The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 159: Swimming Naked
Episode Date: March 11, 2019Steven Rinella talks with his big brother Matt Rinella, along with Matt Drost, Ron Boehme, Mark Kenyon, and Janis Putelis.Subjects Discussed: Latvian hellos; beach access and the end of summer; deer s...eason in review; elite deer hunters; summing up Michigan in a single word; Uncle Ted and Uncle Bobby; drinking frozen Boone’s Farm; detaining beavers and other shenanigans; are crossbows ruining hunting?; emotional support dogs; things from childhood that sound way worse now; scoring trophy deer; triggering the rut; seeing through the bullshit; if humans rutted like deer; being reincarnated as an animal; and more. 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.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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 meat.
This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless,
severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwear-less. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwear-less.
Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast.
You can't predict anything. How's it going, everybody?
All right.
Everybody here has been to State Theater?
Today.
Today?
Just today.
I saw the Cowboy Junkies here many years ago.
And I feel that my...
You saw Weird Al here?
Really?
I feel that my...
It wound up being like...
That was the first time I was at State Theater.
And it turned out that me and my wife think that she was there too, but she would have been way too young for me to be gawking at the time.
But I feel that she was there.
Not to say you weren't.
Not to say I wasn't, but I shouldn't have been.
We think so.
And then later I came, you and me came here to see Bob Dylan.
I was right up there.
And that night, I don't know if you remember, I have a picture.
We're sitting there, and I was arguing that jello shots don't actually make you drunk
because I had this theory that something happened to the alcohol.
Do you remember this?
And I spent the whole show taking a little time out in the footwell below the seats up
there somewhere up top.
And you know, like at a concert, everybody gets out of their seats and comes down to,
you know, dance around yeah well when i when i
get done with my nap i come down looking for everyone and catch my buddy eric doing like a
little bit like that you know when you kind of like dance behind someone a little bit
but it's like yeah they come down like? Because he's kind of a little.
Drunk?
No, he's like a little bit doing like the I'm right behind you dancing too.
Behind who?
My girlfriend.
A little creepy.
Ah.
At State Theater.
Jealous shots.
Not to me.
Jealous shots.
Not to me.
Let's do introductions, and I've got a couple people we've got to say hi to.
We have the Latvian Eagle
Way down in the end
Good evening
Thank you
Mark Kenyon
From Warrior of the Hunt
A huge round of applause
For our very good friend from growing up
Matt Drozd
He's a low profile
Ron Boehm who was kind enough
to give me employment for several years and then friendship for many more after.
And then my big brother, Matt Rinella. where uh we're out here is ada there's an 11 year old ada okay listen
your dad listen needs you to understand that listening to the meat eater podcast
is better and more important for your mind and spirit
than listening to Bruno Mars.
Hello to Officer Darren McIntosh,
you out there.
Thank you.
Now, also, my mother's here tonight. So, Rosemary Rinella.
We're going to play a game later. We're going to play a game called seeing through the bullshit.
And so someone has to come up and be the contestant. And we took a blank map of the theater with all the seats on it and gave it to my mother, Rosemary,
to select a seat who will be the person that gets to come play the game and win something. And my mother made a big deal out of selecting someone from the balcony because she likes to root for the underdogs.
A lucky, a lucky, a lucky player up there will be called down to do that. And then, uh, one more thing. We'll get to you guys later too, but birthdays, we've got birthdays here tonight.
I mean a lot. Really tonight? That mean tonight? Is it your birthday?
Oh, then you won't win.
Like, birthdays today.
Oh, okay.
The oldest, if you're old, you're in luck.
We'll get to that later.
If it's your birthday and you're old, you're in luck.
Cover that.
Now, a couple news items that we like to do.
They just had, you guys heard of this?
There was like an organized squirrel hunt in New Jersey that got badly
protested by the League of Humane.
Let me get this right.
It's the League of Humane voters organized a protest against the squirrel hunt.
The organizer was saying, it's very disconcerting the idea of it being a family-friendly event.
Look at the strong correlation of kids who commit violence against animals as children
and then grow up to be violent against people.
A listener wrote in and he was saying,
what's weird is part of the plan of this squirrel hunt was to teach people how to acquire and prepare
a wild game. If the organizer's assertion is true, would it not stand to reason that children who are
raised eating meat from a grocery store are more likely to hire hit men to commit violent acts
against people on their behalf? Yeah. Also got an interesting note from a dude, a good Midwestern boy,
who bought a new bow, and the guys at the bow shop were saying,
man, if you want to get dialed for hunting, you need to shoot the bow
like how you would shoot hunting.
And he's planning on hunting in a tree stand, but his yard has no tree stands,
so he takes the hunting from the phone pole to practicing from the phone pole out on the street. And by the time the police come
and the municipality guy comes and makes him take a stand down, but they did give him a line on where
to go buy his own phone pole that he can bury it into his yard. We were talking about Norway recently,
where a guy wrote in with an ethical dilemma from Norway,
and another guy wrote in with a Norway expression.
What was the hunting one?
The German one?
Yeah, Vidman.
Vidmanshøy.
And it means?
Like good luck hunting, like best of luck of luck hunting yeah he got to talking about
that and in norway they say skit jacked which means i hope you have shit hunting
and it's like the same as saying it's the same as saying like break a leg
like you give you know what i mean you don't want to jinx his outing, so you hit him like that. Can you say it again?
I want to make sure to remember that.
It's, well, S-K-I-T-T, which I'm going to go with skit.
Skit.
J-A-K-T, which I'm going to go with.
That's something to do with hunting.
J-A-K.
That's a yacht.
Skit jack.
Skit jack.
I hope you have a shitty home trip.
I think you guys should all use the Latvian version
of that instead, because we have pretty much
the same thing, two different versions
of it. We say either
which means
basically shoot past them
or over them.
So you're saying like, good luck, hope you miss.
Kind of like that.
The other thing we say is,
lai tu spalvo neted zata,
which means, I hope that you don't see,
hide, nor hear.
Really, these are both Latvian ones.
Yep.
Can you welcome everybody tonight in Latvian?
La vakardama sum kungi.
There it is.
Another, one last news item.
And I know, Matt Drozd, you sent this to me.
Yeah.
Recently, like, you grow up these parts,
taking for granted that you can just go down and walk down the beach.
We did, often.
Just take a walk down the damn beach, because this is America.
And the Supreme Court just confirmed that, yes, in fact, this is America.
Yeah.
At least the Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes.
What's that?
The Great Lakes.
The Great Lakes are America.
Yeah.
So in Indiana and Michigan, the Supreme Court actually refused to hear the hearing
contesting the ability to walk the high water mark.
Yeah, dude, a couple.
I'm just throwing out the two people, Donald and Bobby Gunderson. What they suffer from is they suffer from a problem that happens in American society
with some people where I think of it as too bad it isn't true that isms like you buy a house on the beach and the next
day here's some dirt bag walking down the beach surf casting yeah and you're like too bad it isn't
illegal that that guy wasn't down there on my beach and then they just have the energy and time
to try to follow their dream yeah my dream my dream would be that the people who are enjoying
that area uh just down there you know taking in the sun my dream is they couldn't enjoy that area
and i'm gonna spend a lot of money preventing them from enjoying it but so the supreme court
not hearing it they like challenged it, got shot down,
challenged it,
got shot down.
Yep.
And they took it to the Supreme Court
and the Supreme Court
refused to hear it
and said that the law
stands as is.
Yeah.
The high watermark
is public domain.
So summer is still on,
everyone.
Summer is still scheduled.
This is kind of newsy,
but we'll hit it right now
while we're talking about news.
A little bit of news. Mark, you're a recap mark canyon wired to hunt this is the
wired to hunt michigan deer season recap geez yeah what happened mark well i think the big
thing we were talking about discussing was a little bit not frank um demographics a little bit not Frank demographics a little bit what kind of success rate
hunters saw what kind of participation we saw and I will preface this by saying
that the data available is split between two years because there's not harvest
data available yet for the 2018 season but there is license sales data available
from this season so first off an interesting thing of note is that this
year 2018 where there are about just over 600,000 deer hunters in the state data available from this season. So first off, an interesting thing of note is that this year,
2018, there were about just over 600,000 deer hunters in the state of Michigan.
That is a lot of deer hunters, one of the highest numbers of deer hunters in the country, but it's down nearly 100,000 in just the last five years. Really? Very significant drop, 15% drop off, and that is down 200,000 deer hunters from a high point
of 785,000 in 1998. So we're seeing that pretty precipitous drop. That's the downer.
Good news front. I don't know, maybe not a good news front. Depends on how you look at it,
but we had the second highest number of bucks killed per state
in the entire country. So the only state that killed more bucks. Can I guess? Yes. Tejas? Tejas it is.
Yeah. Yes. When you're talking about food and you're like, oh, you know, they eat it in
Japan. Ain't anything to do with deer, you're like, let me guess.
Yeah.
It's Texas.
Or any funky things, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Michigan killed second only to Texas.
Second only to Texas, yeah.
And that is the third highest.
No, let me take that back.
The first or second highest bucks per square mile in the entire nation.
