Bear Grease - Ep. 228: Render - Eating Caviar with Game Wardens

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

In this action-packed episode of the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb and Render crew members Brent Reaves, Gary "Believer" Newcomb, and Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker are joined by Capt. Jeff Brown (Ret.) and Lt. Joe Alexander of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. Hear more of the behind-the-scenes efforts to bring Oklahoma Paddlefish poaching to an end.  Also, listen along as the whole crew does a live caviar tasting. Plus, for the first time ever, watch this one live on video on our MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights field wear 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 in 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. Hit it, Christian.

That sounds familiar. Do you know that song, Brent? Yeah. Sounds good. Christian Shreve on the banjo. Welcome, Christian. Good to have you, man. Hey, welcome to the Bear Gries Render.

This is a monumental day. I'll say. Monumental day. We have an incredible room full of guests. I've got Gary Believer Newcomb here to my right. Good to see you, Dad. Where does Believer hat? Yeah.

That's like me. It's like Michael Jordan wearing his... Yeah, yeah. It's like Michael Jordan wearing his MJ, you know, like spreading out for the dunk. Welcome, Dad. Yeah, thank you. I'll introduce our guests last. I have Josh Lambridge spillmaker here to the left.

We have Brent Reeves of this country life. You mean. We're his overalls looking good as usual. Well, it was... I've never... What do you want me to wear? Yeah, yeah. You wear them well.

You wore the ones that are nice and broke in, too. Yep. I got like seven pair of them. They're all well-breaking. Is there a strategy? One for every day? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Do you have a Sunday go to meet a pair? You don't wash them every day. I know that's a lie. No, Alexis does. Takes them right down to the creek. Got a big old rock down there. That gal's working. Well, good to have you, Brent.

Our guest today, who, Lieutenant Joe Alexander. Yes, sir. Oklahoma Department of Wildlife. Gay Morden, good to have you back. You're on the last render. Glad to be here. Yeah.

It was, it's been, it was a lot of fun last time. And kind of our guest of honor today. I don't know about that. Well, you're our guest of honor for sure is retired Oklahoma game warden, Jeff Brown. Thank you. Good to be here. Who was the star of the last Bear Grie's podcast? There again, if you want to call it that.

That's what we call it. That's what we call it, Jeff, the star. My wife's getting a kick out of it. I know that. Did she? What did she think? Did she enjoy it? And the part there at the leading end of that, you said something about legendary Oklahoma lawman in the sooner state or something.

And she guffawed. And she's still laughing about that. But I played it back and forth several times. She's probably like, what is the royalty check going to start rolling in? Yeah, yeah. I guess I need to solve something like right off the bat. I had somebody, so far, the only complaint I've heard about the podcast is that I called Oklahoma the Midwest. So I'm asking the Oklahomans in the room, is Oklahoma the Midwest?

You know, it could be the Midwest. It's, you know, maybe Central. I don't know. We're part of the Central Flyway. Isn't the... Yeah, and it's kind of the... It's part of the southwest. It's part of the south.

It's part of the southeast. Part of the mid... It's kind of in the center. It's the either the end... I'd say that qualifies for it being in the Midwest. Isn't the geographical center of the United States in Oklahoma? It's in Kansas. It's close.

It's close. Kansas. The geographic center of the U.S. is a town kind of like in... I think it's... Central to West Kansas. Okay. Don't quote me on the West Kansas, but it's definitely in Kansas. Do you know where the center of the...

It's not far. Okay, completely unrelated, but related to geography and the center of ranges. I learned something this week. If you were to pick where the absolute dead center, geographic center in North America of the Black Bear Range would be what state is the center of the Black Bear Range in North America? Arkansas. good question that's what i thought deep in my heart

i would say Missouri Missouri yeah Tennessee Tennessee okay any guesses i'm i'll give you a hint we're underestimating the size of Canada oh

Wisconsin Minnesota Minnesota Minnesota really Minnesota is the dead center like think about Alaska oh yeah Florida New Brunswick and Newfoundland all the way into

Mexico all the way up to like almost to the to none of it. I mean, Black Bear Range doesn't go that far. But yeah, Minnesota. I was surprised that you don't think of Minnesota as central to anything. No. But when you, but the North American continent in Black Bear Range, it is. That's good. I mean, it's big. It's bigger than I thought. That would make it about the geographical center of North America itself because Black Bear Range with little exception is just about North America. Exactly. It covers a lot of it. Yeah. It covers a lot of it for sure.

I'd consider Oklahoma the hub of America. There we go. You have the right to think that. He's also toting a gun, so we'll take his word for it. We, yeah, we over just a little bit further east, think it's kind of over here. But, no. Jeff, when did you retire it in October? Last October, October of 23.

And you started in 85. 85. So how many years is that? That was 38. 38 years. 38 years in one month. When you retired, was it difficult? It was.

Being a game warden, I lived it. That was my life and my family's life. That's what we did. I did it on a daily basis, but my family was directly affected by it on a daily basis. And by that, you mean just like being on call 24 hours a day? It's a way of life. It's not a job.

It's a way of life. It's a lifestyle. And we lived it. And so naturally, when I just threw a light switch and one day I wasn't anymore, Joe drove me to Oklahoma City my last day and turned all my stuff in and on the way home. You know, one minute I was, one next minute I'm not. It took some getting used to. And I'm getting used to it.

But it did. It hurt for a few months. But I didn't miss the phone being tied to the phone 24-7. But even that was hard to get used to because I was constantly looking at my phone waiting for it to go off. Yeah. And it took me a while to talk myself into I didn't have to do that anymore. Yeah, yeah. But it was a great, it was a great career, great life.

I loved it. I lived it. I was ready to quit. I had outlived my usefulness. Now, Brent, you retired about the same time. Same month. Did y'all, I guess you had met, Jeff? We had the same party.

You all at the same party? Yep. It seems like a pretty good strategy on your undercover work to retire. Yeah, I promise you it is. It is a great. It's a very, you don't think about it when it's all going on. But then one day, it's like Joe said, you wake up and you're just like the guy next door. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, Joe, you and Jeff work together pretty closely for years. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. that would be an understatement. There's a, we go back a long ways. In fact, I wouldn't be here for, it wasn't for him as far as the game warden work goes.

I can, the first time when Jeff moved to the county that I grew up in, that's kind of what introduced me, you know, to him and game warden working. So before you work for the department. Oh, yeah, when I was a kid. Oh, really? So, y'all, you've known. I've known Joseph since he was in high school, if not before. Yeah. And I knew his dad.

His dad was a hunter education instructor for me. I say for me. He was a volunteer hunter ed instructor that would help me and do classes for me and with me and got to know Joe through him. And, yeah, and Joe got into law enforcement. And we joke. And it's kind of a kid, but he was my deputy for a long time before he was a game warden. Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of a unique story. But, you know, it's just kind of the way it plays. out. I started out in law enforcement as a police officer and I wound up deciding that wasn't for me but I enjoyed law enforcement and I enjoyed hunting and fishing. I thought, well, what's the best bet, you know, got to visiting with Jeff about it and decided, you know, game warden, that's a perfect fit. So I had to go back to college to get all that kind of squared away and then, you know, it just, everything worked out that I became a game warden later on and the rest is history. We spent a long time together, even before, like you said, before, I,

I was game warden officially. So. Yeah. When did you start? I started in, in, 06. 06. Yeah. Oh, six.

Excellent. Dad, do you have any advice for Brent and Jeff on retirement? You're kind of a pro. Yeah. Yeah. 13. 11, yeah. Wait a minute.

Oh, 2013. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, just lollygag. All you can, man, because it's coming to an end pretty quick. Well, on that note. Yeah, pretty good advice. So today would you say, you know, in the episode, Jeff, you emphasized how much just like paddlefish was king over in terms of enforcement. Yeah.

And what you guys were doing, that was like high on the list. Is that still the way it is? It is, at least as of October it was. Last time you checked in. And I was the district captain for several years. For 18 years, I was a district captain. And so I got to dictate some of what was important and what wasn't. Yeah.

