to highlight some important watersheds across the country for this segment. So first thing, tell us about the Bear River Basin and its greatest threats.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  So, a lot of our work focuses on habitat fragmentation. Having service to do this, I had to do some. Something in town. It's a good example. You can see right behind me that the hydro station. Uh, a lot of our issues, we have migratory cutthroat trout and these fish need to move from downstream up into the headwaters to spawn. So our job at TU is primarily focused on reconnecting those tributary streams and areas that those fish can migrate.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  And what are some things that TU has done to help this fishery?

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Uh, specifically here, we've done, um, we created actually barriers on one of the streams with partners to provide habitat for just cutthroat trout. They removed all the non-native fish and then,

• 29:05Speaker 03

  um, put cutthroat back in above the barriers and now that population can have an area where it's only cutthroat and they can migrate downstream and kind of be a source population for the mainstem Logan River. Um, in the area in the Bear River, we've done a lot of, uh, diversion dam replacements and screening to protect fish from going one way down the canals and ending up in a ditch somewhere. And we've done some barrier removals, dam removals, uh, fish ladders, a whole lot of just reconnecting the streams from the tributaries to the mainstem.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  Good on TU. Now let's talk about the fishing. What are you targeting today and how are you doing it?

• 29:42Speaker 03

  So going back to the, the connectivity issues, there's no cutthroat trout that you're really going to find down here. I used to guide this exact same spot years ago and I've only caught one cutthroat trout over the four years that I'd bring people here to fish. Um, we've got non-native fish such as stock rainbow trout, brown trout, and there are the native mountain whitefish that you find in here. What I'm targeting today is anything that'll eat this fly and get to you 500 bucks.

• 30:07Speaker 04

  Okay. We like that Tyler. Uh, is there any competition on the river today? Are you the only one there?

• 30:13Speaker 03

  There's two guys right there spin fishing and there's a couple of people fly fishing downstream. So I got to a spot to hold it. Um, didn't think I would need to on a day like this, but the sun's shining, midges are popping off. So we got, got one rainbow in the, under my belt right before we answered the call, just checking the weight there. We'll see if we can find another.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  One rainbow. And how many casts was it to get that one rainbow?

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Too many.

• 30:36Speaker 04

  Too many. Okay. Uh, so, so you're not optimistic about catching a fish in one minute then? Is that what you're saying?

• 30:43Speaker 03

  I'm always optimistic.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  Okay. Okay. Well, Tyler, your one minute of fishing starts as soon as you make that first cast. Go at it.

• 30:51Speaker 03

  Alrighty, let me get up.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Tyler is now waiting into the stream. This looks like the perfect place to pick up a whitefish or a rainbow and he's made his first cast.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, he's already high sticking it. He's drifting.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm surprised. The beautiful hole like that, beautiful sunny day, no one else is out there.

• 31:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Tyler, you're 15 seconds in.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  There's gotta be fish stacked out there, don't you think?

• 31:25Speaker 05

  You would think so.

• 31:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's hard to say if that's a, did he say if it was a tailwater or just a spillway?

• 31:32Speaker 04

  Um, I, I don't remember that detail, but I think most important thing is he's in town. So this is a, it looks like a pretty accessible area. Tyler, you have 20 seconds left.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  He's just made another cast upstream. This may be his last drift.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Oh, he had the hook?

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't think he had it.

• 31:53Speaker 03

  Does he have? He does have one. No, no, he doesn't. Dang it.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Tyler, your one minute of fishing is up. Can, can you hear us Tyler?

• 32:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Tell, did you have a hook set there? What happened?

• 32:07Speaker 03

  What was that?

• 32:09Speaker 04

  Did you have a hook set there?

• 32:11Speaker 03

  I think it was a rock.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  We'll call it a fish for the sake of it.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, there you go. Just lie to us next time. All right, Tyler. Well, uh, no $500 donation to TU this week, but we're gonna try again next episode. Thank you for joining us.

• 32:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you for having us and help raise an awareness for what trout unlimited does. We really appreciate it.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  Hell yeah. Have a good one Tyler.

• 32:31Speaker 03

  Thanks Tyler.

• 32:31Speaker 05

  Thanks Tyler.

• 32:34Speaker 04

  All right, let's take a break.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  I would have liked to have known what flies, fly or flies he was drifting.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  Hmm. What do you think he was?

• 32:44Speaker 03

  He said midges were popping, so I'm guessing, you know, probably some kind of a bigger attractor nymph up top and then a midge trailing it in the back, but you know, there's thousands of midge patterns.

• 32:56Speaker 05

  I want to know if them boys spin fish and we're catching it.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  We'll come back to them later for one minute fishing and spin fishing.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  You know, we might have to switch this segment up to maybe two minute or five minute fishing.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  Well, if that happens, then the suits at Meat Eater are going to be sending me an email like, hey,

• 33:13Speaker 03

  We're giving away too much money.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  We can't be giving away all that money every episode. So, uh, one minute. I think we've had three successful anglers and it makes it extra special when it does happen.

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  Yanni, you were one of them. You were one of the successful anglers. You were chumming that water down in Louisiana.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Yep. Yep. No, that was, uh, fishing in a barrel for sure.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, that could have been 10 second fishing that time. All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say?

• 33:39Speaker 03

  We've got Leland writing in asking, question for Spencer, when can we expect more Meat Eater kids and why the long delays breaks in episode drops? So I'll, I'll pipe in first as the part of the podcast team. Um, that, that show, despite its relatively short runtime, does take a lot of, of teamwork and resources around here. You've got Steve having to write a script for his bit, Spencer writing trivia for kids, you know, Corinne and crew working on, on Guess That Critter. Um, even though it's kind of like a short bite sized show, it, it is a lot of work and it's a labor of love, but also we don't really want to like, um, I almost use kind of like a, a very dirty term. I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that, but we don't want to, now it's stuck in

• 34:22Speaker 03

  my head. Um, it's good to space the shows out.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 34:26Speaker 03

  Is what I'm, is what I'm trying to, to get to and kind of eventize them as seasons get, get people excited. Cause I think if, if that were a, a weekly show, I think people would be excited.

