Ep. 807: Dew Claws, Buck Nuts, and Christmas Trees | MeatEater Radio Live!

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Ryan Callaghan, and Cory Calkins interview Matt Ross of the National Deer Association about what dew claws tell us about deer, throw a Hot Tip Off, play a round of Meat Poll, chat Christmas trees with Cornell University's Trent Preszler, and take a look at some regrettable tattoos. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 2:47Speaker 02

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

• 3:09Speaker 03

  Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 9 a.m. for our friends in North Pole, Alaska on Thursday, December 18. And we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host Spencer, joined today by Corey and Cal. On today's show, we'll interview deer biologist Matt Ross about identifying buck tracks. Then we have a hot tip-off about European mounts, followed by a game of meat pole where we'll find out how much Corey and Cal know about their fellow outdoorsmen. After that, we'll talk to Trent Pressler about the history of Christmas trees. And finally, we'll look at some regrettable outdoor tattoos. Corey and Cal, we are a week away from Christmas. I'm sure you have some big fancy meal plans already in the works.

• 3:54Speaker 03

  What are we going to be eating Christmas Day, Cal?

• 3:56Speaker 02

  I have, well, it's probably not going to be Christmas Day, but Christmas Eve, I have like a nice standing antelope rib roast.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  That I cut special for the occasion.

• 4:09Speaker 03

  How many folks you feeding with that?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Um, you know, it's an antelope, so it'll be like an appetizer type of deal, you know, so. Uh, but yeah, it'd be like, uh, I think it's a six rib rack and then, so I have two of those. And then I kind of bind them together and make a circle. Okay. And, um, you know, I, I struggle with making things fancy and too fancy. Hmm. Um, cause I don't, I don't want it to be like some super fancy thing. Okay. More approachable. If you're leaving ribs in it, that already like elevates it. Yeah. I think. Yeah, it'll be good. I'm not gonna make like little hats on there or anything like that. Yeah. How are you gonna make it? Um, just medium rare, man. Like, yeah, put it on the pellet grill.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Figures itself out. Yeah. You just don't, do not overcook that stuff and it looks real pretty. So. Corey, what, what are we serving at the Culkins household this Christmas?

• 5:03Speaker 04

  Man, we typically do a fondue Christmas night.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:07Speaker 04

  So probably some, uh.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Do you do cheese or oil?

• 5:11Speaker 04

  Cheese.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  Cheese?

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. Go to Costco, get some fancy cheeses and then just do all the sides. Probably do some wild game sausage, some fruits and bread.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 5:19Speaker 04

  Uh, probably do some little steak bites in there, at least for myself.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Uh, but probably start the day with some black bear biscuits and gravy. I'm thinking a little white gravy in the morning. Just thinking maybe just two meals on Christmas, one in the morning.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  And dinner and evening. What, uh, what, what, with, with your son there, how do, what, what time does Christmas kick off?

• 5:42Speaker 04

  He gets pretty antsy and wakes up a little extra early that morning. So.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Good. He earned it.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Big time.

• 5:47Speaker 02

  Was he naughty, naughty or nice this year?

• 5:51Speaker 02

  So. He was, keep in mind, I did an impartial audit because when I was at the on X event, I spoke with your next door neighbor.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, I heard. Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  Kind of Colorado.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Yep. Uh, he was definitely on the fence this year, but, uh, we, we jumped in and did the elf on the shelf, which has helped us out a lot because the elf, of course, moves around throughout the, throughout the house every morning. He's in a new spot and he's gonna report to Santa. Like double time. Santa's always listening, but the elf on the shelf like really digs deep and like double oh seven style, reports back to Santa. So ever since elf on the shelf, he's kind of picked it up. So we'll see. He's got a week to go. I hope he makes it on the nice list. I got a big bag of Kingsford charcoal if, uh.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  If things stay the same, but I think he'll make it.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  He just introduced that big brother culture early on.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Uh huh. Little eye in the sky.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Corey is wearing a nice black eye today that Marshall did play a role in.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  Uh, he was there.

• 6:51Speaker 03

  We're not going to address that today. Besides, right now, you can get the story of Corey's battle wound on next week's episode.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  It's not that obvious, is it?

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Of Meat Eater Radio.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  A little bit.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. I, I'm going to deep fry my first turkey this Christmas, a hen that I killed in Idaho. Uh, you boys have any advice besides, you know, doing it frozen in the kitchen?

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Inside, wet.

• 7:16Speaker 04

  Did you brine it?

• 7:17Speaker 03

  I have not yet. It is, I just got it out of the freezer this morning. It's going to get into a brine, I think on Monday will be the plan.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Cool. I would, um, in your, your run of show, right? Which is always a like a nice thing to just write out ahead of time. Um, I would budget in

• 7:40Speaker 02

  12 hours of, uh, air circulation in the refrigerator drying out.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Post brine.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  I would second that. Make sure it's nice and dry.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you can like, uh, you know, like load up, I hate wasting paper towels, but you can like load up the cavity with paper towels.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  And do a couple of swaps there. Um, that'll help, but like getting, getting that skin, getting everything like dry.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Is a, is a great, that's, is it skin on, right?

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Skin on, it plucked the whole thing. It's a hen. It's probably like, I don't know, 12 or 13 pounds. I haven't weighed it yet. Um, but it should be good.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  So did you go all the way out to the wing tips?

• 8:26Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Whole ass bird.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  For presentation, it really does make a difference.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  It's not that hard.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Good for you. That's great.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Very excited. But I've got a five course meal planned. That's going to be the fifth and final course. It's going to be the, the climax of the whole meal. Um, so.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  A lot of pressure.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Do you need a turkey fryer?

• 8:45Speaker 03

  I got one.

• 8:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  I, I have one of those ready to go. Normally this time of year, you can use just like your front porch as a refrigerator, but it's been so damn warm lately. Uh, cause you know, the, the fridge gets so full on Christmas. I don't think it's even cold enough outside to keep your.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  What, uh, are you doing like a soup course?

• 9:02Speaker 03

  We've got a soup course. I've got an antelope squash sausage. Uh, that, that'll come right before the turkey. I think before that, um, I've got, uh, what is it? Some mac and cheese before that. It's some roasted carrots. And before that, we've got a winter salad.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Five courses.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  And dessert course, obviously.

• 9:20Speaker 03

  Well, I see, sure. If you count that six courses, uh, I'm, I'm still trying to learn how to bake. So I'm going to whip up some cookies that morning. Um, that'll be the, the sixth and final course.

• 9:30Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Very excited.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, very cool, man.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Christmas.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Who are you putting this show on for?

• 9:35Speaker 03

  Uh, my wife, a couple of friends, sister in law. So we got, I think, six people in the house.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Great. Very manageable.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  That's right. We can, we can do it. Uh, it'll be a team effort though. All right.

• 9:47Speaker 02

  Establish that ahead of time too.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  Let's get on with the show. Joining us on the line first is Matt Ross, the Senior Director of Conservation for the National Deer Association. He's going to tell us about what's fact and what's fiction when it comes to identifying buck tracks. Matt, welcome to the show.

• 10:05Speaker 05

  Hey, guys.

• 10:06Speaker 02

  Hey, man.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  I feel very underdressed, at least inappropriately dressed. You guys look great.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Oh, we like that first light gear there, buddy. Well, well worn.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, you, you were dressed like a deer biologist. Uh, we are dressed like dummy podcast Christmas, uh, fellas. All right. I want to start off talking about dew claws. Explain what they are and what purpose they serve.

• 10:29Speaker 05

  Dew claws are, they're digits. Uh, they're like extra digits. Uh, you know, dew claws are on deer anyway. Uh, we're talking about deer are vestigial. They're like a remnant digit, a little bit up from the actual hoof, but all mammals, or most mammals and, uh,

• 10:49Speaker 05

  Birds and and other animals that actually have dewclaws, think of your pets. If you've got a dog, a cat, they have those little extra digits up the back from their pad, their normal pad. Even some bird species like raptors, owls, eagles, hawks, they have that extra claw. For most animals that actually have dewclaws, um, they don't really serve a purpose, uh, except for for raptors, of course, they're they're using them to catch fish and tear fish and and other, uh, other prey animals. But on deer itself, there are those extra digits. They have a, um, a carotinous or like, you know, kind of a hoof, uh, material on them. And, uh, they're behind the actual hoof and a little bit, little bit up from

• 11:31Speaker 05

  that. Um, but they're vestigial, they're not used. Uh, deer have a couple of remnant things on them. I mean, if you've ever killed a deer with, uh, upper canines, those are, you know, an evolutionary throwback. That's what dewclaws are. They're part of the animal family that has an even numbered of toes, uh, you know, all of the cervids of deer, elk, um, and other species, moose. And, uh, instead of two hooves, they used to have four. Now they they only use two of them.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Now, most hunters would tell you that you can identify a buck track by the dewclaw indentations. Is that true?

