The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 024

Episode Date: December 10, 2015

Llano Estacado, Texas. Steven Rinella talks with guests Ronny Boehme, Mike Panasci, Ed Arnett, and Janis Putelis from the MeatEater crew. Subjects discussed: how to one-up someone's scat story; the Natal Habitat Bias Dispersal Hypothesis; the draw of Sandhill Crane hunting; getting hunting permissions on private land; the danger of overthinking a waterfowl hunt; how not to lose downed birds; reporting banded birds; life expectancies of game animals; the inherent pain in the ass of filming hunts; Mike Panasci's nasty homemade crane decoys; lead animals and their influence on the group; and eating Sandhill Cranes, a.k.a. ribeye of the sky. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome, everyone, to the Meat Eater Podcast. This is the second installment or episode we're doing from the Texas Panhandle. We're on the Llano Estacado or Staked Plains. And we're actually in this place called Ransom Canyon.

Now, these Staked Plains is a weird thing because it's just dead-ass flat chunk of land that comprises like the western half of the Texas Panhandle. And I was reading earlier, I'm so curious about this place because it's just flat. I want to read what, real quick, when when Coronado you know the the conquistador when Coronado came through here and wrote about this he was the first European first white guy to pass through he says uh I reached some plains so vast that I did not find their limit anywhere I went, although I traveled over them for more than 300 leagues.

With no more landmarks than if we had been swallowed up by the sea. There was not a stone, nor a bit of rising ground, nor a tree, nor a shrub, nor anything to go by. That's like, this place is flat. This makes my first wife look chesty. Yeah, that was a good one. This place is flat. But earlier I was reading it, I don't know if you guys might know this. It's flat. This makes my first wife look chesty. Yeah, that was a good one. This place is flat. But earlier I was reading it.

I don't know if you guys might know this. It's pitched. Across this whole plain, it gains about 2,000 feet of elevation, 10 feet per mile. It's pitched. The northwest corner is higher than the southeast corner. I didn't know that. This whole plateau got cocked on its side a little bit. So the whole time you think everything's flat,

you're on a cockeyed angle. You're on something that Rodney Bain built. Speaking of which. Hi. Speaking of which, we're joined by Ron Bain, a very long-term friend of mine. Sorry about that. We're getting close on to the holiday season.

We're trying to make rum and eggnog, and a bunch of crane meat just fell out of the freezer. Also by Giannis Putellis, who works on the Meteor TV show crew. And Mike Panassi. Panassi. There you go. 100% Italian. Born

and raised in Maine. He's now a Texan PhD candidate. Studies coyotes. Studying coyotes. Right? Yeah. He's now a tax and PhD candidate. Studies coyotes. Studying coyotes. Right? Yeah. He's killed one. Or coyotes. I've killed one. He killed one. Can I tell why he killed it? Yeah, that's fine.

He killed one. He was trying to tranquilize it. He OD'd it. It was in very poor condition. He was already maimed. Can I tell the thing you just revealed to us? Probably not. Come on. Just it out of its misery. Can I tell the thing you just revealed to us? Probably not. Come on. Just tell us a little bit.

It's out there now, Mike. Which thing? I mean, we've talked about a few things. Oh, no, no. Nothing to do with your wife or anything. What you were telling us about. Memory glands? The deer.

I don't think people would be interested in that. I think they'll be absolutely. They'll be very interested, Michael. If you don't want to tell, I'll tell unless you don't want me to tell. Well, I just gave my opinion that I think it's – It's not an opinion. You told something you did. No, I read about it.

All right. So he did something that's the most interesting thing that you'll hear all week, but he won't share it with us. Michael was born and raised in Maine. I was born in Connecticut, moved to a couple places, but raised in Maine. Moved to Maine when I was real young, formative years in Maine, so pretty much. And you grew up hunting and fishing? In Maine, yeah.

Yeah. So, Mike, where'd you go? Where'd you go to regular college? Graduated high school in Maine, went to UConn. So I was there for four years. Did some odd jobs and did some field jobs here and there. Went back to Connecticut to

earn cash in the middle of each of them. What did you study in regular college? Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UConn. I took the biology track instead of the wildlife track. Then came out to do a master's degree. Did some field jobs, worked in the field for five years.

Then started my master's at Texas Tech. Finished it, decided to stay on at Texas Tech. And that was on what? That was on coyote genetics as well, but more of a lab-based study looking at how well DNA sampled non-invasively yeah okay so um there's kind of been a transition you know generally when you do a genetic study you kill the animal and take a tissue sample yeah and then you analyze it well you know you can't kill an animal if it's an endangered species or uh really, people are less interested in killing animals

if you don't have to. So there's been a transition to sampling non-invasively, so hair samples, where you catch the animal, pull some hair out of it, and let it go. You could also get DNA from their scat or their shit, basically. So what happens is they- It's actually tissue from the abdominal. It is.

So when you take a shit – It sloughs off on the shit, right? Right. It's the cells from the animal that as the food passes through, it collects intestinal epithelial cells is what they are. And it collects on the outside of the fecal sample. And so you pick up that fecal sample and you swab the outside and you get a mix of bacterial samples or bacterial DNA and then DNA from the animal.

And so you specialize primary. Well, yeah, you get that too. So what if he cannibalized another coyote? Would you be able to figure out what DNA was from the coyote that got cannibalized or the coyote that was taking the shit? That actually would be more challenging, but fortunately coyotes don't generally cannibalize each other.

I found a coyote shit one time where he had shit out an entire fawn's hoof. Actually, I've seen that a lot. Have you? Teeth and hooves for some reason. Obviously for teeth. I mean, they don't get to digest. Well, now you're trying toeth and hooves for some reason. Well, obviously for teeth. I mean, they don't get digested very well. Well, now that you're trying to do a one-upsmanship game.

Oh, did we? I'll tell you something else. That's fine. I'm ready. I found a bear one time that shit out a bear claw. So I'm one-up that. So he was pruning his teeth or cleaning his teeth, and he swallowed it.

That's not a big deal. I found a robin nest. Shit out of robin's nest? So, Mike, you did that work, and now you're doing work on... Coyote genetics as well, but completely different question. So now, landscape genetics. So looking at the relatedness among coyotes across a large geographic area. Everybody thinks coyotes are very adaptable.

They can live in, you know, almost any habitat, you know, from city to a desert to mountainous to, you know, swampland almost. And so is there any differentiation among these or does any coyote, can they just as easily move from one habitat to another? Yeah. And so my question is, you know, are they genetically differentiated based upon, well, not only habitat, that's the main question, but is it anything else?

Temperature or, and most people would think, well, coyotes being such a generalist species. No, but there's been some recent work out of California that actually suggests that there is. And so I'm trying to kind of second that to see if it's just kind of an anomaly or if it can be verified again. Like you were saying to me that if a coyote leaves, you know, also Mike calls them coyotes, which is proper,

but I find that anyone who's killed them. Well, I killed one. Yeah, but you OD'd them. Well, it's still killing one. Like if a coyote leaves the mountains, is he likely to just go settle into some mountains somewhere? Well, that's the hypothesis based on the work out of California. It's called the natal habitat bias dispersal hypothesis.

Pretty original, right? I like that. Yeah, natal habitat bias dispersal. So if you're, you know. Fuck you, Ron. All right, we can start talking about strip clubs.

No, Ronald, wake up. See, I told you. We're not, we're, we're actually not even

here to talk about cows. We're here to talk about cranes and I'm going to tie this in. That's why I thought I was getting a little long in the tooth. No, listen, I'm going to do this in. I thought I was getting a little long in the tooth. No, listen, I'm going to do some wonderful. You won't believe how good of a host I am

because watch how I do this transition. Check it out. Wait for it. That's great about those coyotes. It just so happens that I met Mike through our other guest here today, Ed Arnett.

Say hello. Howdy, howdy. Ed Arnett's a biologist at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. I met Mike through Ed, who met Mike. Mike's professor. Mike's professor. And I'm Former professor. We're all here to hunt cranes.

