Bear Grease - Ep. 372: Render - Live from the Squirrel Cook Off

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb goes live from the 2025 World Champion Squirrel Cook-Off. He’s joined by event organizer Joe Wilson, “The World’s Greatest Small Game Hunter” Kevin Murphy, social media cooking sensation Audrey Dresselle (@cooking_with_cajun), Brent Reaves, and Josh “Landbridge” Spielmaker. Together, they dive into the festivities of the Cook-Off, swap small game hunting stories, and share their favorite squirrel dishes from the competition. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] 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 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. Welcome to the Bear Grease Render. This is our annual, annual show that we do at the World's Championship Squirrel Cookoff.

This is, so we're here with a live audience out here. 12 or 15,000 of our closest friends. Right. Watching the render. Man, what a group of guests here. We've got the world's greatest small game hunter, Kevin Murphy. Wow. There you got.

I honor. Kevin's always the only one on the podcast that Open Cary's, which I always appreciate. And every time I see it, I'm like, why did I not do that? But we're going to get back to the outfit. We got Josh. And we've got Joe Wilson, who's the founder, headman, head honcho, chief El Capiton of the World Championship of Squirrel Cookoff, who started this long. time ago with a lie, which we've already heard about. But it's grown into so much. We've got

Brent Reeves back from wherever he's been. The swamp to South Arkansas. Yeah. Good to see old Brent. The flat land. Been a while. And then we've got the man I know is Cajun. Cooking with Cajun. Cooking with Cajun. And man, it's good to have you, Audrey. I mean, I just call you Cajun. I don't even need to know your name. It's a lot better than what a lot of people call me. First of all, I want to know, like, why are you here, Cajun? What are you been doing? Were you cooking? Yes, so I came in.

Of course, we came in with a team, and we did some squirrel raviolis with vodka sauce. And while they were doing that, I did about a 15-gallon jumble. I had a giveaway to kind of just feed the people and bring people in, you know, for the cause. I mean, they put a lot of work into these shows. Anything we can do to help, we love coming out and helping. Yeah. And Cajun, tell Pete, like, what do you do? Like, you've got, like, a million people that follow you on Instagram, maybe more.

But, like, who the heck are you, and what do you do? Well, so, unfortunately, I'm just a guy that moved from Louisiana or Arkansas and moved out off the grid to kind of get away from everything. And somehow... That didn't work. How they work out for you. Yeah, I would say don't follow in my footsteps if you want to stay in the woods and not be known because, yeah, I just, you know, living off the grid and cooking on open fire and just living. And my son decided it'd be fun to make a video and took my phone one night and downloaded TikTok on it and posted the video.

And the next day I had 1,200 followers. And here we are today. And, you know, we've got a lot going on. We're traveling a lot, cooking and going to a lot of different events and just living a dream, I guess. Yeah. Well, man, it's good to have you. We've met before several times. But Kevin Murphy.

Hey. Where have you been, man? What are you been doing? Well, let's see. This week I've been out on the job site and taking some. You've actually been working? I've been working. Yeah.

Okay. I've been working on a heavy highway job doing nuclear density testing. So, Wow. You know, there's your warning. Okay. So the week before that, spare time. I was at an archaeological dig looking for some of the first Americans that, paleo hunters that hunted mastodons and mammoths.

So we dug out. Where were you at doing that? Northern Kentucky on the edge of the last glaciation, the Wisconsin. So the glaciers came down. Basically, you can draw a line along the Ohio River. And that's where the glaciers ended. And so, like 60 miles as a crow flies from my house was a glaciers 15,000 years ago. So in northern Kentucky, there was a gathering of mammoths and mastodons,

one of the few places in the world that you find both species at the same spot. We dug up a bottom tusk of a mastodon, which I didn't know at that time that mastodons had bottom tusk, and it was carved in the shape of a penis. Oh, wow. So, that escalated quickly. But I didn't know we were going there. So very deep.

Heather Murphy, everyone. So, so did they know that this site was there? Yes. This is a site where Daniel Boone crossed the river with his son and like 150 militia men. Ten months after the Revolutionary War was a lot. over and he said it was a bad idea to cross. There's a for a word there on a licking river that you can wait across right now. But they crossed that, went up into the hills, and they were met by 100 British and about

200 American Indians. Like I said, 10 months after the Revolutionary War was over, the British was still trying to take charge of the Northwest Territory. They got ambush. Daniel Boone's son died in his arms there. They made it back across the river. Blue Licks. Little Blue Licks.

to battle little blue licks. So the mastodon parts were at the blue licks. Yeah, we're sitting there digging in a mud hole looking at this ravine. A lick is a salt lick. Salt lick. Yeah, that's why the animals were there to begin with. That's why the mastodons or the mammoths were there because there was water available. There was salt there that attracted them.

They was right on the edge of the glaciers, ideal climate. And it just all. So you were there with archaeologists from what? Where? From all over the country. Wow. One guy was there and he was gathering cosmic dust to see if he could prove that the meteorite hit the earth and might have changed the climate. Another guy that was there is, I know that you've been doing some water witching thing, but you've got to have this guy on your show.

He's world-renowned water witcher. Oh, really? And I spent, I didn't get to spend any time with him this year, but two years ago I did. And I asked him and says, how did you learn to do this? He says, you know, my mother-in-law's whale went dry. And a guy came over and he wished this whale. I saw him do that. And I told myself, he's a science teacher.

He says, I'm going to teach myself to do that. And he's been all over the world finding water. A lot of times we're indigenous people. Wow. That the water system's gone dry, whatever. And he was out west. And he was working on his spot. And the water had dried up.

And he was with some American Indians. And they said, well, Well, the coyote is a spot where there's water. He said, okay, where's the coyote? Well, we don't know. It's just always been called the coyote. So he spends a week out there looking around, he finds water, he looks up on the ridge,

and there's a silhouette of a cowdy's head. So he taught that American tribe that had lost their heritage, he brought it back to him. Interesting. Well, you better not ask him what he did three weeks ago. Yeah, that was all just for the last week. Wow, that's interesting. That's interesting.

