The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 097: Loose Ends

Episode Date: January 1, 2018

Seattle, WA- Steven Rinella reads and responds to listener email with Ryan Callaghan, along with Janis Putelis of the MeatEater crew.Subjects Discussed: hate mail, love mail, disappointed mail, and listener questions; turning loss and failure into a drive toward success; national monuments and wilderness designations; the Sabinoso Wilderness; bleeding fish, freezer aging meat and other important considerations; cooking caul fat and kidneys, and the original sous vide; and more.Help Steven out by heading over to www.podsurvey.com/meateaterto complete a brief survey. You could win a $100 Amazon Gift Card. 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.

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. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now 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. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

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. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by First Light.

Go farther, stay longer. This is an extra special Loose Ends episode. In fact, we're going to call it Loose Ends where we deal with hate mail. We don't get any real hate mail. Love mail. No, very little hate mail. Disappointed mail.

Outstanding questions, clarifications. My favorite, corrections. Where a dude will hear something outstanding questions clarifications the one my favorite corrections where a dude will hear something he's like man in any right and then takes the time to write in and tell you where you're wrong i love it but um there's two ways that it comes it comes as from a person who is like man man, you know, I want to contribute to the conversation in a constructive way.

And those boys should not be misleading people in this way. And I feel like I'm going to do my civic duty as an engaged listener and set the record straight. There's that guy, well, love. And there's like this other sort of feller who just has a ax to grind. Probably spends a lot of time on Facebook

writing mean messages to people. Right? First one. I'm bringing this one up just like, just got it today. Just came in today. What are you doing, Giannis? Making notes. Part of my job. This guy, here's what he has to say say my hunting buddy and i were watching your show while butchering a moose yesterday tom habib is this fella's name my

hunting buddy and i were watching your show while butchering a moose yesterday i'm already i'm already hooked i'm already engaged by this letter and he says we're chatting about the cast of characters that appear on the show and podcast i don't want to turn this into a if your favorite meat eater guy was a character from game of thrones harry potter whatever who would he be type of thing but there was one comparison that just leaped out at us especially after listening to the podcast under the bear encounter on a fog neck, which is called the meat tree part one and the meat tree part two, he says,

while Steve is the apparent protagonist and gets all the glory, it is 100% clear to us that he is merely the Frodo to Giannis' Samwise, i.e. the true hero of the story who just goes out there and straight up gets shit done is Giannis. So that's what this guy had to say. No. That was more just like a nice fan letter. That's real sweet of him to write that. Yeah, I'm going to give that to you.

Take that home. Can you sign that for me? Put that in your notes. Now. Can you sign it? I'm going to frame it. Lest Giannis get so full of himself. Lest Giannis get so full your notes. Now, can you sign it and I'm going to frame it? Lest Giannis, Lest Giannis get so full of himself.

Lest Giannis get so full of himself. Thanks, Tom. Did you just set Giannis up to just knock him down a peg or two? No, I swear to God. Okay.

It's on top. Oh, it's coming. Yeah, yeah, it's coming. No, it's on top of the heap. It's on top of the heap because I just printed it off this morning. All right.

Still hot. You can't see me, but I'm sitting here that fistful of of printouts what happens is these come into an account the contact if you go to like the meteor the meat eater.com and go to the contact thing you write a letter it like i get that on one of my accounts and i'll be like huh huh, if it catches my eye, I'll be like, huh, and I'll forward it to my regular email and there I will print it off and put it in this big giant pile of things I keep meaning to bring up.

Here's another one about Giannis. Gianni's going on and on and on about how there's no difference between a 30-06 and a 300 win mag. Particularly where a guy was saying, Yanni was saying, Yanni was talking annoyedly. That's not a word. But Yanni was, someone was saying, oh, on this hunt, it doesn't matter what hunt it was. He's like, on this hunt, 30-06 ain't going to cut it.

You need a .300 wind mag. And Yanni was going on and on about how there's really no difference. Because he's saying, what's the difference? Who really cares? If you have, it's a.30 caliber bullet, so it's

.308 of an inch. Weighs the same amount, so it's this projectile with a certain diameter, and this projectile has a certain weight, and it's going a certain speed. And he's pointing out that you have this set thing. You're talking about the same grain bullet, the same weight bullet, the same diameter, made of the same shit.

What's the difference if it's flying out of your gun at 3,100 feet per second or what, Yanni? Whatever, 28 or 29, a couple hundred feet. Or 2,900 feet per second. Yeah. As an addendum to this idea, I'll point out that when I was a kid, I was born at what I call the great awakening of the 30-06.

You guys lived in the shotgun area, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah, Michigan, there's a line at which there's a line across the state in the southern part of the state where if you live north of that line, you can hunt with a centerfire. You can hunt with a rifle. South of that line, you can only hunt with a shotgun or muzzleloader. Did you know that, Cal?

I did not. You mean you weren't aware of Michigan's shotgun-rifle line? No, I wasn't. Just how insular of a guy. Exactly. I'm not a well-traveled man. No, I wasn't. Just how insular of a guy. Exactly. I'm not a well-traveled man. There is such a thing. And a lot of our Midwest deer hunting states are shotgun only.

But you know what? I just saw a story about this. There's some new cartridge, some new rifle cartridge that you can now use in the shotgun area. Some giant, some crazy giant thing i'm not real familiar with some slow lobber right yeah you're allowed to use and uh 45 70 or something like that yeah but it is but not but something like that um so anyways prior like when i was born everybody had a 30 30 it was called it was known as a brush gun.

But then, and that's all everybody had. And then right around when I turned 14, everyone was going out and buying a 30-06. It was only like two guns that existed. You either had a 30-30 or you were anxious about getting your 30-06. Yes. I had never heard of most guns. When I moved to Montana, everybody had 270s and 300 wind mags like huh i was packing a 30 hot six probably soon after that's when the short magnum craze started right right about that was the first act yeah first gun i first non non old

gun that someone gave to me gun Gun I bought was a short mag. Another side note of this, .30-06, all the numbers and guns mean different things. Do you know what.30-30 means? Yeah. Well, originally, when it got its name, the first.30 is for.30 caliber,

and then the second.30 was for .30 grains of powder behind it okay 30 06 is 30 caliber come out in 1906 introduced in 1906 so it wasn't new in 1984 not the slightest well i got a little bit of a jump on the legal minimum shooting age and and uh got a little bit of a head start on that. But anyways, whatever year I had, I was still, I was shooting a 32 special, which was old time even compared to a 30-30. Yes, sir.

With a peep sight on it. It's a Winchester Model 94. Anyhow, this guy writes in to say, to take Yanni to task, he says, you guys talked about how the only difference between the 30-06 and the 300 wind mag is velocity, which is technically true. But the argument for the wind mag is not velocity for velocity's sake. I didn't print this guy's name off, which is bumming me out. For an equivalent bullet weight, what you're really gaining

with the 300 Win Mag versus the.30-06 is increased kinetic energy, which could loosely be correlated as stopping power. My old man during Whiskey Whiskey 2, World War 2, my old man said that

the sniper shot.30-06s. Yeah, true. He carried a Tommy gun. And he had a BAR, I believe, and a Tommy gun for a while. But he said that was the gun. So even back then.

I just don't want people to come away me thinking that somehow the.30-06 became cool in the 80s. He goes on to say what the formula for kinetic energy is. But here's the important part. Since you're squaring the velocity, so when you, okay, I will tell you the formula for kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is one half times mass times velocity squared. Yeah. Since you're squaring the velocity,

a moderate increase in speed provides more than a linear increase in energy. So using Yanni's 100 grain bullet as an example, a 300 wind mag throwing that 180 grain bullet at 3,150 feet per second is putting out 3,972 foot pounds of energy.

And the anemic little 30-06, Yanni's little 30-06, throwing the same bullet at 2,700 feet per second. So 450 less feet per second is a full thousand less pounds of kinetic

energy. A 17% increase in velocity yields a 37% increase in energy. A 17% increase in velocity yields a 37% increase in energy. There you have it. It's not the same. No. I've been carrying this piece of paper around, waving this piece of paper in Yanni's face for months.

Yeah. Wanting to bring this up. I want to go- Because- Oh, go ahead. Oh. Can I finish this letter? Yeah. Then you to bring this up. I want to go. Cuz. Oh, go ahead. Oh. Can I finish this letter? Yeah.

Then you can say what you got to say. Guy goes on to say, guy goes on to kind of wind, he winds up sounding a little bit like, like the eagle. Cause he goes on to say, that's the physics of it, but does it really matter?

