Bear Grease - Ep. 148: BEAR GREASE [RENDER] - World Champion Squirrel Cook Off

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Your host Clay Newcomb is joined live from the World Champion Squirrel Cookoff by Brent “Render Boy” Reaves, Kyle Veit of the Ozark Podcast, Malcolm Reed from How to BBQ Right, the world’s greatest Small Game Hunter, Kevin Murphy, and Joe Wilson, founder of the Squirrel Cookoff. The crew talks about: Kevin’s unique outfit and how he met Steven Rinella, the world champion squirrel cookoff and the unique dishes cooked (empanadas, ramen, tamales & minced meat pie), the finer points of how to harvest & clean a squirrel, a detailed recipe for how to cook squirrel and gravy at home, squirrel hunting the old-growth timber inside the Mississippi River levee and Melanistic Squirrels, the challenges facing new hunters and what we can do to help, and the joys of starting out on small game. We really doubt that you’re gonna want to miss this one. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Before we get rolling on this render, I want to tell you about whitetail week at Meteeter from September 29th through October the 8th.

All the Meteeter guys, all the First Light guys, all the FHF gear guys, all the Phelps guys, all the Dave Smith Decoy guys on our social media feeds, websites, everywhere we're making content. You're going to be hearing about white tails because it's what we love. it's time. On Monday, October 2nd, we're giving away a lacrosse footwear package. On Tuesday, we're giving a Louis-Pold Optics package. On Wednesday, a Timber Ninja Tree Saddle package. On Thursday, a Vortex Optic package. On Friday, an on-X elite life membership. We're given away on Saturday, a tethered tree saddle package. The point is, just pay attention. It's going to be awesome. Whitetail Week for meat eater. Hope you enjoy this render.

Welcome to the Bear Grease Render podcast. I don't even know what to say. The group of people set before me is going to blow the minds of every Bear Greas listener in the world. Kind of a rock star cast. No doubt. No doubt. To my left, I have Brent Reeves, who now is known as Render Boy, because you don't come

anymore. Hey, I'm just glad that we're doing the surrender now. I got my mileage paid for. That works, huh? It works great. Well, good to see you, Brent? Man, I can't wait to hear. We're at an event. I'm going to tell you what that is in just a minute. I'm about to pop. To Brent's left is Joe Wilson, Joe Wildman Wilson. Jumping Joe. Joe's a regular now on the Bear Grue surrender. Big day for Joe Wilson. Man, huge day. Yeah. Huge. I ain't going to blow your cover, though. Well, so to your left, Kyle Veet of the Ozark podcast. That's right. Thanks for having me. Kyle's a buddy of ours lives here in northwest Arkansas. I was on you guys podcast. Joe's been on Ozark podcast. That's

right. You've been doing something special today too. We want to hear about that. We'll talk. Yep. To your left. Tell me your, this is Malcolm. What's your last name, Malcolm? Reed. Malcolm Reed. Where are you from? I'm from Hernando, Mississippi. Hernandez, Mississippi. And you tell me, tell me what you do. Well, so I got into barbecue cooking back a long time ago. You know, Memphis and May, the World Championship

barbecue cookoffs, a big deal in Memphis. It's the Super Bowl of Swine, you know, the big, big championship. So if you grew up around there, you were into cooking,

you had to learn to cook barbecue to compete in that. Or you're just going to get your teeth kicked in by all these other folks. So I got into cooking barbecue, and then I just kind of, that was a long time, you know,

newsletters were hot, so I started doing a little barbecue newsletter. My wife taught me into it, and it expanded into doing how-to barbecue videos and trying to help people cook, can kind of preserve that barbecue lifestyle.

That's kind of what we do. There's a lot of people into it. And then I got into outdoor stuff. So we, because when I'm not barbecuing, I'm hunting fishing. So that's kind of how that my ties to it all. And I just love,

you know, competing in contests, cooking, barbecue, going out and being in the outdoors, anything we could do outside, I'm trying to, you know,

help support that and push that through and get people interested and part of it. Yeah. Well, good to meet you, man.

Yes, sir. Great to meet you. I'm a big fan of y'all. Right on. I subscribe. go to the podcast and listen. I found you through meat eater. Okay.

And I was like, man, this is Arkansas boy. He's got to be all right. Annie hunts bears. I was like, man, wait. You know, why didn't I know about this? And so I've just been a fan. Well, good to meet you. To Malcolm's left, probably the most esteemed guest that's ever been on Bear

Grease, period. Probably. Period. Man, I got to take another picture. You better take another picture. We have the world's greatest small game hunter, Kevin Murphy. Oh, that's way too kind. Our good buddy.

So this is, I know you through Steve Ronella. Today is the first time you and I have met. And it's, it's, I knew at one time, at one day that we would meet. But Kevin Murphy from Kentucky, great to have you, man. Glad to be here. Glad to be around all you guys and meeting all the great people of Arkansas here at the World Championship, squirrels skinning event. That's it. You know, right off the bat, I had to help some 14-year-old kid that had never handled a squirrel in his entire life.

Aiden Blake. To skin a squirrel, I went over there and showed him. I said, there's lots of weight to skin a squirrel, but there's only one proper way to skin a squirrel. It took me a long time in my career to figure that out. But I showed him how to do that. It says, I'm going to do the one for you. And then you're going to do the next one. And he did it exactly like I told him.

You taught him the tail method. Is that work even on a squirrel that's been frozen? It did today. I don't know where those come from today. They come from tops of trees about Thursday. Okay. I would say they were frozen. 22 headshot.

Topps of trees Thursday. Let's just go back to the original. You told us where we're at. Joe, where are we at? Man, Clay, we are at the 2023 model of the World Champion Squirrel Cookoff right here in Springdale, Arkansas. And I couldn't be happier with the showing that we had today. Oh, man.

It's wall to wall. Do we have any idea how many people were here? I mean, I can make up. up something. But I think the most esteemed squirrel man in the world should be, how many people did you see out there? Man, we probably gave away 300, 350 samples that we cooked up, Clay stopped and got some plates for us there. We were down to giving off sauce. And we had no, we had no, we had no, we had no, we had no eating utensil. I said, man, this is Mongolian squirrel. You eat with your right head you do your other stuff and you're laughing.