Hey, I'm going to say one thing about water witching, because you brought it up. After all the water witching stuff, the best commentary that I had on it was a guy said, Clay, water witching works if you believe it works. And I was like, he's probably right. He's probably right. So, well, Kevin, that's, you've been doing a lot. That's great. Did you cook today?

I did not cook. I just smoothed around. You were just here. I just smoozing, talking to the kids and everybody. What about the hat? You know, this is my rabbit killing hat. This is rabbit with a swamp rabbit skull on the thing. Oh, that's a swamp rabbit skull.

Yeah. Until I can get my predator dogs going and get me a bobcat. And this is going to have to fill in that. I figure it's going to take me two years. maybe three. This has been died. Yes, it's died. They don't have swamp rabbits like that up in Kentucky.

I wasn't sure. Turns out that you got mastodon lower tusks that are. Way lower. Pretty low, pretty low. Interesting. Okay. Did you have some squirrel today? I did not have any squirrel.

I haven't had any squirrel. Really? Okay. So, Joe. Yes, sir. Tell us about, give me a summary of the day. Like what's, like what kind of, Meals we had, like what kind of squirrel people were cooking.

Yeah, so me and Brent were both in the judging room, so we got to see everything. You judged Brent? I did. I did. I went in there to get a drink of water, and I came out the guy that ate 14 plates of squirrels. That's winning, pal. Wow. So, yeah, so there was some amazing dishes.

And this year, I think, some new pinnacles were reached. Absolutely. And probably a couple of those. On my side of the table No lows Pier one man Yeah so you know I have looked out

Odd table and even table There was definitely a hot side Of the judging room today And It was the first time I think in the history of the event You know we started in 2011 That actual squirrel feet

Were turned in Oh feet On the other table For real Interesting Squirrel feet were turned in Was that a hit Or not a hit

It's a high-risk maneuver. It was either going to go really good or really bad. It's a high-risk. Is anybody here that put the squirrel feet on the plate? Are there anybody here? Okay, we can talk about them. They're probably in jail. What were they thinking?

Did they take the nails off? No. Oh. For real? For real? With fur? Were you supposed to eat it? Don't know.

Was it a garnish? Brent was looking for a tip to pull off or something. Yeah, right between the toes. So that happened. And we thought chicken feet were weird? Yeah. And we, Clifton Jackson, we had Clifton on the show last year. Yeah.

At that time, he was a three-time world champion. Squirrel Skinner. Squirrel Skinner. Today, I'm proud to say he's the four-time. Oh, wow. He's a tier all in his own. He told me to no longer say how many he's won. Just say he's the world champion.

Yeah, after a while, you're not like the four time. You're just the world champion. You're the world champion. Yeah. And he had his mom out there, his wife, everybody, and it was a good time. That's good. And then there's a fellow standing, two guys right behind you, Clay. These two gentlemen, both with really flashy squirrel shirts off.

Yeah, yeah. Can they get in camera view? Can they? Stand here. Get in camera view over here. Oh, look at these shirts. These gentlemen, both. both partake.

You know, we always do the world's hottest squirrel. Right, right. This year we kicked it up to four million Scoville. You're right to get the baseline on that. What's a jalapeno? Like a hot jalapeno. Like 1,500 or something. Okay.

These two gentlemen, along with six other men, walked on the surface of the sun today. Now the hot. The taller of the two, he lasted a little bit longer than this fellow. This fellow here is first man out. First man out. And closest to the trash can.

Clay, I witnessed a gentleman today. You know, this is a whole smoked squirrel. Okay, so the whole carcass, we smoked them, and then we bathed them in the hottest stuff. How do you get this? How do you get sauce that hot? You pay $100 on Amazon. Holy cow.

Yeah. Can you say the name of it? Man, we used some 357 Magnum. Okay. Family-friendly show here. Yeah, and then some 44 Magnum. The 357 was 357, Scoville. 357,000.

Is that not nearing, like, just poison? I think it is. I mean, they're alive, so big win on my point. You're breaking out? There's only two. out of six of them here, where's the other four? Wow. Cemetery. The dude that

won that thing. And so the rules are is the first guy to crack open a drink as the first man out. Okay. And usually it gets down to no one has ever ate the whole animal. The first guy who won

the winner, he ate that buggar in about what minute? Yeah. A whole squirrel. Whole squirrel, which was amazing enough. Not to mention it was four million Scoville. I was going to interview him.

He didn't have nothing to say. He couldn't. He just out. He had nothing to say at all. So what did the winner get? Well, because typically it's just a trophy and Umar X gun. This year I felt so bad for that old boy that won it. I pulled a $100 bill out of my pocket so he could feed the family.

I don't know if he's going to be able to work for a while. You got a free ride in the ambulance. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It was a bad deal. Go ahead. He may have spent that on.

hate on a doodle wax. Yeah. An ice cream. Yeah. Can you give me, unless we can keep talking about the hot squirrel, whatever you want to go? Like, what are the competitions that are here at the World Championship Squirrel? Yeah, so.

Thank you guys. We kind of shrunk it down. Last year, we did a bunch. We did squirrel call, and we did, we had the under 10-year-old oyster eating competition, which was just ridiculous. This year we limited it to the squirrel competition itself, the cook-off. The cook-off. Then we did the skinning competition, but we did it two different ways this year.

We did it the traditional way like Kevin would just tugging, jerking, kind of like you would with your little nippers. You know, your little scissors you like to use. And then they don't want me in that competition with my nippers. He's got those nippers, you know. I'd be bringing home that. You think that's... They think that's cheating.