Three times the national average.
So we're killing a lot of deer.
How many people in here got a deer this year?
Man, a crowd of stone cold killers out there.
I think I can say with a lot of confidence that we have above average deer hunters in this room because
because exactly 50% of the deer hunters in this state killed a deer this past year, 2017.
50% success rate.
50% success rate.
If you bump that up to how many people killed more than one deer, what's your guess?
What percentage of licensed hunters killed more than one deer?
Yes.
And 50% killed a deer?
Yes.
I'm going to go, what do you think?
20%.
20?
35, 35, 35, 35.
30, 30.
30?
25.
15.
Really?
Big drop off from one to two or more.
I killed two deer this year in Michigan.
12 killed two.
You're like an elite.
Top 15%.
You're an elite cold blooded killer.
Out of six people, yeah.
Any other good Michigan insights people all know about?
Yeah, yeah.
You did a good job.
You got all this memorized?
Yeah.
Nice. No paper. I'm impressed. Nothing written on my hands your palms okay hand check um bow hunting in michigan
very very popular i think a lot of deer hunters like to talk about how there's so much bow hunting
pressure in this state i sometimes use that as an excuse for why it's tough in this state. Well, it's backed up by fact. We had 311,000 bow hunters in Michigan.
Really?
Is it because of crossbows?
I do not know the answer to that.
I don't know what the breakdown is between crossbow and bow,
but a lot of passionate bow hunters in this state.
And we have the third highest number of bucks killed per square mile in the country
with archer equipment, I think, if I remember that correctly. Is the number of bow hunters, is that number the country with archer equipment i think if i
remember that correctly is the number of bow hunters is that number going up or down i haven't
seen a trend on that i would guess it probably parallels the overall what are they attributing
i know it's a host of things and i kind of already know that it's unanswerable but what
are your insights what do they attribute what are they attributing to the number decline?
Have you seen the total number of people,
like that compared to hours spent afield?
Is it like, are we losing a lot of like the lame-o weekend,
one weekend a year dudes?
Are we losing like the hardcores?
Like who are we losing?
So I haven't seen data as far as that.
I can make some assumptions.
I don't mean to say lame-o, but you know what I mean.
Like, yeah.
You know, my dad.
That's a horrible word choice.
That's one of those things you say in life.
The one of those, yeah. Like a warrior of the weekend.
A guy who likes.
What's happening basically is that,
and this is kind of the thing you're seeing across the entire nation,
is that there was this very large group of baby boomers
that came in and, for a number of different reasons,
took on hunting.
Very popular within that demographic.
And that group has just been aging.
So if you look at the curve of hunting participation by age,
20 years ago you saw like 30 or 40-year-olds or whatever that bracket was.
That was our highest chunk of hunters.
And then as you look for 10 years, that bracket just moves further down.
And now we see our highest participation of hunters are in that like 54 to 70 range,
54 to high 60s.
And so what's happening is that your number of hunters every year,
retained hunters, is dropping off.
Because I can't remember the age at 70 or 72 or somewhere around there.
There's a very hard line where participation usually starts to dramatically drop off.
People aging out.
So we've got a very large segment of the hunting community that's aging out,
and that's not being filled back in at the top of the funnel with younger hunters.
Another interesting Michigan thing is that I saw data from 2013 through 15
that showed the number of new hunters coming in.
Some might remember that back in like 11, 12, 13, somewhere around there,
we were encouraged because there were some new numbers that showed across the nation
hunting participation was up a little bit.
So that was kind of a reason to celebrate.
Well, this data showed in Michigan that the number of new hunters
is still actually going down.
So our R3 attempts, recruitment, retention, et cetera,
maybe were, at least from 2013 to 2015, was moving in the wrong direction,
which was not great.
Not from the deer's perspective.
No.
True.
Deer, like, we're seeing some positive trends.
Yeah.
So, like, the hunting's going to get,
Michigan hunting's going to get better and better.
It depends on how you're looking at it.
It depends on how you're looking at it, yeah.
I guess if you want less competition.
If you want to see less pumpkins in the woods.
Yeah.
Which, I mean, like, selfishly, what i like it is there's fewer people it'd be nice for my own personal hunting but for the long run it's not
yeah it's not what you want as long as it's like it might feel immediately beneficial but there's
a there's a long-term play that some people feel that long-term play becomes compromised. Exactly. Okay, if you had to hit Michigan in one word,
and it can't be a hand gesture,
Michigan in a single word, what would the word be?
Do I go first?
Anyone.
Or just me?
I can go first if you're not ready.
I'll let you guys give you some time.
Yeah, okay.
I call second.
All right.
Someone else might take it.
Yeah, I want to make sure they don't listen.
Now, I'm picking this word because I've been gone now for 20 years,
but I'm going to go with green.
Green?
Greedy?
Green.
That's what I was going to say.
Green.
You stole my answer.
Why?
Green in what sense? That's true, man. What sense? That's a good was going to say. You stole my answer. Why? Green in what sense?
That's true, man.
What sense?
That's a good point.
Just like the color?
The color.
Yeah, because being in the West, man, you don't realize.
Yeah.
You're throwing over.
You don't know up here how green and how jungle-like this foliage is.
When I come back now in the summer, I'm just driving down these boulevards,
giant overhanging oaks, the big giant leaves, and it's just so green and you know i feel it in my soul when i was spending a lot of time out in matt's neck
of the woods out in eastern montana i would come here and be struck by the foliage but then and it
was cool but then like i lost that buzz kind of living in the pac Northwest, but I think it'll come back now. Like to look from an airplane
and just see that
line of leaves, man.
It's reassuring,
but God, it's bleak in the winter.
Not today.
Did you like it today? Oh, it was beautiful today.
Yeah, yeah.
I thought you were saying we're green like a bunch of new hunters.
I didn't really appreciate that.
I thought he just pictures the land carpeted in cash.
And a bunch of marijuana growing in the woods.
What do you got, Mark?
That did just become legalized.
Tradition.
Tradition?
Yeah, I think I look at Michigan and i see a estate filled with a lot
of passion for the tradition of hunting and then also so i'd say it's like the macro level
tradition but then also personally you know when i think of michigan hunting it's the tradition of
my family deer camp and spending time with family in those those moments yeah everyone everyone up here except ronnie was born
great state of michigan no that's not true i was born in hinsdale you were yeah how old were you
moved to michigan two months oh two months old where were you born about Yeah, that's right. I forget about that. So never mind.
Where was Matt born?
Where?
Kinsdale, Illinois.
It's a suburb of Chicago. I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Oh, never mind.
I thought I was stacked at the Dagger Homes.
I thought he was like a bunch of Michigan mugs, man.
But everybody's up here as a faker.
Transplant.
How do they say it?
Formative years? Huh? How do they say it? Formative years?
Huh?
How do you say it?
Formative.
Yeah.
Formative.
We've all spent
formative years here.
Yes.
I got more Michigan
laid up right here
than you boys.
Matt, what do you got?
One word.
Man, like,
so I thought about this
when you asked this question earlier.
Like, I kind of don't want to say
what I was thinking,
but I want to say adorable.
Adorable?
But like, but like, I have to describe what I was thinking, but I want to say adorable. Adorable?
But like, I have to describe what I mean when I say that.
Because you got to be like a special dude to use the word adorable.
Right, exactly.
So I want to say adorable,
and I was like, hunters would be like,
what's he talking about adorable?
He would kick his ass.
Like, no, I mean like, it's like.
It's like, oh, so are you adorable?
Yeah, it's like, it kind of plays off that tradition.
It's like, it's like, you know, it's complex. It's got all these things, got all the seasons, like the big city, the's like, it kind of plays off that tradition. It's like, it's like, you know, it's complex.
It's got all these things, got all the seasons,
like the big city, the small city, the urban,
like it's got all of that.
It's kind of like Norman Rockwell adorable
sort of like sense to it, but yet like,
it's also kind of a qualifier for like bigger state stuff.
You know, like it's a qualifier like for moving to Montana.
It's a qualifier for Alaska.
It's got, you know, you can fish salmon here.
You know, you can't fish that in many states other than the coastal states.
There's a big game here.
Like, so it's got a little bit of everything.
So that was kind of adorable.
Adorable.
Adorable.
And a qualifier.
Makes me want to snuggle my state, man.
Makes me want to panic because I can't come up with a word.
The only thing I can think of is from moving from Illinois to here is Yanni actually stole mine.
I was going to go green.
You were going to roll with green.
Yeah, I was thinking green because that's what I thought of when I came here.
You know, Illinois is a prairie state.
We've got trees, but they're in a city.
And so I guess the only thing I can think of that struck me from coming here as a kid is just water.
Like all the different kinds.
You've got waterfalls, great lakes, little lakes, swampy lakes, duck ponds, just water.
Frozen water.
Lots of hard water.
Yeah.
Hard water.
Yeah.
That's all I can come up with.
Mine is the adjective form of water.
Watery.
Watery. Watery.
Nice going, Illinois brother.
I don't feel so bad about adorable.
Adorable is way better than watery.