Lord, hey, we've had multiple thousands of people here today. All to celebrate this little furry critter that gets overlooked so much, you know. And I don't think if you were trying to pick out one age or nationality, you couldn't find them out in this deal today. I mean, there's everybody. When you talk about community event, we brought them together today with some. squirrels so it's awesome clay no doubt hey so we do this thing Kevin uh I have Brent Reeves sometimes describe uh what someone's wearing why don't you do that for Mr. Murphy here including his friend well let me go ahead and say I think this is the first time that we've had a bona fide

squirrel dog on the podcast so what's your dog's name wings and things it's his names that's her name Wings and things. Those butterfly wings on her back. Oh, yeah. We are. She's been on a mountain line hunt with me, swamp rabbit hunt, jack rabbit hunt. She tree squirrels. I haven't really killed a squirrel with yet.

She's just getting into it. She doesn't know whether the point a squirrel or tree a squirrel. I was going to say she looks like a pointer bird dog. So she's a half GSP, a half English pointer, what the old bird dog people would call a dropper. Really? They get no credit for anything because people don't want to. those dogs because they can't breed them and pass that bloodline on. But she's got two brothers at the T-bone Pickett's Hunting Ranch.

So that's what caliber dog. So is she a bird dog or a squirrel dog? She's both. You know, our old-timey dogs did everything. Yeah. From keeping us warm to hunting critters to protecting the home place. And that's what I'm making out of this dog right here. Wow.

How old is she? She's turning four this year. Okay. And like I said, she's been, she made three trips to Michigan. Michigan last year. She's a pretty good walleye fisherman. You know, okay. I'm buying her license this year. She's identifying as a walleye. So I get the extra eight walleye that she's got into creel. Talk to him.

There she is. I think she sees orbs as well. She sees sketchy people. Now, you got a yard full of squirrel dogs back in Kentucky, though. I've got a few. And rabbit dogs? Rabbit dog. There's an episode of you on Meteor Season 12, you and Ronella hunted up in Michigan. Is that right?

Yes, sir. Y'all squirrel hunted. Rabbit hunted. Yeah, I heard that was a big time. Very good. Very good. Friends, you know, hunting with Steve and then whoever brings on the camera guys. You know, it's been eight years come this December, our first.

You know how he got, so Ronella just met Kevin somewhere in Kentucky. 2012. Steve was at the NRA convention in St. Louis, Missouri. I come up to him. He just had like five or six episodes or three or four out, and he was hunting antelope and bear and this and that. I says, Steve, you need to do a small game, a squirrel, a rabbit, or something because kids can go out their back door or down the, you know, somebody's farm or public land or wherever, and they can hunt small game. And we become

friends over that. And Steve told me this year, we were right around the pickup truck in between our hunting. He says, you know why I liked you when we first met? I said, because I knew about squirrels? He says, no. He says, because you told me, you were thinking, that this fall was going to be a really, really good squirrel year because we had a good mass crop. You said you were able, in your mind, to predict what kind of hunting season we were going to have. And, you know, I had hunted squirrels since I was probably seven, eight years old and just, you know, it used to be, I mean, that was my life as hunting squirrels. But, you know, having fun now is my life. How many squirrels did you bring today?

None. Oh. I'm here with chef Jeff. out of Illinois. He's a young dude that stalked me on Instagram. I took him hunting one time. He'd come to the top of the line.

I'm sorry, we just bleak that out. My mom's going to get mad at me and clean my glasses now. But he went hunting with me and he would listen to me and we'd become instant friends like three years ago. So he asked me,

said, hey, I got invited to the Squirrel Championship cookoff. Do you want to go? I says, yeah. So I've already put in Monday through Thursday, 46 hours working. Down Tornado Alley,

putting in high-mased lighting, 120-foot poles with a sketchy contractor. I won't call their name. But, you know, I like to work. I'll work till I die and hunt and meet people that like dogs and being outside, cooking good food. And, you know. What was the description you were given? Not to beat a dead squirrel hunting horse, but tell us what Kevin's wearing.

Kevin is wearing, I would say, circa 1971 G.I. Joe-style coveralls. Mm-hmm. I had a G.I. Joe that had a set of cover-alls just like. like that inside that in his t-shirt he's got a blaze orange camo with what okay it's a blaze orange camo he's wearing a browning high power on a cross-drawal is that a nine millimeter yes 14 shot you're also probably the first known bear grease render this is kind of a shame that was armed well that you know about right exactly what kind of where is that continue content Continuing on, he's got a nice military-style watch with a compass.

And complimenting and rounding out this ensemble would be his Fred Flintstone shoes that he's wearing. He is barefooted as a goose. And I believe he could run down a gravel road. So today, Brent and Kyle and Malcolm were judges at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. Malcolm what You can't Can you tell me who won? I know we don't know who won

But me and I'm going to tell you I was blown away By the dishes that these Squirrel chefs have turned In today I mean you know you think a squirrel I think a squirrel in dumplings Or just squirrel in gravy

Or something like that We saw all kinds of Just delicious Give me some examples I'm going to need like examples Yeah I'll be thinking of some examples What was what were some examples?

Well, we had some squirrel impanadas. We had squirrel tamales. We had, you did have some, like, roasted quarters of squirrel that were just fantastic, melt in your mouth. Some of them did like a buffalo wing style. I saw on their table, it was like a ramen. I mean, I'm talking to squirrel bone broth, the whole nine yards, whole things. We had some of these, they're called, what do they call them?

It's like a little wrap. It's not a, what was that called? the little basket, the poor purse. I will personally say. The beggars purse. The ooze and awes that come off of their judging table. Yes. When a particular dish and I'm trying to see what the name of that team is, I can't find it right now.

That was the hands down, Joe. The best thing I've had today. Well, the scorecard in my pocket said yes. Okay, I believe it. Okay. So this team made, Malcolm, you ate it, but they made them, was it a meat pie? It was a squirrel mint's meat pie. squirrel mince meat pie.

They made vanilla bean honey little glaze on it. They did a Minnesota wild rice. That got the biggest reaction of all of it. Clay dude,

this thing, when it hit the table, you opened up the box and you've seen the glorious dish that was served. But when all the judges are telling me, and I'm just like the referee,

you got to buy it into this. And it was... Man, that's pretty bold going for a squirrel, mince meat pie. I mean, that doesn't necessarily sound like if you're like, squirrel tamales, squirrel impanadas, squirrel this, squirrel mincemeat pie. I wouldn't do that.

Give me the mince meat. Yeah. It was fantastic. And the sauce that they had over this quarter. No, it was, so they called it, I took a picture of it, it was that good. They called it a squirrel Loretta, not to be confused with the steak Diane sauce because they made it with bourbon, whiskey, not cognate. They said, anybody, any respect.

of Hillbilly would drink, would not drink or cook with cognac. So they... So did they give you some like written? Yeah. Check it out. So how did it work, Brent? Well, you got this, you got a plate. It was covered, you know, a foldover to go plate and had the number, you know, the team that you would

score, not the name, just the number, whatever it was. And you open it up and inside, like in the lid right here and one... He's got a little card, main dish. What, everything was in there. So fried squirrels. Squirrel, Alpasteur tacos with salsa verde sauce side dish, fried Mexican street corn with squirrel chorizo. Let me tell you, son, that was on the money. That was good stuff.