And then the second way is we used... We had a guy come down from Illinois that it was 3D printing these new... You know, the leg hold, headhold deal. I think Kevin's got... He'd been 3D printing those. So we set out to see if that was any better. And Kevin explained when that would work better. If you had mobility problems, you would...

have like a string with a carabiner and you would mount it up so if you couldn't bend over it just hang yeah it would hang so you can put their feet through there their head through there so if you were like where you couldn't get over had trouble being mobile you could skin from standing up so that's where that comes in handy now but they're putting the head of the squirrel in there right but i mean nobody do people skin from head down i've only i only know how to skin from back when they're gutting it just gives you an other option. Of course, the squirrel may pull in two. Yeah. So if you, you know, if you pulls in two, then it gives a better option to skin

in the thing. Yeah. They sent me one, and they asked me if I used this, I keep my bourbon bottle on it. Okay. So, so I tell him, when I get about 75, I'll probably take, take this, but as long as I can bend over. Because Clifton, he was, he won the first heed, and then he started using this thing, and then he kind of got lost in it. Yeah, if he would have just. Somebody beat him with that when they were using those. Yeah. If he would have just get his regular skin in, he would want. Because if you're not used to it, you know, it's like if you're not used to use

a nippers or scissors, then it's extra motion that you don't know what you're going through. But it's a good thing. Like I said, I'll use it one of these days when I get older. So how did Cliff, well, did we answer my question? Yeah, cleaning, hot squirrel, cleaning, and then the cookoff. And the cookoff, man. You just wait until Brent Reeves tells you what he ate. Well, yeah, I want to hear that in detail, like what was actually cooked.

But so if you come to the squirrel cook off, every, we're at the, the, the nature center here. What's the name? What's the name of this place? Yeah, yeah, here in Springdale, Arkansas. For Arkansas Game and Fish, Nature Center. That's correct. And really beautiful facility. Ozark Highlands, Nature Center.

That's right. J.B. and John L. Hunt. Yeah. Ozark Highlands. Arkansas Game of Fish Commission. It's a mouthful, folks. Nature Center and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay.

There was one other thing that we tried to accomplish this event is I want to stress this. There was a bunch of young adults, kids to young adults who competed this year. And one of the reasons why I thought that was important is these kids, had been branded with the name in front of them of Foster. And one of my goals for this event was to eliminate the name Foster on these kids and just call them what they are as kids. And so most folks didn't know it today because we didn't shine any light on it because that wasn't the goal.

The goal was to put these kids in there just like any other kids and compete. So we had three teams located over here. I think they did a really good job. And we shined a light on a lot of child organizations that need to have light shined on them today. And so I didn't do a lot of bragging about that. I wanted it just to come out and see that deal. And I think we accomplished a big, big goal. That's good.

That's good stuff. Last spring, 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 Phelps Game Calls.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. So when people come here, I think the most unique thing probably about this event is that you get to eat squirrel.

like so all the cooks are out here cooking and you can see the cooks cooking when you come here you have to cook the squirrel here it's got to be verified that it's squirrel so people are cooking you can see them cook and then people get to eat so almost probably most people standing around here had the opportunity to eat squirrel today if they wanted to yeah i've heard of all kinds of other oddities that were out there crow there was like crow sausage someone made crow sausage pro sausage there was a bunch of goose there was all kinds of things to serve today. Brent, tell me as many titles of dishes that you can remember what was cooked.

Because that's what people always want to know. Sesame. And if anybody out there remembers you can say too. I'll have to dumb it down and give you like the Brent version of it. Yeah, just kind of like what it was. But there was like sesame squirrel, like you'd eat sesame chicken and a, you know, Chinese place. Okay.

And then there would be like Squirrel casos, squirrel casillas. Okay. Squirrel casadias. Yeah. And then there was squirrel lasagna,

squirrel meatballs. And squirrel, what was that thing? This guy's got a picture on his phone. What do you got there? Tell he's wanting to show me this. That's Shane. Now, what is this?

Emperadas. Squirrel empanadas. He was, Shane was on the other side of the On the other team On the other judging team Looks good Looks good

All right Brent got to eat And I know Kevin Kevin's worldly like me Kevin you ever eat a Bomb E? Yes Bomb E is one of my favorite sandwiches

Okay I've never heard of it And I had to say Two or three times To Brent what it was But he had a Bomb E sandwich That was Bomb E sandwich

Top Not what's a bombing sandwich? It's a Vietnamese for a sandwich, huh? Yeah, so it's a French bread. It's usually got pickled vegetables such as cucumbers and carrots, little cilantro on there, and then they usually do charsu, which would be a roasted pork, which is pretty amazing. He got blessed.

He got to eat that today. It was good. And sushi. Yeah, and it was about the size of a bug, a deer slug. There was three of them on a little sandwich. They was good, and then there was another one. It was Italian. things like Italian meatballs, but you cut in that thing.

It looked like, I mean, it's all it was with squirrel meat. Somebody was working their tail off. And the fellow was sitting beside me, I can't remember if it was Michael or who it was. But he said, oh, my first shot. And he spit a shot out. It was about the size of a seed tick that had been on a three-day suck. He was probably like a number eight lead shot. But I didn't get any.

No bones. So you got Italian food. the lasagna, the meatballs, the Vietnamese sandwich. Get any traditional? Not, I have yet. I've been to this thing for the last three or four years, three years. I've been to judge twice. I have yet to get squirreled and dumplings or fried squirrel.

I think that's what everybody would think. Yeah, it feels a little predictable. That's what I was waiting. I've been waiting to get it, and I ain't seen it yet. I heard somebody telling me that they cook kind of a traditional squirrel. meal of like cornbread and beans and kind of like a country plate. Some of the best baked beans I ever put in my jaws was in that room in there. And it was, they were smoked.

I mean, the smoke was so stout in it, so good. It's not a detractor. It was so good. I felt like I needed an ashtray to put my spoon in that day. It was good. We had the new director of Arkansas Game and Fish at the judging table this year. Oh, he was a judge. He was a judge.

