The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 263: Free Casting in Coon Country

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Clay Newcomb, Seth Morris, Chester Floyd, Rick Smith, and Janis Putelis.Topics discussed: The story of a deer called Moose; sturgeon spearing in Wisconsin on the Fur Hat Ice Tour; bartering services for caviar, then serving the caviar in a restaurant; NY's squirrel hunting tournament going strong; an ear-tagged squirrel traveling 62 miles; the dachshund (weiner dog) and Steve's pronunciation attempts; what it means when you hang a painting on the ceiling; the abundant raccoon; breaking down coon hunting; the nuance inside of the bark; Clay's right ear deafness; how Clay wants to train his mule to key in on turkey gobbles; staying on the snuggle; Jani's eagle eye spotting a squirrel eye; Mingus as a talented tree puppy; Where The Red Fern Grows; 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.

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Download the Hunt app from the iTunes or Google Play Store. Know where you stand with OnX. Clay Newcomb, tell everyone the story about when you were hunting that buck and you had them all, you know, watching them all those years. This deer right here? I don't know. No, the one that you found out he was dead when you were down at the pawn shop. Oh, that hurts. That's an interesting story.

So I was hunting this deer that I called Moose, and I had pictures of him from the time he was a year and a half old. And the only reason I knew, you know, a year and a half old is pretty indistinguishable, a year and a half old buck. I think because we're not like a hardcore, super hardcore whitetail podcast that when you say i've been hunting deer that i called moose okay i'll get there there you go

thank you yeah well i don't understand what was wrong i want to know the origin of the name so the deer i don't even know the damn i don't know this part of the story but i can tell you what it would be i guarantee okay you know what it's so easy you're gonna ask me it's so easy that seth will tell you why uh the deer was so big it reminded no no no no no no no no chester i don't know okay come on dude it probably had palmated antlers steve ronella nailed it. Sad. Nailed it. Gave you a layup, dude.

Well, the palmated antlers reminded you of a moose. Yeah. Okay. Incest defense. Incest defense. Thanks, Yanni. Sam Longren has a big black lab named? Moose.

Moose. But that dog doesn't have antlers. True. But what is another characteristic of a moose that is sometimes Moose. Moose. But that dog doesn't have antlers. True. But what is in the characteristic of a moose that is sometimes then attributed to other animals or humans? Any deer hunter that goes around naming deer and watching them since they're one and a half years old is, I can, he's fixated on antlers.

He fetishizes. He's an antler fetishizer. Okay. So this deer, basically, I got it. Well, I'm still talking about this. He's an antler fetishizer. And so when I hear that the deer was named Moose. Okay.

Let's say I said to you. Let's say I said to you, and we called this buck Old Red Stag. Right. What would you picture? I'd be like, let me guess. guess let me guess it had a crowned time let's say we call this old buckle unicorn i'd say let me guess we call this buck old rabbit ears. I'd be like, let me guess. Ears look like a rabbit. No, antlers look like a rabbit's ears.

Anyway, so there you are at the pawn shop. It wasn't the way he hopped around through the woods. That's good. You nailed it, Steve. Palmation. But what was unique about this deer, so when he was a year and a half old deer rick smith would be distinguishable by the body size by the mass of the antlers so this is a very

small deer why are you telling rick because i'm like because rick doesn't know yeah and so he damn sure knows what liver mush is well i do know that that sounds like another story well i oh you weren't there real quick then i'm gonna i'm gonna say this and i'm gonna say this then i'm shutting up sure i used to think that rick always knew everything then i went through a brief period where i thought he didn't know everything but yesterday i proved we were trying to talk about scrapple he got talking about liver mush we all had a good hardy laugh at rick's expense he don't know scrapple from a hole in the ground.

And then it turns out that he was right. Because liver mush is basically Scrapple with a little liver thrown in it. So anyhow, there you are. You're at the pawn shop. Good job, Rick. So year and a half old deer. We're back there again. This deer had incredible palmation for a year and a half old deer.