• 12:07Speaker 05

  That is not true. Um, both bucks and does actually have dewclaws, so it's not sex specific. So if you're saying just because dewclaws are present in the track, it must be a buck, uh, that could be a buck, but it's it's not a definitive thing. They, both sexes have them.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  Uh, now, another common bit of wisdom deer hunters will tell you is that buck hooves spread the furthest apart. So if you see a track that is shaped like a heart where there's a lot of space between the pads, then that's a buck. Is that true?

• 12:41Speaker 05

  That is also probably not as reliable of a, of a thing to use. Most deer might spread their hooves apart based on their weight. And so you could have a, a big female or a, a big male buck or doe that, that could spread their toes apart. It also could be based on their gait and how quickly they're moving or the material that they're stepping down on. So if it's, you know, soft mud, uh, their toes might spread apart. So, um, generally the

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Soft mud, everybody's a buck.

• 13:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. Generally, the heavier the deer, the likelihood of those, those hooves spreading apart will happen. But just because it's doing it, I wouldn't say it's a reliable estimator.

• 13:23Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I've also heard it said that hooves can be like fingerprints where some deer will produce unique tracks that you can ident- identify them by. Is that true?

• 13:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, that could be true. Um, I, I think the likelihood is, is low. I mean, most deer hooves look the same, so most tracks look the same. But, I mean, I've seen and killed deer that had unique characteristics in their hooves. Never gone back to go look to see if I could find that track. And I've never used a track, if you, maybe you guys have, to, to track a deer. But, you know, they, they mess up their hooves, their material that grows constantly, but they can chip pieces off or parts of it might, if they're diseased, like with epizootic hemorrhagic disease or EHD, their, their hooves can crack. So that is true. Have you guys, have there ever experienced that?

• 14:11Speaker 03

  I, I don't know that I've seen a unique track where I'm like, that is a, a weird walking buck. You guys?

• 14:17Speaker 02

  I feel like I've read about it.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  But I've never, not firsthand, no.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Corey, anything with elk, deer?

• 14:23Speaker 04

  Uh, the buck I killed this year, actually, I, I knew he had a limp at least from the, the landowner told me, like, look for a buck that's got a pretty obvious limp and old. And his, his hooves were extremely large and elongated. So just in a normal track, I could tell that, at least guessed that that was him.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:42Speaker 03

  You knew his fingerprint.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it was, that's just being big though. Right.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  My thought went to old, like really old nasty hooves.

• 14:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:52Speaker 04

  They were indented, almost hollow on the inside.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  I feel like there's like an old outdoor life story of like a bull that has like it's missing the the front part of its

• 15:03Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  Of one of its toes there.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  You know, and it's like, that's, that's how.

• 15:07Speaker 03

  It's gotta be really unique.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  Right.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Uh, the last bit of tracking wisdom I've heard is that buck tracks are just simply bigger than doe tracks. Uh, please tell us that's at least true.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's true. Bucks generally are bigger than, than does. And so if you're looking at tracks, the largest ones would likely be, um, a buck, just because they're, they're bigger animals. Um, that, that from a sexual dimorphism, but there's a lot of overlap there as you're showing on the screen. Um, you know, being able to, to take somebody to a individual track and say definitively, this is absolutely a buck. Um, you know, there's only a small percentage, it's five, 10% of, of all tracks. It would be on that right end of the scale there where you could say, well, it's likely a buck, but, um, there's a lot of overlap. I mean, just because it's got big tracks doesn't necessarily mean it's, it's a buck.

• 16:02Speaker 05

  And if you're interested in antlers, you know, there's a lot of probably large antler deer walking around for bucks that have medium to small size hooves. So, um, you, you may be able to sec, you know, segregate bucks out a slight a bit, but there is a ton of overlap as that graphic shows.

• 16:19Speaker 03

  And how big a tracks are we talking? If we want to be sure that we're looking at a buck track, what size does it need to approach to be like, okay, that, that is a mature buck?

• 16:29Speaker 05

  Well, you're looking at that graphic right there, you know, at least in that study, that was from Georgia. Um, you know, the tracks that are more than four inches in length, at least down there. Um, it would change geographically. So, you know, I live in upstate New York in the, um, foothills of the Adirondacks deer here are much larger than they are in Georgia as where you guys are in Montana. So, you know, a deer track that's probably four and a half, five inches in length and overall three to three and a half inches wide or wider is going to be a large deer. Um, and then you'd be looking at. Probably some, if not most of those being bucks.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  And I think I remember Matt from that study, it's saying like the top 10% of the biggest tracks you see, those likely belong to a buck. Is that, is that correct?

• 17:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, that study that you just showed was from Georgia from the mid or early 2000s. They had about 150 deer that were hunter harvested and they measured the tracks off of all of them. About 100 of the deer were bucks and I think it was 8% were, you were able to definitively say of the 150 something deer were bucks just based on the length or the width.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  Okay, so simply put, deer claws don't mean much. The amount of space between the pads of the hooves doesn't mean anything, but the very biggest tracks in the woods likely belong to bucks. Is there anything else hunters can learn by looking at deer tracks?

• 17:57Speaker 05

  Oh heck yeah. There's a lot you can get out of tracks. Freshness of the sign, right? I think that's probably one of the most undervalued types of sign. We concentrate on like sign post behavior, scrapes, rubs, those kinds of things, at least for whitetails. And I think a lot of people overlook the freshness of the track and the preponderance of lots of tracks in an area just to have a lot of deer activity, whether they're feeding there or they're spending a lot of time. So freshness, the direction the deer are headed and that travel might give you an indication of what their needs are, where they're going and coming from. And then just it could potentially point you in directions of other sign that'll help you get on deer.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  You know, tracks are important, but looking for feeding sign or some of those other things I just mentioned. And certainly up in, at least in the New England and Great Lakes states, there are a lot of successful people that use tracks to, you know, hunt down and kill a deer just based on following them in the snow. And I'm not one of those people that are successful at tracking only, but certainly that can, that can get you on deer too, if you're in the right environment. So lots of things that we can get out of tracks, not necessarily segregating whether or not they're bucks or does.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  And if you come across like a deer with, with, with the big red nose. Is that like, what's the etiquette there? Is that a shoot, don't shoot scenario for you? And the good folks at NDA, have you covered that one yet?

• 19:24Speaker 05

  I think, I think that one's off limits for all people.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  All right. Thank you for educating us, man. Thanks for joining us.

• 19:33Speaker 05

  You got it. Merry Christmas, guys.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Hey, Merry Christmas. Thank you.

• 19:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  All right. Our next segment is Hot Tip Off.

• 19:41Speaker 06

  H-O-T-T-I-P-O-F. Let's all do a hot tip off. H-O-T-T-I-P-O-F. Let's all do a hot tip off.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  Hot Tip Off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. And after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one minute video on your phone and send it to [email protected] with the subject line, Hot Tip Off. This week, it's Jack Anderson versus Luke Long, and they're competing for a $100 MeatEater gift card. Take it away, Phil.

• 20:21Speaker 06

  Luke Long.

• 20:26Speaker 07

  Hey, guys. My name's Luke Long. I've got a hot tip for you today. Um, if you're like me, you like to hang the European mounts from the bucks you kill on your man cave wall or wherever it may be. And I've got an easy way to do that for you. Go to Walmart, you can get these two and a half inch metal brackets. They're four for five bucks. And you take one of these brackets and you're going to bend it at one of these holes. So I take a pair of vice grips here. And give it a little bend. About like that. You can adjust the angle. May need to go a little further on this one. And I'm going to show you now on the wall how it works. All right. So here you can see I've got one mounted on the wall. I paint them black so they don't show up as much, but you're going to push that bracket right into that brain cavity and your deer is going to hang there just perfect.

• 21:10Speaker 07

  Um, you can also hang antelope on them as well. Um, I'm sure of quite a few other animals, maybe. Ule deer work. Jackalope. Antelope. Got that one crooked. But there you go. I've got a lot of them and, uh, they work really good.

• 21:28Speaker 03

  God, he had to borrow a lot of deer to make this video.

• 21:30Speaker 08

  Jack Anderson.

• 21:32Speaker 03

  Good hunter.