He got to experience that. Um, the dish that won, we haven't announced it out there yet, but the dish that won won, won by 20 points. Is that a lot? It's a huge amount. Oh, so it was like a runaway. Huge amount. Now, you can't, you can't tell me what it was yet? Nope.

But they know. They know. Well, at the end of the episode. The winner knows. They know they hit it out of the park. Um, yeah, the squirrel feet was weird. It was just... Let's just say it's probably not the squirrel feet.

If you put squirrel feet in there, you wasn't really planning on winning. I don't know, Brent, man. That thing was... Was it a forethought or an afterthought? It was such a well-designed entree and side dish. I mean, super well-designed. Well-proportioned, well-garnished. Everything about it was magical.

And then you got these... Well, hey, listen, I got to give that team credit because in Meteor trivia, for instance, I have said before that sometimes a good answer is better than a right answer. Are you with me? Yeah, 100%. I mean, because it's like, what are we here for? Yeah. They were celebrating the squirrel. I mean, so I kind of hat tip to them.

And the other thing that comes to my mind is that I'm in the midst of a project where I'm doing a bunch of research about black bears and about the way indigenous people use black bears. And a lot of them, they'd rather eat a paw than anything on that animal. I mean, like the ain't the archaeological record. They're still doing that over in Asia. Yeah. Illegally. Bear paw. Yeah.

bear paw stuff so maybe maybe it's something new with the squirrels i think you could flash fry them and just eat them like cracklings cajian have you used squirrel feet before have i ever no not feet okay no okay do you cook much wild game most of what i see you cooking is like just like good country food yeah no i i don't know i cook a lot of wild game yeah i mean we we usually every year we stock up on deer, bear, squirrel, rabbits, ducks, anything we can get our hands on. Yeah. And a lot of the dishes we, you know, back in the day, I guess you would say, which the way I try to cook kind of the way, you know, my family did, they cooked a lot of the dishes the same way, no matter what meat they were using. You know, a lot of onions, bell peppers, just making a gravy and then, you know, smothering the meat.

four hours until it fell apart. Yeah. Hard to beat that. It is. Especially with squirrel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hard to beat that. So, did you have any squirrel today? You didn't. Did you say you didn't? Kevin didn't. We did a ravioli, which I didn't hear him talk about, so it must not have been that good. You competed. Cajun, I'll talk about the ravioli. My son come walking into the judging room

And several of the judges said My son's name is Clemens I'm named him after a man named Samuel Clemens And Clemens come walking in And Mark Lambert's seven-time world champion of barbecue He said, Clem, you need to try this And it was that ravioli He also said you need to try that mac and cheese

And so the ravioli was on point Mm. Good to hear. Brent, did you get any of the ravioli? I did. He ain't lying. Brett, what was your favorite one? It's not, don't tell me who won, but what was your favorite one?

My favorite one was... The feet. The meatball. Meatball? The Italian meatball. Did they grind it, or was it like chunks of squirrel? It was like sausage. So it had to be ground.

It was... Now, what percentage of the meat... 80. So that meatball had to be 80% squirrel, and it was that good. It was good. It was very, very good. heavily seasoned? No.

No, I mean, you know, squirrel is like it'll take on whatever flavor you cook it in. You cook it in beef broth that's going to jump onto that or chicken. Either way you want to go with it, it was just good. It wasn't, when you took a bite of it, it wasn't, you didn't say, well, that's Tony Sassarys, or that's salt and pepper. it was just a good mix of baked meat. Now, he did have his old case knife out on the table. Of course. I went in there and I did notice it was a little greasy.

Yeah, well, there was a couple of legs that come in. You know, I don't, people think I'm crazy. Ever since when you did the cooking show about eating with my hands, I don't like to do it. And I'm as country as cornbread, I know, but I don't like getting my hands on it. So I was cutting the meat off the bone or something. Oh, you were cutting meat off. This dude, he had us laughing three or four times in there.

I don't even know what the heck it was. Well, who knows? I don't either. The unique thing about our judging compared to most judging is, first and foremost, everybody is turning in something different. So if you're used to a chili cookoff where you know you're coming in and taste chili, it's really easy to decipher which chili is better than the other. Brisk it or whatever.

Right. Here we're judging everybody on their own merit. So I told all the judges early that if we had somebody create a squirrel corn dog, you needed to compare that corn dog to the best corn dog you'd ever ate. Okay, that's fair. So you could go all in first box that you open and you could give it all top scores. If you compared it, I told Brent, I said, if there's meatloaf shows up on this, you've got to compare it to Mama's Meatloaf.

It's not plate. You're not comparing. This is a challenge for the judges. You're not comparing plate to plate. It's not like this one tastes better than the last one. It's this one taste in comparison to the last thing that was similar that you ate to it. How many judges were there, Joe? It's just like in real life, 12.

12 jurors. My friend John Howard was the alternate. Yeah. And, hey, John Howard got everything that Brent liked to chew on. He'd pass that by the time. John was standing behind me. I liked it, I'd just hand it back. And then John would work on it.

I look at it me like this or... I did eat those... I did take a bite of Brent squirrel-fried rice when I was in there. Squirrel-fried rice. It was good. It was good. Yeah. I didn't eat.

It was just like two years ago when I judged. There was nothing that I ate that I wouldn't eat again. You might cut this out, but one of the funies... We ain't cut nothing out. All right. One of the... Have to do with mammothusks? No.

I promise you it did. One of the funnies that Brent said was he had had like three different Asian dishes turned in on his side of the table. And he said, who would have ever thought my whole life I'd been eating squirrel every time I ate Chinese food? It was good. I mean, I couldn't think of nothing better to eat. It was good. Did you have to disqualify anybody for suspect squirrel when you did the inspection? No, man. Everybody turned in legit squirrel.