Ask the smartest hunter you know how many foot pounds it takes to kill an elk. I think by that he means they're not going to know. More energy results in increased hydrostatic shock pressure, but good luck quantifying that as it relates to killing a large animal. There is a point of diminishing returns, and Giannis is correct to say that it is better to shoot a caliber you are comfortable with so you can make a good shot to the vitals. There is also the issue of too much energy and meat wastage.

Velocity is obviously also tied to bullet drop, but that's a separate issue that can be solved with practice in a range finder. Since the odds are good you guys already know all this. I just need an excuse to take a break from my yard work. Okay, now. Go ahead, Johnny. Well, I think

when I read that email earlier, I didn't catch those last two... Where he starts sounding like you? Yeah. That was just going to be my follow-up.

So you were going to say the same thing he said? Yeah. I appreciate the man's sign-off off that was well-written email there no he did a good job yep i didn't print his name off i'll look up his name any thoughts about that callahan you shoot a 300 win mag love the 300 win mag yeah the uh Yeah, the very similar, I mean, like the whole historic lineage of, this is a bigger argument than just when you break it down to the numbers, I feel like, because it kind of comes down to experience

and what you're comfortable with and what you've seen perform well in the field. And yeah, just the difference between growing up in Michigan and growing up in Montana it you had access to different things at different times and and like you talk about the 30 out six coming onto the scene and what that did for hunting and the availability of ammunition that wasn't really that great because it was all World War II surplus stuff. I don't think great for big game animals. But that could have made lifelong 30-06 fans and lifelong 30-06 opponents,

which leads you down the path to different calibers. And then there's the old like, well, it works for me. Which is hard to argue against. It's very hard to argue against, yes. Works for me. Okay. Here's a guy exactly my age.

He includes his age and he's exactly my age. His name's Brian. He goes on to say, It's been some years since I've really been out in the wilderness. Your thoughtful discussions with intelligent members of the hunting and fishing and wilderness management community have reignited that love of wilderness and wildness. I was especially impressed with episode 72, American Wilderness, which highlights how important wilderness is to our national identity and heritage. And that wilderness as untouched lands, in quote, untouched, is somewhat of a myth. We tend to these lands to manage them and maintain their wilderness character.

I'm reminded of something I read by Michael Pollan regarding wilderness. In his essay, The Idea of a Garden, from his book Second Nature, he addresses this idea of wilderness where he writes, this is Michael Pollael pollen writing at this point in history after humans have left their stamp on virtually every corner of the earth doing nothing is frequently a poor recipe for wilderness he goes on to say pollen goes on to say, Pollen goes on to write, the inescapable fact is that if we want wilderness here, we will have to choose which wilderness we want. An idea that is inimical to the wilderness ethic. Interesting bit of follow-up.

You guys don't agree so what this gentleman wilderness don't happen by accident anymore and your idea of i guess he's arguing the purity of wilderness yeah that is a managed landscape yeah yeah in our country's history i think we for a long time, we had wilderness in spite of our best efforts to get rid of it. And now we have some because of our best efforts to preserve it. That switch happened like around 1900. You know, it was around 1900. We like worked

and worked and worked and worked and worked to conquer it. And then we had this like awkward transitional period. And then we worked and worked and worked and worked and worked

to hang on to some of it. Right? Yeah, absolutely. Can't cut a road up there or I cut a road up there and the avalanches keep knocking the thing down so we're just not going to go up there yeah made a choice to just quit going up there yeah cutting it here's from a guy named richard now this one really struck a nerve with yanni this guy's saying this i've been hunting for the last seven years

and yet to close the deal on a deer so So seven years this feller's been at it. I never grew up hunting, but I've always been interested in it. I took up archery and rifle hunting when I turned 30. My first year archery hunting, I had a spike come in at five yards, but buck fever was so bad I could barely pull in time. Second year, I had a bad shot on a doe at 25 yards. I was crushed and then wanted to quit after that. So I gather he crippled up a doe and never found her.

I moved to Idaho a couple years ago. It's right in your backyard, Cal. Yesterday, I missed a deer at 200 yards. My elk season starts on Wednesday, and I'm having serious doubts as to whether I'm going to be able to do this. At what point do I call it good and just accept that I'm not good at it? I hate that I have spent countless hours and time and money pursuing this with very little to show for it outside of rabbits. I think if I quit without getting a deer elk,

it's going to bug me. My hunting buddies think I'm being too hard on myself, but am I? You said in one of your podcasts that you would quit hunting if it was no longer fun and there was no meat. I think I'm at that point. Not sure what should I do.

Should I press on? Richard. No meat and no fun. That'd be a good t-shirt. No meat, no fun. That is a great t-shirt. Like my daughter says, she says, well, yeah, we won't have a meal to eat,

but we'll have a story. Sounds like Richard's got a lot of stories. Are you truly not having fun, though? I mean, I've had some misery. Everybody here is, yeah, my God, the misery we could pass on to people if that were possible. But there was always something that comes out of that trip. Seven years?

Yeah, I know. It's a hell of a dry spell. Seven years. Yeah, but you know, I mean, there's so many places to go with this. He's a better human because of those seven years spent. And look, he doesn't say how many days a field per season he spent. I'm sorry, but Richard might only be hunting a couple three days you know maybe he needs to put in a month of archery hunting and then see where his luck stands you know um i mean

you can like national averages i haven't looked in a few years but you know the majority of the hunting population is getting a long weekend at the most is what gets recorded. So, you know, if this guy's getting out during archery and rifle season, he, you know, could be a week total, let's say. Yeah, or maybe he's hunted 14 days in his life. Yeah. Yeah, so. Yeah, the years doesn't really...

That doesn't really work that well. And I think he's only... You know, if he kills one this year on his eighth year, he'd be just a little bit less than like the national success rate, right? Because, I mean, we hover somewhere between like 10 and 30 percent

depending on if it's archery or, you know... You mean for general over-the-counter? Yeah, success. I'm going to come at it more practically. I think that like, I think that the guy just kind of got to have, he's a little bit of, I think you should stick with it.

I think he needs a little bit of success. I think the way to find that success, I don't know how he's sort of gauging what he's after, but I just have a real hard time thinking that in the state he lives in, if he goes out and carves out a week of time to go out with his rifle and he's committed to

shooting a legal deer, he's going to go spend seven days out in a general unit and get a nice less than 100-yard shot at a forky deer with his rifle that he's not going to be able to do that. I agree.

I don't care if you just I don't care what you know. If you can learn how to shoot at 100 yards and hit and just walk around in the woods and you have in mind that you find the legal deer a good shot at a legal deer,

and give yourself seven days, I don't think you're going to come up empty-handed. Yeah, I mean, that may be generous. I think our friend Richard is probably right at that cusp of doing one thing and being like, holy shit, it's that easy. It's all going to click. Yeah.

Stick with it. Yeah, I really don't. I don't know, man. Plus the whole idea of quitting, I just don't really get the whole quitting. Like, I quit one thing one time where I was always curious about chess. And my nephew sat down to explain chess to me.

And after about 15 minutes, I was like, never mind. Because once I knew that it would take that much just to be sucky, right? I didn't want to get involved in it. I thought it was like a little more complicated than checkers right sure but once i was like oh that's what chess is just never mind because i'm not gonna this isn't something i'm just gonna toy with i'm either gonna do it or not do it and i see now that i am not gonna like i'm not gonna devote like i don't have the time to figure this out to the degree that i would want to figure it out if i were to start dabbling right and and you're thinking that to you your fun comes when you're at least proficient at

something yes like i like to play, snacky squirrel with my kids. I'm able to play at a highly competitive level, and I have it dialed, so it's enjoyable to me. But chess wasn't going to be like sneaky, snacky squirrel. That's where you try to get all the acorns. Yeah, I guess I am very biased here, but I guess't under, if, I guess you got to ask if you are truly not having fun, which I just don't see as, as an actual possibility, unless this seven years has just been fraught with some series of, you know, God awful and unfortunate

events. Uh, went into the woods, house burned down, went into the woods, dog died, went into the woods. burned down went into the woods dog died went into the woods yeah um if you are truly not having fun yeah find yourself a different yeah if you're like you're out there and the sun's rising and you're like oh sunrise i hate seeing those yeah i hate nature. Who needs that? Damn birds chirping. Yeah, you should probably quit. But that's not what he wouldn't be writing in if that was the case.