We're here to hunt cranes. And I want to talk about cranes. And I know, like, my friend Ed, this is getting... Are you back? Are you waking up? Oh, yeah. I'm trying to get through this so fast. I'm trying to do this in the most efficient way possible.

Through my friendship with Ed, I was invited out to do a crane hunt, a Sandhill crane hunt. And I, until a couple of years ago, I didn't know you could even hunt cranes. Like most people in America don't know you can hunt cranes. I put a thing up on Twitter. I was going crane hunting. All I got was people saying like, I didn't think you could do that. What do you do with them? Can you eat them? Is it legal? One guy said, I know that Oklahoma sells crane hunting licenses, but I didn't know you could actually hunt them, which is like a weird trick that they must play on you in some states. And so we hatched a plan to do a crane hunt. And we're down here now. And most people who see Sandhill cranes see like a couple of Sandhill cranes. I remember the first time i ever saw a sandhill crane was in michigan's upper peninsula and it was out in a

field and we stopped and asked permission from a lady to see if we could walk back in her field to look at the cranes um they're just not around but here they're down here in massive numbers five thousand ten thousand you might see. In one flock or two. Yes, I mean like, yeah, in a group. And they're so good that the lingo, the joke is like people call them ribeye in the sky. So we're going to talk about a very unusual.

So good eating. No, yeah, so good eating. And only eight states have crane season. I used to live in Montana and you had to put in an application and draw a tag to hunt a crane. That's crazy. Yeah, just like drawing an elk tag. You could apply for a crane tag.

We get three a day. Three a day. For like two and a half, well, let's see. It's a long season. Middle of November to first week of February. I think it's the second Saturday of February. So it can go to the eighth. Generous season.

Very generous. And Ed invited me down to hunt cranes. And Ed, he was kind of like, I want you to come hunt cranes, but you also got to kind of understand it's not totally my deal. Like I'm, this is Ed speaking, I'm sort of the guest of these dudes, one of these dudes being Mike, who do all the work and Mike pounds. I'm hesitant to even say what town we're in because you're on the gold here. And I think you're going to get swamped.

We are, we've started. I mean, this area I've noticed a huge difference in the last couple of years. You know, I've been here for a little while cause I did my master's and now I'm doing finishing my PhD and the first four years or so, very little competition. And when I say competition, I'm talking about from other, you know,

just recreational hunters and other outfitters. Three years ago or so, we started getting, you know, bumping up against outfitters. Other outfitters, but you're not an outfitter. No, no, no, no. I mean other meaning several different outfitters. Oh, yeah, I got you, I got you. Like, you know, no i mean other meaning several different oh yeah i got you like you know not just one but several different yeah um and it's gotten progressively worse so last year after thanksgiving which for some reason it seems like people focus on geese

or something before that for whatever reason mid well late december till the rest of the season the outfitters are just on the cranes. I'm not willing to pay money for one. One, out of principle, and two, I can't afford it. They're just always out there, especially in the meadow area.

That's fine. I'll say it. The outfitters are always out there. I just want to really quick check this out. I mean, that's fine. I'll say it. The outfitter's are always out there. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to really quick check this out. I really want to quick explain crane hunting. Crane hunting is similar to goose hunting in the field. I mean, you're out there. You go on the field.

You're putting up decoys. The birds roost on water at night. But instead of floating on the water, they stay in the water. Shaddle. They're around here. They have these shallow lakes called playas. Gets daylight out. All of a sudden, the sky starts filling up with birds. You're out in the field on food they're these chalet's called plies. Gets daylight out, all of a sudden the sky starts filling up

with birds, you're out in the field on food they're trying to hit, cropland. You got decoys out, you pit blind, laying down, hiding whatever you're doing, layout blinds. And they come in, in formation, if everything goes right, and you're bam, bam, bam, allowed three a day, and they're way better than geese to eat. Table fare.

It's a way better bird. In your time here, you've killed hundreds of them. Personally, I have. I mean, I hunt a lot. And how big is your stable of landowners that you're allowed to hunt on? I put a lot of work into it. He has a spiel, but I don't want you to talk about it because people are going to steal your tail.

Yeah, I do. You don't want to do that. And it's, you know, it's something that works. I have a very high success rate. You know, it helps... He's pulling 90%. This is door, classic banging on the door. He's pulling 90%.

Well, phone calls. I very rarely... Sorry, he don't bang on the door. Yeah, it's too time consuming. It's not efficient enough. Yeah, he's got a spiel. He gets over the phone. And he was running... He gets on Facebook. No, he's got a spiel. He goes over the phone. He was running.

He gets on Facebook. No, I'm not on Facebook at all. He was running over 90% success rate. Yeses versus noses. Yeses to noses. I would say it's over 90%. But to be conservative, I'll say 90%. But it helps that they don't like the cranes.

Yeah, I would have thought people don't like the cranes. Well, let's see. The landowners, the farmers, to be clear. The they don't like the cranes. Yeah, I would have thought people don't like the cranes. Right. Well, let's say the landowners, the farmers. No, no, I'm with you. To be clear, the farmers don't. Because they're hard on winter wheat. And I'm generalizing, and I hate to generalize. Okay, so a good chunk of them don't care for the cranes. Another good chunk really like, you know, they consider themselves still a part of the land,

and hunting is very acceptable. So that certainly helps. So even if they love the cranes, they're okay to crane hunt because there's a sustainable population. Well, we had a conversation. We were out getting a permission. I was with you when you scored a permission. Yeah.

And this was actually like started out in a phone call. And that was rare. A guy wanted to meet us at a Dairy Queen. Normally, they don't want to do that, but that was cool that I got to meet him. Usually, I don't want to waste your time. Yeah. Personally drives us around 12 miles. Clearly, he was busy too. They were fixing

a combine. He took the time. Drives us 12 miles to show us his fields and explain his property boundaries. Then at some point says, well, what's in this for me? I said to him, what do you need to be in it for you? And he was so uncommitted to the idea of getting money that he then talked himself out of it. He said, well, you know what?

God lets me be a farmer and I should share this land with people, which is touching. It was cool. And he said, like basically said, you can, you have, my home is yours. If you screw me,

I will screw you. Yeah. You know, and all you want to know, you know, the way we would screw him. All you want to know is when we're going to be out there. When are you in my fields?

That's it. If you ever go in my fields without telling me you're in my fields. And he's got a cell phone. All I got to do is text him. I'll be like, hey. And I did. We went out there the next morning. I texted him when we were setting up.

I said, you know, we're setting up. You know what the last thing he said to us was? When we left? You said, can I text you? He said, don't expect me to text back. Yeah, but he did. You know what's funny? You know what's funny?

He responded. And I was like, well, you know, I don't know if I should respond or not. I remembered him saying that. You don't want to have a text friend. I didn't want him to think, I'll respond. I don't like to text. Sometimes I feel like I don't want to respond.

I feel like I have to. You feel like you have a boyfriend. Nobody likes a texting conversation. He responded. I told him how we did that morning. I said, we killed this many. And he responded. So it was day two.

We killed eight that day. I said, actually, but I texted him right before we started to pack up, which was right before I got back to you guys and found out that you guys actually killed one more. So I told him we killed seven. He texted back, well, it's better than six, which is cool. And I was like, well, should I respond? And I didn't.

I didn't respond because he said to me, don't expect a response. So I was like, you know what? I'm not going to respond. You know he's home right now checking. He keeps hitting refresh and being like, well, that's not going to bring me back. I hope he doesn't listen to this podcast. I tend to overthink things, which you guys probably know from the decoy setups, right? When I'm sitting in a truck parked

and we don't know what to do. I don't think that field hunting, I don't think you can really overthink it. Because that just means you're getting... I think when you're overthinking waterfowl hunting, you're probably thinking about if there's 10 things in your head, nine of them don't matter.