You know, we had a little rendezvous a while back with the bear grease crew who had went out. I don't know if Bear was the one who killed those squirrels or if it was you, Clay. But Clay made a donation, heck of about 40 squirrels. Probably 40. We had another probably 60 squirrels show up early this morning. We had ample squirrels with skin on it for the squirrel skinning competition. I brought in two black squirrels. Solid black

Where'd you get those? Undisclosed location. Okay. City park. Yeah. Black squirrels only live in city parks and on golf courses. So this is missing one. This was near a really large river.

Okay. The Nile. And I was telling everybody those were Japanese A5 Wagu squirrels. That's kind of, oh, he's got a tail of one right there. Oh, look at that. Oh, look at that. Look. They were as black as an Angus cow.

So good time, man. We had great judges in there. All of the judges, they had fun eating these dishes. But we don't have an event without the teams showing up. I know the public loves to see it. If we don't have teams show up to this deal, so I'll go ahead and start promoting next year right now. It's time for you to decide whoever's wasn't in.

You want in. And it's a good time. Every team out here, whether they got first or last, they had a fun time today. I promise. And the mission of who hunters and fishermen are as good people is spread at this facility. Mm-hmm. And a shout out to everybody who parked cars. Man, those guys are standing out in the heat early this morning.

And it has been hot today. Brutal. Yeah. Kevin, got a squirrel question for you. I had a guy today that I met here that he might be standing right here, I don't know but he, I said to Jeff Squirrel, he said, yep, I ate some squirrel here, he said it was really good.

He said, in Kentucky, our squirrels taste like mud, and he said, we can't eat them. And he said, down here, they taste good. I just, like, I didn't say much. I just kind of gave him the head nod. I need to wash his hands. Is he right? Well, what he dates to do is come back.

next year and we'll put him on the spot and he can tell us the Kentucky squirrel from the Arkansas squirrel. Yeah, I mean blind taste test? Yeah, blind taste test. I mean, you never heard that before. Oh, no. No. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I've had squirrel from Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, South Dakota.

It's all. All the same. It's all very similar. I mean, for someone to say that their palate could judge one squirrel from this state the other, I think we need to have that next year. You want to? Yeah, let's try to do a little variety of squirrel and see who can say that. But I think you would be, it's unfair because if you did a spring summer or a spring squirrel compared to a summer squirrel, it's just like bear.

You know yourself, if you get those bear that are down by the water or the bear that's been eating the fish in Alaska, that sucker's going to taste like fish, man. I shot them iguanas in Puerto Rico, and they were far, far from water, and they taste like fish. So it's all diet on the thing. I think it's got to be pretty extreme. In the bear world, the only time I've seen a bear taste any different than any other bear is salmon bears. Other than that, I find every bear I've ever tasted from anywhere in the country to pretty much taste the same. Spring and fall tastes the same.

I mean, just a fall bear is going to have more fat. So, but, I mean, does it taste the same in like a burger? I would say you'd have a real hard time telling the difference. Now, a thaw bear is going to have more fat, though. Yeah. But now when you start getting to these like red squirrels and pine squirrels and stuff out west, they say those taste piney and have a pretty strong. Yeah, but like a cat squirrel, gray squirrel or fox squirrel anywhere in the eastern deciduous forest,

I bet they, I think they taste the same. The only thing I've noticed different eating squirrel in a lot of the states is at times in Louisiana, if they're eating in a cypress tree and they get no cypress bowls, they do have a little bit of a stronger taste. You can kind of tell. Really? Is it taste like a cypress? It's kind of got that pine, you know, it's kind of got that same kind of sappy. Okay. Yeah.

And you can kind of, you can tell it in them. Now, that makes sense because they're eating those cypress. Cypress balls. And they'll start eating them when they're still green. And they'll eat through and pull like the seed out. And I mean, I promise you, I can clean one. And just during cleaning it, I can tell you what he's been eating. The Cypress balls or whether it was, you know, eating just acorns.

Mm. Hmm. That makes sense. That makes sense. What about you, Clay? What did you do today? Well, shoo. Man, I actually just got here about an hour and a half ago.

I've been writing about Hulk Collier this morning, if I'm just telling you the truth. Good man to write about. Yeah, woke up at the crack of dawn, way before the crack of dawn and been doing some writing. But that's what I had to do this morning. But sort of got it done, sort of. But we're getting ready to bear hunt, though. Arkansas bear season opens this week, and so we're fixing to go. How's the action been?

Not good. Too hot. Not good. Heat, I don't think it has anything to do with heat. I'd rather it be hot than cold during bear season. Really? Yeah. Why?

100%. Worst thing that could happen would be a hurricane come through and like a bunch of rain or a cold front come through and knock the temperature down 20, 30 degrees. You lose your bears and rarely get them back. It'd be best if it's just like consistent temperature right through the start of the season. I'd rather it be 85 degrees than 60 on the open day of bear season in Arkansas. I don't know about anywhere else. I was out baiting yesterday and I did notice some white oak acres on the ground. Yeah, there's plenty of.

That's your mouth. Yeah. 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. I wonder if there's any questions from the crowd or any about to anybody at this, in these chairs. Anybody got any questions? Yeah, I do. I want to know if he's going to eat that hot squirrel next year again. Yeah. You back in? He's in.

All right. Oh, okay. The question is about, go ahead. Yeah. Oh, the question is about the dog. Tell us about your dog, Kevin. Well, this is Black Jelf, and this is the first time she's been around more than three people at one time, so a little bit overwhelmed. Yeah, he can tell you, she's kind of nervous.

She is a half, high-kew beagle, a quarter car, and a quarter, Farrell Miller field trial, Porter. Okay. And that dog's all because of year. The dog's name is Jeff? Black Jeff. Black Jeff. Usually I'm down here with Chef Jeff.