But yes, paddlefish is very important. Like we've talked about before, because of the uniqueness and the opportunity to over-exploit. And so, you know, deer, I went to work back in 85 and we were still growing our deer herd. We were still growing our turkey herd, or turkey flock, I'm sorry. But those things for the most part that have been taken care of, you know, deer are here to stay. Paddlefish is something that is there again is unique and extremely valuable, not only to sport fishery, but also on a commercial side, and it deserves a lot of protection, and that's what it got from us.

It's interesting to hear you've put it like that, that these species that are recovering might receive more attention early on. Is that what you're saying about like with deer and turkeys in the 80s and 90s? When we were still growing the deer herd in Oklahoma, man, that was something we really worked hard on. You worked hard on deer poachers. and things like that because that was important. But the deer herd has recovered, not only in Oklahoma,

but the whole United States for the most part. Same way with turkeys. Now, turkeys may be on a kind of down right now, but they'll be back. You know, we used to trap and transplant turkeys in Oklahoma, and I got in on some of that. And then all of a sudden,

you know, they said we don't need to do it anymore because if there's not turkeys there now, there will never be turkeys there. So that reintroduction was complete. Well, and so, yeah, you move from one species to the other, depending on on what's going on with that species at the time. And paddlefish was the same way.

You know, it was commercial fished in Oklahoma back in the day, and caviar wasn't a thing then. And we phased out. So they were just commercially fished for the meat? Yeah. Yeah, and even then what the commercial fishermen were fishing for were rough fish, flathead, some carp species, suckers. Paddlefish was not even utilized. Not utilized that much.

I bet they can make some good fish sticks out of paddlefish. You know, the best paddlefish meat that I've had was smoked. Is that right? It can be real chicken-like in its texture. It's not flaky. It can be pretty. stringy, for lack of a better word, and smoked, it was pretty good. I don't care that much for it any other way.

If you take it out of the water and put it in the grease, it's good. Just quick. Yeah, it's fresh, it's good. But you put it on, you put it in a freezer and want to thaw it out and cook it later, not so much. That's been my experience. As anybody, slight digression, as anybody think it's a little suspicious that Brent, when did you get your commercial fishing license in Arkansas, Brent?

This year. Yeah, yeah, just like a few months. months ago? Yep. Right, when you kind of learned about paddlefish eggs? It's always something. I see where this is going.

It's deflecting. Yeah. How long we've been friends? No, no, no. 11 years, 10 years. Part of what we had to, we, it was in the, it was in the episode, but Christian, get your banjo ready. It was in the episode, but how a lot of these guys were taking paddlefish eggs

out of Oklahoma and bringing them into Arkansas because it was the closest state where you could legally sell paddle fish eggs. They were smuggling it. I just, I don't know. But I don't even have that license. I don't have a road takers license. Well, then probably. There's a road takers license?

Yeah. Oh, really? With a commercial fishing permit in Arkansas? It's a separate deal altogether. I don't have it. I don't have that. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Dad, did you know Brent's a commercial fisherman? No, I did. Did you know that I changed in my phone? I changed his, his phone number. to hold on, wait for it. It's worth it, guys.

It really ain't. Commercial. Well, I can't say it. I've seen him run nets. Look, it says commercial fisherman Brent Reeves. That's who he is in my phone. You used to say cameraman. Yeah, you used to say cameraman, Brent Reeves.

Change it to commercial fishermen. Yeah. Well, I totally hijacked your story. Well, and kind of what he was talking about right there, we didn't have commercial fishing. in Oklahoma. It was phased out over time. Now, in the first episode of all this, there may have been, it may have been some confusion. Yeah, correct me on that. Some people could have been confused because, yes, commercial fishing in Oklahoma was outlawed in the late 70s, mid to late 70s. But it was phased out over time. Oh, okay. So Billy Wissard was still commercial fishing, even though it was illegal in most parts, he was still commercial fishing in the Grand Lake.

Legally. Legally. Okay. In the late 80s, early 90. Or he was associated with commercial fishermen on that lake because they outlawed it. And then, but they just didn't pull the plug on everybody's livelihood. Ah, I see. So when this commercial fisherman would either get out of business or pass away or whatever,

that license for that lake was never renewed. Okay. So now that lake is closed. Well, it took several years to get around and Grand Lake was the last lake to be closed. the way I understand it. And there was still legal commercial fishing on Grand Lake into the late 80s, early 90s. Now, why would a state, it actually was news to me that not every state had a commercial fishing. Yeah.

You know, people could be, just because in Arkansas, I just always knew they were commercial fishermen that were fishing the rivers and whatnot. What is the agency's philosophy on not having commercial fishermen? I mean, are they just literally taking, putting too much tax on the resource for the management plan? Yeah, probably a combination of that. I don't know a hard and fast answer to that, but it kind of goes back to one of the conversations we had. That wildlife is a public resource. And even if one person is benefiting from it, it's shortchanging everybody else. and there again, anytime there's money involved.

I got to answer for you. I want to hear it. I'm pro-commercial. Anytime there's money involved with wildlife, wildlife loses. Even though there are legal and good commercial fishermen, there's also that element that's not. And that happens. That's also true in guides, fishing guides, hunting guides, anything in the wildlife. business. You got good people, but then you got unscrupulous ones over here, if I can say that

word, that makes it hard on everybody else. I don't know the exact answer, the direct answer to that is, but mostly Oklahoma wanted to concentrate on sport fishing. And commercial fishing took away from sport fishing. Yeah. And regardless of the species they were taken or whatever. So that's what they did. What do you think, Brent? Well, I listened to this country life this week. Do you listen to it this morning? It came out this, which has been the last Friday when this comes out.

But I addressed, I had some, I got some flack from people seeing me run those nets on the river. And I thought, well, maybe this guy's right. Maybe I am harming the resource. So I called Gaming Fish, talked to the deputy director. He put me with the two biologists, the large river biologist. and the commercial fishing biologist. And I posed a question is commercial fishing hurting the catfish and the rough fish population in Arkansas.

They said absolutely not. So you would not believe the number of fish in that river. You know, they can estimate and do surveys on the little red and the white river in the Norfolk, and they can get a estimate, a good estimate of the number of fish per mile. But there's no way. It said they absolutely can't even estimate. how many catfish there are in the Arkansas River.

So if the resource is there and it's plentiful and it's not hurting, I'm all about it. I also talked to a commercial fisherman and it was in last week's podcast about, he said, you know, you do what you want to. I'm quoting him. This is a guy that I was just inundating with questions when Tim and I were starting to do this. And he said, you do what you want to. You catch those big females, this egg-laden females. He said, throw them back.

He said, because that's, they're literally throwing money back in water, but they're also invested in the future of that. Yeah. Of what's going on out there. Yeah. And as guides. Josh is a guy. Josh is a commercial guide. Fly fishing guide.

As guides, we're the biggest conservationists on the river, man. Yeah, you're about six, too, aren't you? Because there's no fish there. There's no business. Exactly. 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 bed. And there was a full 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 to be. deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. 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 two of Blood Trails premieres April 16. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. We did a really robust series last summer on the Mississippi River. And I talked with Dr. Jack Kilgore, who is a fisheries biologist for the lower. He's like the big dog for like the last, as I understood it, the last thousand miles of the Mississippi River for the Corps of Engineers, fisheries biologist. When I sat down with him, I expected him to tell me that the Mississippi River was, imperiled and that the fish populations were struggling and it was the sewer of America and the agricultural runoff and pesticides and chemicals I just expected this

like dire story and had no knowledge of it I was I was in utter shock when Dr. Kilgore was like the fishery of the Mississippi River he said is incredible the fisheries are incredible except for invasive carp there's problems invasive carp being of the biggest one but he said that basically the catfish, even with commercial fishing on the Mississippi River, is an unexploited resource at this point. And partly it's because, now, if there were 15,000 commercial fishermen in Arkansas, I don't know how many permits they sell, you know.