Here's the thing, too, just as an inspirational point, I had a very bad pumpkin year in my garden. 2016 will go down as a bad pumpkin year. I came out of that wanting to become a pumpkin enthusiast. I've been reading up on how to grow world record pumpkins. So I'm taking like loss and failure and turning it into becoming a pumpkin enthusiast. I'm not writing letters to people about quitting growing pumpkins. I had

some stolen. The ones I did have were so small they were ridiculed by my wife and children. They went out and bought other pumpkins to carve. Like the pumpkins weren't good enough for them.

We ate one. Okay. Our them we ate one okay our episode wit fosberg episode 90 i think it was 90 really touched nerve i'm gonna read three pieces of feedback about this episode 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 a high-end 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 um you guys in the great white north can 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 hand-icked 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. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Maybe. Yeah, I'm going to read three pieces of feedback. Here's one. Here's one version of a way to take that.

What it was is Whit Fosberg from Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership reached out to us, or not reached, what am I saying reached out to us, came on the show and we did sort of a walk around the country looking at leading conservation issues around the country that affect hunters and anglers and fish and wildlife, or affect hunters and anglers through their impacts on fish and wildlife. And then talked about a couple other like perennial conservation issues that just never really go away. One guy says this to say,

thank you very much for it, guys. I love the wonky conservation talk. And he was very knowledgeable. Thank you for the work that you do with this podcast here's where it gets interesting i'm not a hunter i am a very stereotypically liberal person and a city planner but this podcast has helped me become better informed and now i actively support the hunters in my community. There's one way to take that.

Here's another way to take it. Really enjoy your podcast. I found it informative and interesting. I like the hunting stories, which are the best part of hunting. The historical info, like the history of the elk on the Kodiak Archipelago. And scientific information your guests have on the environment He goes on to say some other very kind things. Goes on to have an observation about feeling pressures that are on hunting and wildlife. And then goes on to, here's where he airs his grievance. This guy's named Vance.

And goes on to have some very valid arguments. And I feel his frustrations. Where he says, as usual, I noticed you had a new podcast today, episode 90. So I did my work. I plugged in the earbuds and started listening. I heard a person talk about a lot of various stats and facts on past and current game numbers and making sure access to public lands stay open, et cetera. Then over and over again, I heard this person repeat leftist talking points with no rebuttal

from you. Once this person made the statement that the U.S. should not have withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord, I had heard enough and ended my listening session. This told me this person was either foolish slash delusional or simply a hardcore unabashed leftist with no rebuttal from you. I have to assume you basically agree with this wolf in sheep's clothing. I obviously do not personally know Mr. Fosberg. I'm simply forming an opinion based on his own words. If these are the type of people you support, which I guess he means if I would support a person who has a personal opinion about that it was a mistake to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, then I will move

on. It makes your podcast into another media attack on people like me. Just be warned that a leftist like this guy, when the time comes, will cut the throats of hunters everywhere, given the chance. A couple thoughts there. One, Vance, really, like really going to stop listening. That is heartbreaking to me. If I stopped listening to everyone that said something I didn't agree with, I wouldn't listen and talk to you, Cal, you, Yanni, or my wife, or my kids. There would be no one at all I would listen to, and I would just have to separate myself from everyone I know.

Put your head in a hole in the ground. Put my head in a hole in the ground. Put my head in the hole in the ground because it is unavoidable that you will find a way to only hear things you agree with. So I just feel like you should reconsider if you're out there and you're apparently not, I feel like you should reconsider. The other part of it, and I see this quite often, where I find that like, you'll have a guy like Whit Fosberg who devotes his life to hunting and fishing. So that's what he did growing up. That's what he does now. He's devoted his life to hunting and fishing and was inspired by his love of hunting and fishing to advocate on behalf of fish and wildlife and there's like this thing that happens this sort of movement that happens often you hear like the green decoy thing or whatever where it's like people go like oh if you have some

viewpoints that are regarded as like a liberal viewpoint, then you don't really actually like hunting and fishing, even though that's all you've done your whole life. And even though your career is based on hunting and fishing, you don't actually like it. And you will cut the throat of hunters and fishermen first chance you get. It's like as though looking for the enemies of hunting and fishing, you have identified the people who like it most

to be the one who would betray. Whereas a guy that hunts and fishes and doesn't give a rat's ass about fish and wildlife habitat is somehow more trustworthy. I don't understand the perspective. I understand, um, what it's like to be annoyed by someone's viewpoint. Like if I'm talking to someone and they're telling me how they think that under no circumstances should there be capital punishment, for instance. And I'm like, man, dude, I totally disagree. I don't then be like, and you know what? I disagree and you're going to be the guy that turns your back on hunters and fishermen.

I just like, I don't see the correlation. Yeah, you know, something I like to bring up with that is that we hear that a lot about who, that these people would do this. And you would think if this was like a real thing that maybe over the course of history, over the course of hunters being conservationists we would have like an example and where these people could be like yeah remember so-and-so that's some bitch he hunted and fished his whole life he was just baiting the trap just baiting the trap and then

he did it he did this whatever cut the throats of hunting and fishing, and then he did it. He did this whatever. Cut the throats of hunting and fishing guys. However he did it, with some legislation or some rule or law or who knows what. But yeah, if you have an example of that, please email us. Because I'd like to understand it better. And we flirt around with political discussions all the time and the reason politics makes me uneasy is because i'm 50 real conservative and 50 real liberal depending on what part of things i'm looking at so i'm like completely alienated by politics there's virtually no

politician that i respect um because i'll no matter what disagree with half the stuff out of their mouth. Now, here's another guy that said something. Here's the kind of letter I really like. Here's a guy saying where Witt was wrong about something. So thank you for writing in. He says, enjoyed the last show. I used to do every episode to keep up the good work. But Witt Fosberg was incorrect when he said hunting is permitted in Maine

Woods and Waters National Monument. So the Cadidan National Monument, I think that's how you pronounce it. Is that how you pronounce it, Cal? Catahdin. Catahdin. You know, it's like one of those annoying names where you're like, no, it's Cherie. Yeah.

Tells me. Yeah. Stefan, not Steve. So he goes on to say, it is in fact prohibited in the majority, a small portion on the east side of the Penobscot river, I believe.

Now I went and checked on a map today and this guy's right. The bulk of that monument, you can't hunt. There's a handful of blocks east of that river that you can't hunt. So we were wrong. He says, as a registered Maine guide, I strongly oppose this. He goes on to say, I'm very supportive of conservation and preservation efforts with regard to this landscape.

He says, his opinion, the timber industry has decimated the forests of Maine. I say this as a former logger, maybe a future logger again, but as a hunter, I am deeply troubled by the loss of hunting access to this large area, especially when it provided the type of remote experience which is steadily disappearing in the northeast. For this reason alone, the monument does not have my support. On this issue, Ryan Zinke and I agree. Please correct this error and make hunters aware of the loss of this once great opportunity. We cannot stand to lose many more such areas. This guy's named Bill.

Bill, I totally agree with you, man. In any case, in any possible scenario, hunting and fishing, in my opinion, hunting and fishing should be allowed on national monuments. Not only, because I believe in extending hunting and fishing access wherever possible, just as a rule. But particularly with national monuments, because why deprive the, this is like the side thing. Why deprive the monument of that like the side thing, why deprive the monument of that level of engagement from the public? The best buddies you can have,

the best buddies you can have when it comes to wildlife management and land management is the hunting and fishing crowd. Stay on their good side. You will have, right now, we're having this big national debate about the legitimacy of monuments.

When having that argument and fighting that fight, you should have hunters and fishermen on your side. What was Katahdin Woods and Waters National national monument before it was a national monument that's not the place that was collection of public lands oh i believe there's a huge private inholding too oh is there isn't this the uh birds beeswax story i don't know trying to find out more quickly yep yeah well this fella's calling it a loss yanni keep checking it as we go we'll return to this idea in a minute i hate to think that jumped into this unprepared but i'm just doing mail we talked about this guy quitting hunting

oh here's a good one ready for this callahan yes sir this brings up two points you wanted to bring up or tease them up. This guy says, hey, I was just listening to this podcast and you were speaking about certain species of fish you need to bleed and others you don't. You brought up the fact that most of the species you bleed are red meat fishes. I believe the reason you bleed some species and not others is because of the types of muscles they possess. White flesh fish such as walleye and perch have muscle compositions of primarily anaerobic muscle because of the burst of motion swimming style they employ. Meaning, fish lays in the bottom, kind of chills, sees something he wants to eat, busts ass over there and grabs it real fast.