This year I'm with Black Jeff. Okay. And Black Jeff was a friend of mine that I met down at Real Foot Lake. And he was a pro baseball player, a swamp rabbit hunter. And so I got Black Jeff. So, okay. Do you call her Black Jeff? Like, if you're going to just call her across the yard, you're like, come here, Black Jeff.

Like Jeff. Yeah. She's a pup. She's 10 months old. Like you said. Multi-syllable animal names are tough, but I got to get behind them. Yeah. Sometimes.

I usually like one syllable, but, you know, I got a meal named Slow Trap, which is. Kevin, you said that tied into Clay. How did it tie into Clay? It tied into Clay because last year at the end of the podcast, I think it was over. Clay and I were talking about dogs and what we like to hunt. And he asked me, said, what's your favorite kind of hunting? Of course, you know, the favorite kind of hunting is what I can do. at my age and where I live.

And I said, well, swamp rabbit hunting. And then I got home and I started in a new job site, another job that I worked with a young boy. And he was a coyote hunter with dogs. And we became friends. And I talked to him and says, have you seen beagles use this? We never have, but I know people that have.

And then my hunting experience over the last 10 or 12 years with beagle dogs, we get into coyotes and some dogs like to run on better than the other. And I thought, And it's usually like a short race, 1,200,600 yards, not the typical coyote race there. And I'm thinking, I can breed a dog that I can run in Kentucky, that I can afford to feed, and I can have a pack of predator dogs. So that's my attempt. It's probably going to take me two years to have a predator dog. So what will your intentions for this dog to be?

Because Brent's used decoy dogs. You're not wanting a decoy dog. You're wanting a dog that's going to run a coyote. It's going to circle it back to me. Yeah, it's going to jump it up, take it out about 1,000 yards, 1,200 yards, not put a whole lot of pressure on it and not run it out of the country. Okay. He's going to let that coyote come out to his home range where he's been hunting,

where we've jumped it and bring it back to us, and they'd be up to me to be able to be like. That's why you want that beagle in there, so they're not just running it out of the country. They're just kind of getting it up out of its bed, letting it know that it's being chased. Are they like a rabbit, Kevin? They'll make a loop and kind of go back to where they got jumped.

You know, it's taken me a few years to see that. But, yeah, that's what I'm seeing is that we'll jump a few coyotes and they'll come back into where we're hunting. So, yeah, they're just like running a deer. You know, they're going to circle back. Run like a fox. So, yes. Yep.

Hmm. And, you know, they chase rabbits. Yeah. So, you know, and then the same with the bobcat. They circle back. You know, sometimes you'll jump them in a cane break or a blowdown, a timber thicket, whatever, and they're going to come back in there. And you just got to be like the top predator and be ready for them.

Because they're going to be looking for you. Oh, that's fun. So has this dog been exposed to any coyotes yet? No. No, she's run loose, her entire life pretty much. Like I said, she just turned 10 months old. She'll be a year old in November. So I've got five more of her siblings.

My county friend there, J.T. He's got the other two. So we're going to start after them. Probably start them on some swamp rapes. If they have run some rabbits, but I haven't exposed them to cowdies or bobcats yet. Yeah, yeah. Brett was decoy dog hunting. Have you seen them do that?

I have seen them do that. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, it's crazy. It's the most amazing thing that I've ever seen as far as how you think about a coyote's nose and they're here and they're cautious. And if, you know, if the odds are stacked against them, they're gone. They're not messing around. They play to win. If the odds are on their side, whatever they're after is usually done for.

and they get so crazy focused on that dog during that time of year when there's usually during the best time of year to use a decoy dog is when the coyotes have a litter in the ground in a den somewhere and how it is you'll use a predator call call that that dog with inside of where you are or the coyote with inside of where you are and then the decoy dog sees the coyote takes off after it well the coyote is only going to sit there long enough for that decoy dog to get close enough and then he's going to turn around and start trotting off. When that happens, the dog will stop and turn around and come back. And the coyote goes, ah, you're scared of me.

And he'll follow him right back to where you are. And I've had them come close to me and Josh. And they're so focused on that dog because of their territorial instincts that they don't pay any attention to you. It's usually lights out for the old coyote. Amazing. It's crazy to see. And it's in the daylight. I mean, you're not doing it at night.

That's awesome. Mm-hmm. Well, have you hunted with dogs, squirrel dogs? Yes, I do. I've got a catahoola cur. Oh, really? Me and him go out squirrel hunting, and we do a lot of coons. And I don't know.

He doesn't like anything that's smaller than him that walks. He loves getting out, and if I don't kill it in time, he's going to try to get it. He likes to scrap. He does like the scrap. He usually bring me a present about once a week on the drive. boy. Mm-hmm. Cattahula.

Does anybody else have a question that they want to ask anybody? This young man. This guy right here. Yeah. First animal to hunt? Good question. Good question. We can go around in the circle.

I think the first, I probably killed a squirrel first, but the first animal I really remember was hunting a deer. What about you, Kevin? Sparer. Sparrow? Yep. Wasn't that unfair Squirrel Squirrel

Duck Duck Duck Squirrel hunting with my daddy I may not be the world's best Small game hunter like Kevin But mine was a little yellow bird About that big

And when I hit that thing And it fell down I went in and got my mama's gravy spoon And Doug A burial site for that bird I buried it Packed it in real tight Tried a little bit

Did a small prayer and I went out and found its other one, you know. And then went and got the other one? Yeah. The best part of this story is that was 2014. That's an episode of Andy Griffith. Yeah, man, I remember crying over that first year. Is that a good answer?

All right. Good, good, good, good. I've got a question from the audience. Is the young man that's from Arizona here that's got the a bird squirrel on the back of his leave-out jacket? He's standing right behind you. Right there. Come on over this way.

What's he got? Pull in here. Check that jacket out. Troll around. Oh, look at this. Look at this. That's like a motorcycle club. Oh, wow.