One of them does, but you don't know which one. Which one, right. So you got to do all 10, right? Because how could you ever know which one is the one that matters? Is it like that you have a yellow hoodie on and the hood's poking out a little bit? Is it the wind? Do you use tumbleweeds or not? Yeah, whatever.

Is it fresh dirt? Is it that you got X shot and you should be using Y shot? So, first day we went out, we didn't have a very good day that day. No. I want to get to that, but I want to talk about something else because this really sets,

I think this kind of sets the scene here a little bit. We killed a crane. This will kind of explain craneness. We killed a crane and it's banded. First off, Mike, talk about how many cranes you killed and how many have bands on them. So I've killed a lot of cranes myself, but I also enjoy taking people hunting.

And I especially enjoy taking people hunting who haven't hunted before. So you can imagine I take a lot of people hunting. And it's not, you know, I say I. It's me and a couple of the guys that generally take people. Although I'm the one pushing to take newbies because nobody else has the patience that I do. Generally speaking, again. If we didn't have generalizations, we would never get anywhere. That's true.

You just wouldn't be able to talk about anything. Everything would be like a constant qualification. Nope, that's true. I know. You just wouldn't be able to talk about anything. Everything would be like a constant qualification. Nope. That's wrong. So, you know, a couple of my friends have a kill board and they keep track of everything. Everything they kill for the year.

I don't like that. No, but, you know, it does. There are good points and bad points. But anyway, to get to the point. What do you think about that, Yannis? It's like Boone and Crockett. You know, I'm not really into the fact that, like, dudes are always scoring their stuff all the time and always talking about numbers this, numbers that.

But when you look back across records of all those numbers, it's valuable information. I'm going to tell you why I do it. What happens when you get your Sandhill Crane survey or your waterfowl survey from the Fish and Wildlife Service? Do you want to guess or do you want to give them? Yeah, but those are so broad. They're like 2 to 100.

I understand that, but, you know. They're generalizations. Yeah, that one. 2 to 100. No, but, I mean, I keep dragging numbers just so I know whether I'm within a... The other day I started making a list. That's right. I was with you.

You told me how many species of fowl, of game birds you hunted successfully. Killed. And I said,

I'm going to do that too. And I had just that day killed my first sandhill crane. And he forgot his first crane. I was like... No.

I couldn't put it on because it felt dirty. It felt dirty. It felt dirty. It felt like if you sat down and tried to make a list of every girlfriend

you ever had or something but it's not that so it's not that I started making a list and I felt dirtier and dirtier and dirtier

the more I wrote down it's not a conquer board though I mean I respect the things I kill it's more of a experience board not a conquer board a kill board

you called it yeah well they did that sounds real pentagon well come on we're not going conquer board. A kill board, you called it. Yeah, well, they did. That sounds real Pentagon. Well, come on. We're not going to use a cliche. Kill, yeah, like you harvest. Hey, I'm not lying. I know what killing is.

It's killing. It is, it is. Yeah, I'm not like, oh, I harvested this. But the reason why I like it is because it's more of a ratio thing, species to species. Like, oh, man, we killed that many Wigeon this year compared to last year versus Gadwall versus Teal. And that's why I like it.

And it's a relative thing. I used to keep a hunt journal. So you did it too? Yeah, I kept the hunt journal and I got lazy and quit doing it. And now when I look back, I can't believe I ever quit. It's an amazing record. So why do you say you feel dirty? Calling it a kill board.

A hunt journal is different because here's the thing. A hunt journal is a day-by-day deal. It's not like you making this catalog, this Noah's Ark collection. Of only the kills. I got you. It's a record of your experience. A hunt journal

has more heart. I don't want to get away from... What was I even talking about? How many cranes? Cranes. Okay. Yeah. So all these cranes,

you've seen how many dead cranes have passed through your hands in your time here in Texas? So with all the... Counting all the people that we take. So basically over our decoys. Yeah. Whether it was me or friends.

And we actually tallied this up last year. And so of course, it's going to be higher this year. It was 1,000 plus. All legal, of course. Let me say that. Yeah. All legal.

How many illegal? 1,000 plus. Well, you know, probably another 1,000 plus illegal. No, that's a joke. You shouldn't have to qualify that. That is a joke. So you and your hunting buddies and crew and all that have won you 1,000 crates. And you've probably had me banned.

And over how many years? Well, first, hold on. How many years? I've been in Lubbock. So having a lot of fun with my master's degree took some time. A lot of fun with a PhD. So since 2006. We don't need to get into your tardiness on your degrees here, Michael.

So since 2006. So a few years. But I didn't hunt for the first two. But anyway, all the friends that I've taken, we take a lot of people, a thousand birds. I've seen now two banded birds.

So it's a big deal. And actually, I was the one who killed the other one. So I've got two now. The first one. The first one, yeah. Real quick, as nice as you banded banned a bird as quickly as possible explain what that means when someone says abandoned bird what it means to bandit no what abandoned when someone's like a bandit bird is

like what is a bandit bird sure so biologists for a variety of reasons banned waterfowl your your your colleague and friend brandt bans waterfowl i've banded thousands of ducks myself but it did band a few cranes and the reason is to track their migratory patterns you get information about uh not only movements migration but also how old the animals are you know all a lot of information survivorship all those kinds of things. So when I banded some cranes in Oregon, it was part of a nest success study. And by putting bands on those animals, if they were killed in another part of the country,

we'd know what their migratory pattern was. Yeah, so when you band the bird, the only way you're ever going to get any information is someone shoots or finds the bird and calls in and tells you where they found it. What's that? No one picks up road kills, so it's from hunters. You'd be surprised how many people do. Road kills?

And drop it off at museums. She did ask what happened to it. Yeah. I thought that was a naive question, but I didn't think it was. It must have. It's not a naive question because we could have found it. Yeah, it could have been hit by a wind turbine, hit by a truck. But you get a lot of good demographic data once that band is returned in.

Makes sense. From where it was banded to where it's found or killed or whatever. You get information about how old it is, all kinds of demographic information. So there's another thing like real simple. It's a coyote. It's controlled. You guys can't have a side conversation. Nothing.

So there's another thing like there's this thing in biology coyote. It's controlled. You guys can't have a side conversation. Nothing. So there's this thing in biology too called mark and recapture. Let's say you went into a lake and you netted. Mark recapture too. You go into a lake

and you net 100 bass out of the lake and you put a tag in each of those bass and then a week later, or then on this tag, it says like, if you catch this bass,

call blank number. And a week later, 90 guys have called with bass you put a tag in. You'd be like, wow, man, there aren't many bass in that lake, and the ones that are all get caught. Or you go in and tag 100 bass in a lake, and 10 years goes by, and no one ever turns in a tag. You'd be like, man, there's a lot of bass in that lake,

and the amount of people catching these, there's not many people catching the bass. Like, you know, there's a hundred of them and no one ever turned them in. So with ducks, I remember someone telling me, it's surprisingly high the number of these bands that get returned. But the percentage.

Yeah. I can't, I'd have to call a brand. But I was kind of surprised like how many, like how good people are about calling them in. There's some guys, I don't want to name their names, but some of them are friends of friends of mine, who have a thing where they won't call in their bands. And these are guides.

So they have strings. Why? Well, because they feel that it's their little secret, that it's unreported, so therefore it's more theirs than someone else's. I've never heard that. Because they're guides. So they have just their call lanyards

are draped with bands that they brag about. They're being unreported. Looks like a Native American jewelry type. A band just looks like a wedding ring, a big thick wedding ring with some stands on it. Because they're depriving the biologists. I never heard of that. These guys are huge. I would almost like to give these too bad because they're depriving the biologists of information. These guys are huge.

I would almost like to give these guys names because they're huge numbskulls. Steve, you know what the other thing is? When I started duck hunting in Michigan, the first time I hunted back in Twin Lake, I heard guys say that if you call it in, you've got to send it in. They thought that you had to give it up, and they thought it was such a neat token that they were afraid to call it in. Like, no, if you do that, they're going to take it because they need it. Yeah, it's a misnomer now.