Then goes back and chills out. Like anaerobic bursts of energy. Salmon, on the contrary, possess primarily aerobic muscles because they participate in sustained swimming. Yeah,

like a salmon doesn't go lay on the bottom. In the ocean, he's like a pelagic fish cruising around all the time. This guy goes on to say the aerobic muscles require higher rates of respiration, which need a greater blood supply to the muscles. I'm not positive about this, but the correlation seems to be great. And the theories seem to be backed by what I have learned in my collegiate classes. Just food for thought. Now, this aerobic, anaerobic muscle thing is interesting because if you look at like,

think of game birds, all the game birds, you know, waterfowl, upland. Which ones have white flesh? Breasts. And which ones have dark flesh? Breasts. Cal? Yeah, well, pheasants, right? The ditch chicken. White flesh. Cal? Yeah, well, pheasants, right? The ditch chicken.

White flesh. Classic white meat bird. Chills out and has an occasional explosive flight. Rough grouse. Chills. Occasional explosive flight. Dark meat. Not dark dark.

Not like a goose. All those upland birds are kind of in this category. Ptarmigan. A little darker. It's a spectrum. Sure. But it's... A little dark.

Ptarmigan are a little darker. No difference in behavior. Yeah, but what I'm talking about is this. I'm talking about uplands and waterfowl. To talk about aerobic, anaerobic. Waterfowl. Oh, yeah. So waterfowl.

Snow goose breast. Very dark. This guy will get up, and he's going to cover hundreds of miles in a single flight. Sustained flight. Dark, dark meat. Yes. And think dark meat. Yes. And think about a wild turkey. Where's the dark meat on a wild turkey?

On the legs. Yeah. Yeah. Up on his feet, wandering around all the time. Yeah. White breasts. Short bursts of flight.

Yeah. Now, here's a weird deal. You look at a sage grouse, I think on a sage grouse, his thighs are lighter than his breast. So I don't think it's a universal principle, but it is interesting. And just to bring it back around to the fish thing,

I think that there's something to it. I have grown up fishing freshwater in the Great Lakes, right? I never once met a guy who bleeds walleye or bleeds perch or bleeds bluegill. Yeah. You know, and then most guys, anyone that knows anything bleeds salmon. And you and I ripped a couple gills on rockfish just because. Just out of habit.

And there's nothing happens. You know what my brother said? I was asking my brother Danny who's a fisheries biologist about that. Rockfish has such a slow metabolism.

That's what, yeah. Has such a slow, sorry, has such a slow, like, slow, low flow, blood flow blood flow.

Yeah. That when you bleed them, it doesn't force any blood out. Yeah, super small heart moves very slow. Yeah, because they're living to be 120 years old. You know, there's an idea about animals that's kind of like roughly is like a heart is good for so many beats. You have a finite amount of beats? Yeah. So you want to like, how long is a mouse?

Like what's a mouse's heart rate? Like mammals. Okay. What's a mouse's heart rate? Very high. And how long does it live? Very short. Very low lifespan.

Yeah. So there's this idea that like a heart's good for so long how long you live is like how long it's going to take you to suck up the heartbeat how long is it going to take you to use up your allotted quantity of heartbeats and then why is it being kind of interesting when you look at heart rates and life expectancy of different mammals and our friend here is getting an extra beat every now and again. Yeah, and Yanni's burning through it even faster because of his problem. No, yeah.

I mean, that's what I was telling you guys today, that the people that suffer from that severe ventricle tachyardia, might be pronouncing that wrong, but that that's the bad symptom of it, is that your heart's doing too much work that it shouldn't be doing. And it's going to wear out faster, sooner.

Yeah. Do you want to talk meat? Yeah. Can I do another meat one? Yeah. Oh, we can come back to this Katahdin thing too, if you guys want.

Oh, you got some more info? Well, I can just read you like a real quick paragraph, paraphrase paragraph from wikipedia on the history of it please so we could at least know so roxanne quimby co-founder of like cal said bert's bees uh bert's bees the guy that sells like uh soaps and whatnot yeah chapstick stuff began purchasing land near baxter state park in 2001 before formally announcing their plans in

2011 that the land would one day become part of a national park but there was state and federal opposition to those to those plans and so they changed the focus to doing a national monument which could just happen through the antiquities act and the proclamation by a president so they did that on um well, on August 2016, they donated land valued at $60 million plus $20 million in additional funds for operations and then a commitment of $20 million in future support to the federal government so they could keep the thing going. August 24th, August, sorry, August 24th, 2016, Obama proclaimed 87,563 acres of land as the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. So it was like that deal. That's how it came to be.

That's my only beef with, what was his name, Bruce? Can't remember. With him writing in that they bought it up. So they didn't buy it from the state. So- Well, then that totally negates- Yeah. See, it's such a confusing world.

This is, the monument issue is incredibly confusing. And the issue from my perspective is always that each one is much more of an individual versus let's say a wilderness, right? People have a basic understanding of wilderness, probably because of the name. They're like, oh, yeah, it's a wild place. Like what flies and what doesn't fly. And what flies and what doesn't fly, right?

And most folks who go outdoors can be like, oh, yeah, wilderness, I think you can't ride your bike in there. And you can't operate heavy machinery. You can't have a chain. Which is virtually true. Virtually true, you're right. The monuments, gosh, man, I have no excuse not to be fully up to date on this story, but I believe because of the nature of you're going from uh

private land uh acquired by the federal government um that came with some strings attached yeah i'm sure so that may all right damn it yeah damn it should should have been more well read on this one well you know what you know i could go in i have the power to go in and make it that this conversation never happened and that the letter never came you're just going through your mail but i'm not gonna because i'm just gonna leave it over to the fact that like um some tricky complicated world out there you know so yeah so so so the gentleman that wrote in yeah check that out man maybe the feller the the b guy that bought up all the land whoever used to own it was like come one come all hunt and fish all you want so maybe that's what's going on yeah it's

it's possible i'd um there are ways uh to make some changes. Like, let's walk through this one, just to explain. Like, a way that a public land thing can become public. We haven't talked about Sabanosa. Am I saying it right? Sabanosa. Okay, now, in New Mexico, you have a wilderness area that was completely landlocked.

And landlocked and landlocked is and landlocked means we had a federally managed publicly owned wilderness area that you couldn't get to because any road there was no road access to it there was no way to walk into it without crossing private property. So the wilderness area was basically a playground for anyone who happened to own adjoining land. There was no legal way for you to like park your car and walk into the wilderness. And because it's wilderness and you can't fly in and land a helicopter, there was no way to get there. Yeah, unless you wanted to pay an access fee or perhaps go in with an outfitter that was operating off of one of those private holdings. Gotcha. So you could pay your way in.

You could pay your way in, but think of... It was cut off to the working stiff it it was cut off to the working stiff and what in think of the incentive to keep that stuff locked up if you're a landowner you get an extra ultimately 20 000 acres yeah it's like i own 100 acres but actually i open 21 100 acres because only me and a select few neighbors can get into this block, this chunk of land. So a guy, this is a cool story that just happened. A guy owns one of the, there's a guy that owns one of these ranches that borders the wilderness area, the Sabinos wilderness area, owns one of these ranches and his ranch is a bridge,

is a bridge between this wilderness area that the public these ranches and his ranch is a bridge is a bridge between this wilderness area that the public owns but can't access and the road and public easement yeah he comes to the federal government and says i'd like to give you guys this ranch I would like to donate this ranch to the American people so that the American people can access their piece of land that they're now not able to get at. It took a little wrangling and Senators Udall and Heinrich from New Mexico got involved in helping to orchestrate this deal and Interior Secretary Zinke got involved in how to orchestrate this deal

and it just became official. The ranch is now the property of the American people managed for them by the federal government and it is now an access point and trailhead to go into the sabanosa wilderness area yeah i believe it's managed by the blm is who's in charge of that uh wilderness there i

was just hunting the patch of ground not long ago and there's a lot of like equipment shit laying around out in the mountains and a buddy of mine was telling me he's like dude this used to all be private it was purchased by the rocky mountain elk foundation willing seller willing buyer it went up for sale rocky mountain elk foundation took donor money which is what kind of their specialty they took donor money bought the whole damn place and handed it over to the blm to manage i didn't even know this i've been hunting on it didn't even know that it was like a rmef purchase to become public land public land has there's like some complicated stories there man very complicated yeah and unfortunately on whatever side of this, whether you'd like to see everything privatized