That's the one you, I took a little bite of that. That was money. And the reason we had the teams put that little index inside there was because we didn't know what the stuff was. Like what Malcolm just read, we opened up that box and unless it has that description, there ain't no way we've described that. You lost that dish. And just like what you just raised. Sure. Oh, it would have had no clue.

And they hit every country. I mean, Filipino, Thai. Italian. All kinds of stuff all over the world that you would never expect a squirrel to be in. What was your favorite? You can tell me that. Yeah. It's not going to spoil anything.

No. What was your favorite, Kyle? I liked the Thai. The noodle soup. It was a squirrel cow soy with a squirrel rangoon. And then they had the cream cheese in the rangoon, dipped in the sweet and sour sauce. That might be the best bite I had because someone passed me.

They said, you got to try this rangoon. It was squirrel. Unreal. It was unreal. It was mine. Now, a rangoon is that folded little fried triangle. With the cream cheese. Chinese restaurants.

I was a very years old. Because it had cream cheese. I don't know. If y'all ever watch his YouTube, it's how to barbecue right. Okay. That's the name of your YouTube channel. How to barbecue ride. And he's got millions upon millions of followers.

And Malcolm will sit out there on a back porch and take the biggest clump of cream cheese you ever seen and mix it with blue plate mayonnaise and throw something in it and people love it yeah and so I don't know why I don't know why I mean it's the simple stuff man it's he kills it I'm not a chef lady means I cook stuff folks want to eat he kills it that's right but those all those dishes that you guys just read you know that started in year one like our first year of doing this, I thought it was going to be dumplings, gravy. That's what I was expecting today.

I was expecting today when you said that we were going to get 18 plates. And the other table I had 17. I thought 18, okay, that's going to be six plates of fried squirrel, six bowls of squirrel mulligan and six plates of squirrel. This is just going to be like a Tuesday at my house. Was there anybody, was there a dumpling turned in? I don't know. The closest we had was a ravioli.

Yeah. We had two raviolish. I didn't eat none of it. I mean, not one of those traditional things that I thought about. I didn't see him. And you know, Clay, tradition's real important to guys like all of us. Like, everybody in this room is a traditionalist. We take a lot of pride in the old ways and all of that.

There is a 100% chance if someone turned in a solid squirrel and dumplings that they could have killed it and won today. Oh, and it was a hundred. You know, the fried squirrel that we had, you know, in my mind, I'm like, I got to give this one just another bit of an edge. Right. Because it is more traditional. Oh, that counted something for you. For me, that was like, they're really honing in on the roots of squirrel eating.

You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a unique deal because I think people, you know, Clay Newcomb's a flashy guy. It got some flashy mules, all of this stuff. You better believe I do. You got no idea. And so, I mean, he's just a flashy guy.

guy. So these cooking teams think they got to be really, really flashy to win. Now, I'll go ahead and tell you the dish that won was dang sure flashy. It was. It was good. If that's the winner, if I had the winner, that was amazing. Like I would, Clay, you'd pay for that dish. Oh, I went to a restaurant, saw that on the menu. I would pay good money for that dish. Now, would you say, like, chef Malcolm's a pro. Are there, well, you, you weren't cooking today. That's right. How many pro, like pro chefs are out here? Oh, man. So we had probably three or four restaurant owners or restaurant quality white tablecloth chefs out there cooking. Okay.

Oh, really? And yeah. And so what they're competing against is, what is it, the backwoods guys, right? They're competing against, there's a couple old boys that run a croppy guide service up north. You know, they come down to cook it. We had croppy savice today. With the squirrel or was that just... I didn't have...

That was a side dish. A side dish. They had done tortilla chips made with... Squirrel broth. Squirrel broth. And then that was to be dipped in the croppy savice. Wow. Have you considered having more teams?

Is it possible or do you feel like 40s just all you can handle? If you would ask me yesterday how many teams we were going to have today, I had 11 teams drop out over the last. last 10 days. No way. And so I had to scramble. And the deal is, he could tell you, this squirrel hunting, unless you get out there and do it, it ain't as easy as people think. That's right.

I mean, I squirrel hunted last week every day, morning and evening, sometimes during the day, and it just takes the slightest wind. We hunted with squirrel. What if he had said, I hunted, I night hunted squirrels in spotlight? I wouldn't have a doubted any of them. Man, we didn't have a potent dog like that one laying. on the floor, but we had a good squirrel dog. And those squirrel dogs are a huge advantage.

You squirrel dog, huh? I got flashy squirrel dogs. You do got flashy squirrel dogs. But I just want people to know just because you see a squirrel in your yard, that don't mean you're going to get a limited squirrel. Yeah. It's a tough, tough deal. So, you know, I praised the teams earlier this morning at the meeting,

and this isn't something you could go to the store and buy. you could be in a barbecue competition and buy all the brisket you want to buy. You could buy a wagoo brisket and have an advantage. Here you want an advantage. You better shoot them young grace, you know, the wago of squirrel. And so just an amazing. So the original question was about the teams, though. So you had 11 teams drop out.

So you had 40 that can only come. 11 dropped out. Did we get 40 teams? Yeah, so I scrambled hard. I scrambled hard. calling people. We wound up with 35 today. Really?

Okay. Which you could ask this panel of judges, that is all they needed. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It'd be hard to do more. I'll add something else to this. I did not eat one thing that I wouldn't eat again. It was good.

I'd agree with that. I didn't. There wasn't anything in there that I took a bite of and was like, I'm not toting this. Kevin, what did your team cook? They cooked a bourbon sauce and country ham sauce squirrel. with grits and cheese, with onions on top, just a simple,

I call it liquid cornbread like deal, and it was good. But I had, you know, the Kentuckians that you talk about, I had what they had, numerous people would bring me stuff up to eat.

Oh, is that a Kentucky team? Well, of course. Oh, of course it was a Kentucky's. We were side to side. You got bluegrass and that kind of skill. We got bluegrass and bourbon and buckshot. but everything that people brought me, I would tell.

I'm here with Chef Jeff from, he's got two restaurants in Chicago. Wow. I'm probably the only professional squirrel hunters got their own chef. So I take him hunting and he cooks for me and we have a good time. It's a good deal. And he asked me to come down here with him. I said, yeah, I'll come down. But I mean, impanadas, that mince meat, squirrel.

man, everything was great. And I thought, man, this is right here in the run. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com.