The reason I even asked that question is I was talking to the writer Ian Frazier one time
and he's from Ohio,
but really liked to talk about me being from Michigan
and he said one day we were talking about Michigan and he said you know when I think
of Michigan I always think of people that I met on the bus who would say fuckers
adorable I've never been like that's true man I true, man. I thought that was universal.
I thought that was being on a bus.
It was an elementary school bus.
I was like, that's true.
That is how we say that on the bus.
I just said it.
So that sticks in my head.
I can't get it out of my head.
Okay, now another Michigan thing real quick.
You could pick, and I got to warn you about this.
You could pick your favorite Uncle Ted or Uncle Bob song.
But you don't get one of each?
You can do one of each, but I think it'd be too long,
because that'd be like 12 tunes.
I think you should go one.
It could be either Uncle Bobby
or Uncle Teddy.
I tried to talk Matt
into bringing his guitar
to play a little bit of every
favorite song, and the Seeger ones, you'd
be all over. Some
of them. But he was intimidated.
He was intimidated by certain other
tunes that you were like are too complex.
Yeah. So he did not bring the guitar.
I can't shred like the nudes.
Can you do like if someone says a song, you'd be able to like...
Hum it?
Yeah, something like that.
That's impressive.
Sure he can.
Yeah.
Because these are like things I think like foundational Michigan music.
And I know there's newer versions, but I think are foundational Michigan music.
And I know there's newer versions, but I'm just dating myself here.
But this was old music when I was a kid.
Uncle Bobby and Uncle Ted. Speak for yourself.
Mark, are you raising your hand?
Yeah, I call a Nugent song because I don't think I can name a Seeger song.
Dude, come on.
Mark!
This guy.
Mark.
Mark Canyon is the only man I've ever met in my life who identifies.
Can I do it to you?
Please do. I don't know.
What are you about to do?
It's almost like the name that shall not be spoken.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Musicians?
Yeah.
Never in Mexico.
We had a long conversation.
He's great.
Mark, like, actually,
if you ask Mark,
Mark likes,
it's like,
they're like the Fonzie
trying to say wrong.
Let's start with Frederick.
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
Mark's a Billy Joel fan.
He's not like my favorite,
but Billy Joel's pretty good.
He also didn't see
Jeremiah Johnson. Ah, uh yeah i'm less shocked that he can't name a nugent song
no you can't name uncle bobby song i i got nugent oh i think he said oh night moves no
no roll me away my favorite news song my favorite agent song is the cliche song you could possibly think of for this event
but it was on a cd that i listened to every morning when heading to go hunting it's on my
deer hunting soundtrack first track got me pumped up every morning heading out it's the iconic fred
bear yeah oh that that counts that counts yanni you're roll. I think I can only name one of each.
I'm just not good at this game.
I've never been good at this game.
But yeah, it would be Night Moves.
Night Moves.
Yeah.
And I like it more now since you explained.
I used to just sing along.
I never really thought about words or songs.
Points sitting way high.
I just sing along and dance a little bit and enjoy myself, feel good.
But when you explained what that song means, it changed it.
Like what actually is happening in that song.
You need an interpreter.
That one, yeah.
I would like that.
Can you explain maybe just one verse?
I think everybody would love to hear it.
Yeah, it's about senescence.
It's like growing old and fading out.
Woke last night to the sound of thunder.
It strikes a man deep when you start listening to it.
Real heavy.
How far off, I sat and wondered.
You can read it like a Bob Service poem.
Almost.
Now you got one you want to rip out?
I feel like I should go with Roll Me Away because of motorcycles,
but I'm going to have to go with the live version of Travelman and the Beautiful Loser yeah yeah that's when it kicks in the
Beautiful Loser in the middle of that that's pretty good man and then I do have a Ted I do
Ted song Great White Buffalo really yeah really yeah that's a good one. Yes. The B-side to...
Fred Bear.
Yeah, the B-side.
Yeah.
You got it, Ron.
You're not like a big music guy.
That was like...
Oh, yeah, the live version was the...
I'm not.
I never have.
But I have continually bought Bob Seger CDs of the greatest hits of Bob Seger for the
last 20 years.
And when they burn up, I throw them out.
So my daughter...
He burned up a CD?
You can if you listen to it enough.
He plays it that fast.
Well, I'm on the road a lot.
And I have instructions to my daughter, Jessie,
at my funeral, it will be,
you will accompany me.
That's a good one.
I will cry if I start doing the lyrics to that.
Do it.
Do it.
I want to challenge you. You's do it. Let's do it. Sunday lady, you're
coming to me.
It makes me
weep. I'll stick
with the Seeger theme, but mine
would probably be Refugee.
That's Uncle
Tom. He's not from here.
Not Uncle Tom's cabin.
You got to admit, it's a pretty good song.
Yeah.
I heard it yesterday.
But really, I'd say I can't pick just one.
I have to go with two.
And one is as sweet as the other is savage.
I'd say on the sweet end, it's Main Street.
And then on the savage end, it's Her Strut.
Strut, Strut.
Both those songs are about, you know,
they're the only two songs I know of in this whole catalog
that are about how you say adult dancing.
Yes.
But you, this is a debate.
I don't know if you remember this we used to have we had a like
big debate about what strut is about right right in strut uncle bobby says um i do respect her
i do respect her but i love to watch her strut is what he he says. Matt used to say, no, no, no.
He's saying, I do respect her butt.
I love to see her. I love to watch her strut.
And we would argue about that endlessly.
And I hope that now you've given up on your respect.
It does seem a little silly in retrospect.
The problem with all that stuff is like, oh, it's just like,
you come back here, you hear so much classic rock.
In Montana, you don't hear nearly as much.
It's hard to keep up on it.
But that stuff is so good, but it just gets so old, you know?
You mean after a lifetime of listening to it?
I wish I had like rock and
roll dementia.
Where I could just
all be gone and I could
discover the new, you know.
Yeah, that'd be good.
Because mine's
been taken. Like with friends that you
haven't seen in five years,
they get in your car and they'd be like,
he had that album in five years ago when I got him this car.
Yeah.
Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.
And boy, my goodness, 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 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 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.
Yeah. I'm going to, mine's already been taken, Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all.
Mine's already been taken, but definitely the older I get,
like the night moves thing.
Because now that I'm like practically dead,
halfway, it's especially meaningful.
I remember we had a conversation about Hollywood nights when you're driving.
Yeah.
Like that's a good driving song.
Makes you want to drive. Yeah.
Faster than you should. Okay.
So that's your Michigan tune.
If you had to do, and Mark,
Kenny, I'm barring you from
doing what I
think you're going to do.
One Michigan hunting
and fishing activity. You have to
pick one thing.
One hunting and fishing thing in Michigan and that pick one thing, one hunting and fishing thing
in Michigan
and that's the only one you can engage in.
And don't worry about like factoring out
how many days you can participate in it for a year.
But like the thing that is best to you.
But you're barring me from saying
what I think you're going to say.
So I can't say deer hunting.
Yeah, you can't do that.
Right.
Does that put you in a really bad position?
No.
Okay.
No.
You can say it.
Easy answer other than deer would be turkey hunting.
Turkey hunting.
Send me.
Get me after the gabbers.
Fender.
Michigan Turks.
Yeah.
Michigan Turks.
I probably had to go Turks too, man.
Yeah, no.
I love my squirrels, but if I'm going...
That's not surprising.
Really?
That's not surprising at all.
But you really love squirrels.
I really love squirrels, man, but those turkeys, man.
Somebody asked us recently about which animal is most challenging
or what do you love about hunting so much?
And I answered, because I love the challenge.
And I feel like I wasn't clear enough, and people mistook that I was saying
that I love just the physical challenge of it so much.
But turkey hunting, really, a lot of times, it's not that physical, right?
And that's one thing I love about it for looking at the future,
is when I'm an old man, I can probably still be hunting turkeys.
But the turkey just consistently humbles me.
And that's really nice to have in a species.
Squirrels have been doing that to me lately as well.
But I feel like there might come a time where I won't be humbled by the squirrel anymore.
I'm with you.
But like turkeys, the thing, I love to hunt turkeys, and they do humble you, but sometimes I wonder if turkeys are hard
because they get smart, or is it because they're so unsmart
that they become completely unpredictable?
Right?
Because if you really review it in your mind there could be two
things going on one would be that he's cagey two is just he's completely irrational
there's probably a little bit of both going on and you you you mistake his irrational character
because you'd be like well why like i'm Like, I'm making, like, these enticing sounds, and you just want to come over here to make love to this hen turkey that I'm mimicking,
but he's just so whacked out that it doesn't even occur to him to come do it. If I could solve that,
then I maybe would go with it, but I have a different one that I'm going to go with.
But it doesn't matter, because the chess game is only in my head.
He's not really playing against me, right? He doesn't know.
Good point.
We talked about this before.
Did you see the thing the guy did where I was saying,
if you set up on a roost tree,
100 yards away from the roost tree,
what are the odds that the turkey's just going to walk past you?
Yeah, you showed me his calculations.
13% of the time, he'll walk within shotgun range of you,
which is kind of about right.