or everything public, you can tell a pretty convincing story on either side because nothing's totally black and white. Yeah, there's a guy I want to have on the podcast that I've been reading up on lately who his deal is that public land doesn't really exist. His deal that public land basically, any public land that was traditionally grazed by livestock people

is basically like a collaborative ownership between the grazer and the government, and there's no real such thing as public land as we understand it now. He thinks it's all a sham. And is this coming out of the basis of he comes out of the ag industry okay but it's not like a land has no value until it is cultivated type of thought yeah that kind of i think he i think he comes out of that angle okay i'd like i want to get i want to contact him and have him on um you know like i

like even if he's right i don't really care right i don't like like if someone said you know what i've looked and looked and looked and it turns out that uh you should be able to enslave other individuals i've studied the constitution and it turns out if you read it the right way the way i interpret it you there's no problem with you going over to your neighbor and enslaving him at gunpoint it's legal i wouldn't be like oh okay sweet i'm gonna go and enslave my neighbor now right like i don't really care because it would still be it's just like you know i mean but it'd be a great conversation i still find something like well yeah it might be true i'm not gonna do. But I'd still like to talk to the guy. Sabanosa, there's a bunch of groups involved in that,

and I got to go down there and kind of take a quick tour of the place when Zinky visited, and it's sweet country in there. So you had a look-see. Oh, yeah. Yeah, had a look-see. yeah yeah had a look-see now did you go down there were you like in the company of uh the various political figures who were gathered down there yes yep yeah so i was invited down through you know really a bunch of mutual friends uh all of us um and uh the national wildlife federation new mexico chapter

um has been a big part of that um backcountry hunters and anglers um uh and so so many groups at that point because it'd been going on for over 10 years um that i really shouldn't be listing anybody because lots of lots of folks involved but really udall heinrich the county commissioners blm um they they've really made it happen so yeah yeah but gorgeous country uh odd ab uh invasive species but uh cool cheap country in there uh big elk big mule deer uh one of the volunteers kind of took me aside and they're like hey here you're a mule deer guy oh really yeah check this out i was like oh my goodness so one of new mexico's senators heinrich who was involved in this. While he was a senator, he went into

what national forest was he hunting in? What's the big name brand one that everybody we hunted it before. The Gila? Yeah, I'm sorry. Just kidding. One of New Mexico's senators, while a senator, went into the Gila on a permit draw muzzleloader hunt and killed a bull out with a muzzleloader.

Bad country. He is an end user which is damn rare yeah not many dudes in the senate paul ryan likes to hunt a lot i don't know i don't really know what all hunting paul ryan does but i know paul ryan likes to hunt a lot um it's important heinrich likes to hunt yeah yeah paul ryan is a big bow hunter really yeah big time wow i don't know how much time he has for it now so i got that guy spends a lot of time sorting situations out yeah sounds like his neighborhood's pretty tough yeah i'd like to talk to him sometime about hunting and yeah and heinrich likes it a bunch now just started listening to the podcast going backwards through him that's cool he's on the fish shagging episode night okay never mind

all that the guy's a sushi chef and he wanted to comment on something we were talking about salmon making sushi and sashimi from your salmon and how it's hard to get it the way that it is in a sushi restaurant. Yeah. And we were also talking about how most people won't do it with the coho that we had caught and that we were doing it with. Right? Yep. And we were like, is it not the way?

Yeah. We're like, is it not the way it is in a sushi restaurant because of what something we're doing or is it because it's a coho and you'll never get it to be right and we felt we felt like i'd gotten a pretty good slice on it it looked good the presentation was nice just wasn't the same it was a little different but i'll point out i'll point this out too as a prelude to this guy's comment. Salmon have a high parasite load. And this is no joke. Like I usually stuff like this,

people start talking about food safety and all this. I usually brush a lot of that off and I pay the price for it, but I usually brush all that stuff off. But it's no joke. Salmon, if you're eating raw salmon, you need to freeze that salmon and thaw it out, then eat it raw.

And this comes from a guy who's eaten pounds of it not done that way but i've had a lot of people who are not hysterical and who are not sky is falling kind of folk who have said bro you gotta freeze it you'll get sick it's real oh yeah i think i've been on the flip side of that coin anyways this brother is saying this this is a great tip i just i called my damn brother to tell him this. This guy's name's Kaido. It's a nickname. He's a chef and hunter from Michigan.

He says, here's where you boys are screwing up. You need to take a salmon. This is for making sushi and sashimi out of salmon. You need to take that thing and cover it in kosher salt for eight minutes. Absolutely no longer than 10 minutes. Pack it in salt. In order to pull the extra water out.

Then freeze it. Then slice it. What he's saying is this. When you freeze that thing, water expands the cell walls burst because water comes out that's why when you vacuum seal a piece of salmon right you vac seal a piece there's no water in there any fish yeah whatever hell but whatever you vac seal it there's no water in there put in your freezer thought there's a few tablespoons of water in there like where'd that come from it's being liberated from the fish through the freezing process and it leads to a

mushy quality product he's saying you got to suck a bunch of that water up out of there by packing it in salt pull some of the extra water out and And that is what gives you that firm, buttery, what he describes as the amazing buttery texture. I can taste it. Yeah. One question about it, though, is that after you take it out of the salt. Yes. Do you just.

Absolutely. You rinse it. Rinse it, right? Yes. Because you're never going to. I mean, how are you rinse it rinse it right yes because you're never gonna you i mean how you're gonna brush it off and let's say if he says it skin filet also you think i'm get i would my guess would be kaido can he ought to rewrite in now he yeah i'm guessing that he's that he's got Skinless filet. No, I don't know. I don't know.

I can see it both ways. Kido, right back in, dude. We need this. We'll pick this back up. You skinning it or not skinning it? And rinsing. But I'm going to... Listen, I think he's on to something.

I know exactly what that sum gun is talking about. Oh, Cal, what was the two things you were going to bring up? Oh, big questions. This is just from having your ear to the railroad tracks. Yeah, exactly. Dry aging or just aging meat. Is it necessary? Does it actually make a difference?

Yep. My experience, I think it's always better to let things relax for as long as you can stand it. At least 24 hours. I'm going to butt in at least 24 hours because that's how long of a read it takes for the rigor mortis to enter and then leave. Yeah. However, I've done it immediately to several hours after

just based on what's happening in life. And it's not like that's meat that is not good as far as the aging goes. You mean like aging it a couple hours doesn't matter? Like it's not like that's meat that I then think is not any good. Oh. No. Maybe I don't understand what you're saying cal um it uh it's not like don't even go through the trouble if you can't hang the thing in your garage for 20 days i'm right i'm tracking now yeah sorry about that. Still edible. Still edible. Still probably real good. Depends on the animal.

Yes. But in general, think of it in extremes. Think of it in extremes. If you shoot something and butcher it and you're eating it an hour later, it has a metallic taste and it is very tough because it's still in rigor. Yeah, and for me, it almost gives me not really like a belly ache, but sort of like a gurgly, just kind of an off stomach. Whatever it is that is going on in there, it seems like, and again,

it could be just random occurrences. Yeah, unless you had two of you. Yeah. You'll never know. Never know. If you had two of you, you'll never know. Never know. When I eat meats that's too fresh, I don't get sick, but I'm just like, man, something just wasn't quite right.

I'll definitely eat it, but it's not as good. Do you need to have a climate-controlled situation? I've never personally had one. You never have that. But I'm always afraid to answer people's questions on that. I'm like, God, am I going to make somebody sick?

I age all kinds of boys. Well, let me tell you how my brother ages me. So he lives in Alaska. He's doing a lot of his hunting in September. If anyone's been up in alaska in september um you have cold nights very warm days everything's all wet there's flies everywhere meat bees are on everything it is not conducive to like yard hanging it's not conducive to garage hanging all you do in alaska is beat flies off stuff right it's just you're not gonna hang it

just it doesn't work out september hunting in alaska aging meat like in your garage isn't gonna happen no unless you built a cooler and you could rig up some little dorm fridge but you're not gonna hang a moose in there so he when timing out his wild meat calendar, he doesn't think like, oh, I got to have last year's moose and caribou all eaten up by September 1st. Because then I'll have my new moose and my new caribou and I'll start eating them. He times it where he wants to have last year's all eaten up at some point in the winter. Because his moose has been freezer aging. Which I believe in. That's a thing.