Usually thin horned, you know, like horns as thin as your finger. This deer had like, I'm looking for a picture on my phone, year and a half old deer had like four or five inches of palmatian on his right tiny antler as like a six point. Okay. Looked like a moose. Yeah. I said that deer looks like a moose. The next year, I actually, man, the story, Steve, if you want like the five-minute version,

I'll give it to you. There's like a 15-minute version. I mean, we can go deep. Seven? Not that I don't like the story. Seven. I'm on it. Clay, it's 1130.

Okay. 1137, we're shutting you down. Actually, it's not, but my thing hasn't adjusted its time. You know, when you're talking to somebody, I think it's good to count on the front end, go, give me this version of that story. Oh, check this out. I know I was going to shut up.

Is this my time? No, but this is not going to be your time, but it has to do with this. Remember how I was saying I wanted a thing that everybody would have a dial? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a light in the middle, and if people are not very interested,

they could turn their dial down and the light dims. And then you know that you're not being very interesting. We'd know. A guy is making one of those. He sent me some pictures of the prototype. And it escalates. It's like the color changes. And he's going to put six dials on it.

I like it. Oh, so everybody on that. So I'd have that light right there right now. You'd be talking about that bunk, and I'd be cranking that sucker way up. Nice. Go ahead. There you are at the pawn shop.

I recognize this buck as a year-and-a-half-old deer. The second year the deer comes back, he had such distinct antlers, I was able to recognize him again as a two-and-a-half-year-old deer. I'm not that interested in harvesting this deer because he's just a young buck, but he's real distinguishable. Men, around around here we don't track bucks for years like in the midwest guys have like seven years of history not here man bucks come and go like you may get a picture of a buck here two years and never see him again yep yeah mark canyon they kind of like almost move into your house yes not man Man, that is not common here.

Third year, so the deer at 1 1⁄2, 2 1⁄2, now the deer is 3 1⁄2. He blossoms into like 130-inch 10-point with two kickers coming off G2s, which is a deer I'm very interested in. Three-and-a-half-year-old deer around here. You don't say. Three-and-a-half-year year old deer around here is a target deer. Yep. That same year, the deer breaks his front legs, both of them.

The reason I know this is because, ah, it's such a long story. I'll give you another minute. When he was two and a half, his right front hoof was as big around as a Coke can. And he had a massive limp the second year when he's three and a half 130 inch double kicker buck his foot is continues to be as big around as a coke can his left front leg is broke invisibly has a huge knot midway up the deer is like scrawny as it can be i'm certain the deer is gonna die at three and a half because it's just scrawny as it can be. I'm certain the deer is going to die at three and a half because it's just scrawny. I hunt the deer, never see it from the tree stand.

The deer blossoms into a 145-inch 10-point with double kickers the next year. Still looks like a moose. I see the deer a mile away from my house. Thinks it's a moose. No, no, the deer no longer carries its palmatian. I'm driving one day, see the deer a mile from where I originally knew the deer was. I know that the deer is using this certain farm.

I write the farmer a letter and say, my name's Clay Newcomb, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Go up and meet him a week later. Got a little system. Can I ask real quick? When you laid out for him, did you lay out for him? Like, I feel that's like a moral, that's a hard moral spot. I told him that there was a deer that on his farm I wanted to hunt. That is honorable.

I laid it out. That is honorable. You were like, I have no reason to believe there's a deer of any size on your property. Though I would like to. Let alone one nicknamed Moose. Now listen, this you can learn something from. Is that nobody ever asked that guy to hunt his property because it was not a good place to hunt. Where did this deer live?

There. You see what I'm saying? Scrawny little patches of timber, a lot of stuff going on around. Like, it was not the place, like the guy I don't think had, anybody had ever like asked him to hunt. It was a small property.

Well, I start getting, I'm using trail cameras by this time. I start getting pictures of the deer on that farm, just like I knew I would. And that year, I saw the deer from the stand two different times in the late winter. And you'd know him coming because he looked like he was broken down. You see him coming across the field? Clay just did a walk.