Like, just randomly select a position in a circle around a roost tree,
and there's a 13% chance that he'll pass within 40 yards
of one side of you or the other.
And I feel like that's about, I mean, I still love what you're saying, man.
I'm not dogging on turkey hunting.
No offense taken.
Like, I want to say deer hunting too, but I feel like that's kind of what everybody's kind of go to.
Yeah, I'd have banned that from that.
But I also like, honestly, like bouncing around in a boat, like bottom fishing, like wondering what you're going to get out there.
Like just like panfish, bass, like just an unknown lake, like not knowing what's going
to happen.
Like I like that.
Drop bait down to the bottom of the lake.
Just like seeing what you're going to get.
Like, cause like if you're turkey hunting, you're like going to get a turkey, which is
great.
I love that.
But I also like going out there with like kind of the unknown, like what am I going
to get today?
Like, I like that idea.
Yeah. Like you're asking little questions yeah yeah yeah
oh well i can't really i'd uh you know i'd be hunting grouse i have to hunt grouse that'd be
the one the one thing that um if i couldn't travel anymore i could always count on michigan
for having a handful of grouse to chase.
What are grouse numbers in Michigan doing right now?
Well, I heard a guy say recently they do best in years that end in nine and zero.
So that would be this fall and the following fall from here.
So it's good right now?
It should be coming up, yeah.
We're hoping.
So there's no, like, long-term trouble?
Because, like, Indiana, like, a state endangered bird now right yeah indiana is gonna uh listed as endangered it's not gonna affect us
any but it's gonna be listed in danger there no it's it's dry it's still dropping off precipitously
in every state like our grouse numbers will never take what we took years ago just because changing
timber practices i think mostly i think you, you know, habitats like everything. Habitats, habitat. It's like location, location to buy a house. Yeah.
It's always habitat. But, you know, luckily we do a little bit of timbering, you know, not enough,
but we do a little bit of timbering. But I mean, you can find grouse, even if it's not a clear cut,
you can find grouse. And that's the one thing I couldn't live without. I'd have to have that.
Yep.
I don't like this moving the sidebar of, like, taking it out of the season.
No, I didn't say take it out of season.
Like, poach it.
Oh, I had these guys over here
shooting chicks in June or something.
Oh, no, what I meant was,
what I meant was,
you could, like,
I'm trying to free you from feeling
like you need to pick a thing just because you can do it for a long, for many days.
Right.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah. I'm going to stay with, even though that's the case, I'm going to stay with perch.
Fishing yellow perch.
Because, well, I guess two reasons.
You fished yellow perch today?
I did. I did.
There's just so much opportunity.
They're so good to eat.
And I just like how egalitarian it is.
Anybody can do it.
You don't need permission.
There's so many, you know, it's like every man's fish.
Yeah, I'm with you.
When I was thinking about this, I think about a lot.
The thing I like most was something we didn't do that many times.
I think that you, Matt Drolis, you and our brother Danny pioneered it,
which was where Pendles Creek flows out into Pendles Bay,
which is kind of like Whitefish Bay, right?
Yeah.
Of Lake Superior.
And you guys, this is in the mid-90s.
Yeah, would have been 96, 97, yeah.
You guys figured out that you could go down there in the spring.
Yeah.
No, it's fall too, though.
We did both.
Taking spawn sacks with little bits of foam in them
and hucking them out and
catching little dinker steelhead.
Yeah.
We said that day.
Yeah.
It was amazing.
It was the set of rods and just like,
just sit back and wait for him to go off.
Surf.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Surf fishing Lake Superior.
That's pretty fun,
man.
And one time we caught a beaver by the tail.
I grabbed that.
Yeah.
That was back when we would do something called,
we would call worrying wildlife,
where you would just now and then detain a beaver.
Just for the story, which you would tell 20 years later on stage.
Send him along his way after worrying him.
But there's a picture I have.
There's a picture I have from fishing Pendles Bay, like surf cast in Pendles Bay, and we were
down there, I think it was real windy, and I think we got done fishing, and everybody was drinking
Boone's Farm wine, and what stuck out, like what sticks out about the picture, what sticks out
about that little brief kind of moment when we did that a lot, was I remember it was, and I've
talked about this a handful of times in a friend's mind.
I guess I was hit the age
where
you know like when you're really young, you got
friends, but you don't think about them.
That's when you call everybody
fuckers, you know.
And that's how you are with your friends.
You don't have to foster that friendship much. It's just there.
You just take it for granted.
It's just the guy you accuse of masturbating for.
Yes,
it's like,
you have a friend,
you accuse him of masturbating,
you give him the finger
when you see him,
and he's just your main friend,
you know?
So I know it's a good friend.
And you know that you're like,
you know,
like Doug Duren says,
you're like,
no,
it's not a dog,
right?
So you're just together.
But then,
like, at this Pendles Bay day that I'm thinking of
was one of the first moments when I would ever hit an age
where I was like, my God, do I like my friends.
You know, and like a way, and I have this picture from that day,
and I look at the picture, it's like this realization that,
you know, you do like these people.
They're not just people to flip off or whatever when you see them it
was like this kind of like cherished moment now i just have this thing and i look at and it's always
anchored in time because we would drink a lot of boons back then i remember we were fishing pendles
lake one time that's so cold that our boons froze i was and it rose up as a syrup. Yeah. And then we would just do shots of the syrup that
came up out of the top of your boots. So my daughter, my, I took my daughter ice fishing
the other day, which, well, actually she asked me to go ice fishing, which is great. But then I
found out later she was doing it because she wanted to get out of a babysitting gig that I
didn't know she was asked to do. And she was like, my dad is going to take me ice fishing. And then
she asked me to go ice fishing. So that was like the whole shtick.
But then we were on the ice, and she was like,
have you ever been out ice fishing for a whole day?
And I was like thinking about one of those Pendle trips.
I'm like, oh, yeah.
Like Steve and I used to go out, and like Matt and Dan,
we'd go out all day long.
Cook out on the ice.
Like I left the Boone's Farm part out, but like get snow blindness. Yeah, just stay out on it.
She's going to hear that part now.
She's like, she was very like, that'd be fun.
I'm like, and I was kind of like, just what you said.
I was thinking like, yeah, and that was, those are good times, man.
Those are good friends.
Like, just like all day long on that lake.
You somehow don't recognize it when it's happening.
No.
Those fun ass times, man.
Yeah.
Okay, moving on to crossbows.
Why, like crossbows are super controversial all of a sudden, man. I'm going to be the guy up here that's an opponent of crossbows. Why, like, crossbows are super controversial
all of a sudden, man. I'm going to be the guy
up here that's an opponent of crossbows. You like them.
Go on. I'm going out, so
with my daughter, and like, with the, there's
a youth hunt that takes place earlier in the season,
and on public land, you can't use
a rifle. This is all correct, right?
I'm saying this correct? Well, where?
And so it'd be northern, like
Grand Traverse, like Traverse County.
You can't use a, a youth can't use a rifle on public land during that early season hunt.
Never been up there for that.
Yeah, I'll buy that.
Does that sound right?
Yeah.
Does that sound right?
So anyhow, so it was time for me to get a new bow.
And she was like eight or eight-ish.
And so I was starting to take her hunting.
And I was just kind of figuring like, what could I, like, what could I, like, I could invest in a new bow for me to get a new bow. And she was like eight or eight-ish. And so I was starting to take her hunting. And I was just kind of figuring like, what could I, like, what could I, like,
I can invest in a new bow for me. I can buy this like crossbow that she and I can both use. It's
like universal. And she was into hunting, but she was like, she was still nervous about like gunshots.
It was kind of like a, like a, like a gateway drug into that, I guess, like with this crossbow.
I'm with you. And she loved it.
And like, I kind of bought it as like for her,
but now I use it.
It's great.
Like, I love it.
And you know, there's all these talks about like,
you take these like far shots and it's,
you know, it may just be how I view it,
not how I hunt,
but I haven't taken a shot with that thing
that I would not have taken with a bow.
Like, I don't like, you know, it's, you shoot it, you can see that bolt still moving.
So it's not like it's rifle, you know, quality of, like, taking an 80-yard shot.
You know, if you shoot a bow, you know, you got those dudes that jump the string or whatever and, like, you know, move quickly.
So you've always got that in mind.
So any, like, far shot, like, I always have that in mind.
So I just make sure it's, like, a normal bow shot and take it with that crossbow. And you're having that in mind. So any like far shot, like I always have that in mind. So I just make sure it's like a normal bow shot and take it with that crossbow.
And you're having success.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You ever shot one, Mark?
I have shot crossbows, never had an animal.
But my dad used a crossbow.
Grandpa used one back in the day.
I don't have a problem with them.
I understand why some people see there being ethical questions around long shots
or why some people don't like the idea of a bunch of people just grabbing a crossbow
and heading out during their cherished archery season.
But who's drawing these lines of what's okay, what's not?
You could have a traditional archer say, well, you shouldn't be taking your crossbow.
I think it's also like you put a lot of stock in it.
Hunting is so much more than that piece of equipment crossbow. But I think it's also like you put a lot of stock in it and just like hunting is so much more than like
that piece of equipment that you use, I think.