• 21:35Speaker 08

  Jack from Minnesota here coming at you with a hot tip off for skull cleaning. Ditch the turkey burner, get yourself a thermostat controlled water heater. Keep your temp between 90 and 110 degrees. A process called maceration will happen. The bacteria in that temp range is gonna just eat the meat off of the skull. You're not gonna have to do any high pressure water blasting. It's pretty much all just gonna fall off. Change this water every two to three days until all of the meat is off of the skull. Do the same process with dish soap and water to degrease it, whiten it with peroxide. And you're gonna yield some taxidermy level skull cleaning at home. Your nose bones are gonna be there, your nasal cavity is gonna be there. Hands off, hands free, your dog's gonna love the smell of it.

• 22:20Speaker 08

  Give it a shot.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Alright, Phil is going to put up a poll for the chat to vote on. The chat is going to decide who gets that $100 meat eater gift card between Luke Long and Jack Anderson, and we're gonna discuss which one we like best. Again, Luke Long had the manipulated metal brackets for European mounts. Jack Anderson had the thermostat controlled water heater for European mounts. Corey, which one do you like better? Which one would get your vote?

• 22:50Speaker 04

  Man, both just fantastic, liquid hot magma tips here. But I think I'd have to go with Jack's. I'm gonna have to try that. I noticed he had his antlers in the water too, which is something I'm always worried about when you're boiling.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  To keep those out, I always wrap them in aluminum foil and do like everything I can to keep the antlers dry.

• 23:08Speaker 03

  And he was just using a five gallon bucket, which is, you know, everyone's got a dozen of those laying around.

• 23:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, didn't think about that either. So I'm gonna have to try that. So I'd probably have to go with Mr. Anderson.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Cal, Luke Long, or Jack Anderson? Which one?

• 23:19Speaker 02

  I agree, they're both great. I'm gonna go with Luke, though. I don't know, there's just something. You do save money with both. For sure, but you also have to invest a little bit more with Jack's.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  True.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  So I don't know, I like, I like the simplicity. I think of folks who aren't mechanically skilled, like even they can knock out Luke's hack. That's great.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Phil, do we have some votes happening?

• 23:50Speaker 09

  We do have some votes. They're still coming and we'll give them another 30 seconds or so. I started kind of late.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  So we have one versus one in the room here. I really like both of these. Luke's, the manipulative metal brackets. That's great because that's like the exact shape I want for a European mount. Like it put the skull right in the, the perfect position. How I think you want to display ahead. It is saving you a couple of dollars. I think he said a four pack is five bucks. But I'm going to vote for Jack Anderson's. That's just like, it's taking a really sucky chore and making it much less sucky by doing the, the thermostat controlled water heater for Euros. That's something you can, you know, walk away from. It's like a crock pot version.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  I think that's where things go wrong with my friends. Just the walk away part.

• 24:37Speaker 09

  Well, true.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  It's like change the water every two to three days. And they're like, oh yeah, that's been back there a long time.

• 24:42Speaker 09

  Our producer Jake just, just let me know that he bought one of those heaters on Jack's recommendation on Amazon. It was $30.

• 24:49Speaker 03

  Ooh, $30. That's what it costs to like fill a propane tank that you'd go through, you know, doing a, a European mount on a turkey cooker.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  And, and on that topic with 62% of the vote, the winner is Jack.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  Okay. Jack Anderson. He's got a good head of hair on him. He's now going to get a $100 meat eater gift card as well. Good for you, Jack. Send your hot tip offs to radio at the meat eater.com and you might show up on a future show of Meat Eater Radio.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 25:51Steven Rinella?

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

• 26:35Steven Rinella?

  One thing in the morning covers more than your current routine might for less than a dollar more per serving. AG1 Pro supports protein synthesis, helps reduce protein breakdown, and supports muscle recovery and consistent training performance. Visit drinkag1.com/meateater and get an AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro Welcome Kit. Again, that's drinkag1.com/meateater. Grab yours now. This episode is sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Now, if you've thought about trying therapy with BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average

• 27:18Steven Rinella?

  copay for eligible members of just 23 bucks per session. Hey, you might not know this, you probably don't know this, but World Mental Health Day is October 10. But your brain does not wait around for October 10. You gotta take care of your mental health at all times. And therapy isn't just for like big life choices. It can be a place to talk through small but important things like a work situation, taking up too much mental real estate, a relationship dynamic you can't quite name, or simply the sense that something feels off. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just

• 28:01Steven Rinella?

  $23 per session with insurance. If you don't have insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 10% off your first month. Go visit betterhelp.com/MeatEater to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp, H E L P dot com slash MeatEater. If you've got something weighing on your mind, taking a toll on you, don't be afraid to reach out. Betterhelp.com/MeatEater.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  All right, we're about halfway through the show. Let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's Chad have to say?

• 28:35Speaker 09

  Chad's mostly talking with Randall, who is very active in the chat.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Hell, yeah. Randall, where is Randall sitting at right now? Somewhere on the live tour, right?

• 28:42Speaker 09

  He is in Nashville, Tennessee. He sent me a picture from the same green room we were hanging out in at Buck Fest 2025 for the Big Buck Hunter Championship. They're playing in the same venue that that was in, so Randall's a seasoned vet of that building. But we've got a few questions. Get some more in. We've got Cal here. We've got Corey here. Speaking of Mogor says, let Corey know that he, Mogor's just saying, thank you, Corey, for helping him with his cookbook through customs. He says, such a kind and helpful guy. I agree, Mogor. We love having Corey here.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  Oh, glad you got your books, Mogor.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  Took him about a year, but that's how long it takes to get a book across the continent.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  So.

• 29:20Speaker 09

  Really was actually quite fast. That's good. Garrett has a question for Cal. Cal, have you, he says, why do guides not like the 7mm Rem Mag?

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Hmm. We've covered this multiple times, so I'm gonna do it real quick. When the 7 num num made its appearance, it's the classic thing that we still see today where target loads are the most prolific thing on the market. They shoot great, but they don't kill well. And looking back on my experience with the old backfiring, fire belching boat anchor, I think is what it was referred to as multiple times. That was the issue. Not

• 30:08Speaker 02

  the ballistics, not the caliber, but a lack of good ammo on the market. Killin' ammo. There you go.

• 30:21Speaker 09

  Sweet. Uh, let's see. We've got a question from Payne Poplars. Deer jerky on a pellet grill versus a dehydrator? Is this something you guys have experience with?

• 30:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:30Speaker 09

  Both methods?

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Yep. Um, if you have a big fancy pants dehydrator, I think that's the way to go. Um, for that same kind of set it and forget it type of deal. And it's, it would be like less expensive to, doesn't, doesn't take, not a big drain on the old electric bill.

• 30:50Speaker 03

  Something you can do in your garage or kitchen as well, uh, versus pellet grill this time of year. I, I don't care for firing that thing up in December.

• 30:58Speaker 09

  Outside.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  It's, it's, yeah. Again, in your, uh, your run of show when you're cooking, like you gotta account for that thing warming up. It is a pain. But I do, I do like the product. Product's still good.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  This time of year. It just takes more time.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  Corey, any thoughts on a jerky versus on the pellet grill versus dehydrator?

• 31:17Speaker 04

  I've only used my oven. Connection up.

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  I don't know. It takes

• 31:22Speaker 03

  That works too.

• 31:23Speaker 04

  Three, four hours.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Makes pretty fine.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  That you look forward to firing up in December.

• 31:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. Kinda need it. Yep.

• 31:29Speaker 03

  What else we got, Phil?

• 31:30Speaker 09

  Friday Arrows asks, best Christmas movie?

• 31:33Speaker 03

  Hmm. Phil, you answer that one for us.

• 31:35Speaker 09

  Oh, I, I don't, I, I love Christmas, but I'm not super passionate about, about Christmas movies. I love, I love the 1980, is it 1980? Might be 83. The animated, uh, Mickey's A Christmas Carol. It's short and sweet.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:48Speaker 09

  It's only like 25 minutes long. That was, that was my, that was my Christmas Carol. I love It's a Wonderful Life. It's, it's a long movie. I saw on Amazon that they have an abridged version. They're like, cut like an hour out of the movie, which I think is like sacrilegious.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  That's horrible.

• 31:59Speaker 09

  But it is a long movie.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 09

  Um, you know, and like as far as modern stuff goes, I mean, Elf, Elf has kind of become like a classic.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 32:07Speaker 09

  The, the Home Alone, one and two are also good to put on in the background. Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 03

  Corey Cal, favorite Christmas movie?