It's thousands less than it used to be. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like, by attrition or by design? Attrition. Farm-raised cat, yeah, there's no limit on it. Like, farm-raised catfish is impacted, you know, just people buy an, fish and then it was undetermined whether people are eating less catfish and river fish than they used to but i bet they i bet they are eating less it's also hard you know yeah it ain't

easy yeah yeah yeah anyway just there's no conclusion of that other than i was surprised to hear how something else that may just popped into my head it may have something else to do about it do with it back in the day you had more of a rural America yeah who was willing to eat rough fish flathead channel cat carp suckers not so much anymore because those fish are all have a distinctive wild caught flavor and some of it you have to be fish hungry you want to you know to be able to eat it so that may not be that much call for wild caught some fish species just because of the demographic and society's changed. I don't know that.

That just kind of makes sense to me. That was my kind of what I was thinking as well is that maybe there's just less market for it. Because I mean, I think if people could make a living commercial fishing where it's legal, they would. I mean. I know one thing. You can't go to Home Depot with a hoop net propped up in the back of your truck without

somebody stopping you and say, hey, you got any fish for sale because that has happened to me. More than one occasion. That's awesome. We keyed it on that when we saw it. Why'd y'all call that a clue? Yeah, that was a clue where we come home. If Brent, if Brent were in the state of Oklahoma with a hoop net in this truck, would that be bad?

It would draw attention to him. Yeah. Yeah. Be careful how you drive home. At night. I go through Oklahoma only at night. No, I didn't know. I guess having a hoop net in your truck would show intent to fish.

it would. It would. Yeah. But you know that that population and the fish population in Mississippi River, it's in good shape and unexported now, but. Wait until they. Now Tim and Brent. Yeah.

If we ever figure out how to catch him, me. Tell us about that hoop net needle that you can you? Yeah, I can tell you about it. I'm going to do some stuff on it, but yeah. My brother was going through some of my dad's stuff and found an old net needle that was carved out of hickory. And you can see the knife marks on there. And it wasn't our dads, but it had to have been either,

and it wouldn't have been my grandfathers. It would have had to have been like my great-grandfathers or beyond that because there was some net fishing. I mean, it was unrestricted back in the day. But they did some net fishing and stuff. My dad never did do it, but there is no telling how old that thing. This probably goes back five or six generations. And it's pretty cool.

He found that going through some stuff the other day and gave it to me. So it's a wooden, I'd never seen one, but it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a wooden tool about this big. Yep. That's about, it's about, it's about carved from a single piece of hickory. Yeah, it's about 10 inches long. And it's, it's, it's hard to even describe that. It looks like a, it looks like a long fulsome point. Oh, yeah.

And, uh, ain't that the ones got the flutes on the side of it's right? It's shaped, it's shaped like that. And I mean, these guys know what a net needle looks like. but I'll um you wrap your string around and it's got a it's it's it's hollow on the end like a like a church steeple it's hollow and it's got a point a peg sticking in it and that's where you'd wrap the string around and then as you did the i think it's called the flying dutchman knot that you tie nets together with it feeds off of that off of that needle and that's how it works it's really cool Hmm. Very cool.

Well, Dad, have you ever had caviar? Oh. No, not. I probably have as old as I am, but no. You just forgot. It's something that I don't want any of, I'll be honest with you. Did you know we're going to eat caviar today? Well, y'all might. I mean, I'll probably taste of it. I'm just not much of, you know, if it's not peanut butter and jelly, I don't go for it.

Yeah. There you go. USA, baby. Have you ever, wait, you had fried caviar on the riverbank. Christian, have you ever had caviar? I don't know that you can call fried egg, fish eggs, caviar. Yeah, that's what we called it. I think that's just fried fish eggs.

Lieutenant Joe, have you had you had caviar before? Yes, I have. Are you a fan? Well, you know, it goes back to that. You know, I'm looking for that mirroar or whatever. The taste of the ocean and earth combined into a beautiful poetry that explodes in the mouth with a burst of acidity. I wish we had that guy from California here. I have to shout out to Alan Morris with Sterling Caviar.

He did send us some white sturgeon caviar for us to try it. Well, let's look at it. Christian, hit us with a banjo lick. Let's see we got here. Hit it, Christian. Celebration. That's what you say actually eat it. Short and sweet.

So this is how the caviar comes. It comes, and they overnight it. Wherever it's going, they overnight it. Now, where has it been since it wasn't overnighted last night? It's been in my refrigerator. Okay. Yeah, so I've been stored. I'll eat fresh caviar.

Well, it's as fresh as you're going to get. Okay. So. Now, let's do a little review here before we get going. So it was really interesting to me. to learn about the history of caviar in eastern Europe and then Europe. I mean, like how they had these rich sturgeon-filled rivers. And you can imagine when the population was, put your lid back on it.

This is going to take a while. Gentlemen, I happen to be a caviar expert. No, but, you know, when the pop—you know, a thousand years ago, the population of Europe would have been way lower than it is. and you get the idea that they could pull a lot of resource from those rivers and not affect populations as much. And this lady, we listened to a podcast. There's a book about the history of caviar.

We tried to get the lady on our podcast, and she wouldn't come. She was not real cooperative. Yeah, she, wonderful, wonderful lady, but wasn't, was unable to come on a podcast. Yeah. But from listening to some of her stuff, she, well, was she the one that said caviar was as common as butter at some points in time? Like, it was just something that, like, it was the common person ate caviar. There's actually a movie, a Russian movie from 1962 where this Soviet military guy is sent to this kind of remote area. and he's sitting in front of a mixing bowl full of caviar,

and he's just complaining about having to eat caviar. So the way it became so popular and ingrained in the culture and ended up being this symbol of luxury and wealth was that at one time it was like common food, like everybody ate it. It was just food. There's a lady that works with Alexis, and she immigrated with her family from Russia. and she said that I asked her the other day

I said do you like it? She said, oh yeah, love it. What's the difference in it? She said, well, the elite people eat black caviar and the rest of us eat red. Oh, is that right? Black and red caviar. That's what she said.

I'm a black caviar, man, but, you know. You know, these Eastern Europeans that we dealt with a lot in Operation Russian Snagg also made caviar out of other fish species. Oh, really? What were they tapping into? Yeah, you mentioned. like three or four different towns. Yeah, some, they did a lot of, what's that salmon in Colorado?

Steelhead? No. Cutthroat? Silver. Salmon caviar. Yeah, but they made red caviar out of different salmon species type fish. Because we would, as we would confiscate some of them confiscate some of their tackle and stuff. Also in this tackle was little snaw.

nagging tackle. We'd ask them what that was for, and that was the species or whatever they were trying to take in Colorado at the time, which I think it was legal in some instances, some way they could do it. But yeah, they utilized other fish species too. They said in an article I read the other day about Arkansas that they would use bowfins, grinil. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Bo fin cavit. You can buy both in cabot. Bofin, paddlefish, and then sturgeon. but there was like, you said it was like three or four on the list. What are the middle two? Well, it's different types of sturgeon. Different types of European sturgeon.

I got you. Yeah. You mentioned in the bowfin, yeah, you can buy bofarin in caviar in caviar shots, but that goes back to the bofin is a prehistoric species of fish also. Right. So there's a common denominator there. Is it similar to sturgeon? I've never seen it today.

Yeah. Now, we have sturgeon in our rivers. in this part of the world. Is that true? There's a sturgeon in Arkansas. Yeah. But they're not, they're not. Shovelin those sturgeon here.

Did they get big? I mean, why are people illegally catching sturgeon for that caviar? They don't get big like they do in the Snake River up in the northwest. That's a different sturgeon. These are small sturgeon. They're, and I don't know if there is abundant. No, they're really rare. You get the sense that in Europe, those sturgeon are big.

Oh, yeah. I think they're like the sturgeon. They're like the sturgeon in the Snake River system. Yeah, yeah. So that's why they had. Hundreds of pounds. They had these huge egg sacks and tons of eggs and why they could harvest so much. Yeah.

Back to the story, just for anybody that had missed it in the podcast. began to be exploited. And this took place like over hundreds of years. And then that's when, what do you see? Five pounds. It was the largest shovel-nosed sturgeon caught in Arkansas. Oh, okay. So it wouldn't have that many eggs.

And then that's when the churches, they were asking people to fast for meat, the Orthodox churches. And that's when they made a decision at some point and some time. And they said, well, you can't eat meat. on this religious fast, but you can eat caviar. And all of a sudden, it was like, caviar just became the thing because people could eat it and still meet these religious rituals. And then I think the rivers became exploited and all of a sudden it grew into this thing where just the wealthy had it and had access to it.