So when I first came here, he came up to me and started talking to me and said he's from Arizona and all that. And we had a good little conversation. Then he walked off and some more people come up and started talking to me. And I'm thinking, that's an a bird squirrel on the back of his jacket. You recognize him down. like species? Is that a desert squirrel? Oh, really?

So it's not a gray squirrel. It's not a gray squirrel. This is an abert squirrel. Is the tail that short or did somebody pull the tail off? No, he was in the middle of summer. I was trying to snever. Okay. Pulled the tail off.

You pulled the tail off. You know, one of the finest squirrel hunters of all time come out of Arizona, John O'Dell. And John O'Dell was a biologist out of the state. He's recently retired, but he killed the grand slam of squirrel. which was go ahead laugh I know I won't end

I think he was Kevin you remember this he was on the cover of Field and Stream or something he went all the way around the country and he shot every species of squirrel and he got a lot of trash talk because he did it with an 870 shotgun

my man and the reason he was getting so much trash talking and he was able to defend it was in a lot of places is the only gun that he could use. Was a shotgun? Okay. And so he just used the same gun.

And the image you could find it on the internet, he has them all mounted like on one branch. Oh, wow. Oh, man. And it's every species of squirrel in North America. That's pretty, that's pretty cool. So how many species of squirrels exactly? Oh, there.

Don't get me going, Cajing. Heck, I don't know. I just know that part of the story. You could have said 37. I mean, I'm just curious because I mean, I don't know, but like a... Google it, Josh. Five or six.

No, I think there's more than a lot. Probably 12 to 18. 12 to 18. 12 to 18. There's a little squirrel up in Missouri. It's a ground squirrel in Missouri that I've been wanting to go up and hunt. A chimp a month? No, it's an actual ground squirrel.

This says, this is AI overview, that there are over 65 squirrel speed. she's in North America. Holy. Encompassing tree squirrels, ground squirrels, flying squirrels. I doubt that. I think AI is pulling one on us. I wouldn't have been too surprised at half of that. 65 sounds high, but, I mean, yeah, you can start thinking about...

North America's pretty big. Yeah, I mean, you think about it. I mean, the flying squirrel. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot that you're not thinking. They might be counting ground squirrels. Yeah, because there's a lot you're not thinking. I'm thinking more of what we hunt and eat. Yeah.

But yeah, there is a lot more species, I think. Yeah. I don't know there's that many, though, isn't it? There's some subspecies out there, like I think there's a Cherokee fox squirrel down on the Mexico, Arizona border. Then you have the squirrel, the kabbaw squirrel. It's only like in 75 square miles of the earth that you can hunt. Hopefully it made it through this last force fire that came through there. And then you've got the, I think the Carolina fox squirrel, a little bit different.

And then you've got, you know, some subspecies out there, regional squirrels. So there's more than you think about it. You know, we just think about fox squirrel, gray squirrel, you know, the a bird's. And then, like I said, you've got those subspecies and different type of fox squirrels out there. And then you've got melanistic squirrels, which are a gray squirrel that's black, basically. And you've got some black fox squirrels out there. And you've got some black fox squirrels out there. And then there, you know, you've got your albino squirrels,

which really not a subspecies are just their own little deal out there in different locations there. Some in Tennessee, some in Illinois, some in Kentucky. Can I ask a question of the crowd? One in Arkansas, for sure. I've seen it. I'll ask a question of the crowd. Should we just cut this squirrel cook off or do we need to do one again next year? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm throwing a contest. Okay. Yeah. There it is. Doing it again. We've got to. I think it's, it was brought up about a piece of shot being, being spit out.

That was as big as a seed tick that had been sucking for three days. Yeah. It was interesting analogy. Accurate. It brings up the question, and we'll go around the group here. Shotgun or 22, you only get one for the rest of your life. Why and why? For squirrel.

For squirrel. Four squirrel. Shotgun or 22. One for the rest of your life. And here's the big question. This is the only gun you have in the wilderness. You will die. Like life and death.

Life and death situation. One gun. I'm building this analogy as we go. Dang. What do you carry in? 22 or shotgun? Kevin, we're starting with you. 22 Magnum.

Take anything on the North America continent. Okay. but okay i'm a rifleman you know you can you you're out there you're if you're living off the land you can kill anything okay well but you can only kill squirrels oh only squirrel 22 magm same 22 mag 22 mag 22 mag 22 mag 22 mag do you hunt with the 22 mag in kentucky just like when you're out or regular 22 back when that's a killer 22 magum okay i'm not much of a killer anymore so 22 long raffle does be just fine good would a magnum do you is shooting a squirrel out of a tree uh you can kill two at one time just if they're like

If they're lined up. You have no problem of doing that. You get a little bit more range, more firepower. Okay. You know, collateral damage. If you make a bad headshot or whatever there, he's not going to limp off. I've had lots of squirrels limp off through a headshot with a 22. Okay.

You know, I did this comparison one time about this squirrel predator come to the earth. And he was hunting humans. So us humans, we hunt squirrels with a 40 grain bullet, 22. So this squirrel predator guy comes here, and so he wants to do something equivalent. So he's hunting humans. So do you know what equivalent? And it's been a while since they did the math. But what he would be shooting us with?

Probably like a 50 caliber. It'd be one pound, 50 caliber 720 grains. Well, I don't know how many grains one pound, but it'll be a one pound projectile is what, you know, I get hit with a one pound in my pinky. I'm down. Right. But that's the comparison that a little bitty, two-pound gray squirrel can take a 40-pound or a 40-grain head shot and run off. And can you imagine being a human and taking a one-pound project out anywhere in your head?

You're down. You're down. You get hit anywhere. Yeah. So. Okay. That's a great answer. And I expect as much detail from all of you.