• 32:14Speaker 04

  I watched Bad Santa 2 the other night.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Two?

• 32:17Speaker 04

  It's not good. It's funny, but that's not the best Christmas movie ever. I would have to say A Christmas Carol.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Hmm. Um, I think, uh, Scrooged with Bill Murray is like a fantastic Christmas movie. Um, my like, I guess, serious Christmas movie would definitely be It's a Wonderful Life. I've always been a sucker for that one. Um,

• 32:41Speaker 04

  Deer Jerker.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  And then a legit.

• 32:46Speaker 02

  Fun, funny, new Christmas movie is, uh, oh creeps, what's the, The Night Before?

• 32:55Speaker 09

  Hmm.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  I think is what it's called with, um.

• 32:58Speaker 09

  Oh, that's the Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in that movie.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  That is a legit.

• 33:03Speaker 09

  That one's pretty funny.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  That is, that is legit. I like that one a lot.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Elf would be my favorite Christmas movie. I'm far less passionate about Christmas movies than Christmas music, though. I love Christmas music. I've, I've got, uh, Christmas playlists that, you know, gets the, the dust brushed off it in, in Thanksgiving. Um, playing.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  If Mariah Carey's on there, I will shove you to the floor.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Mariah Carey is on there. My, my favorite Christmas albums.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Um, uh, Kacey Musgraves, she has a phenomenal Christmas album, some very good original music on there.

• 33:34Speaker 09

  She does nothing wrong.

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Sia, she has a great Christmas album. I, I love Snowman.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  We just need to stop.

• 33:40Speaker 03

  Forever, ho, ho, ho.

• 33:41Speaker 09

  Little Michael Buble.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Michael Buble, he's, you know, he's like the Coca-Cola of Christmas music. You have to have Michael Buble.

• 33:48Speaker 09

  Saw him in concert with my mother.

• 33:49Speaker 03

  Oh, was it, was it a Christmas concert?

• 33:51Speaker 09

  It, I mean, it was, it was near the holiday season. So I think he played like one or two, but it wasn't, it wasn't specifically Christmas. The, the Vince Guaraldi jazz record from a Charlie Brown.

• 34:01Speaker 03

  Charlie Brown.

• 34:02Speaker 09

  It's like, that's the only record I need.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's like a jazzy, good Christmas music.

• 34:06Speaker 09

  That's cool.

• 34:07Speaker 03

  Randy Travis, I, I love his Christmas album. Um, love, love Christmas music. Bill, give us a couple more.

• 34:13Speaker 09

  Couple more. Okay, let's see here. Uh, question for Cal from Kade Kloberdans. Are you excited for the new role? Are you going to relocate to Missoula? He's stoked to have you at the helm. Come to Colorado rendezvous this year.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Wow, thank you. Uh, I am super stoked. I'm real, real excited to, uh, yeah, first, first, uh, legit day is January 1st. So, um, really excited, been, uh, onboarding a, a bunch, uh, and working with, with the team already and, uh, like.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, crazy, crazy, good staff, the mission orientation is, provides for a different work environment, for sure. It's pretty, pretty cool. Passionate folks, really, really neat. And yeah, I'm not planning on relocating back to Missoula. It's like, three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse in Missoula right now, anyway. Atmospheric river, insane, insanely high winds. They don't need me in the mix right now.

• 35:23Speaker 09

  So you would be the fourth in that scenario? Got it.

• 35:25Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  I also love the Weezer Christmas album. Their rendition of Hark The Herald Angels Sing, it's great stuff. It's perfectly on.

• 35:34Speaker 09

  As a man who loves Weezer, I don't know if I can get on board with that.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  I'll drop some more recommendations throughout the show.

• 35:40Speaker 09

  Oh, but as far as modern Christmas movies, one more for me, too. There's an animated movie on Netflix called Klaus, which is kind of like a Santa origin story with Jason Schwartzman and J.K. Simmons. It's very, very good.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  Really?

• 35:50Speaker 09

  Yes, it's, it's, it's a great movie.

• 35:52Speaker 03

  I also love the Manheim Steamroller. I went and saw them last year in Bozeman when they rolled through. But it wasn't the Manheim Steamroller, which I felt a little betrayed.

• 36:01Speaker 09

  It was like the B-Squad or something?

• 36:02Speaker 03

  I mean, I think we got like, lower than that.

• 36:05Speaker 09

  All of those bands from, from the 80s that still tour now are kind of like Ship of Theseus, where it's like if you would just keep replacing all the members, is it even the same band anymore?

• 36:14Speaker 03

  And then weirdly, they shoehorned in the song Convoy. You familiar with that?

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  They performed that.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  That is so weird.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  It was very weird, very fun. The, the audience was not into it as much as I was.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  That's amazing.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  All right, we're gonna move on. Our next segment is Meat Pole.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Gimme that beat, boy.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  Meatpole is a test of how much you know about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed 500 MeatEater listeners about the outdoors. Your job is to predict their answers. There are three questions. Whoever is closest to the correct answer between Cal and Corey gets a point, and whoever gets two points will be the winner. Also, the chat should play along because Phil is going to watch your answers and give a shout out to whoever is closest. And unlike Price is Right, you guys can't cheat. So we know that the winner is, you only win if you're true of heart. Here's the first question. What percentage of MeatEater listeners would rather deer hunt in the morning instead of the afternoon?

• 37:29Speaker 03

  What percentage of MeatEater listeners would pick deer hunting in the morning rather than the afternoon?

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Well, we don't call it first light for nothing.

• 37:40Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  It's not last light.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  What would you pick, Corey? Deer hunting in the morning or afternoon?

• 37:44Speaker 02

  What day of the week? What day of the week are we talking?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  Uh, we're gonna say Thursday.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Morning.

• 37:49Speaker 03

  Morning, okay. Cal, morning or afternoon? Morning. Wow, two votes for morning. What percentage of MeatEater listeners would rather deer hunt in the morning instead of the afternoon? 500 listeners answered this question.

• 38:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, 500.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  I like the afternoon just because there's a definitive end. When I'm in, when I'm out there in the morning, I'm always worried like I'm leaving some meat on the bone. Like if I take off at 10 a.m., it's all about to happen at 10:15 a.m. Whereas in the afternoon, it's like it's done. It's over. I did the whole thing.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  I feel like that's somebody who stands in a strap to a tree's perspective. Like, why would you leave?

• 38:30Speaker 03

  Why would you? Well, you gotta leave at some point, I don't know.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, when it's dark, again.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  That's right. Okay, you boys have your answers.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:36Speaker 03

  Go ahead and reveal your answers. Corey says 96% would rather hunt in the morning instead of the afternoon. Cal says 73%.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  The correct answer is 64.8%.

• 38:52Speaker 09

  Really?

• 38:52Speaker 03

  That gives Cal the first point. He was nine percentage points off.

• 38:56Speaker 09

  I forget, you're good at this.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  You're playing against the man of the people.

• 38:59Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  He knows Price is Right, he knows Meatpole.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  Well, I got spanked at Price is Right with Steve. That was surprising to me.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Now, I did my own survey at home. Of the 41 bucks I could recall, 19 were killed in the morning, 22 in the afternoon. That means 54% were afternoon versus 46% in the morning. And I found this interesting. My five biggest whitetails were killed in the afternoon, but my three biggest mules were killed in the morning.

• 39:26Speaker 09

  Interesting.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  I don't know how to make sense of that.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  I have many animals that I located in the morning and killed in the afternoon. Had I not been out there in the morning.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  I would have had no idea where they were.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Just hunt both.

• 39:38Speaker 09

  We had Mark from southeast Arizona, guess 65%.

• 39:42Speaker 03

  Point two percentage points off. Well done, Mark from southeast Arizona. All right, here is our second question. Cal has a one-point lead. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have ridden a horse?

• 39:56Speaker 02

  That's a new one.

• 39:57Speaker 09

  Hmm.

• 39:59Speaker 03

  What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have ridden a horse? I have never rode a horse.

• 40:04Speaker 09

  For real?

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Um, I was thinking about, I'm reading a book right now called The Horse. That was what made me think of this. I don't think I've even ever touched a horse.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Hmm. I don't think you're really missing out on anything.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  I'm with you. I was like, well, I've made it to 33 years old without touching a horse. I can probably do the rest of my life without that. Have you ridden a horse, Corey?

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I grew up with horses, worked with horses. Majority of my life was around horses.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  When's the last time you were on a horse?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  It's been a couple of years now, though.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, five, six years now.

• 40:34Speaker 03

  Wow. Cal, when's the last time you jumped on a horse?