And then now what I asked Keith when I was with him, and it was on. on the episode was it seems like this stuff would translate into our culture if it was that big a deal. Like I'm still a little bit surprised that like Midwestern

Southern America places where there are paddlefish I'm surprised that we're not pumped about paddlefish caviar. Yeah, because we're eating gizzards and livers and everything. I think it is an acquired taste. The reasons Europeans like it was that

They've been raised on it. Yeah. It'd be just like us going to northern Alaska and eating seal blubber. Probably we find it terrible, but the natives up there love it. Culture. It's a cultural thing. I had a guy, I put a video on my Instagram about cooking a how to cook a coon, and he said, my gosh, man, what's next?

Squirrels? I thought, well, that was he no. That wasn't next. That was before. That was first, too. Yeah. I think, you know, Keith said that when you were talking to Keith about, you know, the people around here, they see fish eggs laying on the ground. Yeah.

You know, they wouldn't even imagine trying to eat that fish eggs that somebody had cleaned their fish and thrown it back in the water and whatnot. So it has to be culture, you know, throughout the years. We're, you know, pretty much all the regular common joes, so to speak, the blue-collar America, you know, You know, they weren't raised with caviar. Yeah. They didn't put caviar on top of their crackers and that sort of thing, you know. Yeah. They ate catfish.

They had flathead right out of the river, you know, and they weren't keeping eggs. Yeah. Even the upper crust people in mid-America, the more, you know, well-to-do, we would have open house at the paddlefish center and would have fresh paddlefish caviar and and there were senators and legislators and wealthy businessmen that came to this and there was always caviar left over is that right even even even upper echelon of people in the mid-United states don't eat a lot of it has been my experience now I've really hyped myself up to like this caviar in here josh you're going to I'm raining on my area.

You know, there's some people talk it up. I talk it down every chance I get. I do not like it. And I told you all ago why I don't like it. And it just tastes like rotten paddlefish to me. Man, one time I had, I had whale, whale, it's, it's, I can't remember the name.

There's a, there's a term. It's like tar tar or, but it was, it was, it was. It was a piece of, it was beautiful. It was this like chunk of, it didn't look like meat, but it was it was a square, like a big stick of butter. Like, imagine four sticks of butter stacked together. And there was a black line, dark black about a quarter of an inch, and then white like bare fat. And they took it and sliced it. And it was literally whale skin and whale blubber.

And it was legally harvested by indigenous people in Alaska. and man, I put that in my mouth and it, I didn't like, I mean, I wasn't going back for more. It was chewy, but I felt like that guy that was describing caviar, it felt like the ocean was in my mouth. Well, had you gone back from where, there's probably plenty of it. Yeah. It was beautiful, but it was wild. It was just like, now, if I was, if I was describing it. it like a hillbilly would describe it.

It would say, boy, that's fishy. But it was more complex than fishy. It was like, I was tasting like coral reefs and oysters. It was served cold. It was served cold? Ice cold. It tasted like sea world smells. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's probably the way people think where they eat a squirrel than they ever had it before. I don't think. I don't see how that's possible because squirrel is. Squirrel's delicious. Delicious, yeah. Regardless of where it come from. For real. Well, let's, so we have some caveat.

Okay, I'm ready for the caveat. So she comes like this in ice packs. I feel like we're getting a peek into the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Yeah, it is. This is what happens. Yeah. Where's Robin Leach when we need him? Yeah, yeah.

Jeff, do you see a little bag over there that's got? Oh, no, here it is. Here it is. Here me up you, Josh. What you need? I always got the impression that in the United States. as a whole, but especially in this part of the United States, that this caviar thing was just more of a status symbol type thing. Yeah, you'd eat a little bit of it.

So you can say you did and that's what you were supposed to do. But in Europe, Eastern Europeans, it's completely opposite. They eat it for like we would eat, you know, take vitamins and stuff. I see what you're saying. So to them it's not like status and wealth and luxury. No, no. It's just like us going for a plate of barbecue. Oh, absolutely.

Or, you know, they would just. Gentlemen, I brought something. Oh, my. You may tie that for you? Oh, it still, it was ties from the last time he wore it. Last time. Wow, really. I wish I had a tuxedo t-shirt.

I just put on a tie. I felt this appropriate. So I feel like you boys are a little underdressed. Last. and Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and 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. Okay, so we're ready for this, Big reveal here. Yeah, yeah, let's see it.

Okay. So this is, this is almost four ounces of paddlefish caviar. How much that cost us? This, uh, I believe was $125. Really? Yeah. Let me see. Paddlefish caviar.

That's from. It doesn't say where it's from. There's no way that would have been from, there's no legal way that could have come from Oklahoma. That come out, that probably come out of the Mississippi system somewhere. It says, um, paddlefish. What does it say on the side? Product of, or wild caught?

Leopard Frog. It says paddlefish, wild USA. And it's even got a CITES. Oh, wow. How big are those eggs? Let me see that. Those are a number four shot probably. Oh, they're smaller than I thought they would be.

They'd be better. Number four shot. No. Keith went into a very detailed description of shotgun shell sizes. Number five, maybe. when he was describing all the caviar of the world. I said that's a six. Okay, what else?

Show us what else you have. So how much is that? That's about $120, $130 plus a lot of money's worth of shipping. $130 to overnight it. Then our friend Alan Morris at Sterling Caviar sent us an equal dollar figure in in Sturge, a white sturgeon caviar, only it's a quarter of what this is. And where do white sturgeon live? They farm them, they're aquacultured in California.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Is that a, is that a North American species? All the good stuff comes out of California. That's a North American species? They have some wild caught that people get in, in California there, but, but. Gary's getting, I agree. And you talk about, you talk about these being aquaculture, is, that's another thing that, that's happened to the caviar trade, is that the Chinese, is like they do everything else.

is farm raisin. Their farm raisin, Ocetre. Oh. A type of Chinese paddlefish of some sort. Kind of the Chinese equivalent. So that 10, that 10 of caviar has to have a key. Really?

To be able to open it. I think it's only appropriate Christian for him to play a little banjo music while you open your caviar. Sure. And then, and then most importantly. We need like a one minute long song when he opens it. Most importantly. we have our genuine mother of pearl serving spoon. Carved out of a fresh water muscle, I bet.

Probably. Probably an illegal freshwater water. Probably. I shouldn't say it. Knowing Josh. Maybe those muscle pickers. That muscle picking led to a lot. All right, so you've got to open it up.

Okay. Are we ready for this? Christian, hit it. Okay, let me get my spoon out here. How much extra was a spoon? This was $5. The mother-pirl spoon was $5. Okay.

Who's going to try? You don't have to eat it. I'm not going to. It's just like, you weren't going to make me do it. I've had it. And so I, Lieutenant Joe, you're going to do it. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Good job, Christian. Nice. Nice. I'm your Huckleberry. You want some? Oh, yeah. Do you like it? It's an acquired taste.

It's okay. I mean, it all tastes like butter to me. I've made. Well, that's not bad. I've made lots of caviar. You ready? Hold on. Hold on.

Okay. Let me see what this smells like. Hey, Isaac, can you film this? I don't even smell nothing. All right, all right. Hit me. Fired up. Hit me.

Yeah, let me smell it. Hey, to get the real effect, you've got to eat the first bite without no cracker. You think so? Yeah. Well, I better change that without any crackers. I'll get in trouble for. No, you have to do a bump off your hand. Well, I mean, I have a bump.

That's what they call it. That's a clue. That's a clue for me. This is what Keith told us. That's what Keith told us. All right. Here is. That's probably 150 potential paddlefish that would have been in some river.

Bright acidity. A taste of the muddy water of the river. Very salty. It's actually really good. It's fishy. It's fishy. Oh, my nose. Give you a half a dose.