You can't see this, ladies and gentlemen, at home. Clay did a walk like if you watch Young Frankenstein, his assistant. Yeah. No, no no no like for a deer yeah like young frankenstein like his assistant yeah a hitch hitch in the step some swagger this this time this deer is 145 inches which around here deer of a maybe not a lifetime but very few people kill 145 inch deer around here i don't kill the deer the one time i had him within 30 yards almost drew on him didn't kill him the next year the deer survives he is he is broken down small he goes down and this is what you wouldn't believe unless you see the pictures which there's this article in north american

whitetail about this deer that I wrote and had published, all documented. That deer went, dropped down to a hundred. I found the sheds, Rick. Hold on. I found the sheds of the four and a half year old buck. I know what those are. Picked him up.

Oh, yep. I've been doing this long enough that I can hang with him. The next year, the deer was presumably so unhealthy, his rack dropped to a clean 130 inch eight point the only reason i would have known it was the same deer was because the stinking broken legs the deer was extremely recognizable he weighed about 140 pounds average buck around here big buck weighs 160 to 180 this deer is like super small broken up white antlers just you just you just learn these deer i'm getting there steve oh no i've given up you you got a minute anyway okay but no i don't care i'm so i'm so he's my

light is red he's he's 130 inches about 130 inch buck i hunt him like he's a boon and crocket trying to kill him don't see him one time the whole year from the stand. I find his shed horns. The farmer found one and I found the other. So I've got two sets of matching shed horns. The next year, I get a picture in summer velvet. I've got it on my phone. Of a deer that I do not recognize because at first just get the horns.

And I text my father-in-law and I say, I've got a 200 inch deer on camera text him this picture i cannot believe it and i keep scrolling through the pictures and then i see the deer's whole body and it is moose and he has i know this because i scored the deer later you're gonna spoil the spoiler alert he had 31 points he freaked out he had the same frame he went from a and this whitetail guys just believe it because it's true he went from 130 inch eight point to a a deer that i gross scored at either 189 or 191 i hunted that deer like crazy rick that year year. I mean, like...

Why is this part directed to Rick? He's engaged. He's in it. My body still stings from the cold hunting that deer. I'm serious. It almost burned me out from late winter bow hunting because I just pounded it so hard.

Well, the year before. I'm getting ahead of myself when he was 100 when he when he became the big deer i was hot on his tail hot on his tail i actually man it's too deep of a story but i should have killed him one day didn't there's a big buck contest over here and you can tell me what happened there well okay i go up to the farm one day to hunt i'll point out that he's telling me this, not Rick. Now I'm talking

to Steven Rinella. He distinctly turned to my direction. I go to the farm to hunt and I've been getting, it's early in the season. It's like October the 4th

and the bucks were still in groups and that buck had been running with a buck that I called Con. Con stood for consolation prize.

It was a 13 point buck buck i love the thought that goes into your yeah yeah i don't think you would have picked that one out steve no i was trying to think of some kind of thing to be consistent but i couldn't do it the deer so con is a stud buck that if he would be hanging on this wall so like and i was at a stage in my bow hunting career i was like i can't let con walk by it wasn't just an incredible year for horn growth which we have here some years are great some years aren't i go to the farm to hunt and i see four bucks standing up in the corner of the field and i know what they're about to do they're they're bedded over here they just popped out they're about to walk through the pinch point that my deer stand is in and walk right by me. I watch them walk back into their

bedding area. I scuttle up the hill, get in my stand, and I'm not kidding, an hour and a half later, here comes a line of bucks coming through the woods, just going to walk right under me. I get an eye on all of them, and I know that moose is the lead. I don't see it, but I'm guessing that Moose is the final buck in the line. It's like a fork and horn, a six point, and it ended up being four bucks, and the last buck was Khan. And I could see way behind him, and Moose wasn't there. I was just like, God, moose wasn't there i was just like god moose isn't there i felt like i could kill con and extract him without without messing up moose yeah like i wasn't gonna mess

up the whole hunt for this consolation prize you with me yeah i'm tracking man hey i tried to get spencer new hearth to let me write a story on how to grunt stop a deer, and he wouldn't do it. Why not? Because, listen, I learned something. I'll kick his ass. Clay just stood up. It's getting hot in here. Listen, those deer funnel right under me.

It's full pantomime now. What's Spencer's problem? He just didn't think it would be of interest to learn how to grunt stop a deer, and I got some good intel on it. I mean, I've done it a long time, but I got some intel. You know what? I don't like running around doing this, but I'm going to do it right now.