• 40:38Speaker 02

  Uh, last fall.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  I did some.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 40:43Speaker 04

  Can't imagine it's all that high.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  Mule riding.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  What percentage of Mead eater listeners have ridden a horse?

• 40:49Speaker 02

  It's a tough one.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 03

  Phil, have you, have you rode a horse?

• 40:52Speaker 09

  I have ridden a horse.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 40:53Speaker 09

  Yes, I don't know if you know this, but Philip means lover of horses.

• 40:55Speaker 03

  It, I did, I, I feel like I told you that. You already knew that.

• 40:59Speaker 09

  I did know that, uh, but I do not love horses, but I have ridden one, yes.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  That's horseshit.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  What percentage of Mead eater listeners have ridden a horse?

• 41:09Speaker 04

  Seventy-five percent just in the room.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  Is it true of you, Phil? Do you love horses?

• 41:14Speaker 09

  I do not. I don't, I just, something about them, maybe I'm, I'm just intimidated by them or they, I think it's just the smell.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  If this wasn't a kids' show, I'd tell you, exa- I mean, like,

• 41:27Speaker 03

  What's wrong with a horse?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Take the romanticism away.

• 41:29Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. I don't mind looking at them, especially like, I know wild horses are all wrong for ecology purposes, but, uh, they're, they're quite majestic out there.

• 41:37Speaker 09

  They are majestic. I just think in the year 2025, almost 26, I, I find no use for a horse, living in, living in my suburban neighborhood.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  I, yeah, I have had many fun adventures that have included those animals.

• 41:49Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  And every one of those adventures also included moments where I was like, I hate these things so much.

• 41:54Speaker 09

  They were just a tool for me the last few years.

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 41:58Speaker 03

  Be boys ready with an answer.

• 41:59Speaker 09

  Sometimes the tools don't make it out of the woods.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  And sometimes the tool tries to kill you.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  And reveal your answers. Corey says forty percent of Mead eater listeners have ridden a horse. Cal says thirty percent. The correct answer is eighty-one point eight percent.

• 42:17Speaker 02

  Really?

• 42:17Speaker 03

  So, uh, Corey was the closest and he wasn't even halfway to the correct answer. Eighty-one point eight percent. Phil, how'd the chat do?

• 42:25Speaker 09

  Uh, we had Friday Arrows, who asked the quit, the Christmas movie question, guess eighty-four percent. That was the closest one I could, I could see. Most people were way under, for sure.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  According to a 2018 survey, about twenty-seven million Americans ride a horse each year. That's more horse riders than golfers, tennis players, or skiers. Of those twenty-seven million Americans, about seventy thousand wind up in an emergency room because of horse-related injuries.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  All right, the third and final questions. It is tied at one to one between Cal and Corey. What percentage of Mead eater listeners have eaten deer testicles?

• 43:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have eaten deer testicles? This will determine our winner. Corey, have you? Yeah, sure have. Cal, have you?

• 43:13Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  I have as well. We're three for three at the host table. Phil, lover of horses, have you eaten? We are three for four for the room. I have not, no. Three for four. Man. What percentage of Meat Eater listeners have eaten deer testicles? Such an easy thing to pack out, too. Oh, for sure. They got no weight. Yeah, you're already packing yours out. Mm-hmm.

• 43:39Speaker 03

  Uh, Phil, or excuse me, Cal, how would you tell someone to prepare a deer testicle?

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Oh, I'd beat it and fry it.

• 43:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're great.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  And like a tenderloin in that, just like, don't let that thing get in the freezer. They're too small. Make it up as an appetizer in this first couple of days. Fresh.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Yep. Yep. Yeah, I mean, you can pull that membrane off the outside, but if you just cut the thing in in half and give it a couple of whacks with the hammer.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 03

  And leave that membrane, leave that membrane until you're ready to cook it, though. Like until, you know, the minute you're about to throw that thing in the fryer. Leave it on right up until then.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 03

  You boys ready with an answer? Let's do this.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Go ahead and reveal your answers for the victory. Does that say 26 or 2.6? 26. Corey says 26% of our 500 Meat Eater listeners have eaten a deer testicle. Cal says 33%.

• 44:37Speaker 03

  The correct answer is 9.9%. That makes Corey our winner of Meat Pole today.

• 44:44Speaker 02

  Cal, we've been talking about this stuff for so long. I figured the adaptation rate would be a little higher.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  I think we just convinced some folks. If not, my little flavor text here will do that. Deer testicles are a superfood. A three ounce serving has 110 calories, four grams of fat, and 18 grams of protein nutritionally. That makes them similar to sardines and pork tenderloin. For tips on cooking them, go watch Steve's video called "How to Cook venison testicles" on Meat Eater's YouTube channel. Ryan BD21 gets 10%. Wow, 0.1 percentage points off. Well done, Ryan.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  I would rather have...

• 45:25Speaker 02

  A fried deer testicle with cocktail sauce, like legit cocktail sauce. Um, than pork tenderloin.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah. You know what? I think I, I would say the same. It's very close, but I would say of all the organs, that's my favorite is a deer testicle. I take that above a heart, above a liver, uh, anything else in the gut pile.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  I used to make every year. I haven't done it in years because I, now I just get frustrated and throw the hearts in the grinder, in the grind pile. Um, which is a fine use of them, but I used to make these Caprese sandwiches with, uh, deer heart or, or elk heart. Because the bite, the consistency of that muscle is so perfect for sandwiches. Like it's there, but you're going to be able to, to bite through it. Um, and that is a like, it's pretty, it's pretty special when the garden's all fresh.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  We asked this question a couple of years from now, it's going to be double that percentage point.

• 46:25Speaker 10

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• 46:53Steven Rinella?

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• 48:18Steven Rinella?

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• 48:56Speaker 03

  All right, joining us on the line last is Cornell University Professor Trent Pressler. His new book Evergreen is about America's relationship with conifers. Trent, welcome to the show.

• 49:08Speaker 11

  Hey, thanks for having me, guys.

• 49:10Speaker 03

  We will get to Christmas trees in just a second. First, I want to talk about some of the other things your book covers. You say that evergreen trees have started wars. Tell us about that.

• 49:20Speaker 11

  Oh, yeah. The American Revolutionary War actually started with the Pine Tree Riot, which I think most people find shocking because we're taught in fifth grade that it started with the Boston Tea Party, right? But by the 15th century, the Brits had cut down every single tree in all of their islands in the British Isles. You go to Britain today, England, you drive around the countryside. You think these are nice sheep's meadows full of grass. But historically, they were covered in trees. And they used wood to build their battleships. And they were desperate for tall, straight pine trees to make the masts on their ships for the Royal Navy. And they had been blocked by other nations from cutting trees in the Pyrenees, the Alps.

• 50:04Speaker 11

  And the Baltic States. So they sent the pilgrims to America to cut down trees. And eventually, the crown said, they told all the colonists, we own all the big trees. Any tree over 24 inches wide belongs to the monarchy for the Royal Navy.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Boy, that riles a guy up.

• 50:23Speaker 11

  Right? So, so the colonists got pretty mad. They started cutting down all the pine trees that were 23 inches wide in defiance of the law, right? And so you see today, even in a lot of colonial homes in northeastern US, wide pine plank flooring that's 23 inches wide, which is from that era of rebellion. But anyway, long story short, the king sends his surveyors over to mark the trees that they own. And this poor guy was having a beer in the Ware Tavern, the Pine Tree Tavern in Ware, New Hampshire, when this angry lumberjack named Ebenezer Mudgett stormed in with his crew. They'd painted their faces black with soot.

• 51:07Speaker 11

  They held the king's surveyors up by their feet and whipped them furiously with pine branches and sent them out of town on the back of a horse. So that was really the start of the American Revolutionary War, and it predated the Boston Tea Party by exactly one year.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Amazing. That's a great bit of American history. In Chapter 9, you talk about the relationship between whaling and evergreen trees. How were those two connected?

• 51:35Speaker 11

  Yeah, absolutely. So as we hunted whales to near extinction in the 1800s, we were using them primarily their blubber for lighting oil. It was, we burned it for everything. People lit their homes with whale oil candles and whale oil lanterns. And as the whale populations diminished so sharply, that the price of whale oil skyrocketed, where it was in like 1850 money, it was like 38 bucks a gallon, which, which is like outrageous, like several hundred dollars for a gallon of whale oil. So there was a desperate search on to find a more affordable burning fuel. And we settled on something called camphene, which was a blend of turpentine and a few other solvents.