• 34:34Speaker 05

  About it for a while and then it might get kind of, it might get kind of dull. So.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot of scheduling, a lot of, lot of people involved to put it together. Our plan right now, and this could change, is to drop two seasons of Meat Eater Kids each year. One in the summer, kind of right when kids get out of school, and then the other around Christmas break. So it spreads them out about six months from each other. Expect that next one, Leland, sometime between like Memorial Day and 4th of July. We're gonna have five new episodes.

• 35:04Speaker 05

  Beginning of June, I can, I think I can officially say it. June is the next season of Meat Eater Kids, so, so keep an eye out for that.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  There you go. Tell little Leland more Meat Eater Kids is on the way.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  Mike, Seth, you're getting a lot of questions from a lot of different people. Michael asks, what is a good camera for beginners for photography? Oh, um, you know, one of, one of the first cameras I, well, is the second camera I ever had was a Sony A6300. It's like a crop sensor, um, mirrorless, um, camera made by Sony. And it's reasonably, um, priced and good quality photos. It's not quite like a professional camera, but it's like something worth getting to like, start with and see if you want to stick with it and see if you like it and then.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Is that north or, north or south of a thousand bucks?

• 35:55Speaker 05

  I think it's probably north, but it's probably pretty close to it. I don't know what they are these days.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  I haven't looked at camera prices in a while, but I feel like that's one of those things that, um, prices are probably coming down. I don't know, like Seth, you and I are the right age that we remember when flash drives came out. Phil, you as well. And there was a moment where like a flash drive was like $80. To get a one gigabyte flash drive.

• 36:17Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, gigs, that's, that's being generous. Several megabytes, yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  And then at some point, everyone could make them, uh, the technology got to a point where, uh, it was far easier to create a super high quality flash drive. I think that's kind of happening with cameras. So I bet like, it's better now than it's ever been to, uh, get a good camera for photography. What other tips you got for Michael?

• 36:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, a tip would just be, uh, learn the camera real well, um, and shoot a lot of photos with it and you'll figure out if you like it and if you like it, you know, just upgrade your gear from there.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  What do you shoot with now?

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Uh, A7R5, which is like, uh, kind of the top of the line, um, not necessary for someone just getting into it.

• 37:03Speaker 04

  That's why Seth's pictures look so good and he's also very talented.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Thanks Spencer.

• 37:07Speaker 04

  What else you got Phil?

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Uh, from Adam, is there any contention between Yanis and Steve being that Yanis want to bear tag on Prince of Wales and Steve continues to lose out?

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Well, uh, Steve is not, uh, losing out. Um, he is, he has other friends and family that have drawn that tag. I believe one or maybe two kids have drawn the same year that I have for 26. So, uh, yeah, these days when our kids have a tag, uh, we, no one's losing out.

• 37:39Speaker 05

  26 is going to be a big year for bear hunting up there.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 05

  My dad drew.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Oh, good.

• 37:43Speaker 05

  For 26, so we'll be up there too.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. I'm gonna go at it Clay Newcomb style. I'm bringing my wet suit and my bow.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Are you being serious?

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 04

  What time of year you go? What month?

• 37:55Speaker 03

  May, probably.

• 37:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like the week before.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Oh, it's gonna be great.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. You have a gun picked out for your dad Seth to take on that hunt?

• 38:04Speaker 05

  Uh, he'll probably bring one of his.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:06Speaker 05

  Probably old dirty odd six or something.

• 38:08Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 38:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. Couple trapping questions for Seth. Oh, boy. Uh, Rashad, I've been trying to catch a fox or coyote for weeks now using a dirt hole set with a lure. A few times the traps have been triggered, but with no catches. Any idea of what I might be doing wrong? Um, well, a lot of times when that happens, it's because the, the fox or coyote is smelling the trap.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  So there might be some scent contamination there. Um, a lot of times when they, they'll, they'll smell the trap in the ground and dig it up and it triggers it. Um, hard to exactly say, you know, what's going on there, but that happens often. So. Cool. And to follow that one up, do you ever use the old Johnny Thorpe no leg hole beaver?

• 38:51Speaker 03

  Skinning method, those are a bunch of words. I have no idea what they mean. Tried it out and it makes a really nice clean beaver hide, perfect for making garments. Have you heard of this stuff?

• 38:58Speaker 05

  No, I know, I know Johnny Thorpe, but I can't say that I know the no leg hole method. I'll have to check that out.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Ben, you taught something new to say.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, Ben Anderson outdoors.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Let's see, this is kind of an interesting one, maybe. Brad asks, what is the line between helping an animal in distress and letting nature take its course? I a fawn trapped in ice or something like that. You guys have any opinions on that?