Yeah.
You know, so you put all this like stock
and like hunting is just like
if you're using a bow or crossbow
that makes or breaks whether or not you're like
an ethical hunter or like enjoying the hunt.
You just talk about like, you know,
like the numbers of bow hunters are declining.
Like that's probably not good for hunting.
And that's my, yes, sir.
I was going to say the biggest reason why I'm okay with crossbows is simply
because of that trend.
Anything that's going to help people stick around in the hunting,
participating population longer, I'm going to be okay with.
And that's something that A, is easier for new hunters to pick up.
So if we want to make it easier for new folks to get into deer hunting and try
archery hunting,
it's a whole heck of a lot easier
for someone who maybe is interested
in eating local food.
Some guy who's 25
and is intrigued by the food aspect of it.
It's going to be really hard
to get that person right at the gate
shooting a vertical bow,
but give them a crossbow,
you got a chance.
For kids, I bought it for my daughter.
And I think that's a good
kind of entry
level like piece of equipment for you know you know if she if she pursues it more than
than we will buy you know a decent bow but like this is kind of like a way to get her
to stay out in the woods with me and like kind of be engaged in her own and she can use it so
yeah i i think i i didn't know how i felt about when i first came on the scene and then i
you know thought about it and bought this, and I'm happy with it.
I think it's a good thing.
I'd advocate if there's someone who got into hunting, picked up a crossbow,
and that's what they started with, and they liked it.
I would tell that person just from my own personal experiences,
if you like that, you would really love trying a compound bow.
Yeah, I agree.
It's another level.
It's a different experience.
It requires a totally different level of time and energy and expertise,
but it makes that experience a little bit different,
a little bit more intimate in some way.
What if instead they say, this was great,
but now have you seen these things that shoot the bolts out of what looks like
a rifle?
Right.
What do they call them?
Yeah.
Bolt guns?
Air bows?
Air bows, yeah.
What if they say,
you know what,
this thing just shoots an arrow too.
Right.
Is that regarded as a gun or a bolt?
We haven't decided yet.
Oh, no one's decided yet.
I mean...
Can I use this during archery season?
There's got to be a long a line drawn somewhere and i agree that's that's a tough question to answer you know what's interesting
is that for whatever reason when i look at that my gut's like oh no that should not be used but
then when you start thinking about why why where's the maybe there's some mechanical thing within that the venue we
can point to so if it has this mechanism that propels the bull to the arrow then it can qualify
as archery but if it's compressed gas or something like that i don't know um you know our dad was
involved because he he started bull hunting very early and he was involved with groups that were early on petitioning states to create archery
seasons, which at the time was very controversial for many of the same reasons that people point to
controversies around crossbows. People didn't want to have archery seasons because it was going to
destroy deer hunting on and on. But then, so he was involved in that in the 50s, and then was vehemently opposed to crossbows
for the same set of reasons that he battled against,
you know, to try to bring in archery seasons.
I've never shot one, so I don't really have,
this is just something I'm trying to look at and figure out.
I had a guy write in, he's like, yeah, you know, efficacy rates don't really go up with crossbows,
but it's only because inexperienced hunters use them.
He said if the real hard hitters, if the real hard hitters were using them, it'd be like game over from his perspective.
Like the real lifelong hard hitters switch to that, it'd be like they'd be exceptionally deadly.
So I don't know.
Any instincts, Matt?
I don't know.
I don't have an ethical position on it.
My own state where I hunt,
and I'm very selfish about, like,
I like there to be as few people in my areas as possible.
He's not into R3.
I would completely selfishly
hope they don't have crossbows.
Because it seems like it would turn into more
people being in the areas I go to.
Do you think people that
didn't hunt all of a sudden started hunting because
crossbows came on the scene? Absolutely.
You think so?
Or rifle hunters. that's what comes
to mind to me is that a rifle hunter would be like oh now i can hunt bring bowling balls with this
thing and i think the whole question comes down to which way do you look at things do you look at
that from the perspective of do you want more hunters or do you want fewer hunters do you want
fewer hunters because it's going to lead to a better experience for you personally then you
probably don't want to crossbows if you are less concerned about your specific way of experiencing the wild and what your hunt's going to be like,
and you are thinking more about what are things going to be like 20 years from now in my son's hunting,
then that person, I think, supports crossbows.
I'm on board until Matt loses opportunity.
Once Matt starts losing opportunities, I say no more.
Okay.
I'm ready to move on.
I want to talk about emotional support dogs.
It's a good thing.
How many dogs do you own?
Currently five.
Do you have any of them registered as an emotional support dog?
Oh, even registered as one? No. Do you have an of them registered as an emotional support dog? Oh, even registered as one?
No.
Like, do you have an emotional support dog?
No.
No.
So how, like, Matt, can you, we haven't really talked about this.
You have one.
I have an emotional support course.
Can you break down for me?
Are you at liberty to talk about it?
Sure.
Okay.
As long as the airlines, some representatives aren't i'd like to enter i'd like to interject can you explain i want you to talk and i don't
want to get yourself in trouble from the perspective of someone with an emotional
support dog yeah well i because how is it okay go ahead no no finish your question okay
is it just that you don't want to be inconvenienced,
so therefore you have an emotional support dog?
Or do, like, to speak for your community.
Is it that you guys are like, oh, you mean I could do this
and then just bring my dog everywhere?
Is it that or is it I emotionally? I guess it's like I enjoy being with my dog.
So, like, I like my dog to be with me.
And I just so happen to, like, I have struggled with depression my whole life,
so I'm on antidepressants, which makes me eligible so to get the dog to have
shifty be an emotional support dog is it more emotional for you to be with is it more emotional
for you without the dog so it's really the only reason i registered is i i saved a few hundred on airline tickets.
But it's totally legit.
Right.
It is legit.
I didn't know that.
And because she's an emotional support dog,
I'm allowed to like
have her on a leash
next to me on the plane
outside of a kennel,
but I don't want people,
I want people to think
I'm paying to take her.
So I put her in a kennel
so they don't think I'm, they don't know I'm crazy.
I got to, I got to, I want to put the comparison to this because I know people who've done this.
Getting an emotional support dog permit is like getting a medical marijuana slip from your doctor.
It's the same as you say, I got a headache.
Okay, here, I got a headache. Okay,
here, you can buy marijuana.
Nah, nah. My doctor wanted a few days to think about it.
Same doctor.
But you don't use them for, because like with bird dogs, it'd be great, right?
Oh, yeah. I could fly to Alaska with one and go hunt ptarmigan if I could tell them I was, you know, I needed a dog for emotional support.
That'd be great.
But you just haven't done it.
I never even thought about it.
But I know people who've done it. I know people who've done it with a full-sized dog and they were afraid they were going to get caught because, like you said, you don't want to say too much because part of it's for convenience.
You know, you love that dog.
You don't want to leave her alone.
You're putting words in my mouth.
I know.
Can emotional support dogs be any size
or do they have to be any breed?
Doesn't matter.
Could be a mastiff or corgi.
Doesn't matter.
If, change your gears a little bit.
If you, this song, I think, I get nostalgic in Michigan.
What's the thing from growing up that if you,
when you tell someone about it now,
boy, what part of like some belief system
or thing that was typical or that happened
or extraordinary or whatever,
that when you tell someone that that happened to you when you were young,
it sounds the most fucked up. Can I lead off with that? From a hunting perspective or just
in general? Whatever you want. It could be. Go ahead. You have a clarifying question?
You sent us a couple ideas that we'd be talking about, and I said, Steve must have put me up to this one.
You have one?
Yeah.
Well, I mean.
Well, I didn't put you up to it.
I sent the idea to you.
Yeah, I mean, but I thought you threw that one in
because you know some history about me.
Oh, no, because I have things I can't tell.
Oh, okay.
No, there's some things that,
there's some practices that I was familiar with.
I'm talking about like in the
sporting life right that um now i just have to i i would talk about them with you downstairs say
right but not up here this is just like growing up stuff things that you can't believe
if people nowadays yeah i'll do i'll do mine just to set about. Okay. Okay. Because I got mine ready.
I told my wife this story, and I told my kids this story,
and they look at me like they can't picture what I'm talking about.
My dad used to have a friend who would come over.
He was a drunkard named Mr. Higgins.
And I remember Mr. Higgins coming over our house one time on his snowmobile
in his snowsuit but didn't have clothes on under his snowsuit. Do you remember this?
Yeah. And he took one of our pet hamsters and put it in his snowsuit.
Wasn't a gerbil. Yes. No, it was a hamster. Put it, I think it was a hamster,
not a gerbil. I think gerbils came into fashion. No, it was a hamster. Put it, I think it was a hamster, not a gerbil.
I think gerbils came into fashion.
I think it was a hamster.
And put it in his snowsuit and let it run around while saying,
I love that little critter.
And it burned into my mind.
Just Mr. Higgins, how drunk he'd be, how he'd come over on a snowmobile.
And it just was like, and I probably even messed parts of it up.
But when I tell people, I don't know why, but it's just like one of the stories that's in my repertoire.