But you've heard of that years ago. Yeah. That's true. Years ago. I was about to say that whoever, the Fed, the Fish and Wildlife Service, did a really good job at making it such a trophy to call it in and figure it out. But maybe, I'd never heard that, that people actually think it's cool to keep it secret. These guys are the only guys I know.

These guys are big snow goose guys. And so they like to just, you know, they're always trying to find ways. I don't even want to get into it. So, you know, the reason... I was just going to say this bird had a double band, and the reason it had... But we already introduced the fact that this bird had a band.

You're right. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I thought we did. You said you had a double band and the reason that we only introduced the fact that this bird had a band. You're right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I thought we did. You said you thousand cranes have passed you Mike's hands or you see a thousand

die over my day. Yeah. So yeah, our our we just got one. We just got the second one this week with a band on it. It had

what I'd call a double band. So one band is the wedding ring band. The other band is a wedding ring band and the other band is a wedding ring band being the metal band. Yeah. Typical metal band. The other band is this big chunk of plastic on there with big numbers so that someone would be able to read that

with a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope would be able to pull that number off visually without having to kill the thing to get the information from it. We call the 800 number. I mean like the crane's bare. I mean, like, the crane's buried. I mean, he's still warm. Ronnie calls the 800 number on the band.

From the field that we shot at. And we got the nicest girl in the whole world to take care of us. What was her name? Tammy? I think it was Tammy. Super nice, Gail. She sounded hot, too.

And sarcastically, because we were all arguing who shot this bird because we we went round table round him but what no the bird i shot oh no we put that one and he goes well we know i put that one in the grass and then we got we're on the phone with tammy and i was just being a smart ass as usual and i said could we get four certificates for this she goes as a matter of fact, could we get four certificates for this? She goes, as a matter of fact, we allow up to four certificates for a box. Because you tell a lot of guys getting fights over, because like Mike said, it's a trophy.

You know they couldn't have done that 10 years or 20 years ago. They probably was like, no, one. I have like a medicine box. It's like a medicine bag, but I keep it in a box. It was like just stuff I have, and I got a couple of waterfowl bands in there. It's just like really, you think, like I said, they marketed it well.

So we call up and she can't give us full information. But when you get a band and you call in a band, what they'll eventually do is they'll tell you where it was banded. Which they told us immediately, that. When it was banded, which they told us. That's all that they told us. Who banded it. This is when you, you'll eventually get all this information. Like when was. Who banded it? That's all that they told us. Who banded it? This is when you, you'll eventually get

all this information. Like, when was the bird banded? Where it was banded? The age. Who banded it and how old was it when it was banded?

Or at least certainly not a chick versus an adult bird. Right, yeah. Not the true age, but juvenile versus adult. Yeah. So this crane

that we killed, the double bander, we called in and were immediately told that this crane was banded 12 years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska. As an adult. We don't know that yet. We did not learn that yet.

The other one you had was what? 11. And once I got the certificate back, it was banded as an adult. So it was several years old. Yes. It was 12 plus years old. Banded in Nebraska, Platte River.

Most game birds, it takes up like a pheasant. A three-year-old pheasant is old. Yeah. It's old when you get birds come out like most game birds every year of the birds that that fled so the birds that successfully leave the nest well first off about 70 percent of nests are destroyed this is a very this is like the night of generalization coyote predators yeah hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in canada the great features that you love and on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial

imagery 24k topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more.

As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. What? They don't help. They don't help at all. You agree to that? No.

So, like, roughly, like, let's say, it's variable, but 70% of nests are destroyed. Of the birds that reach something like six months of age or something, or of the birds that leave the nest, maybe like 70% will be dead within a year. Of those ones that have lived, 70% will be dead next year. I mean, this varies all through the thing, but you wind up realizing that when you go hunting pheasants, you're shooting a lot of birds that were dead next year. I mean, this varies all through the thing, but you wind up realizing that when you go hunting pheasants, you're shooting a lot of birds that were born that year.

You're shooting some that were born the year before, and then it almost becomes rare down the line. Like when you shoot a big turkey. It's a big spur. If you shoot a turkey with a big, long, inch-plus-sharp spur, he's three. You can shoot a hell of a lot of turkeys and not see that spur. Right. You know.

These things are just old as dirt yes i felt like shit we found out how old that bird was do you know the oldest one you want to tell it i found it too i looked it up i found it too just just since we killed i was close wasn't i on my guess yeah so the oldest sandhill crane known on record. So that means at least the oldest. No. Yeah, it was. I think it was. It was banded? Okay.

That's what I saw. 36 years, seven months. That's how old Custer was. It was originally banded in Wyoming in 1973 and founded in Mexico in 2010. 36 years, seven months. No wonder why it's so hard to hunt these things. The average life expectancy is 20 like we read. So this was a young bird.

It was a young bird. They don't... That's amazing. How old do they sometimes get before they start breeding? I'm going to quit going hunting. Some birds will breed their second year. Some don't breed until seven years old.

That's like, you know, talk about a case-selected species. Now, a lot of people, when they eat wild game meat, they're always talking about how wild game meat tastes gamey. And older animals get gamey. Like, whatever the hell the word gamey means, that's a whole other conversation. As an animal gets older, its muscles are more exercised. Which would be the same with cattle.

Yeah. But the point I'm going to make is people who just eat meat from stores and restaurants seldom are eating animals. They're never eating animals more than two years old. Unless they're eating burger because then you get this old, sterile. Yeah, but it used to take seven years to run a dairy cow. They can run a dairy cow through way faster than that. They milk the guts out of a dairy cow in a couple years now.

They'll run it through all of her cycles that fast. Every drop of milk they would have gotten out of her in seven years, they get out of her out of them in three years. You don't eat many old animals. Chickens, those things are a few months old when you eat them. Six months for a meat chicken. And here you are. We just tonight were eating some bird that's old. I killed a bear that was 17 years old one

time. That's old. I felt bad about that because I wasn't, I mean, I was older than that at the time. I wasn't held up, you know, I felt bad. I don't know why, it just, like it bothers me a little bit, but at the same time, it's like like you're also going, okay, there must not be a huge amount of predation on them and a huge amount of hunter mortality because they wouldn't be all living that long. Right? Yeah. And one more point to make,

and then I'm going to be done talking about it, and you guys can talk about some stuff. When you look at why elk gets so hard to kill on public land or whatever, because I always used to say like, oh, yeah, you got a cow elk, like why elk gets so hard to kill on public land or whatever, because I always just say like, oh yeah, you got a cow elk. She's nine years old. She spent nine years watching hunters try to kill them.

You know, and they don't forget everything, right? And so they have like this, a herd has this sort of institutional knowledge where you got a bunch of cows, lead cows are old and they've just seen all this happen a herd has this sort of institutional knowledge where you got a bunch of cows, lead cows are old and they've just seen all this happen a bunch of times before, you know?

And they know like they know a fake cow call and they know to go the other direction. And now here you are trying to fool some birds with excellent eyesight. And you got some of these dudes flying around. They've been doing this. They've been playing this game 20 years. And you wonder like why they keep fl You wonder why they keep flaring. Why they keep flaring. Is it because of

this? Is it because of that? You got a dozen birds flying across the sky. How many years of group experience are in that dozen birds? It is very similar to catching a tarpon. Tarpon live 50 years sometimes and

have just seen so many flies flies so many lures cruising those you know flats guy after guy after guy and when you finally pull it off and make it all happen it's a special thing and it kind of felt like that this week you know we were it took us four days to really kind of dial in our program to figure out how to get it it took us four days before we were tricking cranes. We were killing cranes by sky blast past you. I don't want to imply that it was a learning experience.

Because some things went wrong the first couple of days. It was more of a logistics. It wasn't. You were adapting your strategy to people trying to film a hunt. And you know it worked. We went back to the basics of how I usually hunt. I was trying to, I was, you know.

