The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 159: Swimming Naked

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

Steven 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)
Starting point is 00:00:00 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
Starting point is 00:00:37 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.
Starting point is 00:01:43 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?
Starting point is 00:01:59 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.
Starting point is 00:02:23 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.
Starting point is 00:02:59 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?
Starting point is 00:03:32 My girlfriend. A little creepy. Ah. At State Theater. Jealous shots. Not to me. Jealous shots. Not to me.
Starting point is 00:03:41 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
Starting point is 00:03:59 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
Starting point is 00:04:45 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.
Starting point is 00:05:55 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.
Starting point is 00:06:22 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.
Starting point is 00:06:54 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,
Starting point is 00:07:32 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.
Starting point is 00:08:14 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
Starting point is 00:08:39 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.
Starting point is 00:09:01 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
Starting point is 00:09:15 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.
Starting point is 00:09:34 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.
Starting point is 00:09:53 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.
Starting point is 00:10:11 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
Starting point is 00:10:37 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,
Starting point is 00:11:25 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.
Starting point is 00:11:32 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.
Starting point is 00:11:44 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,
Starting point is 00:12:30 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.
Starting point is 00:13:26 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.
Starting point is 00:13:38 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.
Starting point is 00:14:17 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?
Starting point is 00:14:35 20%. 20? 35, 35, 35, 35. 30, 30. 30? 25. 15. Really?
Starting point is 00:14:44 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?
Starting point is 00:15:00 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?
Starting point is 00:15:29 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
Starting point is 00:15:54 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?
Starting point is 00:16:24 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.
Starting point is 00:16:39 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.
Starting point is 00:17:02 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.
Starting point is 00:17:29 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,
Starting point is 00:17:59 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.
Starting point is 00:18:25 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.
Starting point is 00:18:38 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,
Starting point is 00:19:13 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.
Starting point is 00:19:30 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.
Starting point is 00:19:40 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.
Starting point is 00:19:48 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
Starting point is 00:20:09 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.
Starting point is 00:20:40 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.
Starting point is 00:21:02 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?
Starting point is 00:21:47 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.
Starting point is 00:22:03 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
Starting point is 00:22:08 formative years here. Yes. I got more Michigan laid up right here than you boys. Matt, what do you got? One word. Man, like,
Starting point is 00:22:17 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.
Starting point is 00:22:31 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?
Starting point is 00:22:40 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.
Starting point is 00:22:59 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.
Starting point is 00:23:16 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.
Starting point is 00:23:35 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.
Starting point is 00:23:55 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.
Starting point is 00:24:12 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.
Starting point is 00:24:48 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.
Starting point is 00:25:13 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
Starting point is 00:25:29 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.
Starting point is 00:25:46 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.
Starting point is 00:26:04 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!
Starting point is 00:26:23 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.
Starting point is 00:26:40 Musicians? Yeah. Never in Mexico. We had a long conversation. He's great. Mark, like, actually, if you ask Mark, Mark likes,
Starting point is 00:26:49 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,
Starting point is 00:26:58 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.
Starting point is 00:27:46 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.
Starting point is 00:27:59 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?
Starting point is 00:28:16 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.
Starting point is 00:28:34 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.
Starting point is 00:29:06 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
Starting point is 00:29:19 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,
Starting point is 00:29:33 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.
Starting point is 00:29:48 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.
Starting point is 00:30:03 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.
Starting point is 00:30:28 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.
Starting point is 00:31:07 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.
Starting point is 00:31:32 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.
Starting point is 00:31:58 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.
Starting point is 00:32:16 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,
Starting point is 00:32:35 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.
Starting point is 00:32:55 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
Starting point is 00:33:30 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.
Starting point is 00:34:01 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
Starting point is 00:34:14 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.
Starting point is 00:34:30 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.
Starting point is 00:34:45 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.
Starting point is 00:34:54 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...
Starting point is 00:35:10 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.
Starting point is 00:35:28 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.
Starting point is 00:35:55 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
Starting point is 00:36:32 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.
Starting point is 00:37:11 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,
Starting point is 00:37:35 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.
Starting point is 00:38:03 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.
Starting point is 00:38:20 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?
Starting point is 00:38:52 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
Starting point is 00:39:15 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.
Starting point is 00:39:54 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.
Starting point is 00:40:10 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.
Starting point is 00:40:29 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.
Starting point is 00:40:55 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.
Starting point is 00:41:18 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.
Starting point is 00:41:30 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.
Starting point is 00:41:37 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.
Starting point is 00:41:51 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.
Starting point is 00:42:26 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.
Starting point is 00:42:42 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,
Starting point is 00:42:52 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,
Starting point is 00:43:01 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,
Starting point is 00:43:16 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
Starting point is 00:43:56 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,
Starting point is 00:44:14 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.
Starting point is 00:44:32 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
Starting point is 00:44:48 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
Starting point is 00:45:03 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.
Starting point is 00:45:21 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,
Starting point is 00:45:48 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
Starting point is 00:46:01 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.