And it's gotten to be that people used to laugh.
And now I tell people, they look at me like, you can't be telling me this.
Nobody would do that.
Now, if he were to try to do that,
he would burn up in flames or something on the way over.
Like guys don't show up dressed that way,
drunk on snowmobiles anymore.
Right.
It's just for whatever reason,
right.
Something in the air.
It's not accepted.
So I'm going to take liberty because you know the story.
Matt probably does.
And me being the old guy here, I mean, the one thing is like,
you know where I'm going.
This is the greatest thing in the world.
It's not.
It wasn't when you were growing up.
But I want to preface it with when I was a kid, you know, I'm 61 years old.
We literally got out of the house in the morning and left,
and we lived in the city of Chicago, in the city.
It's just all black and white.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it just, what I'm getting at is like our parents didn't really,
I'm not saying they didn't care.
They just didn't worry like parents worry now.
They didn't helicopter.
And on that same thread, there was a policy at the Chicago Public Schools
that I was oblivious to in eighth grade.
In Chicago, you went first to eighth grade.
You guys skipped second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh.
Start from an eighth?
That's what happens.
Now I know where we're going.
You know where I'm going.
All right.
So, like, you get junior high here in Michigan.
Paul, I don't understand what just happened between you two.
He knows the story.
I just know what the story is now.
Oh, I thought you knew about skipping from first to eighth.
And so I graduate eighth grade.
Like, we didn't have a middle school thing.
So you go from this little school with one little gymnasium.
I'm with you now.
This takes putting a hamster in your trousers and kicking it up and down.
This happens to every kid.
There's no junior high.
No junior high.
So you come from eighth grade, and all of a sudden,
you're going to go now with all these people older than you
and all your friends from eighth grade.
Yeah, it's like dudes with 5 o'clock shadows and stuff.
Oh, yeah.
You're in eighth grade.
The guy that can buy you beer in sophomore year.
And come to find out, and you you can google this it is a policy
was a policy until 1976 i graduated in 75 that boys swam naked in swim class now
we said We sat. Now, I'm not trying to steal the thunder because no one's got one.
Oh, no, listen, man.
The thunders, the thunders.
You have the thunders.
You're Thor in this one.
Matt was there.
We were all up at the fish shack in Alaska, and I'm telling this story.
You guys are rolling, and Doug's not believing me.
And Danny, the only one that had a signal on his phone and danny goes yeah look here boys in chicago swim naked from 1938 to 1975
and i'll i'll end it on that but what were they getting at nobody knows you can look it up and
they say uh the you know the you know the swimsuits, if they weren't well kept and they were just dirty.
I'm like, it didn't make any sense.
I could go into too many swimming stories, but I just want you to picture.
I don't think you're going sour here.
I just did.
It's like Pink Floyd's The Wall, man.
It's like they're like, it makes no sense.
No, it's just, they're like, I want to make sure to cause as much psychological damage to the children as possible.
Right.
And the point I was getting before was our parents didn't go to school.
You didn't even have parent-teacher conferences unless you were the kid that was in the hallway all week.
And so if you come home, you say,
we swam naked.
Your mom would go like,
you're going outside, be back by dinner.
It didn't seem to bother anybody
that I was also born October 30th.
So I was like way behind the maturity scale.
You were 11 months behind everybody else. I just kept
looking in the locker for swimsuits
and watching everybody walking.
I'm like, looks like my dad.
He's got to be
got to be
somewhere.
I felt like I had less on than if you know what I'm saying.
Like you got naked and then took more stuff off.
I was more naked.
And to this day, I can't swim a lake.
I go up in the boat with you, I got the one life preserver,
and if it gets wet, it goes...
Anyway, so...
Yeah, really.
I don't know.
Maybe I ate up too much time on that.
I'm sorry.
It's weird because at that same time,
I thought everybody was running around in those Rodney Dangerfield swimsuits
from back to school.
Like the suit.
That was a little before me.
Yeah.
Any, man?
I got nothing after that.
You tapped out?
Yeah, I'm pissed.
Sorry.
Mark, any practices that...
When I was a kid, I listened to Billy Joel.
There's some things that are so embarrassing, Mark.
Keep it to yourself.
Parents just wouldn't let that happen anymore.
Was it supposed to have a Michigan twist or no?
From our childhood.
Oh, yeah, because he violated the Michigan rule.
No, just go ahead.
And when you tell the story now, people kind of look
at you like, is that for real? Yeah, like
it feels very like you're dating something.
Like another one I'll tell.
I think I got something for you.
It's like when I tell all you guys
about Latvian summer camp
and what went on there, you guys all
look at me like, what?
I can go on and on about the activities that went on there,
but it's just like every other summer camp,
except it was Latvian summer camp.
Was that Ronnie's swimming experience?
No, nothing like that.
Another version of what I'm saying would be
that I remember one time my dad rounding a corner,
and my brother, we were little kids,
the door swung open, and he shot out onto the curb.
So there's like a couple things where there's no safety belts,
no child restraint seats, and he's riding shotgun.
So that's just different now.
Like now it's hard to picture a kid squirting out of a fast-cornering car.
Matt? No.
You go.
No, no.
I don't know if I have
anything like that
from my...
Yeah, I kind of
misread the question.
Oh, what did you think
it meant?
I thought you were
talking about like
really inhumane
things we did as kids.
Oh, yeah. That's what I was saying we were talking about like really inhumane things we did as kids. Oh, yeah.
That's what I was saying.
And then I thought, well, it must be okay to talk about that.
But now that I realize that's not what you're asking,
I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be okay to talk about it.
Although it does indicate how things were different.
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 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 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.
Are you guys familiar with
Mark, you can correct me if I'm wrong on this.
If
you shoot a high
fence deer,
is it true that deer is non-admissible
into Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett?
Correct.
That's correct.
So we got a number of questions.
There are separate record books for that kind of thing.
What's that?
There are people keep those records,
but not the Fair Chase, Boone and Crockett, or Pope and Young books.
Like, SDI will accept it, right?
Yeah.
Pretty sure SDI and some other thing.
So, Boone and Crockett and Pope and Young will not accept, like,
a deer from a confined area in the record books.
We got a couple emails from guys asking an interesting question where
the fish world doesn't have an equivalent.
So some dude, like,
I want to get my story straight here.
Some guy in Tennessee
makes
a pond, has a private pond,
and basically builds
a crappie
in the pond
that beats the state record by
a pound.
That guy should be ashamed of himself.
That's so ridiculous.
But IFGA
accepts the
fish. But isn't the whole idea of having a
trophy that you accomplished
something? Well, and this other guy wrote it.
Mark might even know about this. I don't know. I don't want to put it on you but it's there's there's a guy in texas
who's managing a pond and his whole deal is just to grow the next world record bass and he says
that this feller was actually influential in the creation of food plots to grow large white tails
i don't know if that's true or not it was was last May that the guy in Tennessee raised himself up in a little pond
a new world record crappie.
So it's more about, now it's like,
it's not about your angling skill.
It's like how good you are at fish husbandry.
It's ag.
Yes, but this is where it gets like a rich subject
because that's what people's happen.
Like there's the argument that like whitetail hunting
has become animal husbandry.
It's become like big time whitetail hunting
has become more akin to animal husbandry than hunting,
which, you know, there's sides to it.
But this idea that that's infiltrating or permeating
the fish world and should organization that that tallies records like the ifga is very strict like
if you hook a fish and then hand the rod to me and i land it that fish is ineligible. Right. Okay, you can't gaff it, all kinds of stuff, but you can basically make a
frankenfish.
Yeah, and that's...
As long as I don't hand the rod to you.
Right, right.
It's the record.
It's like, what is the goal?
I thought the, it seems like the goal should be like,
that if you get a high score in one of these things,
that that's like emblematic of some kind of an accomplishment.
Yeah.
And so it just,
it's,
I've always argued that there should be one that's like,
for the score you get when you shoot something where everybody else can go.
And that would be like the one that most people would aspire to have the top score at.
Yeah, like you've proposed the idea and I've talked about it.
You've proposed like the Hunt Purity score.
The Hunt Purity Index is a different thing.
The hunt purity index is different?
Yeah.
That's a different animal.
But this is about like,
if we're going to have some number
that quantifies a hunting achievement,
there should be one that's designated
for fishing game that was harvested where anybody can go.
Do they have to catch this?
So this fish he's raised, do you actually have to catch it?
Like on a hook and line to qualify?
Yeah.
No, you got to then catch it.
Of the pond you have right there.
Yeah, you can't net it up.
You got to catch it by certain criteria.
Well, that makes it perfect then. pond you have right there you can't net it up yeah you gotta like catch it by certain criteria is there any difference in that and making your property into food pots and all that other stuff
i i don't know i'm throwing so i like to fish out of the pond in the backyard yeah yeah i think the
bigger issue go ahead the bigger issue is is even the idea of applying or saying that the score of
an animal's antlers is indicative of some kind of skill that you as a hunter has at all.
I think that's where our issue is in general,
that we're looking at this number of some how.
Yeah, but what else is it?