Josh? I'm going to have to say 22. I think that if your life depends on squirrel hunting, that you're going to hone your skills so that killing a squirrel with a 22 is going to be I hope you go into the woods. Freezable feet. Got it.

Okay. Yeah. 22. Okay. Cajun. I'm going shotgun. Shotgun. This man wants to eat.

Yeah. I'm in a new. It's just, actually, that's simple. The leaves end the way, and he's running down the limb. I'm just going to take him out. So I'm going shotgun. And just deal with the collateral damage later. And, you know, sadly, to some people, I love to eat the brain,

so I'm not shooting him in the head anyway. That is the best answer that I've heard for not shooting him in the head with a 22. Because most of the time they get us. Kevin's mind is spinning. So you like to eat the brains. That's a, yeah, yeah. That's what I wouldn't recommend for anybody to do. Any kind of brain of any species.

Yeah, we had this conversation last year. Yeah, just stay away from it. So you know where you cow brain? No. Yeah. Yeah, there's some, in the last, well, we don't have to get into it, but there's some disease potential. But.

Makes your beard long and white. Yeah, it will. Yeah, I also kind of feel like I think there's been disease around for a long time that we just never tested for. Probably. And I think if you cook everything properly, you're probably going to, you know, my grandmother passed away at 9-8, 4 years old, and she ate cow brains and squirrel brains. Finally got her, didn't it? You finally got her. That's what I'm going to go back and redo a headstone and say squirrel brains got her.

No, so shotgun. I got you. I got you. I know Brent's answer. 22. 410. 22, man. Don't go 410.

You can't afford to show. For real. You know, that's just always been the thing. It was we, young man over here asked a question. First squirrel I ever kill was with a 22. We hunted with dogs on horses and that was just, that was the three things. that we did. You shot him with the 22.

You had somebody, somebody would bring a shotgun in case he, you know, you made a bad shot, and they're timber and squirrels, and they'd shoot him on the wing or whatever. But it was dogs, horses,

and 22 rifles. Hey, let's go. I got you back. Sounds like a good country music album. Yeah. You could AI that into number one hit. For most of my life, I've been a 22 squirrel shooter.

And just like Kevin, a lot of my mentors and squirrel hunt, they will tell you the 22 Magnum is superior. Now recently in the past few weeks when we were struggling to get squirrel on this. Yeah, here's the real test. When we're struggling to get squirrels and the leaves are on every treat.

Don't leave us, man. I ain't even going to tell you it was a 20-gauge boy. That thing was 12. Okay? It was 20 minus 8. And let me tell you what, maybe I didn't literally see the squirrel, but I seen the leaves move.

And then you've seen the squirrel And then I heard the squirrel Thump on the ground So if this was a survival situation And we're talking that there could be A migration of evil squirrel Like a zombie attack It's 12 gauge loaded up

Extended magazine Yeah I hadn't put the scenario Inside the World Championship Squirrel cookoff But you were there You had no You had they get squirrel

And I went for the meat With the meat stick Man, and everybody has heard my philosophy, but like when we go squirrel hunting with dogs on mules, 90% of the people out there have shotguns. Because when we get to the tree, good percentage of the time, squirrel's moving, big timber. And we're just wanting to bring home,

we're just wanting to get squirrels on the ground. And so. Pandemonium. So shotgun. Shotgun. It's a half and half, huh? Yeah, half and half. Either way, I'll let y'all, the shotgun goes,

I'll let y'all come to my camp and eat. I'm going to tell you this, gentlemen, here in about five minutes, I've got to go out and crown the new world champion squirrel team. Oh, wow. And I think, from what I know right now, I think the team is going to be as happy as anybody you've ever seen win this.

I think so. Well, we're going to have to... We don't want to miss that. Well, in that case, we're going to close it down. And we'll come back at the... We'll try to, like, maybe film some of it, maybe put it on. Can we do that? Yep, we can.

We'll film some of it and put the winner on the episode. It's going to be a big deal. I wanted to... I meant to do this at the first of the episode. What else am I supposed to... Why a week? Oh, yeah. Pay attention to meat eater.

We're going to have some great sales. it's going to be great. What are the dates of it? September 29th through October 5th. September 29th through October 5th are the dates. Wow. I'm more confusing when we started. Coming soon.

September 29. White till week. No, if you're looking to get first light gear, that's a good time to get a bunch of stuff on sale. All the whiteto kits are on sale. But the meat eater is doing a live tour, and it's in December, and they're about to,

announce the dates. Coming soon. And, but they're coming to Fayetteville, Fayetteville, Arkansas. So Steve Renella, Janice, Brent, me, Randall, and a special guest that everybody will be really pumped to see is going to be in Fayetteville. But I'm just going to tell you, it's on December the 20th, Saturday, December the 20th. Oh, he's spelling the beans here. Yeah, yeah.

I think, just be ready. If you want to come to Fayetteville. You got to get on that. Get on. You got to get on the link. Yeah, so there's a Where you can get notified of tickets That's right

So there's a link that if you sign up for They will send it out to you So you can buy tickets before it just goes up on the website So you have to go to Because tickets will be limited Well, I actually know the web address You go to the meat eater.com slash tour That's it

And put your email in there And then they'll send you an email Before the tickets go live to the world And so the Meteor live towards a ton of fun big big fun it's like a two hour like variety show there'll be music there's trivia people win a bunch of stuff steve ronella uh tells a lot of stories we uh it's going to be a ton of fun so i'm i'm looking forward to that being in fayetteville arkansas it's in it's in multiple cities it's in seven places it's in Nashville tennessee memphis fadville arkansas dallas texas austin

and Austin, Texas. It starts out in Birmingham, Alabama. And Birmingham, Alabama. So, that's where the live tour is. I'm going to go to everyone. Yeah. Me too. So, let's go.

I want to go see who wins the World Championship Squirrel Cookoff. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, everybody. 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 back than 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 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. This is an I-Heart podcast

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