• 39:26Speaker 04

  I would say know what's legal, Brad. In that situation, your best bet is probably to track down a game warden. And just use your judgment. If your gut tells you that you should put that thing out of its misery, then that's probably what you should do. I don't know that I've been in that situation a lot. There was like I hit a doe with my pickup one time, had to cut its throat. But like putting animals out of their misery.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  But that's not exactly what Brad asked.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:53Speaker 03

  He's asking about just helping an animal in distress versus letting it continue to be distressed. Have you ever had that happen where you had to go? I'm going to do air quotes for save because I lean on the side of kind of letting nature do its thing.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  I was deer hunting in eastern Montana one time and I saw an owl in a barbed wire fence that was still alive. And so I went and cut the fence. I couldn't get a hold of the landowner at that time. But I made the call that I was going to try to help it. So I got a wire cutter out of my pickup, cut the fence, put it in a tote, tracked down the right people to give that to. There's like a raptor association. Had to go like do a handoff to someone else an hour away. They took that raptor, they got it to a rehab facility, it died a week later. So it was, it was disappointing that that was the outcome, but encouraging that like that exists for animals in that exact situation.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  So I did my best at that time. I sacrificed some hunting to make that happen. And then weirdly, because I had to go way out of my way to do this handoff on my way back, I saw some deer entering a guy's field, got a hold of the landowner, got permission. And a half hour later, I killed a big old four by four. So it was, the nature did me right on that hunt.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  You guys ever help or kill an animal that was in distress?

• 41:21Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I did the same thing with hitting a deer with my truck one time.

• 41:25Speaker 04

  How'd you kill it?

• 41:26Speaker 05

  Twenty-two.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know. I feel like if it's like a man, man-made issue.

• 41:33Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 41:34Speaker 05

  It's, I don't know, in my mind, it might not be the right thing or legal thing to do, but I don't know.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  It's just, it's tough watching a deer struggle along the road, you know?

• 41:47Speaker 03

  Oh, for sure, for sure. But now if a young fawn's getting taken down by a pack of coyotes.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Let it go.

• 41:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, let it go. If it's nature, let nature do its thing.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  It's the name of the game.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  To put a bow on that story, I did get ahold of the rancher later on, whose fence I cut, told him what happened. Uh, it's like, hey, I'll, I'll go back and fix it. And he's like, nope, uh, don't worry about it. Uh, thanks for telling me. Uh, good on you for doing the right thing. So it all worked out, except for the owl.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  All right, moving on, our next segment is Meat Pole. I'll say, show me a meat, boys, and take my pole. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio. I got a game to play.

• 42:26Speaker 05

  Wow, that's great, Phil.

• 42:30Speaker 04

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

• 42:56Speaker 03

  I feel like I'm a good, good, above-average trivia player. Quite the opposite here with Meat Pole.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  You, you're not, uh, you're not an average Joe, Yanni. You're too disconnected from, uh, these 500 listeners we're talking to. Maybe that's what we learned.

• 43:10Speaker 03

  Could be.

• 43:10Speaker 04

  Let's see how you do on today's questions. The first one is what percentage of Meat Eater listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared?

• 43:22Speaker 03

  This is so subjective because they have to be humble enough to admit this.

• 43:28Speaker 04

  I'll admit, I got lost to the point where I was scared before. Have you boys had that happen to you?

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, between the ages of 12 and 47, has it happened once? Yes.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  Twice? Yes.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  Okay, well, apply that logic to the folks who were answering this question. What percentage of media or listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared? What was the worst that you ever got lost and scared, Yanni?

• 43:56Speaker 03

  Oh geez.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  It was probably, you know, my dad and I had quite the moment the other day. We just did it via text.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  The other day?

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, a couple of days ago. I was thinking about a podcast idea I have. And that got me to thinking that I'd never really properly thanked my dad for taking me hunting as a young man. You know, so I just shot him a text saying thanks. And he replied with, "Hey, you're welcome. Sorry I yelled at you some of those times."

• 44:30Speaker 03

  And that one time that I'm pretty sure he's probably thinking of, like, and it's on our current property.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  He wasn't specific about what the time was?

• 44:39Speaker 03

  No, but I know that this is the, I mean, there's probably some other times, but, you know, we both just went into the woods, basically. And we had prep stands the day before or whatever, and we're in the dark. He goes on to his spot. And it was one of those things where he kind of dropped me off and I was just gonna walk right 50 yards and right to my tree. Well, like an hour later, I'm just stumbling around in the oak leaves, crunching around, my flashlight going everywhere. And out of the just pitch black, quiet, and still, you know, pre-dawn nightness. I just, I can't remember the exact expletives in the sentence, but it was basically like,

• 45:14Speaker 04

  It was yelling.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  "Just sit down and wait for it to get light." I'm like, "Oh, yeah, that's a good idea." And of course, when it got light, I could see my tree stand.

• 45:24Speaker 04

  A little lost and a little scared that time.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  The most scared I ever got was I was, in college, I was mushroom hunting along the Missouri River. And it was getting dark and it was just like a totally monotonous forest of every tree looked the same. The ground was totally flat. And at some point, I didn't know where I was or how to get back to the road and my pickup. And this was before OnX was there, it was before cell signal had so much coverage. But I could get out a phone call if I needed to. And so my plan was, once I was lost for like a good hour, I was gonna call one of my buddies, have him drive like an hour to the road because he would know where I was at, and then have him honk the horn. And I thought that would guide me out of the woods. Luckily, right before

• 46:07Speaker 04

  I got to that point, I made it out okay. And it wasn't that serious, but I was concerned enough where I was coming up with ideas of how to get out of there.

• 46:16Speaker 03

  You were like, you were like, right around 20?

• 46:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was, I was probably a freshman or sophomore in college.

• 46:22Speaker 05

  I got lost one time coon hunting when I was in high school. Yeah, I think it was in high school.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  At night?

• 46:27Speaker 05

  At night, had like a mag light and that's it. And I, by accident, after several hours, by accidentally stumbled into my house.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Is that where you left from was your house?

• 46:39Speaker 05

  No.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  That's good. Okay, you were a little scared, I imagine.

• 46:45Speaker 05

  I don't remember if I was scared or not, but probably, I don't know.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  All right, Yanni and Seth have their answer for what percentage of media listeners.