Changing shit up. Changing shit up. Finding the best cover and hide. We had eight people. When you tell me on the way home or at the pond, when you go out with just like another guy, you'll just grab a big tumbleweed and haul down in a ball. Yeah, one of them.

Anywhere. And just sit there. Like. Anywhere. No. Yeah, one of them. Anywhere. And just sit there. Anywhere. No nothing. So we come out here, but we're like, well, no, it's got to be eight people, big-ass cameras. Right.

And the camera can't be down under a tumbleweed because it's got to be up filming. It's got to be propped up. It's got a big lens. And a lot of times you're looking at the sun and all this stuff. I'm not trying to criticize your crane hunting abilities. No, I know. I know that.

I'm saying, so we eventually got to, we didn't fool a crane. Camera can do that. Not because we were like learning how to hunt cranes. We didn't fool a crane until today because we were learning

like weather was an issue, but also just like how are we going to do this and like film the thing. Yeah. It was a learning curve. It was a learning curve with incorporating the

camera crew factor and the number of people and the interaction between number of people and camera because I've taken out well I guess seven was the most I've taken out no actually eight so I've done eight people before once and we did not limit

but you probably had them scattered around you didn't have two or three in a group like we have to have with this. And actually, it was the last weekend of the season, and so they were educated. Even worse. Well, you know how we really wound up helping is we got into a ditch row. Yeah. Like a ditch row between two fields.

Where they wanted to be. Yeah, they wanted to be there, but here in a ditch row, we had thick vegetation to hide it. But notice how you and I were just out in the middle of nowhere. Yep. And we were hidden. Nothing flared. But you were in pretty heavy cover.

We wound up having like a great— That's what I mean. You were in brushier cover. You were in good heavy cover. It was cover that we gathered and went out into the middle and put it on us. We could have done that. If we were 30 yards over, we would have been in bare stripped kind. We would have been the same.

No. Yes. I don't even care how crazy you killed. It can't be the same. So you think you could have gone out in the winter wheat field? No. Wheat's the only difference. Okay.

That deep green, no. Early season naive birds, yes. But you don't have much time with that. That's the only difference. Really? Well, you're a guest on the show, so I don't want to take your test too bad. Well, that's fine. Do it. I'll step up. Okay, so let me ask you this.

Sure. Why were the birds spooking in the Milo field so bad? The first day? Or second day? To be honest? First day, too. Of course I want you to be honest. It was hard

for some of the newbies to stay down and stay covered. Here's the problem. Don't mention any names. You might embarrass some people. I know. There's only two shooters in the problem. And it's a very... Don't mention any names. I'm not going to. You might embarrass some people. I know. So here's...

There's only two shooters in the movies. Not saying it was shooters or cameramen. That's true. But there's a general consensus that, well, wait, I'm wearing camo. I blend in. That's bullshit. I don't think anybody thought that.

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they feel you could sit up a little bit and you can't. If you saw me, yesterday, I didn't pay attention as much today because I wasn't in the field as long yesterday. You and I, we were laying flat on our back, head on the ground. Yep. And that's what you need to do.

We were laying on the bosom, the bosom of the earth. Yes. Nobody was doing that except for me. And, and, you know, Ed did it a little bit. He's, Ed has done it a couple couple times. But even he got sore. He was running through the decoys at first line. Yeah. Go on.

That's why. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but there's a certain guy gets daylight out, big old group cranes coming. I see a guy basically running through the field like a lunatic. That was me. I don't want to say who it was. It was me. Nine out of ten to say who it was. It was me.

Nine out of ten times at work. You were just there. He didn't have his crane suit on. I was trying to cover all the bases, all the, you know, okay, what happens if this happens? I was trying to dig a second, another pit in case we had to move. Which you don't believe in. I don't.

I don't want to do pits, and we abandoned pits. Okay. But we committed to pits. And so if you're – shit or get off the pot. We committed to pits, so I'm going to go all the way. And, yeah, that was my fault on that first group of cranes. I'll admit it. But I'm confident.

No, that's fine. But your point is well taken. But the problem – We need to stay down. It's movement. The problem was it was not the bare dirt or the tumbleweeds or anything. It was people not staying down. They were seeing our brand-new camo or even the old camo.

It does not look like the bottom. They're seeing this stuff day in, day out. They have that extra rod cell or cone cell. I don't remember my basic biology. They can see exponentially more colors than we could even imagine to see. That was the problem. I promise you. I will take you hunting.

Me and you will go tomorrow, lay in the middle of a cotton field with tumbleweeds. What are you going to do for clothes? I'll go naked. I'll wear white. Whatever you want. But I will hide enough that they won't see through the tumbleweed. If they see anything of me. I'm not totally rejecting what you're saying.

I think it could be true. I think that they could see fabric. Definitely. And I think the fabric, you might think like, oh, this fabric is blunted. And it might be that they're flying over and you're like, what in the hell is that? So where's Waldo? Like imagine you like, you can see through a window but if i lay a window down in a big field and you're flying over you can be like that's a sunbitching window

out in the field you saw the bibs i had on last two days yeah those shadow grass the pattern was absolutely perfect for what we were in they were too damn bright i needed to go roll around in the damn playa and get muddied up but i was pulling i kept the idea i kept pulling i did reject that idea but i kept pulling the native vegetation what were you doing then out there in the playa on your back when you're i was trying to muddy i was wondering that myself you were filming it was the crane was a crane dance he's like to bring him in oh stop don't film that no but i mean that's a pattern that was perfect for the vegetation we were in, but it was way too bright.

Way too bright. I don't want to beat this whole KFL. No, I got to beat this up one part. I got a part two. Wait, wait. Go ahead. But where we were, there was a big mud pit hole playa. There was nice tall grass all over.

It was a ditch. It was a pond of some sort. Okay, anyway, there was water. Is that a playa? I don't know what a playa is. It was a ditch. It was a pond of some sort. Okay. Anyway, there was water. I don't know what a playa is. It's a ditch row. All right. So there was water in there.

Okay. And beyond that was a bunch of white old hay bales, the plastic sheathing from hay bales all over the place. Why didn't that bother the cranes? Because it's there. They were used to it. It's been there, and because those pieces of garbage. But if we went to that field the other day, the first field,

and we'd all just laid in white suits. But it wasn't there. Ron, what did that first field look like? It didn't have all that shit laying around in there. If you look at that place. I understand that. There was an old propane tank. There was a bunch of.

But at first time. There was all kinds of stuff there. They've been looking at that field for 20 years. Exactly. They have. They've been looking at that field for days now. At least days. Weeks.

But. Years. What was the day that the cranes all of a sudden decided the white's okay? Because they're accustomed to it. No. They already flared it. No. Because look at this. You got to think about this. You already have an animal. We know for a fact. What day did the crane decide not to's okay? Because they're accustomed to it. No, they flared it. No, because look at this.

You got to think about this. You already have an animal. We know for a fact. What day did the crane decide not to flare? He's 11 years old. Right. He was tagged in Fairbanks, Alaska. I think it's a shame.

He's made, okay, whatever it is. It has managed to stay alive for 11 years, flying from Fairbanks, Alaska to Texas. And got tripped up by white plastic on the ground. Don't try to do the flippant trivial bullshit with me. That thing's 11 years old.

You're telling me it can move from Fairbanks, Alaska to Texas back and forth and do it 11 years and not get killed, not run into something, whatever. But that son of a bitch can't get a basic sense, a basic spatial sense of what is where in its habitat.

Sure can. I think that if you had taken a propane tank out to the first field we hunted in, how big was that propane tank? Standard. 500 gallons. Yeah.

Okay. If you took that out into the milo field where we first hunted and plopped it down there, I think the cranes would have flared from that propane tank because they've been feeding in this area

and all of a sudden, that's not the way it is. Also, these milo fields are very uniform. It's like strip of vegetation, dirt. Strip of vegetation, dirt. And these things are a quarter section, a half section, big. Can I interject?