I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good. turkey noises and getting action. Kevin, I come to your house mid-November, we kill some squirrels. What are you cooking? I'm cooking fried squirrel, caddhead biscuits, and gravy, fried potatoes and onions.

I'm eating at your house, son. Okay, tell me, walk me through how you'd fry your squirrel at your house. I got to get one thing off my mind. I am not G.I. Joe. I am John Wayne. You've been waiting to say that since you? That's right. That's why I'm identified as.

What was your question? How would you fry? How would you cook your squirrel? Because it seems, you know, if somebody just shoots a squirrel, cuts, you know, quarters up and fries it, they're probably going to. When I shoot a squirrel, I try to shoot it that I'm going to eat it. Now, first that I'm going to clean it. And then I'm going to cook it and eat it.

So I try to hit you with a 22 rifle. You can't always do that. You know, sometimes you've got to shoot them with shotgun. Sometimes you've got to body shoot them. You know, you try to get those squirrels clean, you know, maybe not right then, but as soon as you get home, get them washed up, let them soak. I'm going to cook it in some lard. No shortening. No shortening.

Just like pork lard from the store. Yes. Pork lard from the store. Okay. Low and slow. I might bake it in the oven, make some kind of dish, you know, from that, barbecue squirrel or d'htlets. Do you parboil? parbaro or pressure cook

no I think that cooks the flavor out of it 100% behind you That's really That's what I think You got to work at it Steen Steen Steen

Low and slow Get your squirrel Get it prep Put it in your In your cast orange skillet With some lord Probably like Halfway up on the squirrel

Turn it Turn the heat up Get it crisp on them On the bottom With whatever your secret breading is, and I've got a secret one. Is that a secret? Yes.

Secret by accident. Yes. The best compliment ever got was I used to have when I worked, I would get invited by contractors to go to golf games, like, at the legend golf course, wherever that is, and do stuff. I said, man, I don't do that. You have a frog gig in tournament or something? I'll go to that. But I only play golf every 27 years.

My next golf game is 2029. But I'm looking for that one after 2029 is what I'm looking forward to. So bring that lured up about halfway on the squirrel, get it kind of crisp on the bottom, put your lid on there, and then turn it down and just let it simmer. Oh, so flip it and then turn it down and let it simmer. Just let it simmer, low and slow and steam it. And then after you can take a fork. There's some nuance there.

It's easy for me to go, oh, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and then get home and burn it. No, no, you got it. It's tough. When you can take a fork and slide it in that hind quarter and she slides right in, when it's low and slow, it's going to get sloppy on your breading. So what you've got to do is hit it with some heat and turn it back up and let it get crispy on the bottom. Right at the end. At the end.

This reminds me, the guy's talking about landing a Super Cub. When you're in Alaska, you're like, whoa. And then they, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. They let it down and you feel like you're about to crash. And then right before it, they hit the, hit the tundra. They bounce it back up and land it just like a pillow on a bed. Take some finesse. So hit with some heat at the end, get it crispy on the bottom.

It's all like gelatin on top. Flip it over, get it crispy, then take it off, and then you make the gravy. You make that gravy out of that same lard, or do you start over? The drippings, not lard. It's turned into squirrel drips. It cooks it, Dan, yeah. That was beautiful. It was like a great artist recording.

They'll be like, Kevin Murphy did that recording at the Arkansas Game and Fish event or center in Springdale. Oh, I think it goes down in the history of squirrel right there. That was a good description. So, okay, tell me about your gravy. Barefoot and beautiful, right? Barefoot beautiful. The gravy, like I said, you've got your drippings in there with little pieces of, I mean, it's not dripping.

It's a quarter inch to half inch of large. Yeah, quarter inch, three-eighth. Not too much, too much, too much. So then you look at it. And, you know, you can't make a big batch of gravy at one time. You know, you couldn't make enough to feed 10, 12 people. You got to do, like, small batches to make it turn out. So try to have your milk, the red top milk, not that.

Sorry, blue top stuff or whatever. You got to have a whole vitamin D. Yeah. Brand calls it sweet milk. Sweet milk. It's only kind of milk. Have it at room temperature. Don't pull it out of the frigid air and set it up that room temperature milk.

Let's take some forethought. Wow. The most important deal, if you're a gravy maker, is what flower brand are you using? I'm a gold medal man myself. Oh, you're not a Martha? I could use whatever. It don't really matter. You don't find a difference in gravy based off of the flour?

Got to be Martha White. It's Martha White. I like, that's what I like. Malcolm. That's what my mama always bought. Mm-hmm. He boys in Kentucky or strange. Gold medal or sunflyer comes right out of Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

So, I'm going to make some player. That's what I was paying the bill. He goes. Okay. So have your milk at room temperature, you know, laid out, and then just look how much drip-ins you have in there. You just kind of judge it. Salt and pepper to whatever you think. Okay.

Well, hold on. What do you mean? Judge it. Tell us how you judge it. Like, so if you got, if you got a quarter inch of lard, how much milk you're putting in? You know, them dudes right next to us that, that from Kentucky, they had the meat map. They were talking about all this measurement stuff. You know, I'm like a handful, a pinch, 28-gauge shell, 4-year-old.

Yeah. I don't, you know, I don't have those. I just look at it. But, I mean, would you, how would you describe it? I would say if you had a 12-inch skeleton with a quarter-inch of drippings in it, I would use about, a handful, maybe two handfuls of flyer. Okay. And a couple of pinches of salt, a couple of pinches of pepper.

That's probably a half a cup of flour. And then let that get brown. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's go back. We're talking about milk. You're putting your milk. You got to tell us the sequence.

No, he ain't got to the milk. You're jumping the ship. You're jumping the horse, the mule or whatever you jump in. Okay. You're going to land into the bar bar. Okay, okay. So we've got to do it. So we've got the drippings in there.

We add the flyer. Which is very important, the sequence. Yes, yes, you've got to put flour first. You're basically making a rue. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. Salt pepper.

And it's best to try to get it right in the beginning because when you add it at the end, it's not the same. You can still do it, overcome it, but it tastes better to me if you got your sequence and your ingredients right from the first. So you brown your gravy and get it in there. You got some dude that can pour milk on a steady basis. It's the best thing to do. It's hard to stir and pour milk at the same time because you've got to get with it. You need two people.

You turn to heat up. You heat up the cast iron skillet. You turn it up on high. And then you start easing that milk in there. It's slow. Room temperature milk. Sturing. Sweet milk.