• 46:52Speaker 03

  The room there online, and their numbers are a lot lower than mine.

• 46:57Speaker 04

  So what percentage of listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared? Go ahead and reveal your answers. What? We have Yanni saying 87%. And we have Seth saying 11%. The correct answer is 39.1%. I think that means Seth gets that first point. But honestly, neither one of you boys were very close to the right answer.

• 47:22Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  According to one study, it's estimated that over 4,600 people get lost in the woods each year. That's 13 people per day. Hikers make up 48% of people lost in the woods, with the most common demographics being men aged 20 to 25 and men aged 50 to 60. The three most common reasons people get lost is because they got off a trail, failed to have a good plan, and miscalculated time or distance. Phil, who was the closest in the chat to 39.1?

• 47:51Speaker 03

  We had Lane with the 38 and

• 47:53Speaker 04

  Devon with thirty eight as well. Well done Devon and Lane. Here's question two. What percentage of meat eater listeners would give up hunting or excuse me would give up fishing for a year? In exchange for their dream boat?

• 48:08Speaker 04

  What percentage of meat eater listeners would give up fishing for a year? In exchange for their dream boat? Seth, describe for me your dream boat.

• 48:19Speaker 05

  You know, my dream boat's not that crazy. It's just a simple like twenty foot tiller, aluminum tiller boat.

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Oh, okay.

• 48:26Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think mine would be uh, pretty, pretty attainable as well. It'd be like a, like a seventeen foot lawn deep V.

• 48:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  With like a nice open floor plan.

• 48:34Speaker 05

  Like a lawn pro guide, like tiller boat.

• 48:36Speaker 03

  You guys aren't thinking this through.

• 48:38Speaker 05

  What do you mean?

• 48:38Speaker 03

  You like, you, you could have any, if you were to give up fishing, he's saying you could have any boat of your dreams.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  I know, but I, the, the boat that I have the most use for would be that lawn deep V seventeen foot. Uh, I'd probably have a steering.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you've maybe never even been on an eighty foot catamaran, so you didn't know.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  What on earth am I gonna do with that boat, Yanni?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Well, you want me to list off the things that you could do on and off that boat?

• 49:03Speaker 04

  For me, yes. Go ahead.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Oh, you mean like live, like here in Bozeman?

• 49:07Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  I mean, you could put it out on Canyon Ferry and have great big parties on it.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  Maybe uh,

• 49:13Speaker 04

  Not my dream boat.

• 49:13Speaker 03

  You know, go and uh, dive and.

• 49:15Speaker 04

  What, what's your dream boat then? Since me and Seth.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  I would have to think, I would have to think about it a little bit. I don't, but it wouldn't be no, you know, whatever fifty thousand dollar boat you guys are talking about.

• 49:26Speaker 05

  A landing craft would also be nice for up in Alaska.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  Uh, see, see, now Seth's starting to think a little bit.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  So what percentage of listeners would give up fishing for a year in exchange for their dream boat? Seth, would you do it?

• 49:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I probably would.

• 49:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, of course.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would do it too.

• 49:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:44Speaker 04

  Well, there, there's some data for you, boys. You know, three of us.

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Raise my number.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it didn't work for the last question. All three of us have been lost and scared in the woods.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Uh, I guess. That's a good point. You guys have an answer?

• 49:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 49:57Speaker 04

  Go ahead and reveal your answers. Okay, we have Yanni saying eighty seven percent.

• 50:02Speaker 05

  Same number as last time.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  Seth saying eighty percent and you boys are in the right neighborhood this time. The correct answer. Is 75.1 giving Seth the second point and the victory. According to one study, the quintessential boat owner in America is as described. They are a suburban white man, age 54, with an above-average income. But that same study shows a shift since COVID towards boat owners who are younger and more diverse. Phil, who was the closest in the chat?

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Cody with 75 is right there.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  0.1% off. Well done, Cody. All right, question three, we're gonna see if Seth can shut out Yanni, make him go streaking around the building as is tradition when you get skunked. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad?

• 50:55Speaker 04

  Yanni, who just had some very honest conversations with his dad about thanking him for hunting, and then Papa Yannis apologized for yelling at Yanni, do you think you're a better hunter than Papa Yanni?

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Yes, and he would agree. He would tell you that.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  All right, Seth, how about you?

• 51:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:12Speaker 05

  He would agree too.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, me too.

• 51:14Speaker 05

  You too?

• 51:15Speaker 04

  There's some more data for you guys, you know.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  The data, data has not been helping this game. Cory, what about you?

• 51:23Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, way better.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, better hunter, better fisherman, better golfer.

• 51:29Speaker 06

  But I have him to thank for all that.

• 51:31Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 51:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 51:32Speaker 04

  Again, what percentage of Meat Eater listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad?

• 51:40Speaker 04

  Wow, the chat is, uh, stoked you guys are participating to this level. You're keeping Phil busy over there.

• 51:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, lots of numbers. Lot to sift through.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  What percentage of listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad? Are you boys ready?

• 51:54Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 51:55Speaker 04

  Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Yanni saying 76%. Seth is saying 97.2%.

• 52:06Speaker 04

  There's no shutout. The correct answer is 77.5%. Yanni was 1.5% percentage points off of the correct answer. Now, this is a bit surprising since previous polling of our audience showed that only 42% of listeners think they're a better angler than the average angler. But an overwhelming amount of listeners say they're a better hunter than their dad. So either our audience is far more confident in their hunting skills than fishing skills, or most of them think their dad is a poor outdoorsman. Big discrepancy there.

• 52:40Speaker 03

  I would point it to the availability of information that, like, the average

• 52:47Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  average son versus the average dad at this point in time had coming up.