No. Well, go ahead and finish. It looks like someone dropped a couple 500-pound bombs. So you said that? Yeah. On day two. It looks like someone dropped a couple bombs out here in this field. Where did the exposed dirt end up?

On my pit, it was on a berm immediately in front that was covered in Milo stuff. Yeah, but I think the berm's stupid. The berm's up in the air. If you were hunting jackrabbits, the berm would be a great idea. You think they could see three dimensions? Tell me not to do that kind of... Look, what if the farmer kills?

I'm hiding my phone next to this beer. Now I'd be like, oh yeah, he'll never see my phone because my beer's in the way, but when my finger's up here, the beer don't matter. But it's not a beer. It's dirt in the middle of a dirt field.

It's just piled. Fresh mounds of dirt in a uniform field. I see what you're thinking. If I took a sheet of yellow lined paper, if I took a sheet of yellow lined paper and put a quarter on it, you'd be like, you see anything wrong with this yellow lined piece of paper?

You'd be like, yeah, there's a damn quarter on it. It's a night and day difference. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I want to tell you. Hold on. Let me. Let's make one more point and move on. One more.

I want to make a point. So here's what. This is going to suggest strongly that you're wrong. There's no such thing as proof. I'm not even going to counter. I don't know what it is. I will not counter it. Oh, he's on the defense. You can tell he's scared'm not even going to counter. I don't know what it is. I will not counter it. Oh,

he's on the defense. You can tell he's on a roll. He's scared. Okay. I'll call it. Listen, please do when the outfitters go out that can spend, uh,

their entire working day doing this. So basically this is their life. What they'll do is they'll make 300 of these stuffers that I have and spend more time than I do. What they'll do for a blind, in the middle of a milo field, they'll take this 15-foot long, 4-foot deep, 4-foot tall grass, build that morning with, you know, because they break it down and put it in their truck, their trailer, and put it up every morning.

Flip open lid like you'd see a duck blind that you make permanently. And the birds suck in because there's so many decoys. They don't give a shit about that new pump. It's a new. Thank you very much, Michael. You're welcome. Thank you. Appreciate your.

Go ahead, Steve. Oh, okay. I thought so. I thought so. No, no, no. Next topic. I promised you I wasn't going to counter. Then you said you would.

You would. No, please. What do you have to say for that? What I'm saying is the little berm that was 18 inches high, covered in Milo stalks that are also covering the rest of the field, did not flare. It was people in their fabric. I promise you.

Okay. I have a counter for you. And we only had two dozen decoys. If we were the same way, exactly the same way we were the first two days, and we dropped out 600 crane decoys, you think those birds would have flared on us? We'd have slayed them. Both days. Day one, it was not us flaring them.

Day one, it was somebody had hunted the field illegally the day before. Yeah, there weren't that many birds. And I didn't know until... The day that they were flaring on us then. On fabric or berms or whatever it was. We just slaughtered them. If they were flaring on us, if we had 600 decoys out... Slaughtered them.

That's a good question because there's competing variables here. There's always more than one variable. I think we just slayed them. Let's talk about your decoys. Sure. Hold on. One quick thing I just want to drop in because we were on this old bird, and it's like Fairbanks, Alaska to Lubbock, Texas.

Sounds like a long ways. Actually, we didn't talk about that. We didn't say where it was. Yeah. Oh, we didn't? Yeah, you did. I actually bet on the field. It's right next to the Fisher game office.

No, but we didn't talk about this today. Yeah, we did a little quickie. You gave a little date on it. That's where it was abandoned. We got that, right? Where it was abandoned? No. Okay.

Anyway, whatever. I just said he went back and forth 11 times for Fairbanks, Alaska. Yeah. Anyways, it sounds like a far way. Just so everyone knows, it's 3,763 miles. Oh, yeah. He's just some dumbass bird. He don't know what's the what

Hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada And boy my Goodness do we hear from the Canadians Whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes And our raffle and sweepstakes law Makes it that they can't join Our northern brothers Get irritated

Well if you're sick of you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it,

be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet.

Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Okay, I got a text back from Brant about bands and about percentages. Historically, it was around 40% that have been reported. But it's come up to around 70% with the toll-free number. Of the birds that they put a band on, they get them back.

Now it's up to 70% because there's a website on the band and there's a toll-free number. It varies a lot by location. Alaska, it's still below 50%. Did you notice that bird was so damn old there's no website on the band? That band looked like a whole pre-website stuff. The metal was actually starting to deteriorate at the bottom end. It was really wrong.

Either way, it's some of the word. And it had that old clip on it. That's right. You know what? Yeah, that's an old band style. You know, I saw that clip and thought it was odd. I didn't even think it's because it was so old. I knew it was old.

Because it was so worn on the bottom. The metal shop. Some guy with an anvil and thought it was odd. I didn't even think it's because it was so old. I knew it was old. Because it was so worn on the bottom. Metal shop. Some guy with an anvil and a coal fire. Like take the bird into the shop. Forging. Forge it on there, man. They only got two birds banned in a year back then. So we killed one of the two birds.

So the decoys. In field hunting, people will use typically rags, which can be just like a piece of fabric. For snows, it used to work for, before they got wise to it. Yeah, people just put white stuff, white rags out in the field. Now we do all these things, then there was like silhouettes we basically that's what we used to use when i was a kid to hunt canada geese we tried to you like cut out the silhouette of a goose and put it on a stick and put it out the field socks which would be like rag decoys we tried to use it and use silo socks which is a silhouette head with a sock body

then people will have shells which is basically like the top half of a bird you just lay down. You'll have freestanding whole geese with legs. Mike is making... What are you guys whispering about? Scylla socks. I never thought... I wondered why they call them scylla socks.

We didn't put two and two together. That's genius. I'm like, boom. It's like when I realized what a pool shark was. What is that? Oh. It's when you lose your money. Yeah, same aha moment.

Same thing. Anyways, let's go ahead. It feels good by hand and by toe, man. Yeah. So, Mike makes his own crane decoys. This is a whole interesting thing about birds and Ronnie can poo poo this

as being just a bunch of horse pucky but Mike skins his cranes and then explain the process he reforms the cranes skin into a decoy

now not everyone of course. I mean, they take, you know, when it's all said and told, each decoy takes just under an hour to do. From dead bird to decoy. Dead bird to decoy. All right, tell the process how you do this. Okay, so it's not like an assembly line process. You know, I start with,

I'll cut a whole bunch. So each, each decoy has a couple two by four blocks in it. Now I'm not saying this is the best way to do it. No, start with skin of the bird. Okay. Like here, a crane falls out of the sky dead. Well, that's what I'm saying though.

Cause I don't start there. I prep, I do some prep work. So that I, so I'll start, you know, if I know I want some prep work. So that I, so I'll start, you know, if I know I want to make 10 decoys or something, I'll prepare 10 steel stakes that are going to be the neck or at least form the neck. Cut the blocks,

you know, gather the, you know, size screws that I'm going to use and, you know, put it all, like make a decoy making kit basically. Yep.

Then the season starts. Ideally, I do it before the season. Didn't this year because I had an unexpected issue with Dermacid beetles. But so now let's start in the field. Shoot a bird. To start, I only use the biggest cranes. So whether it's a greater or lesser, I mean, you can get a big lesser, but generally they're going to be graders.

And so if it's in good shape, meaning it's not all beat up from your shot, I skin it, salt it pretty well. Leave his own legs on. I do. I leave its own legs on. How far do you skin the wing out? As far as you could. Basically, as far as you could until it's just where you can't go anymore, but you can still slip some loppers in there to cut through that bone.

And so there's actually – there's always a little bit of meat tissue left there and then brain tissue because, you know, if you're going to do a museum prep you would skin out the entire skull but that would make the brains out three times as long so i just cut it as close to the skull as possible and as close to the wings as possible um and i leave the head so that neck i i invert it you know so it's like an inside out yeah it's called tube skinning oh okay or case skinning all rightout sock. It's called tube skinning. Oh, okay. Or case skinning. There you go. That's how you skin me, Musgraves. Didn't know that.