• 52:20Speaker 11

  But turpentine is one of the world's most flammable substances and it exists in evergreen conifers. So that thus began this huge effort to tap pine trees from North Carolina all the way through Texas to tap the turpentine and the sap and the resin so that we could have a burning fuel. And ironically, it actually saved the whales from extinction because it released the pressure on hunting them so much.

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Wow. Love, love this evergreen history. Later, you write about how in the 19th century, being a lumberjack was the most lethal profession in America. One stat showed that over a 40-year career, lumberjacks had a 50/50 chance of dying on the job. What was it about that era that made this so dangerous?

• 53:06Speaker 11

  Well, it's hard to fathom how men in that era cut down trees that big. You see these archival photos of the lumberjacks kind of leaning up against a sequoia tree or a redwood tree that might be 30 feet wide at the base. And if you're, you know, it's hard to picture it now, but America was covered in old-growth trees, trees that were between 500 and 3,000 years old. And the only tools that they had at the time were these rudimentary tools. There was a double-bladed axe and a, what they called a misery whip, which was a long saw that was between 15 and 20 feet long that two men would hold on either end and like kind of push and pull like this, right?

• 53:49Speaker 11

  So you think about it, you have no mechanical equipment, you have a saw and an axe, and you're with a group of guys, you know, you all probably have rotten feet and sore and rotten teeth and syphilis and you're miserable. It's like 1850, right? And you're like, let's cut down this tree that's 300 feet tall and weighs as much as six humpback whales. So the majority of those deaths happened simply by being crushed underneath of fallen trees and branches. It was shocking.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. You and I both grew up in South Dakota, so when you cover the Green Glacier in the book, that hit close to home. Explain to folks what the Green Glacier is and why it's a problem.

• 54:32Speaker 11

  So the Green Glacier is this menacing advance of millions and millions of cedar trees that are taking over the Great Plains, and it is an ecological crisis of epic proportions that I wish more people would pay attention to. Let me just back up for a second. The cedars I'm talking about are the eastern red cedar, otherwise known as Juneuparis virginiana. They're native to the US. They're not invasive. They're actually native here. They grow in all 50 states. They're incredibly resilient and adaptive. So for about 10,000 years, they were kept in check in places like South Dakota. They only grew in river valleys and ravine bottoms, and they were kept in check by two things. The first were indigenous peoples, Native Americans, had controlled burning practices, so they would occasionally light

• 55:17Speaker 11

  fire to the prairie, which would suppress the advance of woody tree saplings. The second was the presence of billions and billions of bison. So there's a lot of research that shows that land where bison were present, where they grazed and they trampled, they kept the emergence of woody tree saplings at bay, which allowed the world's greatest grassland ecosystem to thrive here in the central part of the United States. It's still the world's largest remaining intact grassland, but it's in grave danger right now because without indigenous fire practices and without billions of bison roaming the plains, now the cedars are taking over. They're creeping up out of the river valleys and they're spreading

• 56:02Speaker 11

  across millions of square miles of the prairie states. And I've talked to cattle ranchers even that are gonna have to close up shop because they're losing prime grazing land to the trees.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, where I grew up in eastern South Dakota, the cattle ranchers there, public enemy number one was the red cedar. It was not coyotes, it was not Canadian thistle, it was the red cedar just because they would take over and choke out entire pastures that were otherwise, you know, very productive places to graze.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  And you got that neighbor next year who is not into agriculture. They just wanna be out there for their deer season, and they like the trees because it gives the deer something to hide behind. Like, come on, come on. North American Grasslands Conservation Act. That is one tool that if we get that sucker off the ground running would provide some, some additional tools to knock back the cedar encroach. Man, I love that you bring this up. Uh, yeah, grasslands are very important to us in the hunting angling space.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  All right, let's talk about Christmas trees. Uh, to write this book, you spent a lot of time on Christmas tree farms. That is a type of farm I've never been around. What is the average Christmas tree growing operation like?

• 57:18Speaker 11

  Yeah, so they're out of public eye for 11 months of the year, right? But they're mostly small family farms. Uh, the average age of a Christmas tree farmer is 65, uh, which is a problem for the industry because people are aging out and not replacing themselves. The average salary and income actually is actually quite low at about $25,000. So most of these farmers have off farm income or day jobs. Um, but they're, one of the great benefits of Christmas tree farms is that they're growing a great, a highly valuable economic product on marginal land. So this is land often that is, you know, rocky or on steep slopes where you can't grow corn or you can't install irrigation. So what can you grow there? You can grow Christmas trees.

• 58:01Speaker 11

  And, uh, often those farms also are doing a whole lot of work at just preserving open space. And keeping the, you know, suburban sprawl from getting every single square inch of our wild habitat.

• 58:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. And in 1985, Americans bought 33 million fresh cut Christmas trees. In 2023, that number was just 12 million. That's a 21 million decline. What happened, Trent?

• 58:27Speaker 11

  Yeah, the Christmas tree industry has contracted by about 85% in the last half century. And there's a couple of factors. Um, the first is the pernicious rise of artificial fake plastic Christmas trees, which has, which all are made in China, a hundred percent in plastics factories subsidized by their government.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  I'm getting the feeling you don't like them.

• 58:49Speaker 11

  You think like, I don't know. I'm read my book. I make no bones about how I really feel about about Christmas trees. But, um, you know, so the the plastic Christmas tree business now, last year, those imports were over $2 billion with another $4 billion in just plastic Christmas ornaments and lights and everything else. So that's one thing that has really affected the natural Christmas tree farm industry. And by the way, today, the entire national stockpile of Christmas tree farms could fit within roughly within the city limits of Los Angeles or New York City.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 59:24Speaker 11

  There's only, there's only, yeah, there's only 3,000 farmers left growing Christmas trees. It's a dying business. But the other thing that happened along the way is that trees became much harder to grow in a climate that's changing quite rapidly. So we've seen like the heat dome that was in Oregon a couple summers ago, where it was 100 degrees for a week. It killed 10s of millions of young saplings in Christmas tree farms. We're also seeing extended periods of drought. You're probably familiar, since you're deer hunters, you've seen the extensive beetle kill damage in the Western US with just millions of acres of pine trees standing dead because the beetles would normally be killed in a really tough cold

• 1:00:06Speaker 11

  winter. But with a mild winter, they're surviving in great numbers and attacking evergreen trees in the spring, and they're just not able to recover. So I've spoken to a lot of Christmas tree farmers around the country where they just lose the seedlings to disease or drought or heat, and they can't afford to replace them. And it's a slow moving disaster because if I might add one more point, if you think the heat dome that killed millions of seedlings three years ago, we won't see the impact of that in the marketplace for another seven years.

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:00:35Speaker 11

  Because the trees grow eight or 10 years before they're big enough to cut them down.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Now, you interviewed the man who hunts down America's most famous tree, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. Tell us about how that tree is selected.

• 1:00:49Speaker 11

  Yeah, Eric Pouts, he's got one of the most fascinating jobs in the world, I think. He's been in this position for 30 years as the head gardener for Rockefeller Center. And he drives around the Northeast in his Ford truck. And he's kind of just scoping out trees constantly. And he keeps notes and note cards and notepads of where he sees trees. And then sometimes he will literally just walk up to a door of a house and knock on the door and say, hello, I'm the guy from Rockefeller Center. Can we cut down your tree? You know, and some people slam the door and they think this is an ax murderer. This is weird. And then some people are like, really? Are you that guy? And, you know, he has an ID and some stuff he shows them to prove that he's legit.

• 1:01:32Speaker 11

  But he's got a backlist of many trees in his mind. So he's already pretty much picked the tree for the next like five years. And then he kind of circles back to monitor them, make sure they're healthy. They're getting water and nutrients. But anyway, once they pick the tree, they get the approval of the owner. They'll make a nice plaque to install. They'll come on cutting day. They wrap all the branches very carefully and then put it on a giant flatbed truck and haul it into New York City.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Amazing stuff. Last question. If we're just strictly looking at this from a conservation standpoint, is it better to get a real Christmas tree every year or use a fake one?