Not up your nose. Here we go. Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. Thank you. Nope. Lieutenant Joe Now watch this

Let's see how this goes Not bad I mean salt It's got a very I can eat very fishy I could eat flavor I may have to tell something Because when I've had it before

It was something that I made That was good Oh Eat some Okay We got Jeff in Maybe if we eat some that I eat some that

Somebody else made It might be all right Hey I like that That's good It actually is good Christian Hit us with a banjo Celebration. Come on.

That's a whole. It's a song. It's salty. That's about three times. I've got fishy taste in my mouth. Bad. Drink your water. Gary's like, I regret this.

All right. Look at Jeff's. Look at Jeff's face. I'm spitting it out. He still don't like it. No, remember it. Let me have another cracker for Brent. That's disgusting.

I actually don't. I mean, I like sushi and it kind of gets you that that soda flavor. We need a baked potato. I must have some blue blood in me. I love it. Oh, you definitely do.

You do. It was run the bank. Lieutenant Joe, you want a cracker? Sure, I'll try crackers. Now, this is paddlefish, though. I'd have something to get that taste at my mouth. Take a bite on that bear. It is a powerful aftertaste.

Oh, there's $30 worth of caviar on that. You don't have to give me such a big dollop. Oh, that's a big dollar. It's good. I just need a cracker. Let me have a cracker. Yeah. There's a bag on.

He's trying to soak up the fish taste. Yeah. Here, y'all keep that over there. Let me, let me try one on the cracker. It does have an odd, non-f fishy taste that's kind of powerful. Like, it's not a... Tastes like dead battlefish. Okay.

Okay, tell us, you were telling us before about how that tastes like paddlefish smell. Battlefish have a distinctive smell. a boat would come off the water and maybe they had had fish, caught fish, released fish, whatever. But you could tell that that boat had had paddlefish in it because of a distinctive smell and they're real oily and they would leave an oily sheen

on everything they touched. Same thing with the pickup or something. You could tell if that pickup had paddlefish in it recently because of the way they smell. To me, that's the way that taste is just... Okay, go for it. It's unique paddlefish taste. Why is paddlefish so prominent?

in northeast Oklahoma. Is that the hub of it or what? The Grand Lake, excuse me, as I ate this cracker. Grand Lake, we call that the nursery. That was kind of the last holdout of them. They'd kind of been, because of the dams and the rivers and all that stuff,

they'd kind of been, for one reason or another, extirpated from different river systems. But Grand Lake was the last major holdout. Now, several lakes in northeast Oklahoma, all the lakes in northeast Oklahoma and several lakes and other parts of the state have had paddlefish reintroduced and are doing real well. Oh, interesting. Good. Brito ready.

Yep. Here's the lid for that. Count me in. Man, I was like a good moonshine. Once you uncork it, don't put, just throw the cork out the window. Hey, now, what's it going to take for us to get a row license? You just got to go pay for it. How hard is it to process it? Is it pretty hard to make it taste that good?

No, literally just mix salt in. Well, you take, to process the eggs, you have a screen. You take the eggs out of the fish. They're attached to a membrane. You lightly screen the eggs, we call it screening. You lightly screen them off of that membrane, throw the membrane away. Now the eggs are in a mixing bowl. We use stainless steel mixing bowls.

you fill it full of water and just kind of like you're panning for gold you kind of all the all the blood and and yuck which is very little comes to the top you pour that off you add a predetermined amount of salt to it that you want to use on that batch and then you put it in a dehydrator I say dehydrator you put it somewhere to to to so that moisture can can come off of but, and you've got to finish product. Now, for a commercial product, then you have to pasteurize it and all that stuff. But as soon as you salt it and then get some of the moisture off of it, it's edible. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So, Josh, this is, how much did this 10 cost? Probably $140 to $150 worth of. Wow. That's a Russian. I think we should all take a hit without a cracker. I don't really like the terminology. Yeah.

This looks a little different. It's bigger. It's bigger. It feels less. Oh, yeah. There's less moisture in it. That's number six is right there. Hit me.

Hit me. And this is supposed to be better than the other jobs? This is some of the best in the world. Am I right? Yeah, that would be. It's supposed to be. Paddlefish. All right.

Don't worry about it. Oh, that's a turg and cat are. Let me have half of that. That's better. Unless. Is it? It doesn't taste fishy. Nope.

Oh, my goodness. Please. Oh, my goodness. Please. Please edit that out. Don't edit it out. I guess I better take some of this too. Hey, that I get it.

I can see the difference. I get it. Okay. This is what happens when you spill. Big difference. That's probably $40 worth of sturgeon caviar that was on the ground here in my office. My office is very clean. Yeah, I've seen the dog in here.

The dog's clean too. I can see that. It's pretty good. The fishy taste went away on that one. Oh, wow, that's good. I don't know. I have to say, I'm with Alan Marys. That'd be good on ice cream.

Did you try it, Joe? It's different, isn't it? It's definitely not. Joe, describe what's going on in your mouth. It's a circus. They first. And the eggs are on the trapeze at the moment. You're going back.

No. It is. It's a lot. It's almost sweet. Yes, it's a lot more subtle. It's subtle. That real brightness of the paddlefish caviar is not there. It's real subtle.

It's nice, super creamy. You can actually feel the eggs pop. Now, that's doable. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's delicious, but it's doable. Yeah, I could eat that with any kind of cracker. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you put that on a cracker, and it may be a soda cracker. I'll shake your old hands.

Now, I don't know. Who told, ma'am. that does taste buttery. It almost feels like they put something in it. And in all fairness, who knows where that paddlefish caviar came from? I mean, I know the company you got it from. Whoever made that, everybody makes their caviar different. Well, we was watching some of those Eastern Europeans,

they'd add all kinds of stuff to it. They were adding vodka to it. They was adding different types of soul. They were adding all kinds of different spices and stuff. They fixed it all. Really? Yeah. They did all kinds of weird stuff to it.

They would process that caviar in hotel rooms. Yeah. And, you know, you'd walk in, you know, and there's vodka bottles laying everywhere. Remnants of eggs, you know, things like that. But no. But no, that's good stuff. We need to eat all this. Okay.

I mean, we're not going to save it a little bit for Misty. Yeah, it didn't have a very long shelf. I mean, we can save a spoonful. She's not going to be too pumped about it. Lieutenant Joe, you want. Let's give some to Isaac. and Christian. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

You want it on a cracker? Straight up. You like this, Isaac. Yeah, you don't need it on a cracker. This is really good. You know, I'm getting kind of a tuna aftertaste. You know, when you think about it, you know, we talk about it being butter or tasting like butter, salty butter.

Well, everybody likes salted butter, you know. Well, petal fish eggs, that's really just fat. Fat and salt. Same thing butter is, and so you're going to get that flavor. You know, the eggs that came out of the Grand River system were used for caviar, the wildlife department made in caviar. And these great big fish started showing up in Keystone Lake. You know, we talked about how the state record come out,

a world record for a while, come out of Keystone Lake right there on the West Edge, Tulsa. Keystone Lake had just full of great, big, huge paddlefish. And we were really concerned that the Eastern Europeans would start trying to mess with those fish, but our biologists had done a lot of work on them, and they told us that those big fat fish had big fat paddlefish eggs and that they didn't make good caviar. Oh, it was like too big? It's too, too fatty.

Too fatty. Yeah, and it wouldn't make a good caviar. And consequently, we do know that the Eastern Europeans fished over there, but we never did, we never saw it to the extent that we saw it in other places. Hmm. And that may be why that the eggs just didn't make good caviar. Yeah, if you're not eating caviar, you need to take that tie off. Well, I was expecting that not to be good at all.

It was good. It was good. It was good. You were expecting both to be not good? Well, okay, the paddlefish, I could see like 50-50 people being, like I'm not going back. Yeah. But the salt and fat was nice.

The paddlefish that we had definitely had a stronger rivery taste. Yeah. I think if you have a palate for like sushi and raw fish like that, you'll probably like it. Yeah. But if you don't. I eat that. But that sturgeon caviar that you had there, that was doable. I don't like caviar.