If it's not that.
Well, I would say let's get rid of it all together.
I'd say it's like always that.
Like why else would you have a scoring system
unless it's like a way, a surrogate for how long your packer is?
Well, that's not why they came up with scoring systems.
Right.
When the Boone and Crockett Club was started,
they were trying to improve the records available to understand these species
back in the 1890s.
Well, it's come a long way.
It's come a long way.
But, no, it's important to understand that it was a way that you could, it was a way you could look,
you could look at long-term trends of what the landscape was capable of producing.
So whatever became, like there was a way to,
it was like at a time, this sort of way to tabulate and mark what species we're doing. Right.
But now it's like when somebody tells you the inches of their deer,
they're not boasting about what productive habitat they hunt.
No.
I think that score can be valuable as like an indication of like the rarity of an animal.
Like I killed a deer that scored higher than a deer I've ever,
killed a higher scoring deer
than I ever have before this past year.
Does that mean I'm some kind of great hunter because of it?
No.
The only thing I look at that as proof of anything
is just simply,
I was fortunate enough to kill a very rare deer.
And so in my own mind, that's kind of special
just because of how rare that animal is out there.
But no way do I assign any kind of like higher skill level to myself because I killed an X deer
and so-and-so killed so many less inches deer. But you're drifting, but that's drifting for what
we're talking about when we're talking about like the thing with raising a fish up in a pond
is it's in a completely controlled environment right so it's not even
it's not like you're taking on the idea that the should there be a like maybe you're arguing the
idea should there be is there validity to having a system by which we score things and with fish
is just weight you know but this is sort of like if you you have our normal notion of someone catches a fish,
there's a normal sense of he got it.
Oh, definitely.
Whereas others could not.
I have a question because you know I'm not the big game hunter in the room.
We're talking about fish.
Okay, but I've got to go to Boone and Crockett.
Okay. fish okay but i gotta go to boone and crockett okay so if boone and crockett or pope and young
was started to to see what how deer were healthier bigger bigger antlers are we saying in the
beginning of boone and crockett there was nobody's name next to who shot it no they did well then i
go back with matt's idea well there's all kinds of information about it yeah but it wouldn't be important to have the hunter's name on it let's say let's say you knew that some county in michigan once upon a time
some county in michigan used to every year i'm just going to pull this like a number that's not
achieved let's say some county in michigan every year would kill 20 boone and crocket bucks every year. But then you look and it's been a decade
since one has been produced in that county. Do you regard that as helpful or not helpful
information? If I was a big game hunter, I guess I'd find that as helpful if I was looking for
bigger antlers. If you were a guy that wanted a deer with a big score, yeah, it'd be very helpful.
I think, but I also think it's also think it's telling of something else.
The fact that some people
abuse it or fetishize it,
I don't think then means
that the whole idea
of scoring something
is invaluable
or invalidated
because some guy
is a prick about it.
So do you think this guy
will go back next year
and catch that crappie again
and have the first
and second place?
Speaking of fish.
Shit.
What health advisories on fish?
Like, you eat a lot of fish.
Yeah.
You eat a fair bit of fish.
You eat much fish, Mark?
Some, but not as much as you guys.
Do you pay much attention to health advisories?
I don't.
You really don't?
I really don't.
It's trick, like, they, I don't, but I'd rather I didn't know about them.
That's, yeah.
It'd be more fun if someone had earlier, I got nervous.
I'm like, oh, I shouldn't be thinking about that.
I'll say that, like, I'm willing to trust, I mean, I live as though I trust the science emphatically.
Like, if there's a reservoir by my house that I fish, and it says don't eat fish out of here more than three times a month.
That's a hell of a lot of fish though.
I'll be like, okay, I will, if as long as I don't eat four times, then I am 100% safe, you know.
It's weird.
There's so much weird stuff about food.
It's like, I know I hear people talk about that all the time, that pond.
But these are people, like friends of mine where i live that oh no there's
that hell but these are people that eat grilled meat and process meat like brats and stuff four
or five times a week there's so much evidence that grilled meat causes cancer yeah it's like
undeniable but they'll do that you know so it's like that's one of the things that frustrates me about it is when I was living in Seattle, we had a great yellow perch fishery.
No one would touch it because everyone knows about this thing that you weren't supposed to eat more than like some number a month.
I'm like, weren't you just shit faced the other night? Ask your doctor, how often should I get
so drunk
that I can't remember
where I was?
I can't even.
Not more than four times per week.
No way I'd eat fish
out of that thing.
I don't pay attention
to advisories
because this box says
the word,
the Surgeon General says
quit smoking now
because it greatly reduces your risk of health. that's not slowing you down not a bit
that's good uh talk yeah talk about what uh parker hall's perspective on it
his perspective is if he was to be so lucky and to be such a good fisherman for the rest of his
days to catch so many fish that he would then poison himself and his family from feeding them
so many of these fish, then he will, he and his family will die happy because he was such a good fisherman. He'll know he was a winner. Yeah. He had a lot of good days spent.
Okay.
Mark, I hit you with another deer one.
Yeah.
Being in deer hunting country and all.
A guy wrote in wondering this.
You know how there's this commonly held perception,
probably true, seemingly true,
that when you pressure deer,
they become nocturnal.
They become increasingly nocturnal with pressure.
You don't like that?
No, I mean, to a degree, yes.
It's increased pressure.
Is it a commonly held perception?
Yeah, I would say it changes deer.
Everyone here would agree that there's a thing like,
deer under more and more pressure
do more and more move less during daylight.
This guy has a great idea that I think will, I'm going to tell you, Mark, I'm going to give you a hot tip.
This is going to change the whitetail world.
All right.
Why not go out on your property and raise holy hell at night all the time?
I like it.
And drive them diurnal. hell at night all the time. I like it. And
drive them
diurnal.
It's a very interesting idea.
It's a great idea.
Those deer are like,
bro, I don't do shit at night.
Did you see
the people out here?
I wait till that sun is high in the sky and then i go out into that field and catch a bite changing lives what's that you're changing lives right there that's
it's an interesting idea and another dude about Whitetails wrote in wondering if you could,
through the liberal application of dough and heat, lure, urine,
if you could make the rut come earlier by all the mimicry
and making deer think they were missing out.
No.
You're not buying that.
Oh, I think you could.
Well, I'll say this.
I don't know if you could or not,
but I think that you could potentially instigate a rut
because I think bucks can breed does anytime.
No, can they?
I think so.
That they're always the only reason they're...
I think so, too.
Yeah. the biggest thing
trying to get a doe yeah well people are that way it doesn't mean that perch are well yeah but
female like human females are ready all the time too but yeah but cattle not all the time cows
aren't no that's a big thing that's where think, that's one of the things they think drove human monogamy.
Was the idea, like, a thing that drove human monogamy
that is that there's no, like,
a human female is receptive.
There's no outward manifestation.
It's not like a baboon or something
where there's an outward manifestation.
And it could happen at any point in time.
It could happen throughout the year.
Throughout the year.
So you didn't have, like, humans to guard your reproductive partner.
You couldn't be like a deer and be like, I'm out for 11 months,
but I'll be back when the action happens.
You had to, like, be, and it sort of drove you know like
humans are kind of monogamous and that's a thing that helped drive it never heard that monogamy
but where were we in this oh well the white tail are you challenging that a buck can he's he's ready to go whenever uh
i know that right that the rut is triggered by changing levels of daylight which then impacts
rising levels in testosterone in a buck and estrogen in a doe and so when the doe reaches
that certain level which is triggered only by the change in daylight, that then will bring her into heat,
which then will allow her,
leads to her standing and a buck being able to mate her.
Would a buck be able to do that otherwise
if you could somehow,
now I think there have been studies
where they've put deer in controlled environments
where they can change,
where they can control photo period
and then have been able to change the timing of breeding within a closed facility on like
lab deer basically so if you could do that to a doe but then have a buck just maintain regular
status quo would he breed her if she was standing in april because she thought it was the time to go
maybe um but i don't think that psyching them out with a bunch of snort wheezes and butt grunts is going to do it.
I'm going to throw something out there, and I don't expect anyone to really notice,
but I know that a listener will know and email in.
If you were to capture a deer, capture a deer here, a buck,
and then transport that buck to the southern hemisphere,
how long would it take until he was shedding his antlers six months later?
Now that is a question.
I got one more.
I got a follow-up for you.
Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Yanni.
Have any of you guys ever wished that instead of being year-round,
like we have it, that you could switch roles with, say, a bull elk or the elk species?
Have like a human rut.
And just roll in early to mid-September and hang out for about 30 days,
fight and roll around in mud and piss,
get things done and then,
and then leave.
What are you going to do for the other 11 months of the year?
I'm just asking.
Don't make it during deer season.
Don't make it.
Yeah, but it'd be like a wedding reception all the time,
man.
It's such an interesting thought that we had never as a species got into the way we're in it's
just like this time of year when all of a sudden like everyone's gonna breed now it's highly
competitive there's no sense of allegiances dudes are just like beat each other to death.
That's not going to work.
They bring out the No, those things have names
like Phi, Beta, Alpha
and stuff like that, right?