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Because again, I didn't, my dad got me into it, took me hunting, but I would say that, you know, the large majority of what's in my head about hunting did not come from him.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, the hurdles to like get into hunting, or whatever thing you like, mushroom hunting, rock hunting, fishing, it's never been easier because of all the information available online and podcasts like this one. All right.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  We had John Torres with 77.

• 53:20Speaker 04

  77.

• 53:21Speaker 03

  Right there.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Well done, John.

• 53:22Speaker 03

  Good work, John.

• 53:22Speaker 04

  Dang near nailed it.

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• 56:36Speaker 04

  All right, last thing for today. Joining us on the line last is Jim Heffelfinger, the Wildlife Science Coordinator from the Arizona Game and Fish Department. He's here to talk to us about the addition of Havelina to the Boone and Crockett Record Book. Jim, welcome to the show.

• 56:52Speaker 05

  Good to be here.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  Jim, are you a better hunter than your dad?

• 56:56Speaker 05

  Yes, I think so because I taught him when he was in his 60s.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. That's an easy one for you to answer then. All right, Jim, what was the motivation for getting Havelina added to the Boone and Crockett Record Book?

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Well, what is not to like about these cool things? I mean, they're just little wild pigs that live in the desert.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  Hold on, hold on. They're pigs?

• 57:18Speaker 05

  No, no, I was gonna, I was gonna get to that. Yep. So we call them pigs, just as a nickname, but coming from South Texas, that was confusing to me because we had pigs. And then we had these where they're not pigs. So Havelina are not in the pig family, the Sua day. They're in their own family, which is a peccary family, which is Teasua day. And so people make a big deal out of them not being pigs. And they're really not because they're not in the big family, but they're in a very closely related kind of branched off little family. So I don't make a big deal out of it, but they're, they're very different. And the reason they're different is the peccaries, which is the Havelina is a collared peccary. And there's three kinds of peccaries. The other ones are in Southern Mexico and South America. The peccaries are a new world animal. They evolved in North

• 58:01Speaker 05

  America and South America. The pigs, the real pig family is an old world animal that was then brought over here. And so that's, that's the difference. We had peccaries in the Pleistocene, running all over North America. They all went extinct and then the collared peccary re-invaded North America, really in the last, last thousand years.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  So the motivation for getting them added to the record book is just because what's not to love about a little Havelina?

• 58:25Speaker 05

  Exactly. They're just, they're really cool animals. They're a big game animal. Arizona's been managing them as game animals since 1929. Texas and New Mexico has been managing them as game animals since 1930s and like Arizona has a lottery style draw. You have to apply and get a permit to have Lena. We've got 26,000 permits available and increasing trends in popularity in Arizona and New Mexico. They're managed sustainably in sustainable populations in all three states. And I just, how they've escaped the Boone and Crockett record book for 100 years is the real question.

• 59:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it was announced in December that Boone and Crockett would start tracking Havellina records after a unanimous vote. What was the process like in getting them on board?

• 59:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, interesting story is I have an old Manola file folder from 20 years ago that says Havellina, Boone and Crockett category. And I became a professional member in Boone and Crockett, started going to meetings and meetings of Boone and Crockett people. And I asked them that question, why is Havellina not in the record books? And I just got kind of a collective shoulder shrug, like, I don't know. And I was really passionate about making that happening, but there was no momentum. I just kind of ran out of, I wouldn't get any traction anywhere with anybody. And so I started raising a family and doing my job. And it was last year that Nicole Tappman from New Mexico Game and Fish called me and said, hey, would you write a letter to support putting Havellina as a new record book category?

• 59:56Speaker 05

  And I said, write a letter? I'm clearing my calendar. I mean, let's get to work. Let's start working on this. And so we enlisted a couple of people from Mexico who have an interest in this, three people from Texas, Nicole from New Mexico, me from Arizona, and we all came together as a team and we wrote this proposal that was presented to the Boone and Crockett Records Committee. Nicole's a member of the Records Committee. I'm kind of a recent member of the Records Committee and I have a little asterisk behind my name because I'm not an official measurer. But we were in the Record Book Committee meetings and we put together, first of all, we just put together some rudimentary information. We brought that to the Records Committee and we said, We'd like to do this. There's good reason to do it. What we'd like from you is just to invite

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  us to come back with a full proposal. And they did that. They were interested enough. They said, let's see what you got. So we spent six months or so and we came back with a full proposal. And some of the old, some of the, the members of the records committee that have been there for decades said they have never seen a, a, a more researched and well put together proposal. And it was just really an overwhelming success. Everybody saw the information we brought to bear and, and, um, and agreed that was a pretty good idea. So they, they approved it in December and now we're in the phase of, uh, of implementing, kind of rolling it out and getting it set up.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Well, you must have done a good job because again, it was unanimously approved by Boone and Crockett. Now let's talk about scoring them. What measurements are taken on a javelina?

• 1:01:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's going to be, we, we want to keep things simple. We don't want something different for this kind of animal. So it's just, it's just length plus width like we do for bears and mountain lions. Um, and you can see in the background there is the, um, the Arizona record book. So Arizona's had a record book since 1970 in keeping track of length, um, plus width of the skull. Uh, Texas has had record books since, uh, 2010. New Mexico just uses SCI of scoring. They don't have their state record book. Uh, so we have a huge body of, of information to guide us in, in how to measure them and what the minimum score, uh, might be. The one quirk was that all of those Arizona records, if you can see in the, in the picture, the, the incisors

• 1:02:07Speaker 05

  hang out a little bit farther than the skull bone itself. Boone and Crockett always includes the teeth with lions and, and bears. The, the historical Arizona javelina records did not include those incisors, just the skull itself. Um, and so we had to look at the historical records and we looked at a whole bunch of javelina skulls and saw that the teeth add about one sixteenth or one eighth. And so we had to just kind of add that little bit to the score to get an idea of what a minimum score might be for, for javelina.