You salt that. I use salt. Borax would probably be more effective, but it's more expensive. I do it on the cheap. We wouldn't have Magitar. He has a deep cloth. He calls them stuffers. I call them maggots. You guys call them zombies. I was offended. He called them stuffers. I call them maggots. Well, you guys called them zombies.

I was offended. In the nicest possible way. No, I'm just kidding. So yeah, and you reformed the thing. So skin it, salt it, and then generally the next day, if it works. If you wait longer than that, depending on the temperature, a little bit, but the neck starts to harden. Yeah.

And it's not as malleable. And so ideally, it's the next day. Then I nail two 6-inch 2x4 blocks together, staple that steel rod that I had cut, maybe probably a 24 to 28-inch steel rod, staple it to the top of those 2x4s, shove it up the neck. Then I put some pillow stuffing, synthetic stuffing.

I actually use cotton that I've gathered in the field, again, when times are tough. This stuff on the side of the road, of course. So then you kind of, and all that does, you put it on the side of the 2x4s, and so all it does is makes the decoy wider. Yeah.

And then you kind of fold over the skin flaps and staple it to the edges of those 2x4s. Because it doesn't matter if there's 2x4 exposed at the bottom. Nothing sees the bottom. So you skin it over. Could I add one thing? Yeah. Basically, in case someone's not getting what he's doing, he's basically playing taxidermist.

Yes. Not nearly the quality. Low-rate, cheap-ass taxidermist. Yeah, if you want a taxidermist, call me. On a mass scale. You would not want to pay for these birds. No, some people might. Come on.

Help me out. There's a couple of them that don't have foam coming out of their mouth like they're vomiting. There might be a cheaper scape. Hey, it's my secretion of... have foam coming out of their mouth. They look like they're vomiting. There might be a cheaper scape. Hey, it's my secretion of fog. They're eating kind. In your defense this morning, when the fog lifted, I'm like, there's some birds. There's some birds standing in the field.

And I'm like, oh, those are the stuffers. He didn't tell me that. That's awesome. Yeah, he thought they were real. Because there was so thick of fog oh shit oh that's where we put the stuffers we had a couple

cranes land in the decoys and I kept laughing about that crane landing walking around hey these cranes are all dead or they're just

boring wake up guys well you guys alright let me go send for a medic you have a crane coming with a red

cross on its wing. Coming in with a fanny pack. That crane is like, hey, buddy, there's a maggot. You got maggots coming out of your eye. What's going on with you guys? But they work. But here's what I want to get to. Do you want me to finish up with the crane making

or just decoy making or well I'm just worried about time because I want to get to I want to get to so basically you use great stuff you taxidermy you taxidermy him

yeah but Robert Abernathy a friend of mine who's a was a biologist and did a lot of work

with turkeys, he makes decoys, similar process, but he just plucks a turkey, then buys a shitty turkey decoy, and then glues the real turkey's feathers onto the turkey decoy. He made one of these, and he was saying that, I can't remember what it was.

Do you remember, Giannis? 31 or, he was saying like- Yes, it was somewhere up there. It was like he said can't remember what it was. Do you remember Giannis? 31 or he was saying like I think it was 31. He said 31 turkeys 31 male turkeys have laid their eyes on this decoy.

I have killed all 31 of them within some inches of the decoy. No way, really? Yeah. That effective? And he said, and we showed that decoy to number 32 and killed it.

Now, you can't fathom what a bird looks like when it sees. I remember a guy was talking about a bird in the jungle and the iridescent color on that bird. And they're trying to figure out like, what do birds see when they see other birds? And he said, it might be akin to what that bird sees when he sees a member of his species through the jungle, which just just seems like green

and there's flitters of movement. He said, it might be like what you see when you see a lightning bug. It's like, you don't know what that thing sees when it sees it, sees it. And there's something about the coloration and the iridescence in those feathers, says Abernathy, that when he sees a turkey decoy, he's like, oh, that resembles a turkey decoy. But there's something about when he sees those feathers. It's like, I'm not wondering what that is. I know that that's what that is.

It's some combination probably of shape, position, iridescence. But we can't just assume that like, when we look at a camel pattern and be like, oh, it blends right in. You just don't really know what they're seeing. Yeah. How they judge, like how a bird in the air says, oh, that's my kin. And how other times when a bird in the air says, oh that's my kin and how other times when a bird in the air just goes

I'm coming in no matter what or your antelope or your antelope hunt and all of a sudden you think that antelope thinks we're an antelope and he's coming you know what I mean, and you're shooting at him and he's still coming because he's like he's screwed up, he's got it in his head, he sees something but the decoys

I think that those decoys work and I feel like today the birds that approach those stuffers, the maggots, zombies, stuffers, like the looks of those decoys. Yeah, they work.

I don't think they like the other ones that much. They still suck. They didn't even get that far. Well, I saw some committed kind of flare from the decoys. I mean, some people do well with Sillow Sox. I'm sure they do. Well, but I think the Sillows would get them close. They can see them.

But I don't even think they were seeing them today. The day before, they were coming in and flaring around them. That's why we kind of sat outside of them. Because the way they were flaring over them, they gave us really close passing shots. Earlier we had birds land in a spread that included maggots and silos. Silos.

It is typical, actually, to get birds landing in the decoys. That's pretty common. Not that we're letting them go to land. It's just sometimes they come from a direction we didn't expect them. You were saying you were like everyone from the east today and you could all of a sudden just,

well, those ones that went over some friends of ours. Yeah, then they watched them. I had some point I was going to make about the, oh, and you were saying like an opening day, they might pile in. But at this point, we're into, they've been getting shot at for a couple months. Yeah.

So they might be getting a little bit. And also, the other thing is, you don't know what trip they're on. Like, we talk about this sort of institutional knowledge about these birds that are alive so long. You don't know what happened to them an hour ago. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

That's a good point. You call us the bird at 11 o'clock, you flourish from a decoy. Oh, what happened to them at 10 o'clock? You could have been shot at by them. Were you getting shot at by some dude? You know what I mean? You just don't know. It's like, you don't know what kind of trip they're on, what they've been Oh, what happened to him at 10 o'clock? He could have been shot at by a guy. Was he getting shot at by some dude? You know what I mean? You just don't know.

It's like you don't know what kind of trip they're on, what they've been doing, what they've been seeing. Why do sometimes elk freak out, sometimes elk don't freak out? Did a guy just shoot at him? And how much does it matter what that lead bird does? Yeah. I mean, is it a lead cow? Two today, we were going to get the trucks and a bunch of geese.

Yeah. We had some geese decoys trucks and a bunch of geese. Yeah. We had some geese decoys out. A bunch of geese came over. And the one. A fraction, a third of those geese. Five or six on that edge. Yep. Really wanted in.

I saw it. Split off and started circling. Like they were like, oh, let's go lay out those other geese. And there was some geese going. And you could see this little group of geese going through this like don't do we i don't know they're not guys wait wait wait wait in the end they're like shit they went and tried back up with the group and that's because their mom was up there yeah get your ass back up here it was the edge birds that wanted to the lead birds didn't yeah they can't and they won the the argument

have they proven that do the older birds really lead? Do they know that? With elk, absolutely. With elk, for sure. I'm not sure. You'll see. I have a friend that shot the lead bird of a group of like 100 and he said it was

tough as nails. Suggesting it was old. Old bird, yeah. But I don't, I haven't read the literature. With elk, I've seen where you'll have a calf.

You'll be like putting the moves on a group of elk and a calf will bust you. And the calf will jump and start it. No other elk cares. Cause it's like a boy crying wolf. They're like,

yeah, he don't know what he's doing. You know? And sometimes if elk so much as picks up her ears, the whole herd is like, what, what, what is it?