You noticed in the podcast that these guys, guys are saying how healthy it is. You know, they, they enjoyed the healthy aspect of it. Yeah. So we're healthy now. I feel healthier. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know if it's actually healthy or whether that was a cultural. Just like a myth. A myth thing too. Like, like with Oriental culture, lots of wild things have bear gallbladders. Have medicinal purposes, medicinal properties. So I don't know if. it's actually somebody's ever sit down and said, I can see maybe a doctor saying,

no, it's not good for you because it's full of salt. But the rest of it, I don't know. But, man, the Eastern Europeans, they thought it, man, all of a sudden they were superhuman. I feel pretty good. My grandma also said that if you ate fish and drank milk, you'd die. Really? Yeah.

Hit it, Christian. That was a great joke. I know. No joke. She wouldn't let her drink it. If you ate fish and drank milk, you'd die. Yeah, we eat fresh every Friday. And I'd say, Mom's like, I want to see what you want to drink.

And I said, I want a glass of milk. She said, well, you can't have it. And I'm like, why? She said, to kill you. And she had to, my grandmother could cook anything. And being a lady, a true Southern Bell of the South made the worst tea you ever drink in your life. Oh, man. She hated tea.

So she didn't, she would just like, here it is. I mean, you can stand ankle deep in it and not. see your feet. We have to have it, but it doesn't have to be good. That's right. That's right. So we drink water, but she wouldn't let you have milk. According to Google, it's a powerhouse food.

The fish eggs? Yeah. Well, if you think about just people wanting to eat as minimally processed food as possible, I mean, just like less chemicals, less. Yeah. Like, I mean, it's like it's not even cooked, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, that's just wrong. Imagine it's healthy. The ingredients on that package. It's just raw. Fish row and salt. Fish row and salt. There's a pasteurization process. I don't know exactly what that is, but for commercial use, there's a pasteurization process.

But other than that, it's it. I wonder if that affects the taste. Is there anything that you could get from it if you didn't do it correctly? Oh, like salmonella. Yeah. That I don't know. If it's not frozen, it doesn't have a very long shelf life.

I mean, you can put it in the refrigerator, but you got to eat it pretty quick. How long can you freeze it indefinitely? Alan Morris told me you could freeze it, I think, for a year. Well, my caviar expert, who I get my information from, Keith Green, tells me that you can freeze paddlefish but not sturgeon. Yeah, that's what he said. You know, it's funny we've talked about before in those podcasts,

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ODWC had a progression of rules on paddlefish eggs. And there was a time there where the only way paddlefish eggs could leave Oklahoma as if they were frozen. Is that right? Everybody thought that once you freeze them, they're no longer good for caviar. Well, come to find out, that wasn't right. So, you know, there was a period of time there where, yeah, you can leave the state with paddlefish eggs, but you've got to have them frozen solid as a rock. but come find out that wasn't a problem

wasn't necessarily the best way I've got a question for you guys the regulations are that you can only possess three pounds of processed eggs correct is it for personal use is it five or three I think it's three it's three from the broadcast so tell me the philosophy

of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation what's the re how do they come up with three. If a paddle fish is going to produce a minimum of five to eight pounds of eggs, good question. What's the, why just three pounds? I think maybe that probably a lot of that's just arbitrary. Okay, they want, they want people to be able to make caviar for personal use if they want to. And looking at this, three pounds of caviar. Three pounds of caviar is a lot. Yeah. It is so rich. Uh, tell you, uh, so, so, so you don't know. need a whole lot. You're allowed two fish for the year. If you, if you're taking fish to make caviar

for personal use, that's six pounds. And you can, and you can throw, you can throw back till you get a female. Oh yeah. Yeah, you can catch your release all day long. If you want to. But a little funny story to tell you about how far this stuff will go. There was a guy that worked at the paddlefish center and he stole a tub of caviar. Now, Keith had a system of in place. It was all computerized. And it was all accounted for. Not only him, but the buyers to be,

to go back and tell you what fish that batch of eggs came from. Oh, wow. And if there was a container of eggs, there was only eggs from one fish in there. Oh, really? There wasn't mixing. There was no mixing eggs. So all of them had a lot number. All of them had a fish number, all this stuff. Anyway, somebody stole

one of the guys that worked up there. They had a lot of part-time summer help. He stole some eggs. And it wasn't very long. They knew it was gone. And Keith knew it was gone. And they had an idea where it was at. So anyway, they went to this guy's house and he had eaten, tried to eat it all.

And he was literally out in the yard sick as a dog. Is that right? Yeah, it's so rich. It's like he'd just eaten a tub full of butter, you know. Wow. And he had a bellyache and Keith would laugh about that. So yeah, we showed up and he was out in the front yard, you know, as sick as he could be. He tried to eat all the evidence.

So you can't eat very much of it at a time. It goes a long ways. But back to your original question, yeah, that's just, I think that's probably just an arbitrary number. Three pounds of eggs is a lot of eggs. Yeah. So you probably lose. So if you have, if you have a, let's say, a 10 pound egg sack on a big female, a 70 pound female or something, you're not going to get 10 pounds of processed caviar. You're going to get almost that.

Are you? Oh, wow. The only, the only thing that you're not getting is that little bit of membrane. that held all those eggs together. Hmm. And you got to batch eggs that's as big as a basketball. Now, could I, like if, uh, you get a little bitty baseball size sack off of it.

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. on 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. What are the specifics of it? Three pounds per person or per household? Per person. So like if I went with my- Yeah, Keith said I can get three pounds and my wife can get three pounds. And it can be from the same fish.

We could tag one fish, like our family catches one fish. But we have 12 pounds of caviar. it's okay as long as those people are licensed in Oklahoma. Yes. As long as I have, okay. So there are people that are like wanting caviar and like throwing it on the ground because they can't have three pounds or they can't have more than three pounds. No.

I mean, they're probably fishing with somebody. I have other than other than the Eastern Europeans, I've never seen anybody making caviar. Nobody. Not that they don't. I've just never seen it. Yeah. Is that your experience, Joe?

Same thing. People aren't doing it. The only people that I know that do it, you know, other than Eastern Europeans, is Keith and maybe his brother. They do it. Maybe that'll change after people watched us eating up here. I doubt it. Those fish have been in that river since before the dinosaurs. Nobody's been eating their eggs, and they aren't going to be in their eggs now.

I don't know if this will be the catalyst for cultural change. I remember when we left the fuse. When we started eating it. Well, that's true. It's all good. That's good, man. Now, I can eat that. Sturgeon caviar was a lot better.

I think it could be the processing, though. I don't know what it was a lot better. I'd say it was a lot better. I like both of them. You got a taste for fish, though. Yeah, I love fish. I can eat fish every day. Well, hey, that was really interesting.

Dad, you didn't know. I didn't talk to you at all about this story. wouldn't have even known we were doing it. You listened to both episodes. What was most, the coolest thing that you learned? Rambo. Rocky, Bob, man. Who is this guy's parents, man?

He's got such a great story, and he starts it with Rambo and it ends it with it. I got to be honest. I listened to it when it would come out, and I thought, where's he going with this? It tied in. It was cool. It was all good. It was all good. It was good.

It was all good. But, you know, just the fish. I mean, it's ancient, you know. And you look at it and you just like, man, this is a mistake. God munk it up here somehow. Look at this thing. It's still here. Yeah, and it's still here.

Yeah, I mean, it's just the strangest thing I'd ever seen. It's pretty cool to think of a fish that you could find fossilized that's still floating in the river. That's, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like we were talking earlier. They're extremely tough.

They go through those floodgates below Pensacola and down at Hudson and down at Fort Gibson, all in that system. And they go through some of those flood gates in a big flood event. And they come out of there with their rostrums broken off and a hill up. It's not in common in Hudson Lake, which is the lake just downstream from Grand Lake, to catch fish that don't have rostrums. Really? Yeah.

What is their main, what's the main thing that they do? eat plankton okay yeah all all somebody why are we catching though somebody wasn't listening no here's the here's the question i mean here's the deal you know on mine and and bears little adventure we went on the guy we was with said don't be surprised if we don't catch some on the limb line oh really yeah and i think oh yeah it'd be it'd be accident if you did i mean they would accidentally snag themselves yeah a popular way in grand lake uh in the pattern what still is is to use snag lines, which is a trot line, you know, tight line, cross the bottom, with hooks set just so far apart, and the hooks tied on in such a way that they turn into the fish.