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  So how many, how many entries are in that Arizona book, Jim?

• 1:02:41Speaker 05

  About 700 in the Arizona book and the the minimum score it started out um this is the 1970s book it started out with the minimum score and this is all species uh this is our state record book started out with a minimum score of like 13 and something it's been 14 this is our current book of all species it's been 14 inches for a long time um and so there's seven so there's 700 in there which has some of our grandfather but they're um above 14 New Mexico's had uh well using the um SCI they use uh like 14 and one sixteenth and Texas had a lower one to 13 and and um 10 sixteenths but to give you an idea of the range of those since

• 1:03:23Speaker 05

  we have this information um the the largest javelina on record in any of those states is 15 and 7 sixteenths that gives you a good idea what pretty much maximum is or or at least what the goal is to beat and there's 21 javelina that have been measured that are over 15 inches that gives you lets you kind of frame what that looks like 700 over uh 14 inches and only 21 over 15 inches

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  And what's the minimum score going to be for Boone and Crockett was there any disagreement on that number?

• 1:03:55Speaker 05

  Not disagreement just a lot of um discussion and that's not finalized yet so they're talking about that now but having all of this data set for a new animal is so valuable because we can look at that and and we could even do some little diagrams and say well if it's set at this limit how many can we expect and we can we expect a lot you know over that amount so it gives us that kind of basis information but one important thing is we don't take all those records out of Texas and Arizona and throw them into Boone and Crockett record book every skull will have to be measured by a Boone and Crockett uh official measure and um and so obviously all of those won't be in the Boone and Crockett record but anybody that's got a big skull laying around um they can measure it themselves with length length plus width and just see where where

• 1:04:38Speaker 05

  they are in relation to um some of these numbers we're talking about and then when this goes live find an official measure if you think it's close and and can get it measured so any any skull people have can be brought in just like now if you find uh an old cow's whitetail in grandpa's attic um you can enter it

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  Do you have any advice for hunters on how they can best field judge a Boone or javelina?

• 1:05:01Speaker 05

  That's not easy. It's not even, it's not even really possible to tell male from female unless you get a little side shot and you see like a penis sheath. But as far as size or any other characteristics, you can't even tell the sex. And so telling skull size isn't always going to be body size. An animal that grows up the first couple of years with not much nutrition. So there's my dad with his javelina, eighty-nine years old. He killed a mule deer at ninety the next year, and he's ninety-one now. So the thing with the skull measurement is that the big skull has to start with good nutrition the first year. So an animal doesn't have good nutrition for the first couple of years and then has, gets into an ag field and gets a real fat body, it may not have a big skull. So I think what's going to be important is

• 1:05:45Speaker 05

  an animal that grows up, mother has good nutrition, that animal has good nutrition year one, two, three, four, and I think that skull is going to come along with that nutrition. So it's going to be hard to judge. It's going to be hard to field judge an animal. But it's a fun thing because javelina is so fun to hunt. It's a fun thing to have this little extra thing that you can go check and see if you've got a book pig.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  Now Jim, what are some things you predict that we'll learn about javelina once these records are compiled? Is there like going to be some decade or year that produced an unusual amount of records? Will we realize that there's a subspecies we didn't know about? And is like some county in Texas or Arizona suddenly going to be thought of as the Buffalo County of whitetails for javelina?

• 1:06:29Speaker 05

  I don't think we'll find a different subspecies because we have enough measurements now to kind of compare that. But the Boone and Crockett record books were originally designed not so people could brag about the big animal they killed, but to document North America's big game animals. And so this is just in line with the original purpose of these record books is to start documenting some of this biological information for javelina. And so we, we may be able to look at geographic differences. I don't think we're going to see annual differences like we do in antlers that are grown every year because what I just talked about was skulls needing that nutrition there. But we may find areas, like if you look at a soil map and compare that to Boone and Crockett whitetail entries, you see a correlation with thick. Fertile soils like Buffalo County, Wisconsin, and the whole Mississippi River Valley.

• 1:07:14Speaker 05

  I think we may see something like that, although with Havelina, we might find that Havelina's Buffalo County, or the one county where all the big trophies come from, might be a county in Texas that has the highest density of feeders or supplemental feeding that has that nutrition. It's probably not going to be like in the middle of the Sonoran Desert where they're, they're eating a pretty fair fruits and, and digging for roots and things like that.

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Well, that's a good prediction. I, I think you're going to be right there, Jim. Well, thank you for joining us today and thanks for fighting on behalf of the Havelina.

• 1:07:46Speaker 05

  I'm happy to. They're awesome.

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  Have a good one.

• 1:07:48Speaker 03

  Thanks, Jim.

• 1:07:49Speaker 05

  Thanks, Jim.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  Yanni, have you killed? How many Havelina have you killed?

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Exactly one.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  Okay. Do you, have you ever measured it?

• 1:07:56Speaker 03

  I haven't, but I will tonight.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, do it. Do you have calipers at home or are you going to use a tape measure?

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  Uh, I do have calipers.

• 1:08:03Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:08:04Speaker 03

  I believe in my reloading kit.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  You, you let us know what that thing's going to score.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  And then maybe tell, tell Jim what it is so he can fight for the, the minimum to be right at that number.

• 1:08:15Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. There you go.

• 1:08:17Speaker 04

  All right. That brings us to the end of this week's show. Phil, let's get some final feedback from the chat.

• 1:08:22Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, last call for questions for the crew. I've only got a few so far, so get those rolling in. Uh, Zeb Zooms asks, who in the office is the best with their bow?