Sturing. Clockwise and the – Clockwise. Is it a different if you do counterclockwise? Counterclockwise? Kevin, are you a – Are you a fork? Yes.

That's all being done with the fort. Yes. That's how my daddy does it. Fork is preferable. Keeps the lumps down? Yes, yes. Mash some lumps. And then just like, you know, if you got a guy that knows how to make gravy,

he's better for if he's pouring the milk because you can't go too fast or too slow because it gets lumpy. And then once you get lumpy gravy, it's hard to get it back. You can save it if you know what you're doing. But gravy is, it's kind of a kid that's gone. You got to work hard to get them back. Yes. Boy, I will tell you what. I've been listening to this show since the inception or conception or conception or whatever.

That description of making gravy was probably the most. And this is an amazing show filled with detail and historic, just great intel. That gravy deal? Are you putting them in the Hall of Fame based off a Fame? I'm not done. Hold on. You know, when I first started hunting and stuff, I would figure out things about squirrel hunting. I wouldn't tell anything to anybody.

And then I got to see as I got older, there was less and less squirrel hunters. No kids. You didn't have to get up early or two days before to go start squirrel season. You could start on opening morning and get your spot. And I got to thinking says, man, I don't want to take this stuff to the grave. I want to tell people, give young people a head start on stuff. And that's what I try to do is, you know, not take it to the grave, tell people how to give them a head start on how to get things done.

But as you get that grave, you've got to think in your mind, okay, are we going to serve it right now or is it going to be 10 minutes from now? So if you're going to serve it right now, you go ahead and make it to the thickness that you like. I like mine thick that I can eat with a fork. some people like there's really thin. Steve's like his thin. I don't know why, but thicker is better.

Yeah, I was going to say Yankee. But like I said, if you know there's going to be like 10 or 15 minutes, make it on the thin side. And that way, as that gravy sets up and that cast iron skillet, it thickens up. God. So complicated. Brilliant. Beautiful. What you said, Kevin, about you didn't want to take it to the grave is one of the main reasons why we do the

squirrel cookoff. As you guys walked around today and seen literally thousands of people, such a small percentage of those people have ever shot a squirrel. And the hope is, is at some point we can convert those folks, or at least at a minimum, let them appreciate us as hunters. You know, so many people don't understand why we do what we do. It's a dying breed. Small game hunting is on such a decline that there's a good chance it'll go away.

And so for us, all of you guys, to be out here today and to see us convert these people into believers, it's a solid, solid, squirrel believers, man. Kids, I don't know how many young ones I talked. to today. They were here with their parents, families, whole families here, mom and dad and four or five young ones, and they were just eating it up. And I asked every one of them that I talked to and I met and took pictures with and they're like, I ask them, y'all eating squirrel? Not yet. Where do we get it? They was coming here to eat it. It was really good. I'll say from my generation, I'm 28. Most of the people that I know that are my age have never had squirrel. And so for them to see that

This is not just an event, but event with the amount of people that ended up showing up and see, like, oh, this is legit. Like, you can actually have a respectable competition around eating squirrel. I think goes a long way because, like you said, thousands of people come through and how many thousands more will see that on social media and hear about it on here. We got here last, we got here yesterday afternoon, and I took Alexis and Bailey wanted to go shopping. We went to some place down in Fayetteville. some kind of leotard store. The lulu lemon shop. I got a pair of them.

So we go in there and they got this stuff and we go to checkout and this gal says, what brings you, are y'all visiting? And I said, yeah, we're visiting. She said, what brings y'all bring y'all up here? And I said, well, it's the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. And she said, the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. where's that at? I said, it's in Springdale. She said, how do they teach squirrels to cook?

I hear it. There you go. No, she didn't. She did. I said, no, we're going to, we're going to eat them. And her eyes were bugged out on saucers. She said, if y'all going to eat squirrels? I said, just as fast as we can get them cooked, we're going to eat them. Man, Clay, I seen the deal on the news the other night.

They were interviewing this local business owner. and this local they were interviewing on the big three events that were coming to northwest Arkansas this week and uh they asked how that was going to bring business to them and she says the big three bikes blues and barbecue uh there was a festival called format and she said the world champion squirrel cookoff and that lady said no the LPGA championship was the third one Wait a minute. She said that she was, she corrected the lady?

Yeah, yeah. So we, we wiped out the LPGA, man. Banga. Wow, that's big. This is big. Malcolm, do you ever, you ever cook squirrel?

Yeah, we, you know, I got a little farm there in Mississippi where we hunt on. I went on probably the best squirrel hunt of my life last year. I got, I heard you guys talking about it here recently, but it was on one of the Mississippi River clubs. Oh.

And I didn't realize that there was that many guys that hunted squirrels on those clubs. There's a group of them. They come from over in Arkansas. They hunt both sides of the rivers on these big clubs. And when they come, they come 20 deep, and they bring their dogs, and they've got their dogs trained to tree these squirrels

no more than 100 yards off the trails because they're packing their zibicides. And I got invited to go with them, so I'd never seen anything like. I brought my gun. I don't even think I got my gun out because it was a blast because they had all the kids out there. And this was like a family.

There was, I think, three generations of people hunting out there in this big pack. and this big packing squirrel, you know, drive that we kind of did. And we rode around. We got out there at daylight. You know, you got to drive a long ways to get to one of those clubs because they're out in the middle of nowhere, another side of the levee. But it's just a different country there.

It's totally different than the hills. I'm used to where I'm at Mississippi. It's untouched land. It's just big hunting clubs now, or paper company owns it, at least some of them. But it was amazing. And we killed the biggest black squirrels I've ever seen. A lot of black squirrels. A ton of black squirrels.

And it was, man, it was awesome. It really was because you got to go and you got to see these big old timber and the squirrels are so fast from tree to tree in that stuff. They shot gun? There was people doing both. There were some of the older men that wanted to really, you know, take time, meet squirrels. They were making good shots. And then because we had some of those guys that would kind of strangle behind and let the kids and stuff get on them and when they start shooting at them. The kids all had shotguns and you had to be quick to jump out to beat them to the tree.

Yeah. Because the dogs, they'll take a dog. guy had a dog about this size and he rode right on his leg and hung out his side by side. He had a little mirror and he'd put his feet on it. And if that dog caught one of a squirrel, he was gone. You could better believe there was one in that tree. You got to get out and shake the vines and you're beating them with sticks and there he goes. And then it's kids.