That was a popular way to catch paddle fish. They'd snagline them. They just accidentally swim into the hook and get caught, but they're not going to eat that bait, whatever it is you got on there. Yeah. 10-4. But they do accidentally get caught on jug lines a lot. You know, people juggling a lot.

It's not uncommon to see it, but they're getting accidentally hooked. Okay. They're just a unique species. I mean, if you've never, you know, everybody out there listening, if you've never caught a paddlefish, you know, it's one of those experiences like you've got to go do this once. Yeah. You know, so come to Northeast Oklahoma and that's where they're at. If we haven't. You want people to come, huh?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and if we haven't made it exactly clear, you don't catch them with a hook and a bait. I mean, a hook and a bait. You do catch them with a hook in line, but they're snagged. Right. By dragging the big hook. We actually didn't talk about that much at all. Yeah.

So, I mean, guys are using really heavy-duty tackle. You're using big tackle. Big surf rod. Big surf rods. A minimum of 40, 50-pound test. A lot of them now use a braided line, which is even tougher. And you use anywhere from, if you're bank fishing, you're using a four to five-ounce. weight.

If you're trolling for them in a boat, they use one pound weights. Wow. Yeah. But they're not throwing in. Somebody figured out that if you troll at about four or five miles an hour and just drag that hook behind the boat, you can catch all the fish you want. Yeah. And they do.

They target them with Livestcope and stuff like that. Yeah. They're using a big treble hook. Using a big treble hook in Oklahoma that has to be barblous. Oh, really? And then that came with the kitchen release. Sure. So like, you know, we talked about in, maybe in episode one, there's been a progression of rule changes.

And every time somebody thought they had it figured out, well, let's tweak it this way and tweak it this way. And I found out that people just really liked fishing for them. Keeping the fish wasn't necessarily that big of a deal. A lot of people do like them. A lot of people, a lot of people eat them. But catching release, man, people just ate that up. So made it where you could catch and release all you. you want. You can only keep two fish for the year. You know, there was a period of time where you

couldn't keep fish on Mondays and Fridays. And that was controversial. A lot of people scratching their head. But what come out of a lot of our research and the fact that people had to have a paddlefish permit, so we had lots of non-residents coming in. And I'm not even talking about Eastern Europeans right here. We had lots of non-residents coming in where you could possess, what was it, two days limits or three days limits, you could possess that many fish, where they were leaving here with a lot of fish. And they were supplying fish fries for everybody. Like legally.

Legally. Legally. And so with, you know, local people, residents were complaining about that a little bit, just lots, depleting the, lots of non-residents showing up and taking back a lot of fish. So those non-residents were showing up on a weekend. So made it where you couldn't keep fish on Mondays and Fridays. That way they were only... It took two days of a four-day weekend and people came.

Yeah. So it took two days out of it, and that limited the number of fish that they were able to take back home with them. But now that's a moot point now. Now you can keep fish on Mondays, but you can only keep one a day, two for the year. too for the year. Yeah.

Hmm. And that's worked for most people because like I said, most people just want a kitchen release. Yeah. They just like that picture. They want that grip and grin picture. Yeah. They want that,

they want that fight. And then when they get it to the bank, they admire it and they turn it loose. What about the paddle fish now compared to when you went to work? Is it in better shape? Yes. Yes. Like Brandon Brown or fisheries boss talk about 30, 40,

30 years ago. So when I moved back to eastern Oklahoma from western Oklahoma, the wildlife department was just now starting to reintroduce paddlefish into some of their historic range, where because of dams and certain situations they had been removed. And now those places have come online, Ulligal Lake, there's now guides that are guiding for paddlefish on Ullulgall Lake, lots of paddlefish in Ullogall Lake, Keystone Lake, Kall Lake. Fort Gibson Lakes always, been there, but it's even better. Grand Lake, you fall a lake,

there's paddlefish everywhere. Do you know how many fish they're tagging every year in Oklahoma? I don't. We can find that out. I mean, would it be like 50,000 fish? I don't know what the number is. Our fisheries, people do netting surveys every winter, and they kind of hop scotch around the different lakes.

Lakes are on a schedule. You know, they're not doing the same lake every year, with the exception, or maybe a Grand Lake. I don't know that, remember that exactly. But out of so many of those fish that they catch, they tag some of them.

So they're able to kind of track, like, how many are getting caught? And they might be like, we tagged 300 fish in this lake and two of them got caught. I think they even, they even put,

well, those radio chips in some of them. Oh, interesting. And that you run a scanner over and, but they get able to get more, to get GPS data out of those, you know, tell where the fish went. Now, where they'd be in and all that.

One thing I didn't, I just wasn't able, we weren't able to get into it with, with the fish biologists. But paddle fish in other parts of the Mississippi drainage are struggling for the, am I right? I mean, like, there's a lot of places where they're not doing as well. Why are they doing so well in Oklahoma, but not as well in other places? I'm going to go out on a limb here, and this is just my opinion. just because of no commercial fishing.

Oh, really? Yeah. Because now, unlike years ago, now paddlefish are targeted by commercial fishermen because of the caviar. Mm. Mike drop. We're back in the day they weren't. That's my opinion. It's anecdotal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just because we don't commercial fish them. Throughout the years, we've learned a lot as far as, you know, highly, regulating the take throughout the years, kind of manipulating it along the way. I think that probably has something to do with it as well. You know, over the course of a decade there, every year we were changing the paddlefish rules because every year we're dialed in. Just getting it dialed in.

Now, it was a big jump to dial it into just two fish for the year, but our fisheries biologists thought that was the right thing to do. And I think probably they were right. Most people just want to catch and release them. Yeah. It's a big tourist thing. There's people come. I think maybe it's died off, maybe just a little bit.

But just five or six years ago, 10 years ago, especially, man, it was popular. There's just people just going crazy over paddlefish, you know, fishing for them. And it may have died off a little bit, but it's still going strong. And people just like to catch them and reel them in, let them go. Take pictures and let them go. You know, in the hunting world, and I realize we're talking about fishing, in the hunting world, there's a lot of people, not a lot, I think it's a small group of people, that speak negatively about, like,

recruiting people to come to a specific state for a specific reason. You know, they're like, hey, spot burning. Yeah, spot burning or like, if we'd been talking about deer hunting, like I wouldn't have I would have bleeped out or not put in like specific lakes and different stuff. But it feels like as an agency, like you're wanting people to come fish in Oklahoma. Would you say that's the general? Absolutely. Absolutely.

You know, the wildlife department is funded mainly by the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. Yeah. You know, if we didn't want people to come hunting fish, I mean, we're just, we're basically unfunded, you know. Yeah. If we want to remain funded, we want to be able to manage the fishing wildlife in the state. And so hunting and fishing license is the backbone of that in Oklahoma. Yes, we want people to come hunting fish in Oklahoma. We want to provide hunting access.

We want to provide fishing access. We want our hunting and our fishing to be top-notch. And, you know, water quality and access and all kinds of stuff like that's going to play. into it as far as up here in the northeast and i think that's why paddle fish are so popular or at least one reason but you know the more folks that we can get to Oklahoma to enjoy what we have to offer the better so i mean i'm sure you're going to have people on both sides the fence on that non-residents versus residents and things like that there's all there's always the struggle between residents and non-residents yeah the local guy didn't want his lake called out yeah

but the wall out department's all about it you know coming fish like at XYZ. Yeah. The wildlife department really, really promoted paddle fishing in Oklahoma for a long period of time. And they were successful in getting that word out because it was a big deal. To the point that even from a law enforcement standpoint, we said, let's back off of that just a little bit, you know.

And because through the research, through our petal fish permit program process, we found that a lot of our fish were leaving the state. going out of state, not illegally, but, and the residents, not that they didn't like it, but they moaned about that a little bit. Yeah. So, so they dialed that back a little bit and quit promoting it quite so much to slow the takedown just a little bit. And it, and it helped some because it did slow down a little bit.

Yeah. It feels to me like in our nation where there's so much that's competing with fishing, hunting, outdoor activity. And to us here where we're at, it doesn't feel like that as is strong. But I mean, so much of America is kind of urbanized and moving away from this stuff. it feels to me like the right move is to recruit people to come do this, come hunt, come fish. And there are people that are saying that's the wrong move. It's interesting.