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Hmm. I bet it is whoever shoots the most, which is maybe Yanis?

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  I don't know who the best is with their bow.

• 1:08:39Speaker 04

  I'll say you. Who would you say if not you?

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  I don't know, Corey. Who else shoots, hunts with their bow a bunch?

• 1:08:46Speaker 06

  Logan?

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  Logan, yeah. Logan, like last year, killed two or three big game animals with his bow.

• 1:08:53Speaker 04

  Maybe we'll find out in the future, but uh, we'll say Logan and Yanis right now, best with their bow.

• 1:09:00Speaker 03

  Cool. Uh, Jordan, question for Phil. Favorite tiki cocktail?

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Oh, can I guess?

• 1:09:04Speaker 03

  Have at it.

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  Mai Tai.

• 1:09:06Speaker 05

  Incorrect. That's a good one.

• 1:09:08Speaker 04

  Uh, how about like, uh, like a fruit punch with rum?

• 1:09:11Speaker 05

  Oh, rum punch? Uh, it's the same as Richard Nixon's. It's called the Navy Grog. It's, it's, uh, there's, there's several different ways to make it, but it's, uh, it's one of the few big tiki drinks that's like kind of grapefruit forward. So it's, uh, you know, strong rum, more straw, a different kind of strong rum. Allspice dram, which is like basically what it sounds like. It's kind of like an allspice, really like warming spice, uh, syrup. Uh, or I guess it's more of a liqueur and lime juice and a bunch of other stuff in there, but it's just, it's, it's strong. It's well balanced though. But you said there's some grapefruit in there too? Really easy to make. Yeah. Yeah. Fresh grapefruit juice.

• 1:09:50Speaker 04

  What would be the silver and bronze medalist for top tiki cocktail?

• 1:09:54Speaker 05

  Oh man, well, as far as classics go, uh, Planters Punch, that's a really easy one to make. It's very simple and, um, and then, uh, you know, Mai Tai's up there as well. They, they all kind of, I mean, we went to, um, False Idol in San, in San Diego, Spencer, and I could tell you were kind of underwhelmed by the classic tiki drinks, cause a lot of them kind of taste the same. It's like a lot of lime, a lot of rum, and then some, it's the other stuff that sets the drinks apart. But I mean, every tiki bar in America has like their own sort of, uh, house menu where they, where they get wild and just, and that's where you can find some, some good hidden gems. But as far as classics go, it's the, it's the Navy Grog.

• 1:10:31Speaker 04

  Underwhelmed, but I'd say like a bad tiki drink is still a good cocktail. Uh, but the, what's, what's it called? The Navy what?

• 1:10:38Speaker 05

  Navy Grog.

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  Navy Grog. That's what we're gonna drink at you and Seth's bachelor party.

• 1:10:42Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to this, Phil. What, how much lime juice would you have to add to a rum and coke to turn it into a tiki drink? Uh, well, yeah, to get the, gotta get the coke out of there first. No coke. No coke, no. Need more fruit. Uh, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, there, there is, man, what is the?

• 1:10:58Speaker 04

  Cuba Libre?

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  That, yeah, that's, that's like-

• 1:11:01Speaker 04

  That's a rum and coke with lime.

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  That's a tiki adjacent drink. Like, a lot of those kind of Cuban, those Cuban-inspired drinks are, you know, rum. Tiki drinks draw a lot of inspiration from, from, from that.

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

  If you don't want to call it a rum and coke, Yanni, if you wanted to have like an upscale name, you'd call it a Cuba Libre.

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  Which is just a rum and coke with a lime wedge.

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, you squeeze in there.

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  What else we got from the chat, Phil?

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  Uh, you know, I was, I was waxing about my tiki drinks. I haven't been reading the chat, so if you guys want to make some small talk, I'll try to find some other ones.

• 1:11:28Speaker 05

  Someone was asking about your livestream in there.

• 1:11:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, the Red Dead livestream. Um, I, I, I'm, it's, it's going to happen very, in the, in the next few months, most likely. I'm, I'm in the, the midst of planning it, making graphics, making overlays. I don't want it to be just me playing video games, because that sucks. So I'm trying to make it fun and free even people who don't care about video games.

• 1:11:48Speaker 05

  You should have a little tiki bar during your livestream.

• 1:11:51Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:11:52Speaker 05

  You just sip on drinks.

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  The light bulb just, just went pop back. Incredible, incredible suggestion, Seth. That's absolutely happening.

• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  Great.

• 1:12:01Speaker 03

  Rand, Dr. Randall has been very active in the chatroom today. It's almost like he's not working and just chatting in the chatroom during the show.

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  Don't discourage that, Yanni. We want the crew members to be in the chat during the meeting.

• 1:12:13Speaker 03

  You know, here's, here's the, here's what I'm gonna say about Randall. The reason I'm not addressing his, his very ecstatic tiki drink, uh, comments is because I'm pretty sure I misled Randall about the drink that Phil Spector drank that night. I don't believe it was a Navy grog, Randall. I think it was a zombie, and I apologize for the last few months. If you've told that story to your friends, you gotta call them back, tell them it's not the Navy grog. It was the zombie that Phil Spector drank before he murdered, uh, his, his girlfriend. Um, okay, sorry.

• 1:12:43Speaker 03

  Randall called us liars earlier in the chatroom.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Oh, about what?

• 1:12:46Speaker 03

  Uh, it was at 11:42. I don't know, yeah, there's two. The live chat's hard, because sometimes you don't know what they're referring to.

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  11:42, we'd have probably been playing Meatpole at that time, so one of the three of us.

• 1:12:56Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, Randall, Randall says he, he just pulled that from Wikipedia. So maybe it was the Navy grog. There's a lot of tiki lore out there, guys. You can get lost in it. And that's, that's where we will end the tiki talk.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  Okay, what else you got, Phil? Anything else from the chat?