And I said, I begged them. I said, I got to let me come back. But it was such a, it was like camaraderie hunting camp, what you would expect that would be like. And then you go half a day and everybody brings out their grills and they get out the food and we cook them on the, you know, just everybody kind of corrals up. You cook a big lunch and you go squirrel hunt until dinner. Then you go back and clean squirrels and cook squirrels. And it's time to go to bed and get up to do it again at the next camp. And that's all these guys do when they're farmers.

So when they get their crops in, they go squirrel hunting. And they told me they'll squirrel hunt from now till their wife's back of come back home. And I said, that's the life right there, man. Yeah, that's good. Do you all have a lot of black squirrels in Kentucky? We have a few melanistic pock squirrels. Really? but we don't that I know of have any...

Were they black gray squirrels on the Mississippi River? No, they're fog. I think they're fox squirrel. There's balinistic fox squirrels. Okay. Because like in the Ozarks here, to kill a black squirrel, I mean, if you killed black squirrel,

somebody had mounted. I mean, have you ever seen a black squirrel up here? No. Oh, really? Just on the levees that he's talking. Yeah, and I see pictures of guys in different parts of the country acting like black squirrels are no big deal.

Michigan, further north you go. Steve Ronella, when he came here, to a squirrel hunt with me years ago. I told him we didn't have black squirrels. And he gets off the airplane, drives through Bentonville, and swears to me that he saw a black squirrel on someone's yard. So he shows up and he's like, you got black squirrels. And I'm like, Steve Ronella, don't come to the Ozarks and tell me about my squirrel.

Stay in your lane, bro. He swears that he saw a black squirrel. And I told him, I was like, no way. No. He may have seen a melanistic fox squirrel, what he may have seen. Well, I've never even seen one of those. They're just not coming up here, but on the levee, they're everywhere. I deer hunted down there a couple years ago inside the levee of the Arkansas.

And, yeah, they were, I saw multiple black squirrels. Anyway. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag. And there was a pool of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit.

Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses. No cameras. Just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person.

He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. But yeah, man, it's cooking squirrels, rabbits, raccoon. I mean, we grew up cooking stuff like that. And I think it comes from just kids these days sit inside.

They don't go outside and hit the woods and stuff. You know, that's what I carry. My daddy, my dad would trust me with a 22. It was a BB gun, and we wanted to stay outside. You know, we were begging to buy more BBs because we were willing to go try to shoot something. And so I think that the younger generation is missing that, and that's what's important about events like this. It's going to rely on us to share that and to pass it on and encourage people to get out and do this kind of stuff and realize how much fun it is.

Let me tell you. let me tell you what I noticed today and I was busy running around running around but this old guy that barely shows up on the render anymore yeah render boy is many full grown adults think that he's a rock star them little kids love yes they do's these little kids love this man and uh and they love you too clay I mean it's you guys have put a new twist on what an outdoorsman is. And I called Brent two weeks ago, and I said, man, I had a guy call me

and ask if his son, who's like nine, could meet you. That's a big deal. We idolize the wrong people in this world. We have for a long time, right? every man sitting in this room is just a dude we're just normal people who tell our stories on podcasts or whatever we do to me the impressive part is seeing them idolize what i consider real men and that's a forgotten thing and each and every one of us are doing our best at trying to change that this man sitting over here in the overalls

hey he's the real deal he's the real deal how many people ask you how many pocket knives you had in your pockettrial just about all of us anybody asked to borrow one yep they did and I said I'll let you hold it absolutely amazing man I was tearing up just now thinking about

but it's it's the real deal I mean this this group right here whether it's cooking preaching about the outdoors, whatever. It's hard for us to believe that we're making a difference, but we make a difference. And today is kind of the big bang of it. When we see these people, all the kids coming.

The shooting competition across the way here, they run out at targets, and they had over a thousand targets. Really? Yeah. It's like a pellet gun competition. Yeah. I mean, we had Gamow Daisy sponsor that deal. I mean, a thousand kids come over here and held an air rifle.

My neighbor kid lives down the way. He's 11. His parents won't let him shoot a BB gun in my backyard, which is weird, but it's where we're at. And that's when Kevin talked about holding on to it and teaching people. That's what y'all do. I mean, you guys are the best. You know, I had a family come by, and I saw it.

on with the targets. I said, let me take a picture of one of those squirrel targets that shot over here at the daisy thing. And the dad, he let me see that. He said, it was a pretty good target. I said, well, you need to take some white out to this hole up here. And then I looked at his daughter. I said, man, she shot the best group. And I said, do you mind if I take a picture of all of you guys with your target, hold it, and I'll be in the picture. And, you know, I like that. You know, the family, they all shot the pellet gun. The kids out. shot the adults and they were all, you know, happy there. And there was one of the family that didn't want to shoot.

And that's fine because not everybody is meant to be a hunter. Right. You know, I've got a little outdoors thing that me and my friends put together. It's called score. Sportsman, conservationist, outdoor recreation enthusiasts. Trying to get everybody together that loves the outdoors. And there's only a small percentage of us that are hunters and stuff. And it's always been that way.

way mankind is. We just don't want that other percentage to be against us. We want to respect what they believe in and then what we believe in. And together, we're human beings and we're trying to make the world better. So that's what I believe in. I like it. I'm on it. We plant Cypress trees.

I'm going to do a squirrel shoot next Saturday. Have some kids out from like six years old to 18 years old. They shoot 25 yards offhand. You know, a lot of kids, they don't. They've got scope rifles. You know, they kill a turkey or a deer now before they kill a squirrel or a rabbit. That's hard for small game to compete with that. So, you know, we've got to like get them in here to shoot small game.

And so, man, this is just as big as challenge is killing a deer, a turkey, a duck, a goose, or whatever. But, you know, like you said earlier, just to go out and kill a limb of squirrels, that's not easy to do. No, that's our boon and crock it. You know, when we go out and kill a limit of squirrel, that's our big beard, that's our banded duck. Banded duck, that's our 160 class buck, whatever. A limit of squirrel, these guys found out. Tough to do. You know, this morning we had six teams that showed up barehanded.

They didn't have any squirrels. Did you supply them the squirrels? Well, so. Joe's got a squirrel dog coming in, hot on it. Boy, this is most love I've had in a long time. You might have a pocket full of medicine. Who knows? So we had a cooler and we had 25 squirrels in there.

We had 15 with the biodegradable packaging still on them, the fur. I wouldn't follow another. I was like, really? We had 15 with the biodegradable packaging still on them. We had 10 with that biodegradable packaging off of them. And whenever I opened up that cooler and they said, we got to skin those things. I said, either that or wake up earlier. We did a little raffle and we gave them.