I like listening to their arguments. I think they're like dead wrong. Across the United States, most states are losing hunting and fishing participants. And Oklahoma is an exception to that. We're either gaining a little or holding our own, which is an exception. to the rule. And a lot of that is they just really promote, you know, everybody, we want you to come and fish Oklahoma.

Because Oklahoma is okay. And Oklahoma has increased their non-resident, honey. I was waiting for somebody to say something. Hey, I think they got every right to do it, man. Like, I've talked to our people here in Arkansas. it's like charge the heck out of them. I mean, I think residents should be given priority. I do.

I don't care. It's just think residents should be given priority. And if I want to come hunting your state, I don't pay taxes, I don't shop there. I don't drive on those roads all the time. I've been on the other side. I'm on the other end of it too, just like y'all are too. You try to go to Colorado and an elk license is $800-some dollars. And a resident's paying $50.

It's hard to stomach that. So I can see both sides of it. Yeah. But yeah, we did increase our stuff. There's definitely two sides of it. But I don't, if I want to go to somebody else's state, I'm, I just got to be willing to sacrifice to do it. Because if you come into my state and hunt my places, my, you know, my public land spots, I want you to sacrifice it too. That's just the way I feel about it.

And I don't think that's a inhibition. I mean, we could just make. get free and say, well, anybody can go anywhere and there's no money involved. I mean, that wouldn't work. Well, they tried that and we lost all the bison. Yeah, yeah. Good point. Good point.

Yeah. Well, hey, I just want to say thanks to Austin Jackson. Yes. Austin called me months ago, months ago. I mean, probably nine months ago. And he said, hey, I think this is a really good story. And people do that to me often. Yeah.

And honestly, it rarely works out. He gave me a sales pitch that was good. He said, he did all the things I needed. He said, I've got the people. He said, I got them lined up. This is a story you should tell. He gave me kind of the highlights. Well, he might lie to you a little bit.

I think he talked to you before he got everybody lined up. Probably. Because he called me one evening and he goes, he says, hey, I threw you under the bus a little bit. I said, what did you do? He goes, do you know Clay Newcomb? I said, I don't know him, but I know who he is. He goes, well, would you be willing to sit down and do a podcast on Russian snag?

And I said, well, yeah, that'd be fine. Yeah. He'll be there on Tuesday. Well, you know, I don't know how much time, much time we got left, but that's a story too, because when I met you all over there, I still think we're in the planning process, you know. And I show up with you guys over there and you put these headphones on me and let's go. Let's go. I thought, wait a minute.

I'm not really prepared for all of this. Oh, really? But it turned out, but it turned out great. He did a great job. If I can. Absolutely. You got to take your time. Take your time.

So my whole worry about this whole process was about me coming off. I'm the one telling the story and you're telling it for me. But my worry was that I would come, it would come across as me doing all this work. So I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, throw the props out. Joe was a big part of that. All I did was facilitate and make sure everybody knew what was going on and had what they needed.

Joe and the game warden in Mays County, Monty Reed, probably somebody you should have talked to. He knew them all by name. He knew all their kids. He knew all their grandbabies. And if they showed up on the river, he knew it. he worked tirelessly. Breck Henry was the supervisor in that area.

Worked tirelessly. Jim Gillum was another game warden. We brought game wardens from all over the state. We couldn't work it because everybody knew us. It just took one day for everybody getting on, you know, over there. So we were bringing people in from the panhandle from southwest Oklahoma to come over there and be our eyes and ears because they could go down and seemingly fish with them and at least just watch them. It was such a big group effort that I didn't. I just had to take a minute and drop some names there because they had a lot beer

roll in it and then actually I did. All I'm doing is just telling the story. Yeah, it was a team member for sure. I mean, there's only 118 of us across the entire state. And at one point or another, everybody had an opportunity to come to Northeast Oklahoma and work paddlefish. Yeah, yeah. And to their benefit, a lot of them wanted to.

Yeah. You know, from other parts of the state. And, oh, they just aided up. There was a female officer that worked at Grove at the time. Her name's Marney Loftus. She's now a district captain in Oklahoma City. She is the one that got our foot in the door with a lot of these. She worked undercover.

And we've got pictures of her in boats with the Russians just snagging away. And she opened the door on a lot of the investigations that we had going on, just outstanding job. You need to shout out to her for what she did. But it was just such a group effort. We had a blessing from the top down. The only negative, if there was a negative, as like I talked about,

we were letting all these eggs go out of state and following them and stuff and had some success, but we weren't having the success that we thought we needed. And finally my boss says, how long are you going to let us go on? You know, when are you going to stop it? So that's a good question. But I took that for the way he meant it, and we stopped it.

And we started arresting them and taking their stuff. And I think it's like Cody told you it last time, he said he talked to one of them. They said, Cody asked himself, why did y'all stop? Because y'all made it too hard on us. And through some legislative change and through taking a lot of their stuff, we made it hard on them. and I don't know that they stopped, but they sure changed the way they're doing it. Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, for real. It's an incredible story. And I'll say on behalf of you and Keith and everybody, yeah, sometimes when you tell these stories, like we just kind of swoop in and like learn this story really quick. And we kind of have to focus on the people that are in front of us. Yeah. And people didn't hear the whole interview.

They heard probably 40% of the interviews with both of you. And both of you guys were very giving credit to other people. That sometimes was hard to put into the podcast. So, I mean, like, I didn't feel in any way that, I mean, you guys were in such a team effort. That was my only concern and apprehension if there was. I've never done this before in this format. But the one thing that did worry me was coming across, it was the Jeff Brown show. and it's absolutely not.

There was 100 and 8 guys and girls that participated in it. I'm just the one telling the story. Well, you know, I think you're a hero. I think Joe, you're a hero. I think Keith's a hero. And that's the story that I want to tell people, you know. And, man, the work that you guys do, it's pretty cool that we as a society really have chosen to protect wildlife to the degree that we do.

You know, I mean, we got guys 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, putting their life on the line protecting wildlife. And it shows the cultural value that we have as a people for these fish, this wildlife. And, you know, I also want to give credit to just the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife in their willingness to even let you guys share this story. I think it's a mistake to hide some of this stuff. I mean, there's probably some liability, you know, like small liability, I think, with agencies letting people like talk. And, you know, it could have been a bad experience. Maybe I'm a punk and I misconstrue the story.

Right. But this stuff translated in a meaningful way to where people can actually understand it. You know, I can listen for two hours and understand. I mean, I think it's worth the risk. Because there is risk. There's risk in telling these stories. But, man, I think in today's world, with all the technology, all the communication, all the fast-paced nature of society, I think agencies would do well to even cooperate more. And I see that happen in Arkansas with our regime here in Arkansas.

They're trying to stay congruent with the times and the way that people communicate. And it is different. think there would have been a time when people would have been like, no, you're not going to talk about that. Right. That's, this is out of play. And I just think that's a mistake. And I see Oklahoma doing a lot of great stuff, even down to the simplicity of we talked about the social media, how incredible. And the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Social Media is, they're really funny.

They had a really good girl doing it that I don't know her, but I see her. Yeah, that's Sarah Sutherland. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she's really done a good job. That's on what, I don't even know what social media platform it's on, but yeah, she did a good job. I'm not, I'm not very social media savvy. Savvy, yeah.

So I troll Facebook every now and then. Yeah. Well, so thank you to you guys. Yeah. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for having this.

And thank you for doing the, you know, this is the main reason Austin wanted. reached out one that's done was to preserve it. Preserve to preserve the story. Yeah. So that, and I think, I think you did that. So we appreciate that. He wanted to be here today, but he, he was teaching an active shooter class today. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he messaged me. Well, Brent, Josh, Christian, play us the exit song. Hit it. Here we go. That's right. Yeah. I play the air fiddle.

What key's he is. Barbecue. I'm ready to eat some more of those fish eggs. I hope y'all leaves and leave. I won't take it home. All right. Thanks, Christian. Good job, very good.

All right. 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 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.

This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.