• 1:13:09Speaker 03

  I don't know what this means, but Taylor asked Spencer, have you ever found any uperlite rock hounding?

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  I have not found uperlite. The Great Lakes region is largely unexplored for me when it comes to rock hounding. Uh, but there are a lot of aspirational fossils, jams, rocks over there that I would love to, uh, get on someday. And, uh, uperlite is at the top of the list. I have traded some people for uperlite. So I have uperlite in my collection, but none that I have found yet.

• 1:13:36Speaker 03

  What about leverites?

• 1:13:39Speaker 04

  That's, uh, I heard that joke for the first time from, uh, Max Bart. I like that. So you, yeah, you said, did you find any leverlite? You do it to Seth.

• 1:13:50Speaker 05

  This is totally something Max Bart would do.

• 1:13:51Speaker 03

  Seth, have you found any, uh, leverites? Leverite rock?

• 1:13:55Speaker 05

  What's a leverite?

• 1:13:56Speaker 03

  Kind of rock you use leverite there. Uh, Randall said that he was referring to people lying about being scared or lost. Ah, I see. Yeah. Randall, it's time to update that, uh, YouTube chatroom picture, buddy.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  Why is that?

• 1:14:10Speaker 03

  Uh, it's just, doesn't look like Randall, really.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  Look like Randall.

• 1:14:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  Anything else from the chat, Phil?

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  Uh, someone asked favorite way to cook, uh, turkey legs and thighs. And it's, you know, it's still turkey season. It hasn't even started.

• 1:14:23Speaker 05

  It's just started in a lot of places.

• 1:14:25Speaker 03

  I feel like when Turkey Week is over at Meat Eater, it just, I, I mean, as someone who doesn't hunt turkeys, I just feel like the season's over.

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  It honestly should be Turkey Month.

• 1:14:33Speaker 03

  Hey. I agree. Hey, you're the second guy to say that in this room in the last seven days, uh, maybe eight days.

• 1:14:39Speaker 05

  Did you say that too?

• 1:14:40Speaker 03

  Last week.

• 1:14:41Speaker 05

  There we go. We're on the same wavelength.

• 1:14:43Speaker 03

  He, I got a hot tip from, I got a bunch of hot tips about cooking. That was from Evan. Down in, uh, Texas last, or two weeks ago. And, uh, another one was that instead of doing the, uh, slow cooker with your legs and thighs, do the, um, braising pot. What was the word I'm looking for?

• 1:15:03Speaker 04

  Instapot?

• 1:15:04Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. Like, uh, like the one you put in the, uh,

• 1:15:07Speaker 05

  Like a cast iron?

• 1:15:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, use a Dutch oven. I did that a couple nights ago and just the, the difference is very demonstrable. Like, like way more tender. Um, it actually took less time.

• 1:15:22Speaker 04

  Hmm. Probably a lot of liquid needed.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  You know, uh, about the same amount. I actually left, I was, I, I didn't fully cover all my, the, I did all, uh, drumsticks in this batch. Had two or three of them that were like at least half sticking out. They didn't dry out. So somehow that seal was just somehow better than in the slow cooker. And yeah, I mean, I usually give my drumsticks like eight hours, I would say in the slow cooker. And this was done in like five.

• 1:15:51Speaker 05

  Hmm, I gotta try that.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  I kept checking them and the hardest part about it is to get your oven temp set just right. So you're not ripping too hard, but you're still just rolling a little bit. And I was fluctuating a bunch and I ended at uh 240 was where my oven needed to be set. Just to get that just nice, slow roll. And uh, yeah, I was in, like I said, Jesse had told me to do this and it paid dividends.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, with any, any turkey legs, you're probably looking at like three very important things. Low, slow and liquid. And Evan, to, to answer your question about favorite ways of cooking, go to the meat eater.com. Uh, at our recipes page, you can sort by ingredients. So you can uh see all the turkey recipes there with just a click of the button. And people can leave reviews on our recipes. So you can see what other uh visitors to the website have liked or disliked. Uh, you'll see how many reviews there are, how many stars it's gotten. Uh, you'll find all kinds of good recipes over there. Seth, anything to add about cooking turkey legs?

• 1:16:53Speaker 05

  No, I just, yeah, it's gotta be low and slow.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  Bill, let's uh, let's do, we got one last question.

• 1:16:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, we got one last from a guy named Garrett Long. Sounds like a dumb name. Uh, plus two.

• 1:17:04Speaker 05

  Never heard of her.

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  To who in the office, or who, who would win the most dangerous game? Who would hunt the most dangerous game the best? What does plus two mean? I don't know.

• 1:17:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know what that means either.

• 1:17:16Speaker 03

  But who, who do you think would, would be able to hunt, hunt people the best?

• 1:17:19Speaker 04

  Dangerous game.

• 1:17:22Speaker 03

  Who would win? So the most dangerous game in quotes is a thing that you all know about?

• 1:17:26Speaker 04

  But I, that, I think that implies that we're hunting humans.

• 1:17:31Speaker 05

  Probably our folks that have actually done it.

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:17:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's gonna get dark. In fact, yeah, I shouldn't have picked this clip. Garrett, why would you ask?

• 1:17:39Speaker 04

  Seth's answer is our veterans in the office. There you go. Are you happy with that answer, Garrett Long? Okay, that's gonna bring us to the end of the show.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Sorry to go dark, folks.

• 1:17:50Speaker 04

  We'll see you guys back here next week.

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  Oh, wait, are we ending the show?

• 1:17:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're done.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Oh, God, sorry.

• 1:17:56Speaker 04

  Goodbye.

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