What is it? You know? Well, and if you happen to shoot the lead cow, I experienced this. She must've been the lead cow cow because they all just stood there. They didn't know what to do. They found there's these guys studying these vervet monkeys

and how they have a little bit of a language. They have a call for predator in the air. They have a call for predator in the tree. They have a call for predator on the ground. They recorded a monkey vocalizing a threat and it started playing the recording of the monkey vocalizing the threat to his troop all the time eventually it got to be where if this monkey vocalized a threat the monkeys didn't care really because they burned him out with the recording. He lost his credibility.

Boy, he cried wolf. Yeah. People were like, see the little eagle up there? Dumbass. That's interesting. I see that every day. Then the eagles moved in. Yeah.

That's what's good time. The eagle moves in. No, I'm serious, man. All right. How did you get the hint of the stuff I want to talk about? Can we keep going? No, I don't want it to be too long. Can I ask a question?

Please. So back in, what was it, Mike? Maybe 2008, I started hunting with you. Was it now 14? I think it was about 2008 when I joined faculty at texas tech and we got to know each other and started hunting i've never hunted cranes a day in my life and we went out and i thought this was the coolest thing i've ever experienced and i really i've been coming back every year to hunt with you i'm just kind of curious of ronnie

and you guys want to share what you thought of the experience i just i think it's one of the funnest things i've ever done i think it was was fun, but I'm so addicted and connected to my dogs. I would rather be working with my dogs. I know Ed was lucky to bring his dogs and got some retrieves, which every hunter likes to do that. But if I've got so many hours a year I can spend in the field, I'd rather spend it with my dogs but I do a fair amount of crane or not a fair amount of goose hunting tiny bit of duck hunting

I really enjoy that I really enjoy it but it's not like what you're saying I came down here and I thought it was like it was just a I'm a social hunter Steve knows me for a hundred years yeah if I wouldn't hunt if it wasn't for friends and a dog. So he said, you got to go hunt for, I'm going to go to McDonald's. I'm not going to go hunt for my food, but I love hunting. I love being with my dogs and my friends. And so it was a great trip for that, but it wasn't like the

end all and be all. I've been just as excited with Canada's coming in or a duck coming through the trees. Just as excited. It was neat because it was a bird I never shot before. That was the neat part. We learned a lot. Oh, yeah.

About all kinds of stuff. Now, the whole time, I knew this was going to be kind of the cap on my hunting season. In a couple days, I have to go get a vasectomy. What? Yeah. Then my wife's having a baby in a couple weeks because you didn't get a vasectomy.

I didn't get one. I was going to get it. And now I'm going down. Now I'm definitely going down there. So I'm done hunting for the fall. And during this whole fall, I was doing what I consider my personal special to be or what I like to do is I like to hunt in the big game in the mountains. I like to backpack hunt.

And that can get miserable.. It can start to feel like just a tremendous amount of work. It's like a ton of work. Before, you kill something, then it's really a lot of work. It's just like misery. The whole time, I was like, man, when we go on that crane hunt, it's going to be gravy. But it's

not, man. Field hunt is hard like 3.30 wake up. You you're on the field hours before daylight who if you're digging pits hauling gear or setting up 600 decoys you just it's just like i'm just saying it's like it's not like field hunters are just like some lazy dude it's an early bird gets the worm kind of game when it daylight, you got to be dialed in, truck parked, half mile away, decoys out, everybody hidden, ready to rock. It's like an early riser.

They got that same kind of drive and desire you do to climb a mountain. Oh. They're out there. Remember we were talking about the guy who wanted to get out at, like, what? Pick up at 2 in the morning? Yeah. Like, what? 2?

Why don't we just go there now and not watch yeah like two i'm still at the bar at two right no it's hard it's like hard work and i was out there and i was thinking people that get good at this you know are hard workers yeah it's like you gotta work because they're not hiking up a hill just Just how much time you spend. But we are at other times. Oh, yeah. I mean, I love. Yeah, but I mean, field hunting, it's like a serious thing. It's a serious discipline. I think you got to stay on it. You have as many things floating through your head to hunt cranes.

You have as many bits of information coursing through your head. As you do up in the mountains. Maybe more. Yeah, I mean, there's more little things, more little factors are swirling through your head to field hunt for cranes, I think, than at least as many as any other kind of hunt I can think of.

You might be right, but you're probably right in the fact that because he's gauging over like thousands or let's just say hundreds of kills, you're gauging your own hunt after maybe two bear kills or hundreds of kills. You're gauging your own hunt after maybe two bear kills or three elk kills. So he's got all that other

data and it's like, was that day like that? Was this day like that? Yeah, exactly. So you're right. I think you're absolutely right. There's even more stuff going on in his head trying to get this thing set up. Yeah. Because no one shot a thousand elk. And then there's these days

when you just make every mistake possible. I'm joking. No, he was a guide. That one time I asked him how many elk kills he was in on or present for, and he thought it was upwards of 100, which is astronomical,

it's seeming to me. I don't think he's lying. It's just a lot. That's a lot of experience with an animal. A big game. I bet him $1,000 he hasn't seen 100 elks. It's just a lot. That's a lot of experience with an animal. A big game. I bet him $1,000 he hasn't seen 100 animals. You know what's funny?

Just to comment on that last statement you made. Yeah, so you're just going to sit there and take it in your brand new hat? Take what? Like him throwing out, like calling you a liar. All right, we got to wrap up. Yeah. Final thoughts, Ed? I'm not going to have a final thought.

Ed? I had a great time. Really glad you guys came down and got to wrap up. Yeah. Final thoughts, Ed? I'm not going to have a final thought. Ed? I had a great time. Really glad you guys came down and got to experience it. I do want to have a final thought. I had a phenomenal time. I learned so much. Final thoughts, Mike? Cool.

You know, I just want to finish that thought. You know, even cranes will make mistakes. And it's not like, you know, the individuals will. But I've had days when you shoot a limit and it was easy. They just wanted to be in that field so bad. You're packing up decoys and they're still flocking in with you. And you're like, wait a minute, crane hunting is so easy. Like this day it was. Like they're landing like almost on you when you're standing up.

But what causes that? I don't know. Those days are very – That's like the mystery of dogs. Three or four of those days in all my hunting. But it doesn't make sense. That's why I don't understand people who like to bowl. Because the weather is the same.

The temperature is the same. The lane is the same. The ballway is the same. The pitchway is the same. They put them in the same configuration. It's like how can you not get a strike every time? Or at least eight every time. It's like, sometimes you can get 10.

Why can't you get 10 all the time? Because nothing changes. At least with hunting, every day is something new. Something different. No, nothing changes. It's like, I think if you took some real elite athletes and had them bowl, they'd get 10 every time. I think, I'm from

Chicago. We bowl like, I think you're full of shit. So anyways, you're right. That kind of stuff keeps you out there. Yeah. And then one last thing. Tell these guys how many pounds of crane sausage you made just trying to use the thigh meat. Just from the thigh meat. I'm not talking the drumstick, but just the thigh.

Because the breast, you don't corrupt them. Right. You just eat them. I'll do it a bunch of different ways, but you're right. I would never grind that. You don't make gumbo out of the breast of them. I hesitate to even – I don't even make jerky. A lot of guys do, and it's good, but I won't even make jerky out of it.

It's just too good. Yeah. It's like throwing it in a crock pot. A lot of people out there do that. But, I mean, you could throw anything in a crock pot for eight hours. Throw a shoe in a crock pot. And a lot of people out there do that. But I mean, you could throw anything in a crock pot for eight hours. Throw a shoe in a crock pot. Yeah. So anyway, to answer your question, I made last year,

and granted, these weren't only birds that I killed, but my friends don't say the thighs, so I take theirs. I made, I had 50 pounds of thigh meat. Crane thigh meat. Crane thigh meat. And then plus whatever pork I added to it. It'd be like a container like that. I want to wrap it up with that, ladies and gentlemen.

That's what I'm talking about. 50 pounds of crane sausage. Thigh meat. Thigh meat only. Meat Eater Podcast. Thanks for tuning in. We'll be right back. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada.

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