And some people will be like, freezer aging, what do you mean? Stuff deteriorates in a freezer. It just takes a long time to do it. You will never pull out. You will never pull out a two-year, you will never pull out, let's say it's 2017 and you find a piece of meat from 2015 in your freezer, you will never find a tough piece of meat that's two years old in your freezer.

Well, I think the same thing is happening to that meat that the guy just explained is happening to that fish. Yeah, it's breaking down. Yeah, because the water molecules are there and freezing it's breaking down the like the you know on like the molecular structure you know and the longer it's in there the more it happens and things just slowly break down and uh that's the problem when you find mammoths coming out of the permafrost well unless you have one of those freezers that's uh like uh what's that crazy ice

cream? I think it's called Dippin' Dots. I've got an uncle who sells it at a, or it's my wife's uncle. He sells Dippin' Dots at an amusement park that he owns. And when they became a purveyor of Dippin' Dots, they had to have a special freezer that doesn't just stop at zero. It's like negative 30 or negative 40 because there's such high fat content in this Dippin' Dots that if you just hold it at zero or 32, it's going to go bad real fast, right? So he's got a special freezer that goes down to negative 30 or negative 40, right? Just for these ice cream. Well, he's like, yeah, side bonus of that is i was able to throw a few elk steaks in there and five years later still good my deep freeze i'm looking at i'm

looking at the thing right now my deep freeze runs at negative 15 which is quite a bit colder than my kitchen do you have it maxed out i'm gonna start doing that yeah i was trying to find like the efficiency level but i'm'm going to quit. I got a lot of fish in there, man. I'll have to keep my fish cold. I do some other age and stuff. When possible... What is too old?

Too cold? No, too old in your freezer. I personally have never looked at something and been like, nope, I'm going to throw it away. I just physically cannot do it. No, my system doesn't allow for things to get anywhere near the point at which i would call them into question but i could say that my brother matt

once found some seven-year-old elk meat in a freezer and enjoyed it yeah not his elk mind you he found it in the freezer i've never had a problem with and the oldest stuff i've always eaten has been elk just because when i was living in Colorado, it's like everybody had elk in their freezer and oftentimes we'd be at someone's house and they'd go, oh, look at that, you know, and you'd end up with some three or four year old elk. Never had a problem with that. But I do think that fish, oh, for instance, last night we ate the last package of blue cat from Kentucky. And that was a year and a half ago. Yeah. It was still good. It was edible. We enjoyed it.

But yeah, it wasn't quite the same. I was saying how I keep fish in my big deep freeze. I high prioritize fish. So my peak fish for me, peak fish in the freezer for me is August. Late July, August, where I'm at my cabin lot, fishing lot,

in a lot of salmon, halibut, whatnot. Dude, around now, I'm very much like looking to be having that stuff getting wrapped up. In fact, I think I pulled out my last salmon and just smoked it. I saved one piece, I think.

Because I do not, because freezers don't stop activity. Yes. I've had big chunks of bear fat. I've froze big chunks of bear fat, fixing to render it later, and had bear fat actually go rancid in a freezer. The fat, question number two on this is call fat Now that's something

you guys have hit Did we just blow a fuse? No, I think that your freezer just turned off but not like off off it just turned off as in Oh, you gave me a look I thought we blew the fuse

Sorry, we'll have to pick that back up Go ahead, Cal off as in oh just kicking off oh you gave me a look i thought we blew the fuse oh sorry i have to pick that back up go ahead cal uh call fat what else do you want to bring can i touch on something more about aging oh yeah for sure i also age here's again i can't tell you like the scientific proof any of this stuff but this is based on a shitload of anecdotal evidence and experience and and observations of trusted, close friends. I will also pull a piece of meat out of my freezer. Let's say on a Sunday I might thaw a block of meat out. I'll then rinse it, thaw it, rinse it, pat it dry with paper towels,

put a big roast on a rack, set over a dish, and put that in my fridge, knowing that I'm going to cook it in five or six days so here it's already been butchered frozen thawed and now i'm doing a fridge age on it which i feel like is helpful i think you can to because you asked can you age too long right yeah we were hanging out with a chef and we actually tried some of his meat. And after we carved through many layers of really inedible stuff. 18-month age. Is that what it was? It was 18 months.

Yeah. And this was in a, you know, climate-controlled. Temp and humidity-controlled environment. Yeah. And it wasn't that the meat was bad. It was tasty. It was way different. You know, it's not like you're eating a deer steak anymore.

But there was so much loss due to drying that you're kind of like, all right, well, now I have like 10% of this meat left to eat. He found the too long. Yeah, he found the too long. But the point is you can go a long time without going too long. But when you're cutting open, it was an odd-edged shoulder. When you're cutting open the clod on an odd-edged shoulder

in order to get a piece of meat the size of about as thick as a Jolly Rancher, it's like you've lost a lot. Yeah. From, from. And then, so mule deer, uh, I just, I butchered,

uh, the mule deer that I, I got the end October. And then I butchered two front shoulders, just the quarters, um, uh, that,

uh, Scott Robinson got about 10 days earlier. And this was just on Saturday and the difference in the front shoulders, um, just that 10 day difference between, so mine, mine hung 25 days, his hung 35 days. Um, the shanks on his i was you know kills me to leave any meat in there but there they had reduced so substantially for most folks it probably wouldn't be worth digging out that sliver of good meat so i've seen tenderloins uh just vanish oh yeah from hanging too long my old man tells me that when he was young younger they would hang deer until it had inches of mold on it i don't know he was exaggerating inches he said it'd be covered in mold

and you'd cut that away and eat the meat off from underneath it. And do you think those were whole deer? Yeah, whole deer. They had to have been, right? Whole deer. Now, we one time hung a calf elk and never froze it, just ate it. And that thing, after hanging, it was like the perfect winter in the garage. And after a while, you could jab your finger into the meat.

I mean, you could literally burrow your finger into the meat. It got that tender. Wow. Which is perfect conditions. A little bit below freezing at night, not much above freezing during the daytime. We just ate the whole son of a bitch hang in there. Yeah, because the feeling on these, some majority below freezing nights, basically what you're describing but you know that those uh hind quarters were still they weren't like frozen hard to the touch

but you wouldn't call them soft yeah i killed a bull in kentucky bull elk in kentucky and because we were leaving from there to go to somewhere else to hunt, I had to have it processed. And the processor says, oh, I hang him for 10 days. And he hung that elk for 10 days. Those sons of bitches were still tough. It was only later I threw him in the freezer and forgot about him for a few months and started snacking on him.

And they were good. All right, but you wanted to bring up call fat? Yeah, call fat yeah call fat uh i i know the you know the show obviously has covered it and because you guys have used it in some cooking specials and done it some cooking done it a lot of social media pictures yeah uh i got interested in it because when i was working on my book where i was talking a lot about a Scoffier, the great, you know, famous master chef, French master chef, Auguste Scoffier,

who, who comes up, who's brought, they bring him up in the movie apocalypse. Now. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy,

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onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. You know, when when Captain Willard and Chef get off the boat, find a mango, find a mango and get attacked by a tiger. And Chef is like, never get off the boat. Never get off the boat never get off the boat he is explaining to captain willard that he studied sauces he was a saucier in culinary arts school in new orleans and mentions the scofie it's a beautiful movie dude best movie ever made the best movie ever made so anyhow call fat so uh oh no no quick i got interested in it because scoffier cooks with it

uh like sausages and stuff like that wraps me like the same way you'd use a turkey bag now or whatever just wrap steaks and roasts and other stuff in call fat to prevent moisture loss and add fat. So I'm doing this, this coming weekend. I'm, I'm, I think I'm going to smoke, I think, or just try to slow roast.

I brought out that mule deer I got this year. I brought up the neck hole, which we lead into a CWD conversation, but I'm sure these folks will be fine. And I'm going to wrap that in the call fat is the plant. And I got, it is, this is like super, this thing has not started to rut. It's like super thick call fat. Um, but the, the main questions are how do you get the call fat out in one piece? Is it worth cleaning?

Is it worth dealing with? I don't like the taste of deer fat. I personally like the taste of deer fat. I just think it's got to be next to nuclear hot in order because as soon as it cools down, it is like paraffin wax. Yeah, it's like that Simpsons where Homer drinks candle wax in order to better compete in a hot pepper eating contest.

That is exactly. You cannot get that off your tongue, your teeth. Yeah, but when it's hot, I'll eat it. So, yeah, call fat. Get it out. How to get it out. How to get it out. You going to tell them?