• 1:02:12Speaker 11

  Always buy a real tree. I will say this from the, I will shout this from the top of every mountain. The world doesn't need more plastic. Okay. And artificial trees, there's a myth that, oh, they last forever. Let me get a fake tree. But a lot of research shows that in fact, artificial Christmas trees are similar to IKEA furniture and that they, people usually throw them away after seven years. After seven years, you know, you like, you want the next tree that's got different lights or the revolving base or Bluetooth speaker. Or now there's even, there's even fake Christmas trees that come with an artificial pine scent embedded in them. And, you know, also every time you buy an artificial tree,

• 1:02:55Speaker 11

  and let's say you do use it for seven years before you throw it in the landfill, that during those seven years, that means seven years of real trees that are not being purchased from small family farmers. And then you also have to think of just the farms themselves where the trees are grown. They're providing wildlife habitat for, for grazers, birds, insects, the mammals that we all like to hunt and fish. You know, like these, these are part of our ecosystem and our living environment. And yes, we cut it down, but all those farms, they plant another one right in the place where they cut the other one down. So it's the most renewable resource we've got.

• 1:03:33Speaker 03

  Good stuff.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Love it.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Don't need to twist our arm about having a real tree.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  How did you find this guest? This is the best guest ever.

• 1:03:40Speaker 03

  Oh, what a compliment, Trent. We've, we've done a year and a half of episodes and Cal has declared you to be the best guest. Well, fellow South Dakotans, we stick together.

• 1:03:48Speaker 11

  I'm honored. Yeah.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  Trent's new book, Evergreen, is available right now wherever books are sold. It's a fun read for folks who spend a lot of time outside. Trent, thanks for joining us.

• 1:03:59Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 1:04:00Speaker 11

  My pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys.

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  Merry Christmas.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Cal, do you have a Christmas tree up at home right now?

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  No, I don't.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 1:04:10Speaker 03

  How about last year? Did you have one last year?

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:12Speaker 03

  The year before that?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  Okay. Is that every other year rotation you're on?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  It's just like the, the travel.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  Schedule and trying to keep, take care of something. And if I'm being honest, the dead tree is still hanging around.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  Oh, no way. Where at? In your backyard?

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  Tucked over on the side of the house.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  It's good habitat for some birds and voles and mice.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  It is. Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Good, good.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Doesn't, doesn't bother me. Um, but boy, I did, but I just do not think much of people with fake trees now.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Ruining the planet.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Oh, right up there with those scented trash bags for me.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  I hate that smell.

• 1:04:53Speaker 03

  I live in the mountains to get our tree. Corey, you, uh, you sometimes do that. This year you bought one out of parking lot though, right?

• 1:04:59Speaker 04

  Nope, nope. We got a fake tree.

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  Oh, fake tree. What a loser.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Yep, they walk among us. Yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  Sitting right next to you.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  Bill, how about you? What's, what's the tree situation?

• 1:05:09Speaker 09

  We've got a real tree. We, we, we just go to a nursery. So we're not, we're not out there getting, getting our boots dirty, but, but it's, it's real.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's things that I just don't argue with my wife about.

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  There you go. Now you tell her to watch this.

• 1:05:22Speaker 04

  I'm going to.

• 1:05:23Speaker 03

  Change her mind.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  Definitely. We're going to read that book.

• 1:05:25Speaker 02

  I would, I'd go like this route. I'd be like, you know, it's interesting that you're so invested in raising this child.

• 1:05:32Speaker 04

  Right?

• 1:05:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty neat that you think this is worth worthwhile.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  But some things aren't.

• 1:05:40Speaker 03

  There's not gonna be any planted around left for Marshall when he gets your guys his age.

• 1:05:44Speaker 04

  Those trees in the landfill. Trust me, the like late November deer hunting, I'm looking at Christmas trees.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  I wish I could.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:51Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:51Speaker 04

  But again, it's not worth it. Maybe so.

• 1:05:54Speaker 03

  That's why Corey has that black eye. Alright, our last segment is Tattoos I Regret.

• 1:06:04Speaker 12

  Hello darkness, my old friend. I've looked at my tattoo again.

• 1:06:13Speaker 12

  It really seemed like such a good idea. When I was drunk last summer in Ibiza. The tattoo says a puss in the pot will always find more beans. What the does that mean?

• 1:06:31Speaker 12

  It's a tattoo I regret.

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  We do this segment only to hear that beautiful song.

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  It's wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  We have two tattoos today. Cal and Corey are going to describe what they look like for the listening audience. Uh, but if you wanna see them for yourself and you do, then head over to the Meat Eater Podcast YouTube channel to watch this episode. Alright, Phil, show us that very first tattoo.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  Is this the, sorry, this is the deer one?

• 1:07:03Speaker 03

  You got it right there. What, what does that look like, uh, Cal? Describe for our listening audience what you're seeing.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  Say real tight racked whitetail.

• 1:07:14Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:15Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:07:16Speaker 04

  I think it's sitting on top of a knee. Is that a leg?

• 1:07:20Speaker 03

  Uh, I think that's shoulder. That's, that's like, uh, yeah, it's, it's shoulder, upper arm.

• 1:07:24Speaker 02

  And, uh, and then the eye is real dark. This is interesting.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  This tattoo was sent to us by Jack Shotgun. Uh, he says, hello to my favorite podcast. I present to you the tattoo I most regret. I was 19 years old. It was the 4th of July and my buddy had recently purchased a tattoo gun. He asked me what I wanted and being a lover of all things outdoors, I said I'd like a big old buck on my arm. I paid $50 for it and he tattooed a nice big whitetail. Now here's the problem. I live in Utah and have never seen a whitetail buck with my own eyes. So, Jack wasn't specific enough and instead of getting a big old mule deer buck, he's got a whitetail that came straight from Michigan and he's never even laid eyes.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  Did the friend continue on in his tattoo career? Like, that'd be an interesting aside.

• 1:08:14Speaker 04

  I think it's pretty well done. I love the muscular neck. It's all run it up.

• 1:08:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is not, yeah, I get, it is funny. It's worth, it's worth having.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  It's not a bad tattoo, uh, but it's not a great tattoo if you've never seen a whitetail.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  It does take up some space.

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Lot of, lot of precious real estate on Jack Shotgun's upper arm.

• 1:08:34Speaker 02

  Oddly enough for me, the fact that it's $50, I'm like, oh yeah, good job. Yeah. Friday Arrow says, honestly, not bad for 50 bucks.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  That's right. Mm-hmm. Okay, here is our next tattoo. This is from Eric James. Corey, what do you see in there from Eric?

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  Well, there's a lot going on here. Looks like a mountainous scene with a fly rod, uh, and maybe a, some sort of wolf dry fly going on there. There's a latitude, longitude, coordinates down by his wrist, looking at his forearm there on the inside. Uh, it's very well done. It looks fresh, obviously, in this photo.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Lot of details.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Skin's still red. Yeah, a lot of leaf detail.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  Here's what Eric had to say about that tattoo. He said, "This tattoo is actually one of my favorites. That being said, it still managed to cause me a great deal of embarrassment. The coordinates in the tattoo are of a small creek my family and I have fished as long as I can remember. We usually go together once a year. About six years ago, though, I went with my uncle and cousins and we hiked separately. I got to a point in the trail where it forks and I took a wrong turn and wound up a mile from the creek. Not a big deal, but as you can imagine, my family gave me all sorts of shit. How could you not know? It's literally on your arm, they said. They mocked me the rest of the day and that story often comes up at family gatherings or anytime the creek is mentioned.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  Uh, I'm sure this week at Christmas, Eric is going to hear about that." Now, okay, someone, Phil has just put a comment up there from DNH Sag. He says, "Now that's how you spot burn." Totally agree. Can you imagine putting like your favorite spot in the mountains, the exact coordinates on your arm for all to see?

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 1:10:21Speaker 03

  No. Yeah, you're just sitting at a restaurant and somebody's eyeballing your wrist over there? Sure. I don't know. Or watching the show? Eric James has told all where his favorite creek is to fish at with his family. It's not gonna be so good anymore, Eric. It's a great tattoo, though. Good tattoo. Uh, but now he, he has to get mocked at Christmas time because of the time he got lost going to that exact spot. Huh. Alright, that brings us to the end of this week's show. Phil, let's get some final feedback from the chat.

• 1:10:51Speaker 09

  Oh, sure. I was gonna look up where this guy's spot was, but that's fine, I guess.

• 1:10:53Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:10:54Speaker 09

  Um, let's see here. Here we are. Uh, first of all, Santa came into the chat. He says,

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  "Hey."

• 1:11:01Speaker 09

  Quote, "You think getting a tattoo is good? No, getting a tattoo is not good. I don't care about it, but it's not good behavior." Uh, thanks, Santa. Appreciate it.

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  Sit down, Santa.

• 1:11:11Speaker 09

  Uh, we've got a question.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  Dr. Randall Williams.

• 1:11:13Speaker 09

  Do deer balls taste like cow balls, or are they completely different?