When we get done here, you call Spencer and you tell him that you just got that article commissioned. Fist bump. Call him. I'll call him. Jesse, you call him. I'll call him.

So I'm sitting here in the stand, full draw, or not full draw, just sitting there waiting. Tell him I said 5,000 words. Three buck, and I decide I'm going to shoot Con. Four buck. He's like at seven yards. I'm about 18 feet up in a tree.

Draw the bow back. He has no clue I'm in the world. I'm leaning at a tight angle. He's walking because he's in this line, and grunt stop him i was so close to him that it spooked him and he he he he spun and looked at me and clay is looking spinning and looking up as though the sun just exploded yeah and i had the I had the pin right behind his shoulder. Shot. And he ducked the string because he was on red alert because of the grunt stop.

And it went right through the top of his back straps. He barrels out of there. We track the deer. I get pictures of the deer the whole rest of the year. It didn't hurt him. Arrow went right through the back straps. He jumped the string. So here's the lesson when you're grunt stopping a deer.

Don't grunt stop a deer that's like five yards from you, seven yards from you. If you do, you got to do it. Because it's like you walk into the woods and some dude all of a sudden goes, hey! Yes. Now, if that deer is at 30 yards, and the other thing is you got to be at full draw

before you grunt stop like you got to be ready you can't grunt stop then draw the bow so don't give the don't give the article away i'm devastated that i mess up con because then we had to go in and track the deer and just blew the whole area you know we had to do our due diligence so we spent a day tracking the deer no blood no no i knew it was okay but i just want to make sure now it's october the 9th and if you kill a big buck in this county you take it down here to this big buck contest like it's just guaranteed yeah because they give away like it's just where you go i'm good friends with these guys down at the pawn shop i go down there and i look at the leaderboard they actually have photos up

on the leaderboard i know this deer like it's my own kid you know and i look up on that leaderboard and there's a dude with moose in the back of his truck standing there with moose and i'm not kidding you i felt like i was punched in the face i was just like oh my gosh i can't believe i mean it was just like such a distinct deer i i the pawn shop guys were my friends and i just said hey give me that guy's phone number they did they gave me a cell phone number. I called the guy. He doesn't know me from Adam, but I knew where he killed the deer. Just the way everything laid out, I knew where this guy lived. And I said, my name's Clay Newcomb.

Congratulations, first of all, on your deer. Like I wanted him to know I wasn't upset with him. I said, if you got a minute i want to tell you a story and i want to come to your house did he put any time time frame on it like you got five minutes you got seven minutes he's like i'll give you six minutes and uh you'll notice there's a little light in my with the dial so he was home he was home like right when i called him and and i said man i'll You'll notice there's a little light in my ear. With a dial connector. He was home. He was home right when I called him.

And I said, man, I'll be there. Just give me a minute. I gathered up my sheds and took my laptop computer over to his house. And I sat on his back porch with he and his girlfriend. And I walked them through this whole story he was a guy that bought this property from texas the first time he ever hunted the property he killed that deer with a bow never knew it was there jeez and uh it had 31 scoreable points it's been 10 years ago this happened i me and the guy became good friends i gave him the shed horns. I said, man,

take these things. I don't even want them. They're yours. They deserve, they, because the shed horns tell an incredible story of antler development because the deer, the deer went up, went down, and then made a 70 inch jump or not 70, 60 inch antler jump. But anyway i mean it stuff you learn a lot from stuff like that man i mean just even even dealing with like you can't get too caught up in a deer like like sounds like you can well but since that time i've been less vested in the deer i'm hunting i'm just like and i was never i just want like and i was never i just want to say i was never mad at the guy i mean like man good for him well yeah you're telling me you guys became buddies we did did he did he uh because you know he didn't have a lot into it

right like he just got it did it did it sort of open him i mean did he appreciate the sheds and stuff oh yeah he's a good hunter. That's the thing. He did get lucky, and he knows it. But he was a... He'd hunted his whole life. He was a good hunter. And it made his... He'll never kill a buck bigger than that. He was thrilled. Way better than

just some guy killing it. Just like, well, killed a buck. Like, yeah. Great guy to kill it. For real. Is he still around here? He moved since then. Oh. I still talk to him every now and then. Nice. Yeah.