And you know what? I used to be totally against that. If you didn't have the squirrel, well, you can't come. But, you know, a hunter's responsibility is to feed people. Yeah. and that's the whole reason we've done it and so there's hunters who go out and come back to camp and fed the people that's

but five of those bio degradable squirrel wrappers went to that 14 year old kid that had never handled a squirrel in his life I went over there and showed him how to do that and we've made a squirrel hunter out of that boy I guarantee you he'll be squirrel hunting from now to the end of his life and can I tell you about that boy So that boy's name is Caden Blake, and he's got a debilitating bone disease.

And about three years ago, that kid was star football player and Rassler. He's everything, and he got this debilitating disease, and now he wears braces on his legs. And he come to the Oklahoma State State cook-off that I was emceeing. and his mama was pushing him in a wheelchair. And he could no longer play sports. And he says, you know what I want to do? I want to be a competition barbecue guy. I said, well, guess what?

You're going to be fat. You're going to be a drunk. There's all kinds of problems that come from this son. I said, you may want to learn how to paint or something. And he says, no, I want to be a barbecue guy. And so I looked over and there was a brand new, the Oklahoma guys would love this. There was a brand new,

hasty bake barbecue sitting over there. And I walked over and I asked a boy, I said, how much you take for that? And he told me, it was a fair amount, you know. And I wheeled it over and I said, Caden, it's your first step to being a barbecue guy.

I'm going to give you this barbecue pit. And since then, that boy Malcolm could tell you he's cooked with every rock star barbecue guy there is in the country that's awesome if you name a superstar he's cooked with them and the reason was is some dumb redneck from Arkansas bought that boy that barbecue pit we could do the same thing with the 22 rifle we could do the same thing with a boat yeah your story about taking the old boy out coon hunting it's our responsibility as men to be that guy that opens the door to these people. And so for you today, man, I'll hug you after this, barefoot and all like y'all.

But for you today to show that boy how to clean them squirrels, you change that kid's life another time. And it's super impressive that I've got a circle with so many cool people in it. It's just awesome. Amen. I wanted to say something about the progression of speaking for myself, getting to the point where you become a obsessed with deer hunting and turkey hunting. You were talking about some kids today, they'll shoot a turkey or a deer before they ever go squirrel hunting or rabbit hunting. And I just think about my childhood.

And I grew up down on the Mulberry River in the Ozarks in Arkansas. I'm a sixth generation Ozark. And my family has been here for a long time. So a lot of tradition passed down, a lot of just stories. But for me, it started with as a four or five-year-old on that property, it wasn't deer first. It was tadpoles. It was like, can I catch tadpoles? Can I catch crawdads?

That fish that I see right there. Like, can I catch that fish in those reeds over there? And so my dad's showing me the small things. Then as I got older and bigger, I was like, oh, now that's a squirrel. Now it's a bird over here. It's that turkey. It's a deer. it's a bear just recently we got a bear um just last weekend and so some of that is yet you may

if you get exposed to something older and it's that's your only time you know seeing it you may not stick with it but if you kind of start kids early and and build that that hunt in them um that will stick with them for life yeah man 100% how does how does the squirrel skinning contest go man i got this dog making love to my ear man i am proud to tell you come here pope come here i'm proud to tell you start over to Joe put this little bit oh sorry there you go I'm proud to tell you that clifton jackson the previous winner of the of the skin and competition retained his title really is he fast I guess he whooped everybody up

What method did he use? Clay, I was in there eating with these guys. You didn't know, but yeah, he had to win three times to take the title. Oh, really? You got a skin three squirrels, or is it like a championship round? Yeah. Really? Yeah.

Elimination round of squirrels. I was tempted to get in there, but I didn't bring my clippers. I knew. Kevin, I use a method of squirrel cleaning that you use clippers, not a knife. Have you ever, I call it the bulls. Batesful method. You see his toenails. You take a whole squirrel, you clip his feet off, you clip all four feet off,

clip his tail off, clip his head off. I mean, you can do that just in seconds. And then you trim around the outside of the middle of the squirrel, just pinching the skin. And then you grab it and pull both directions. and the front comes off and the top comes off. Have you seen people do that? Have not. Really?

It's a pretty good method, especially if you, you know, the tail method can sometimes, the tail method can sometimes be hard to skin them if they've been shotgun shot or something and they're all banged up. Anyway, I wondered if you'd ever seen that. I call it the Batesful method because my buddy Michael Lanier, he's from Batesville, he talked to me. Batesville's main claim to fame. It's Michael Lanier. Michael Lanier and the Batesville method.

And then the method, yeah. So what's your time frame on getting that done? Hey, man. I hate to sound braggy, Kevin. No, he doesn't. You should see him run a dozer. On a good squirrel that's been headshot, that's not tore up, I can come close to getting it done in a minute,

getting the guts out and everything. Now, that doesn't mean quartering it up, But I mean, if the right squirrel, now they would be pushing it, but I've done it an under a minute on the right squirrel. But it's pretty good, man. What did Mr. Jackson do? What was his time, Joe? Do you know?

I don't. I know it was well under a minute. Was it really? Yeah. I'd like to see it. In your face. We may have it recorded on the phone. I'll have to check when we get through this podcast, but they said it was about a minute.

Yeah. So you're right in that ballpark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've seen him. I've seen Clay skinn them. It's pretty fast for sure. So is there any money involved in this anywhere, like on the sideline, like betting or anything, like the local guys? Maybe, no.

I've seen there with some parlay cards going on. The sporting chicken guys, have they got any money on this? I think my money was going to go on Clippy Jack. I'm waiting on the world bear cookoff. When are we going to see that, Clay? That's the one way. Hey, now that would be good. That would be good.

Have you ever cooked a bear? No, never have. Man, it's a good meat. I've never tried. Never tried bears. I don't know. I definitely would. We just don't, you know, Mississippi doesn't have a season for bear.

And they used to be a bunch. I mean, you know, we got the famous teddy bear. Oh, yeah. But we don't, you see them, you see them past there. They're coming back on the Mississippi River corridor. Yeah, you're seeing, we're seeing some more show up. You know, people, of course, getting game cam picks and stuff of them. But nothing like you guys.

I mean. I may be too busy to throw a bear cook off. Joe, yeah, that was my next question. Hey, Joe, what are you doing? If I could get this circle of guys in there, you bet. We'll throw one next week. Let's do it. You know how this all started?

Joe, Joe started this cookoff on a lie. Someone asked him, a TV show was coming. Andrew Zimmerman's show, Bizarre Foods was coming to the Ozarks. They contacted our number one redneck, Joe Wilson. and they said, hey, we want to see some people cook squirrel. And Joe said, well, we have the World Championship Squirrel cookoff here. And she said, oh, really? When is it?