Starting point is 00:46:29 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
Starting point is 00:46:48 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.
Starting point is 00:47:08 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.
Starting point is 00:47:25 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,
Starting point is 00:47:45 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,
Starting point is 00:47:59 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
Starting point is 00:48:19 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.
Starting point is 00:48:42 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?
Starting point is 00:49:02 Right. What do they call them? Yeah. Bolt guns? Air bows? Air bows, yeah. What if they say, you know what,
Starting point is 00:49:11 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
Starting point is 00:49:34 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
Starting point is 00:50:28 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.
Starting point is 00:51:05 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.
Starting point is 00:51:27 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?
Starting point is 00:51:43 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.
Starting point is 00:52:20 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.
Starting point is 00:52:41 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.
Starting point is 00:52:53 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
Starting point is 00:53:20 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,
Starting point is 00:54:01 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,
Starting point is 00:54:32 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
Starting point is 00:54:44 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.
Starting point is 00:55:22 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.
Starting point is 00:55:47 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.
Starting point is 00:56:03 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
Starting point is 00:56:36 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
Starting point is 00:56:52 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
Starting point is 00:57:18 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.
Starting point is 00:58:00 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.
Starting point is 00:58:25 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,
Starting point is 00:58:53 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.
Starting point is 00:59:07 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.
Starting point is 00:59:31 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.
Starting point is 00:59:53 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.
Starting point is 01:00:06 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.
Starting point is 01:00:21 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.
Starting point is 01:00:38 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.
Starting point is 01:01:11 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.
Starting point is 01:01:50 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.
Starting point is 01:02:16 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.
Starting point is 01:02:40 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.
Starting point is 01:03:06 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.
Starting point is 01:03:36 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.
Starting point is 01:03:52 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.
Starting point is 01:04:05 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
Starting point is 01:04:25 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?
Starting point is 01:04:43 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,
Starting point is 01:05:01 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.
Starting point is 01:05:30 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
Starting point is 01:05:41 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.
Starting point is 01:05:58 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
Starting point is 01:06:34 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.
Starting point is 01:07:06 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
Starting point is 01:07:41 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.
Starting point is 01:08:02 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.
Starting point is 01:08:19 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
Starting point is 01:08:40 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
Starting point is 01:08:57 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.
Starting point is 01:09:31 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.
Starting point is 01:09:53 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...
Starting point is 01:10:30 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.
Starting point is 01:10:55 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.
Starting point is 01:11:25 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.
Starting point is 01:11:50 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.
Starting point is 01:12:04 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.
Starting point is 01:12:34 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
Starting point is 01:12:56 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,
Starting point is 01:13:30 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.
Starting point is 01:13:53 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
Starting point is 01:14:21 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.
Starting point is 01:14:59 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
Starting point is 01:15:46 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
Starting point is 01:16:11 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
Starting point is 01:16:21 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.
Starting point is 01:16:38 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.
Starting point is 01:16:55 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.
Starting point is 01:17:34 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
Starting point is 01:18:28 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
Starting point is 01:18:40 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
Starting point is 01:19:14 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,
Starting point is 01:19:42 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.
Starting point is 01:19:58 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.
Starting point is 01:20:25 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
Starting point is 01:20:42 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.
Starting point is 01:21:25 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...
Starting point is 01:21:44 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.
Starting point is 01:22:17 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,
Starting point is 01:22:38 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,
Starting point is 01:23:26 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
Starting point is 01:23:49 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?
Starting point is 01:24:37 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,
Starting point is 01:25:04 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,
Starting point is 01:25:20 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?
Starting point is 01:25:54 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.
Starting point is 01:26:06 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?
Starting point is 01:26:27 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?
Starting point is 01:26:46 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.
Starting point is 01:27:06 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.
Starting point is 01:27:23 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
Starting point is 01:28:05 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.
Starting point is 01:28:18 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
Starting point is 01:28:27 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
Starting point is 01:28:39 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.
Starting point is 01:28:52 Loon? Loon. Yeah, you could fly, you could fish. People like you. Yeah. No one shoots at you. No one shoots at you. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:28:59 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.
Starting point is 01:29:14 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
Starting point is 01:29:37 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
Starting point is 01:30:16 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.
Starting point is 01:30:45 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.
Starting point is 01:31:06 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.
Starting point is 01:31:43 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.
Starting point is 01:32:21 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?
Starting point is 01:33:09 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?
Starting point is 01:33:20 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.
Starting point is 01:33:54 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
Starting point is 01:35:03 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
Starting point is 01:36:27 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.
Starting point is 01:37:22 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.
Starting point is 01:37:57 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.
Starting point is 01:38:37 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.
Starting point is 01:38:58 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?
Starting point is 01:39:15 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
Starting point is 01:39:31 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.
Starting point is 01:40:54 You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet.

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