I think you should. You're the expert. Well, Yanni, I heard Yanni explaining this to someone the other day. And Yanni was explaining, only even begin to think about it when your shot is forward of the diaphragm. It's got to be where everything's clean. It's like you open up, your shot enters and exits forward of the diaphragm doesn't matter where but somewhere forward of the diaphragm because you don't want any everything's got to be all nicey nice in there and that brings up a point too so you're going to obviously gut it to get the call fat

when you go to gut it and don't like don't get all the way through your gutting to the point where you're cutting the trachea and yanking the guts out at that point you're too late you're going to get blood all over the call fat you're going to roll it out into the dirt and the grass you need to just open the lower half like from the you know uh diaphragm down you're treating this as an autopsy open open that up and then say okay now i'm going to take the time to get my cough out. Yeah, you can't butcher like they do in the Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto. Didn't see it. Or like how they butcher in the movie Red Dawn. In movies, when someone goes to butcher a gut something,

people that would definitely know better, like in the case of Apocalypto, it was the the mayan hunters um or in the case of red dawn it was lifelong hunters who were trained up in the ways of jed smith but when people want someone to butcher something in the movie they like to use a big knife and have people jab stuff because it's dramatic they don't show what we how you'd actually do it, which is surgical. Surgical. Like I said, you're performing a nice, clean autopsy. Yeah. When I first started dealing with TV folks,

they'd be disappointed when they saw what a knife you'd actually use. They'd be like, oh. But could you do it with a machete? They're just like, oh, yeah. Like, really? You do that little teeny thing all slow and easy. You don't just stab it. So, yeah, you shoot it.

Everything's for the diaphragm. So there's no mess. It's laying on its back. This doesn't work with the gutless method. You unzip it very carefully first just cut through the hide all the way up and then lift the abdominal lining or the abdominal muscles cut those open all the way up before you cut the diaphragm back you should open it up and just everything is wrapped up in lace fat or call fat it's just this spider web cobweb looking membrane of fat that is a literally a sack around the every yeah the sack around the guts and on a good animal

in good condition it's like holy shit there's a lot of fat in there on a bad animal and not a bad animal animal in poor physical condition who's exhausted his fat reserves, it's like non-existent. It's like really a thing. It's like a way they store fat. Agreed. But it's fun to mess with. So because we're always talking about it. Part of why I like it is it's cool looking.

It's fun. It's cool looking. It's interesting. It's a throwback to a bygone era when people used it more often. It's a good history lesson. It's a good anatomy lesson. It's a good anatomy lesson. But anyways, I'm always talking about it. I'm always like kind of celebrating it.

And it has like really appealing visual qualities. And people are like, dude, I need to get some Colfax. But I'll point out, it's like, it's a fun, interesting, educational thing to mess with. But it's tallowy. Yeah, so is it worth it? It's fun to mess around with, yes. I am looking at this caul fat as it's going to be super pretty.

Beautiful. And it's providing a bunch of lubricant to meat that doesn't have it. And a little membrane. Yeah, and it's going to be a relatively long cook on a big chunk of meat so absolutely yeah any thoughts um yeah i feel you got pinned down on this you were saying at thanksgiving this year yeah i got pinned down about in the airport the other day by a stranger yeah and to that i that, I want to say that, look, man, I think we're still, maybe we've done it more than the average Joe,

but we're still kind of beginners with the whole call fat thing too. And I think we're learning. Because like that dish you did when we were on a fog neck, right? We chopped up a bunch of- Guts. Yeah, we had some tenderloin in there too. And yeah, heart. Kidney.

Liver. Some guts. And then we wrapped it inloin in there too. And yeah, heart. Kidney. Liver. Some guts. And then we wrapped it in caul fat and roasted it over the open fire. Well, we used like, you know, four square feet of caul fat to wrap up two pounds of meat. Whoa. It was too much caul fat, right? If you had to do it again, would you do it with less fat? But I did it because it just makes it stronger, stronger, stronger.

Yeah. So my point is that we're like learning. I think we're going to learn like different things to do with it and proper amounts and sort of like the way to cook with it and high heat, low heat, da, da, da, da, da. And maybe you roast in your neck over three hours in it. We're going to – I'm sure we'll learn something from it. Side note, how did you guys do on the kidneys?

I have not nailed that i think that they're good when they're better on younger animals by far like like i've gotten the point where like an old deer do you notice deer's like old i don't mess with the liver because the liver's so strong i like it on young animals and if you're looking like any cookbook that's talking about cooking with kidneys, they're insistent on young animals. People eat lamb kidney. We shot a lamb in New Zealand. They have feral sheep in New Zealand.

We shot a lamb in New Zealand. Holy shit. Lungs, kidneys, everything is so good. Liver. They just get stronger. I think the older deer have a stronger liver. It's funny because it's just like rediscovering what we already knew when we were kids we like pulled the livers out of deer but jerry's like fawn liver when you shot a six month old deer in the fall

it was like that liver was the money gotcha and it's true older deer my mom would soak the liver in lemon juice to try to pull some of the fungation out of it. Do we cover the caul fat? Caul fat's covered. Oh, I want to add another Escoffier thing. And I did this when I was working on my book about Escoffier. I did it with a wild pig bladder. Escoffier would take bladders and rinse it out

and then soak it in a little bit of a vinegar solution. Then you take a little game bird, a squab, like a flightless street pigeon or game birds or any kind of thing, and take all kinds of good stuff to eat, like chop up onion, garlic, mushroom, other stuff, like make like a mirepoix, carrot, and put a game bird inside the bladder and pack all that mirepoix, like pack that around it, all that sauteed carrot, mushroom, onion, garlic, all that stuff,

and just pack it all the way around there and tie the bladder shut. And then just put that bladder with the bird living inside of it poach it in broth and the bladder turns like a rainbow color and you just keep you're poaching the bird at a low temperature inside a bladder and eventually when it's time to eat you snip open the bladder and take out the bird and all that stuff that you were cooking inside that bladder sounds delicious just like a way that you were he was like because they weren't you know in his time you weren't dealing with like synthetic liners and stuff you're just looking for like in that

case you're looking for a non-per a non-permeable membrane it's like the original sous vide yeah yeah exactly no exactly that's what he's using in. In the absence of sous vide bags, he was using bladders. And I cook birds that way. It's fun. They're beautiful. You've tried it? Oh, dude, yeah. Really?

Great. Wrote a whole damn book about it. Oh, yeah. Coke cuisine. Now, here's a guy. Yanni was talking about carrying combat gauze. Yeah. Which is something you use for catastrophic injuries, combat gauze yeah which is something used for like catastrophic injuries combat gauze

when you're just dealing with a like a accidental gunshot injury severe puncture hit yourself wildly with an axe yeah we were talking about uh how you put it over the wound in an EMT who's dealt with a number of gunshot wounds in his day, a fellow named Nate, wrote in to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You got it all wrong. And he sends us a video about how to apply combat gauze. You pack,

pack the wound channel full of combat gauze. The video, which is on a rubber fake arm, is disturbing. He's packing the rubber fake arm wound. And it makes you feel nauseous. Yeah, you feel woozy from watching it. Did he produce his own video? No.

It's like a how to use combat gauze. He's like, dude, putting it over doesn't do shit. You pack. Jam it in there. Jam it in there. So you tell your buddy, bite this stick. Make people watch that video before they go in the woods.

Yeah, bite you on this stick while I pack your wound full of gauze. That's why that hatchet is not a toy. While I'm going to take another stick and jam your wound full of gauze with a's why that hatchet is not a toy. Well, I'm going to take another stick and jam your wound full of gauze with a stick. No. My finger. With your fingers

that have latex gloves would probably be the right thing to do. I would use a stick. I would get a sharp stick and jam it full of gauze. So there's that. Ready for this one bring it

positive or negative neither vexing started hunting four years ago there's a fellow named Zach I've only had the chance to hunt two of those deer seasons now I understand all the legal stuff behind harvesting a doe however

the ethics behind taking a doe. However, the ethics behind taking a doe that is around six months old has me in doubt. I had a chance to take a younger doe and pass on her

before I felt like she was too young. Am I overthinking this? How do you view the ethics of harvesting legal but clearly young animals? You're overthinking it.

But you can really think on it because it's a recruitment right if you look at it the young ones are the young that are are the animals that are likely the most likely to not make it through the winter yeah so quite possibly you could be taking an animal that will very well die yeah So if you look at it from that perspective, that's like a free doe. It's better than removing a proven breeder. Correct. Definitely.