And he said, well, when are y'all coming? And she said, and he said, well, I'll be darned. It just happens to be the same weekend you're here. And then, like, six weeks time, he put together like 20-something teams, and they had the first ever, first ever, world championship squirrel cookoff. Andrew Zimmern's team filmed it. Yeah. And then it's gone on pretty much ever since except for COVID.

Yeah, man. And, you know, I'll wrap up my part by just saying I had spectacular teams today. They worked real hard to bring what they brought to the table. I had a phenomenal group of judges. The facility, Joe. The facility, Arkansas Game and Fish stood up, man, and gave us just a phenomenal place. Tell what is the name of this place? You want me to try that again?

It's the... J.B. and John L. Hunt family nature center? Yep. Did I get that? Yep. I called the game and fish place in Springdale. Yeah. But, man, I've had phenomenal people.

I know we touched a lot of people today by doing this. And so it costs me money to do this thing. I mean, there's no income. It's free to attend. I pay out money for the winners. Hey, that's got a change, man. You need the GoFund me page. I don't own none of them.

Well, you don't have to own a GoFundMe page. fund you page Kyle will build you one right Kyle we'll get you started Kyle we'll get you started I'm just saying a lot of the things that we've all done in our life people have thought we're stupid and there's

always I tell people you're never too old to learn something stupid for sure but Brad will tell you a lot of the stupid stuff that we've tried it's the oddity of it that makes the success if I said we were throwing a hamburger

cookoff out here today there would have been a hundred people we cook this squirrel and we get thousands and to what we think is normal they think is as crazy as anything out there so I'm proud I'm proud of all you guys coming and I'm proud of the event it's it's an awesome opportunity yeah really is next year be about the same time yeah I suspect yeah probably the same place oh we got a year we got a year to talk about it I think you tell people and we might have to put an answer Salary in there of a piece of bear meat since we're a week after season. I like the sound of that.

Stark small. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Well, I wish we could tell the winner, but we're actually in the middle of the event. You're about to go announce the winner. Am I right? Yeah, 20 minutes. Yeah, 20 minutes we're going to announce the winner. Maybe I can come back on.

I think I'll come back on and tell people who won. Yeah. But anyway, Kevin, great to have you. Great to meet you. Thanks for being here. Malcolm. Tell people where we can find you if they don't already follow you. Just how to barbecue ride.

If you're interested in barbecue cooking outside, you can check it out. I'm on all the social platforms. Huge YouTube channel. Facebook. Bug junkies, too, right? Bug junkies are outdoors. That's, you know, we hunting fish on the side. And so we started a podcast where it's just me and my buddies.

We got a little hunting camp in Mississippi. And we, you know, work on the habitat, kill a few dough off and try to grow some bugs. But we're, you know, just good old country boys, having fun with it. And that's, you know, so come. Check us out. We're in Hernandez. You'll come through Hernandez. I got a little shop there.

You can pop in there and say hi. Really? A restaurant? No, no. We sell outdoor cooking stuff. We got some deer blinds. We got some game cams, you know, a little bit of everything. Start to finish.

Barbecue sauce, seasoning, grills, fire pits, decor around Christmas time. It's a store for men, but women come in there to buy gifts for men. Okay. There you go. Hernandez. Hernando, Mississippi. Yes, South of Memphis a little bit. Yeah, great.

Kyle, where can The Ozark podcast? Yep. We're on all the podcast platforms, Instagram, the Ozark podcast. Me and Kyle, both Kyle's, makes it easy for people to remember our names. But yeah, we're pretty much anywhere you look for us. Cool, cool.

Well, pleasure. Yeah, Kevin. You can find me barefoot and beautiful on Murphy's Small Game Nation, Instagram, Facebook, my mom's 84. She stalks me there, so I don't hang out much. and I love you mom and Ray Daly back in Bowes, Kentucky, or he really lives at easy money, not hard money. Easy money, Kentucky.

Easy money, Kentucky. Yes, Ray Day. Man, thanks for being on. Thanks for being a part of it. Thanks for making time to be on the render. This was a good deal, man. I hope you invite me back next year because I absolutely. I already wrote it in, son.

I mean, well, you can write in. We're going to invite this squirrel dog back. Yeah. This is good. This is good stuff. This is more fun than a bushel basket of puppies. I'm telling you, this is good stuff. Joe, thanks for all your hard work, man.

For real, we've got to figure out a way where you're not, this is the rock star right here. This isn't costing you money. Yeah, this wouldn't exist without Joe Wilson, your hard work. So, man, it's good. I don't need no thanks. I appreciate everybody for coming. Everybody else did the stuff.

I just hung out and watched y'all eat. So thanks for coming, Clay. Man, there was more bare grease caps walking around this place today. No wonder you can't find this. Yeah. They're everywhere. There's a lot of fun.

That was a great render. Man, it was awesome meeting Kevin Murphy. It's always great having Joe Wilson on there. And chef Malcolm, holy smokes, what a guy. He has a huge YouTube channel, 1.62 million followers. And I told you, and it's always great to have the render boy, Brent Reeves, there. I told you I was going to tell you who won the content.

Test. Here is a short audio clip of me interviewing the winners of the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff in Springdale, Arkansas. We're at the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. I'm here. Joe Wilson, founder, been on the Bargeridge, Ender. You guys just won. This is the World Championship Trophy. Tell me your name. Paul Crawl. Paul Smith. Paul and Paul. Paul and Paul. Paul and Paul. My other brother, Paul. What did y'all cook? We cooked something, a little play on squirrel, I mean steak I am, but we called it Squirrel Loretta. We had to hillbilly it up a little bit.

Cooked it with bourbon instead of cognac. It was good. It was fantastic. I heard about it. Mitz meat fried pie that everybody loved. Where are you all from? I'm from Union, Kentucky. It's about 20 miles south of Cincinnati.

And I'm from South Central Kentucky. Okay. We got another partner, Drew Simmons. I don't know where he ran off to, but he's part of this too. Drew's in my end. Oh, this is big, man. Big. Thank you very much.

This is like the Grammy. The Grammy. cooking right. Congratulations. I'm more excited to my firstborn. Not quite. Hey, I don't know.

I made play a piece of that mince me. Oh, is that? That's it. That's it. Well, that's good. It was incredible. Thank you.

Yeah. Congratulations. Big deal. Thank you. Thank you. Missy. Great meeting. First Light's fieldware collection is made for the work that

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