• 1:11:17Speaker 03

  Uh, taste the same. It's just like working with something that the cow balls, uh, which are from a bull, uh, those are five X the size from a deer. So it's like working with a roast off of a big bull elk versus, uh, an antelope.

• 1:11:31Speaker 02

  I think there can be some flavor change, whether you're working in the rut or not.

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  And that, that's more elk experience with elk testicles.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  Five X the size, though, uh, on, on a bull.

• 1:11:47Speaker 09

  Uh, this is from Jack Lyons. He says, oopsie, "Hi, all. Advice for cooking pronghorn, pronghorn antelope for someone who is an adult onset hunter. Got my first antelope with a bow this year."

• 1:11:58Speaker 03

  With a bow. Well done. I think in the nation, archery antelope has one of the lowest success rates for hunters. So, well done, Jack Lyons. Yeah, hang it up. Cal, tell them how to cook that thing.

• 1:12:08Speaker 02

  Just medium rare, buddy. Don't, don't overcook it. Um...

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, just, just nice and simple. Don't overcook it. It'll be great.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think the taste of that antelope, Jack, uh, was determined back in August or September, whenever you killed this thing. Uh, I think antelope gets a bad rap because people kill them when it's hot outside. They don't take care of the meat right away. They're butchering the thing in a place where they set the hind quarter on a sage bush, uh, and those sage bushes are super oily. And so when folks are like, oh, this meat just tastes like sage. That's not what the antelope tasted like. That's what the antelope tasted like after you laid the hind quarter on a whole, uh, whole sage bush and got it covered in oil. So I think, Jack, if it tastes good, uh, pat yourself on the back, back in August for, for how you took care of the meat. Corey, what would you say about cooking that antelope?

• 1:12:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I agree. Uh, hopefully, uh, staked most of it. At least every antelope that I get, I try and, I try not to grind any of it just because every steak from neck to tail is just so darn delicious.

• 1:13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and typically, uh, tender too. So we, I'll, I'll tell you straight up. We had a, a very tense evening meal, uh, about 10 days ago in, in my household.

• 1:13:20Speaker 03

  Tell us more.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  I said, now don't overcook that. Oh.

• 1:13:24Speaker 03

  Uh oh.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  And.

• 1:13:25Speaker 03

  And snort overcooked it.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  And snort overcooked it. And, uh.

• 1:13:30Speaker 03

  How overcooked?

• 1:13:32Speaker 02

  Just a solid, medium well.

• 1:13:35Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, like.

• 1:13:37Speaker 04

  Hurt near burnt.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's like cube it up and turn it into green chili at that point, you know?

• 1:13:45Speaker 09

  What else you got, Phil? This is from Ryan Monahan. A question for everyone. I'm still looking for a gift for my dad that might help him hunt a little easier. He's getting older and isn't as mobile as he used to be. Gift ideas for older folks?

• 1:13:58Speaker 02

  Uh, have you got him the F'd Up Old Trucks calendar yet?

• 1:14:01Speaker 09

  Hmm, yeah.

• 1:14:02Speaker 03

  That'd make him a better hunter.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  Well, that's something to think about. Um.

• 1:14:08Speaker 04

  A little easier.

• 1:14:10Speaker 03

  OnX. I find that most of the older hunters in my life don't have OnX and you show it to them and they're blown away. Like, wow, I've always wondered who owned that property over yonder. I don't know, makes getting in and out of the field a lot easier. If you hunt in a cold place, just some hand warmers, toe warmers. Those old folks, they get cold faster than a young buck like Corey.

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, and one thought of those image stabilizing binos from Sig. Everybody gets a little shaky as they age, so some of those, but maybe a little less expensive, a solid shooting tripod.

• 1:14:44Speaker 03

  Mmm.

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  Something that can help keep that gun steady.

• 1:14:47Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  If he's rifle hunting.

• 1:14:49Speaker 02

  I like all these. That's good thinking.

• 1:14:51Speaker 03

  They'll do a few more.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  Sure, we got one from Phil. He says, "Hey Phil, Phil here. I'd like to know if the crew has a preferred Christmas cocktail or adult beverage?"

• 1:14:58Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  Can you ask them at the next question break? Will do, Phil.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  Corey said yes before the question was finished. What is it, Corey?

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  Anything and everything.

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Beer.

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  Uh, whiskey.

• 1:15:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  Vodka.

• 1:15:12Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  Tequila.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  It really is anything and everything.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  I saw an old ad for Dr. Pepper back in like the 60s or 70s where they recommended heating up some Dr. Pepper on the stove and you serve that at Christmas time. It's like a Christmas drink.

• 1:15:26Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  And I was like, I like that idea. So, uh, the last couple of years I've been heating some up on the stove and then I pour some rum in there. Uh, and I feel like I'm, I'm having a cocktail from 50 years ago.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  Hmm. Nice.

• 1:15:38Speaker 02

  Um, Phil and I have covered this and I've secured some, but it's in Idaho.

• 1:15:44Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  Go on.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  Boz Angeles, like we just cannot get the, the Christmas ales, like the seasonal cold weather beers.

• 1:15:55Speaker 04

  Those are my favorites. That was gonna be my answer.

• 1:15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, we have Jubal Ale, which is good.

• 1:16:00Speaker 04

  Which is one of my favorites. That's from the shoots out of Bend. Jubal Ale's a big, good one. It's very, very unique tasting, for sure.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  But I think that my favorite is Ninkasi Slayer. And it is not distributed in the state of Montana.

• 1:16:14Speaker 09

  And the thing is, it used to be, but there is, I heard about, there was some drama about, there was like a distributor war. They were, they were kind of vying for power and I guess whoever distributes Ninkasi said, fine, we're just gonna, we'll, we'll take our business elsewhere. And they had, they stopped bringing Ninkasi beers out.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, Slayer is a fine winter beer.

• 1:16:30Speaker 09

  I love beers that don't have, like, a lot of Christmas beers will do a bunch of additives, like they'll put spices in them or fruits and stuff, which is, you know, that's fine on occasion, but I, I can't drink a lot of that. And I, I think it's like a natural beer that gets kind of like a nice fruity, roasty flavor with just the grains and the hops is, is impressive.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Um, lower budget option that was surprisingly tasty, uh, was the Sam Adams seasonal. Like their winter beer, uh, we had that in South Dakota.

• 1:17:02Speaker 09

  Uh huh.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  A couple of weeks ago and, and it was great.

• 1:17:05Speaker 09

  There you go.

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  Back when it felt like winter. It was like six below zero.

• 1:17:09Speaker 09

  Yeah. I love a good eggnog. I do a homemade eggnog. The thing about eggnog is that I can't drink a lot of it. Uh, and I, I, I'm not much of a sipper. I don't really like sipping on drinks.

• 1:17:18Speaker 03

  Hmm. Uh, you know, another Christmas song I love is Father Christmas by The Kinks. I'd put that like a top five Christmas song of all time. And it's like where some kids are angry that like, goddamn Santa didn't bring us, uh, any gifts again this year. Doesn't necessarily age great because he asked for a machine gun, uh, to scare the kids down the street in Father Christmas. Um, so it's, it's a little relic. What else you got, Phil? Give us a couple more.

• 1:17:43Speaker 09

  Sure. Uh, Dylan's asking what you're gonna do with your deer this year, Spencer? Well, specifically, are you going to make more tallow?

• 1:17:48Speaker 03

  We have tallow in the freezer. Uh, we'll render that over Christmas break sometime. Then we're gonna have some more lip balms, uh, boot balms, uh, make some lotion, some chapstick. We have, we have great plans with all that tallow. I didn't kill anything early enough this year to have like a super, super fatty buck. Uh, last year I killed a buck in Idaho in early October and that thing was loaded with fat. Um, so this year I'm, I'm kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as, uh, my tallow goes. So, one more, Phil.

• 1:18:17Speaker 09

  One more. Uh, why hasn't Meat Eater created an ugly slash holiday sweater? That's from Theodore something or other.

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  Great question.

• 1:18:26Speaker 09

  That's a great question. Uh, I think it's a good idea. We should do something like that.

• 1:18:30Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:18:30Speaker 09

  That's for, that's for Sam upstairs.

• 1:18:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:18:32Speaker 09

  Take care of that.

• 1:18:33Speaker 03

  2026. Uh, now we have pre-recorded episodes next week and the week after for Christmas and New Year. So this is our last live show of the year. Uh, thanks for listening, everybody. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New Year.

• 1:18:46Speaker 09

  Travel safe. Get outside. Have fun.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Appreciate you hanging with us for 2025. Bye now.

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• 1:20:13Speaker 13

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