Okay, one last one
and then we're going to play
seeing through the bullshit.
Reincarnated.
Did I preview this one
with you guys?
Yeah.
Reincarnated.
I didn't read the whole email.
You saw this email come in?
I didn't read the whole thing.
No, but you see the dude that emailed us about this.
No.
You could be reincarnated
as an animal.
What do you go with?
Oh.
That's too easy.
Yeah, that was on the platter.
Thank you.
The eagle.
Mine is, I want to be a big old bull elk, man.
Really?
Is everybody trying to shoot at you?
I want to rip one, big old bugle.
I want to urinate down my leg.
I want to freaking destroy some trees and shit.
You don't care how bad you smell?
I want to juke some dude, like make him follow me down the mountain for three miles,
and then just vanish.
But you didn't speak up on that last question.
I was raised.
Hell.
That last question, you just had the opportunity.
Climb a mountain and not even feel it.
Yeah.
It'd be nice.
Ripping them bugles would be cool as shit, man.
Oh, yeah.
Do your way far off elk bugle.
All right, everybody get ready.
This is a bugle way far off.
Where you're like, did I just hear one?
That was so far off, you barely heard it.
Rip another one.
I want the kind where you're like, you can't even tell if you heard it.
That's when he barks at you. So come back as the lavin eagle you come back as the bull out ripping up trees and bugling i'd roll flying squirrel man because have you ever uh won
because i want like squirrels are cool but i want people shooting at me. And have you ever felt the soft tummy
on a flying squirrel?
Yes.
It is unbelievable.
It is the most...
Like velvet.
The most unbelievable...
So you picture yourself every night
kicking back with a cold beer.
Yes.
Just like...
When you're...
You know when you're like...
When you're laying in bed
and you
and you're like
you move your leg
to get to a fresh zone
or whatever
yeah
just
the feeling of myself
as a flying squirrel
yeah
and you get a little bit
of that eagle feeling
every now and then
I'll just wake up
and be like
jeez do I feel good
like I mean I feel good. Like, I mean, I feel good.
Yeah.
Loon.
Loon?
Loon.
Yeah, you could fly, you could fish.
People like you.
Yeah.
No one shoots at you.
No one shoots at you.
Yeah.
Loon.
You get to make that cool noise out on the lake.
Fly out at night, just over the head,
you hear him making that loon sound.
Yeah, loon.
Our dad called muck loon shit.
It was like bad muck.
Deep muck was that.
That's a good animal.
That's all right.
They probably live long.
Yeah.
What are you going to roll with, Mark?
I went a very different direction than you guys um i was thinking like first like a wolf
like i like to hunt but then i realized i'm not really a pack animal i'm much more kind of like
a curmudgeon that would want to sit in a tree by myself and wait and watch old mountain lion mountain
lion yeah yeah that's a good one yeah i'm gonna stick with the game bird thing because that's
everything i do and um so you're to live about a year and a half.
It's going to be a good year.
And, you know, it's like, well, I hit the brush.
Like there's like everyone knows, like technically in some cases, geese mate for life.
You know, and I was telling you earlier today how uh bob white quail will she'll lay her eggs
get together with the male it's fertilized her or you know bred with her
leaves him to watch the eggs and she goes off like my first wife and does it again
but the ring neck pheasant is i i want to be gaudy i want to have a big rooster crow
and i don't want to be i want i don't want to be monogamous in my next life i want to be gaudy. I want to have a big rooster crow. And I don't want to be monogamous in my next life.
I want to have all the ladies and have no responsibility.
And if you're an elk, you got to take care of all them women at the same time.
That's a lot of work.
I just want to run around and crow again.
Yeah.
Rooster.
All right, Giannis, let's tell, pull up who's, the person my mom picked.
You got your piece of paper?
Yeah, should we do that first?
Well, and then while that person, because my mom picked the underdog,
it's going to be an hour until they get down here.
Oh, yeah, that's a good idea.
That's going to be a while, isn't it?
And then we'll explain how it works.
All right.
So the person that is sitting in this seat, if you would like to, please come on down to the stage,
and you're going to play Seeing Through the Bullshit, presented by Vortex, with us.
It is the balcony right center. Okay. Does everybody know which section that is if you're up there? It should say balcony right center.
Okay, does everybody know which section that is if you're up there?
It should say on your ticket.
Okay, you guys know.
You are in balcony right center, and the seat is M3.
Okay, so here's how so our our we wanted to do the game and our buddies at vortex helped us out by
creating a gift that we can give out do i have oh they're right here yep so you get these here
uh brand spickety new 10 by 42 fury binoculars. Suits up.
Suits up high-end binoculars.
They got a built-in laser range finder.
So usually you have your binoculars, and I'll carry a range finder, but he's got the range finders in there.
So you hit the button to range find stuff.
We were messing around, and we were zapping.
We were able to range find deer over 1 thousand yards. We were messing around with these.
So you get these for seeing through the bullshit and playing the game. Now the game is this.
We're going to tell you two, we're going to tell you a thing that's true, but you're going to have
to pick it out from two things that are not true. Where's the person? I think he's repelling.
Oh, are you coming down? Come on, come on.
You should have a seat for him. How's it get up? Can you hop up?
Hop on up. Are you hop up? Hop on up
Are you fired up or do you wish you weren't doing it?
You're fired up
What's your name?
Rick
Rick, nice to meet you
Hey, can we have a
Can you pass me that chair?
Thank you
Where should we put Rick?
Right there, anywhere
Let me put you in the middle, Rick
So Rick, you're going to hear a thing that's true and two things that are not true.
And your job is to suss out the true one.
You want to go first?
You want to give them the true one first?
Yeah, let's end with the true one.
Like that Princess Bride thing.
So I guess one of the, I was reading about this,
and it was published last year in the Journal of Wildlife Management.
I guess one of the age-old questions in whitetail management is how they avoid inbreeding.
And it seems like particularly prescient, like with habitat fragmentation and that deer getting confined to smaller areas
and the populations, you've got these metapopulations that aren't linked.
So people have always wondered how they don't suffer inbreeding depression.
So this group of social scientists and behavioral ecologists from Michigan State took some detailed observations on white-tailed does,
and it turns out that not only do they segregate from their first siblings
and their male first siblings and their and their first and their male first siblings and
first and second cousins like they become spatially segregated from them during the rut
but they become highly aggressive towards uh them when when they do encounter them so i got because So I got, because I guess the male relatives are keen to make, unlike humans, they don't mind kissing their sister.
So you're saying siblings, but also.
First and second cousins, yeah.
Like the doe can detect. study part of the paper where they talk about a few incidences where they've caught
the does actually trying to nip off the testicles.
Okay. It's Doug, right? Doug? Rick. Rick. The hell did I get Doug? I'm going to take you back to 1827. Okay. There are a couple of promoters around Niagara Falls. And they get this idea that how they can raise up some money. And they buy an old schooner, like a barge schooner. And they figure, you know what
people would really pay a lot of money to see is if we filled it full of zoo animals and ran it
over Niagara Falls to its destruction. And so they get some bears, they get geese. They get a buffalo. They put dogs and cats on it. And it doesn't
really work because the bears jump out and swim to shore. Everything else goes over the falls.
It's rumored that the first creature besides a fish to ever survive the fall over Niagara Falls was a goose. And it's estimating the number of people
that came to see this happen
is as difficult as Trump's inauguration.
But it's estimated between 5,000 and 30,000 people
came to watch this menagerie.
Came to watch this menagerie of animals go over
Niagara Falls to their death, best estimates put it at 10,000
people gathered to watch this happen.
But you haven't heard the last one.
Yanni?
I'm going to read mine right out of the newspaper article.
I ran on the inquiry.
Last summer, Rick, a new Indiana state record largemouth bass was caught.
Eclipsing the previous record, which was a 14-pound, 6-ounce bass,
it was caught by Jennifer Schultz, which had stood for 20 years.
On a neighborhood
pond in Bloomington, Indiana, an 81-year-old grandma, Carol Lundberg, took her seven-year-old
grandson, Jackson, fishing. She forgot the bait. Carol picks up a cigarette butt and puts it on
the hook. I guess she thought it looked like a worm. She casts it out, passes it right to her
grandson, and he immediately drags up a toad. The fish is certified at 16 pounds, 8 ounces, and it becomes the new Indiana State record largemouth.
Just last summer.
What's that?
Bull?
That one's bullshit?
And you think Steve's is the true story?
Like, absolute certain.
You got it.
You're the first guy to ever win.
Give that man a high.
Have you heard Steve's story before?
No.
You never heard it before?
You never heard that story before?
No.
What was it that gave it away?
It just seemed like something people would do back then.
They weren't so tempted to buy, you know?
Good job, man.
Good work, man.
Thank you for coming up.
Everybody else?
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
We forgot something?
Yeah, you're forgetting something very important
there's a giant merch table out back oh you're not doing that my system man
thank you very much with that love all you guys thank you very much Thank you. 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.
On-ax x hunt is now
in canada it is now at your fingertips you canadians the great features that you love and
on x 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, 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.