Your big does are the ones that are most likely going to make it through the winter. It's a anthropomorphismism yep problem yes it is it's anthropomorphism at at its best if you look at it from a food perspective you don't get that much body weight yeah you know there's not as much meat and that's why i like to shoot big bucks you know what they say big racks big meat but yes yeah no i got a couple problems with shooting the young one it's doesn't have anything to do with her not having like or him having uh you know enjoyed a full life it's uh one yeah you get like a white tailed doe fawn i I mean, you're looking at 20 pounds?

20 pounds. Maybe yield? Well, yeah, 30 pounds of yield maybe. It depends on how late. It's a big difference between September 15th and November 15th. Yeah, but it could be half of if you shot a year-old doe. Oh, yeah, man. And then, too, those young animals are just so mild. Some people like Oh, yeah, man. And then, too, the, you know, those young animals

are just so mild. People, some people like that, though. Yeah. They don't like their flavor. Yeah. If you like skinless chicken breasts, then, you know,

six-month-old white-toed does are for you. Germans, man, we learned this. They want to buy, when they buy red deer out of Scotland and whatnot, they want to buy ruddy stags.

Same thing with those boars out of Texas. They like them high. That's what they call it. Remember the boars out of Texas? Yep. That's what he's saying too. They get exported. The stuff Americans don't want to touch.

Some areas in Europe, that's like, yeah, send us all the ruddy old boars we like them high flavorful the old mule deer buck is i mean i gave away 60 of the elk i shot this year and i'm not giving away any of the mule deer buck i shot this year it's too good oh yeah uh from the deer's perspective it doesn't matter like a five-year-old buck isn't going to be like, ah, just shoot me. I don't care anymore. It's like from the deer's perspective, you're killing him.

He's dead, right? They want to live. There's no question. Yeah, they're not trying. A young one's not like, oh, I'm the prime of my life or just getting started in life. It doesn't really matter. Where I think it comes from where the where the prejudice

against or where the idea that you shouldn't shoot fawns or does comes from is you have to start to step back and look at the history of wildlife or in this case the history of deer management in this country where in the early late 1800s early 1900, we had like wiped out white-tailed deer in a lot of areas. And it was a long road to recover the species and bring it back to huntable numbers. We were able to keep hunting deer during the recovery because we just harvested bucks. So anyone who grew up where you like your tag was good for like a buck was because you were trying to because you were harvesting deer, shooting deer to eat, shooting deer for whatever,

while still growing the population. Because when you shoot a buck, you're removing one animal from the pool. And as long as you have enough bucks left to make sure all the does get bred, you're fine. The key was saving your breeding age does. Because if you shoot a buck, you're removing a deer from the population. When you kill a doe, you're killing

her and every fawn she will ever have. So once we got to recovery with deer and we got to where we've had, by some estimations, too many deer, and we started to say, man, now we've got the opposite problem. Now we've got too many deer and they're causing a lot of conflicts with agricultural producers and car insurers and people who have landscaping. And we now have an obligation to lessen deer numbers and also to control spread of disease and all kinds of other issues why you might want to cut your deer population back.

We started to say, hey guys, the whole not shooting doe thing well never mind now we're killing does we're trying to lower deer numbers then there's been a lot of resistance to that it still hangs on in some areas it does it it's different growing up in i mean you talk about it a lot right like all of a sudden you went from went from Michigan to Montana and it was like, I can kill how many deer? I mean, when I first started rifle antelope hunting, I mean, I'd shoot five a year, I think. We used to go out, well, me and my brother would head out antelope hunting.

We'd have six tags in our pocket, two buck tags, four doe tags, three tags per. Right. And then that big winter kill happened and those days are over. Right. In that area. And then,

yes, you know, Sam, you could pick up, you could, the law really is you can shoot a total of seven deer in Montana. So one buck, there are some additional buck tags now,

and then six does. Well, in the southeast there's a lot of states you can kill a deer a day, two deer a day. Yeah. Or no limit on deer. Yeah, or carry the same tag around

for the whole season. Doug in Wisconsin, Doug Dern, he still has people in his community here like they just will not shoot a doe they'll shoot every buck they ever lay their eyes on yeah but they won't shoot a doe just because of growing up but like doug when he was growing up when he was a little kid if you

saw a deer track you went home and told your mom and dad about it it's amazing now they got 50 deer per square mile on good habitat so yeah i think this is uh yeah it's more of a it's your personal ethics uh out there and it's just you so do what you feel good about but the um you know those those tags exist for a reason it's part of the management plan yeah if you have faith in your state fishing game agency and state fishing game agencies are not infallible but i um am taking all things considered and looking at all the alternative options um right, I can say that like a good, if you want to be an ethical hunter, a good starting place is to follow the rules

that's set forth by your state fish and game agency. And if their teams of biologists have made a determination that you're not going to be hurting anything by shooting a doe and you might be helping something by shooting a doe, and you want to shoot a doe, and that's in line with your personal plan,

I wouldn't let any kind of other noise come in and influence your decision. I think we diverged a little bit. The question really was about the age of that doe. Oh, yeah, but I said that. I said, no, we touched on that a whole lot more. Yeah. I said they don't get like more wanting to get shot as they get older yeah

you know like Dole's never gonna be like oh bro last year I would have run away but now you know I'm two but to wrap it up there are no ethics about shooting young there's no there's no like ethical issue about shooting young deer or young squirrels. Yeah.

Do you ever met anybody who says, I'm not going to shoot a young squirrel? No. That's just something that never happens. And in pheasants, it's like people get excited about shooting the older pheasant, but the younger ones are good yes the older ones holy smokes but i i definitely eat those birds too yeah you got to cook them but it's still cool when you shoot a real old one really cool as far as table fare

the youngsters birds of the year bird of the year born that spring all right i still got a giant stack of mail here in my hand, but... We should do another Loose Ends sometime. That was fun. Dude, we got limitless Loose Ends. A lot of questions. Yeah. Good stuff.

I love the audience, man. We got the best audience in the world. Yeah. We did a post on the First Light Facebook page last year that I really had been meaning to write like a follow-up thank you on. And it was kind of on one of the things that we tackled tonight.

Like I had gotten home at 1030 at night and took all the food and trays out of my refrigerator and stuffed it full of boned out elk because there was just nothing else I could do with it at that point in the evening and so I was just cooling it down as fast as I could you know 80 or 90 degrees on a basically an August elk hunt right and took a picture of it and we put it up on our social media and um there were some folks out there that were livid it was like our most highly controversial post and i absolutely love that because people were just like that's not how you treat me and other folks are like yeah i've. Like, you got to cool it down somehow.

Really? It's great. Yeah, so yeah, the audience. From my distant position of not knowing the situation, I will tell you that that's not how you treat me. Yeah, no, it is not ideal. It is not ideal. We got to improvise,

especially when you're doing it yourself. You do. Dude, we've had it so bad. We had to throw meat in a creek. Yeah, and you just cringe, right? Because of bugs. Flies. And then you're thinking about sediment working its way into the meat.

Yeah, it was so hot. It was like in the 80s. We were hunting doll sheep. It's like in the 80s during the day. You can't see because of all the smoke from fires burning. Flies on everything. We're just in the middle of the day. It's starting in the 80s during the day. You can't see because of all the smoke from fires burning. Flies on everything. We're just in the middle of the day. It's starting to sun to come up. We just go down and sink in the creek or go up to a snow

field and bury it in the snow. Spend most of our time just trying to manage meat. Yeah. Not ideal. Some be like, hey, you can't throw meat in the creek. But the picture would have been way worse if it was just it covered in fly eggs. Yeah, I love the fans but the picture would have been way worse if it was just it covered in fly eggs yeah i love the fans and the listeners too especially uh tom habib the the guy that wrote

the real hero email yeah thanks tom but i'd love you all more if you take the time to subscribe and give us a rating there's only one rating you can give you're gonna rate the meat eater podcast that would be five stars the right most star yeah um yeah and subscribing subscribing too man subscribing is very helpful also also go follow. I'm on Instagram, at Steve Murnella. Follow Meteor TV on Instagram. That's good stuff. There's all kinds of things you can do. And keep writing in letters.

Ryan Callahan, thank you very much. Thank you. That was fun. Your grains of wisdom. And Yanni, the real hero. I think instead of the labby eagle, I'm going to Yanni, the real hero. I think instead of the labby eagle, I'm going to start calling him the real hero. Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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