Did he keep the property? Nope. Nope. Sold. Great story. Getting so invested into bucks like that is tough. My brothers in Wisconsin were after a buck named Saddam after a while because he was so sneaky.

They nicknamed him Saddam. Hold on a minute now. I mean, how long did he hide out? I think Ike was hunting him for like four years. No, Saddam. No, Saddam wasn't sneaky. He got caught pretty quick. Remember, they caught him in a spider hole.

If you'd have called him Bin Laden, you'd have had something. You probably should have brushed up on your history a little bit, Chester, before you brought that up. I mean, how long after the invasion did they catch Saddam in the spider hole? You know, I don't know. They caught Qaddafi in a drainage ditch knowing a culvert very quickly

they caught saddam pretty quick oh three months now pol pot no was the pol pot he hit out a long damn time anyways go on anyways they named him i can provide you with a long list of dictators who held out longer sure yeah maybe it was a bad guy bad buck or something no no i like it uh they big deer he hunted i thought he maybe had crazy sunglasses no no no just big deer um grew up a large mustache on the family farm ike knew where this deer bedded um just was invested into this deer passed up other deer um was hunting them with a recurve bow and uh anyways my brother finton went in on the wrong wind during gun season and you know in wisconsin you got to try and keep those deer on lockdown and he was warned against this kind of it was it was right borderline wind and i think ike got done with work and he's

like where's where's finney and uh my mom's like he's out hunting and ike's like where'd he go you know and he was in the wrong spot finney climbs up the tree stand. Here's a deer get up. Couple minutes later, cross the road. Pew! And I think Ike was outside, and he heard some hooting, hollering, and Finney was just devastated. How big a deer was it?

He shrunk. He was probably like 190. Oh, wow. And then he probably was like 170, high 170s. Just a big deer. Once every five, six, seven years, you might see a deer in that area. But Ike was bummed, but he was almost relieved you know in a way he's like all right now i can move on and but then he refused to go over and look at it and refused to go congratulate the the lucky shooter yeah if you know ike he's a man of a few words and he's just like let me see

a picture my dad went over and talked to him and And he's like, yeah, that was a deer. It is kind of weird how he didn't go over there. But he just was like, yeah, the deer's dead. Moving on. I think my mom was more devastated than any of the boys that that deer was gone. Because he was just so invested in it. Yanni, can you feel everybody on the stur sturgeon deal we covered this no we didn't cover this at all you gotta tell the whole damn story i thought you're gonna give an update but

now you gotta tell the whole thing and start it with how you got tangled up in this whole thing i wouldn't say i'm exactly tangled up in this whole thing. All right. Well, just about a year ago, Miles Nolte and I and Ty Emmett and who else shot it with us? Mike. Mike Lindemuth went over to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin to spear sturgeon on the great Lake Winnebago. And should I explain what that's all about? Yeah, you got two minutes. Yeah, right. You put me way too far back into history to get this done in two minutes.

But yeah, there's these giant prehistoric old fish called lake stur surgeon that live in Lake Winnebago. And there's a spearing season for them. One sec. One sec. One sec. Yep.

I want people to know that this is a true crime story. It is. I just wanted, I didn't, I didn't tee it up. Well, it could be, it could be its own podcast.

This is a true crime story. We could, if we were like most podcast companies, we would turn it into this, some eight episode long whodunit with cliffhangers but here you get the you get the dope quick yeah yeah somewhere between somewhere between two and ten minutes and to add a little bit to the front end of it which yanni denies like he's clean but like he is sort of involved one degree of separation oh if he gets

rolled up in this and all of a sudden some people barge in this door cuff him and stuff him not surprised another weird thing is this is chester's hometown i was gonna say i want to see lift your shirt up i guarantee he's wearing a wire. He's wearing it on the house. Yeah. Chester might be a little closer related to this story than I am. Chester's so sly. His wire is just that big headset.

He's like, trust me, they'll never know. It's being recorded right here, right now. Sturge is appearing. You have a fish shack, an ice shack. It's very similar to the shacks you see guys just doing fishing through, except you cut like a six by four foot hole and put the shack over it. And these shacks are purpose made for spearing sturgeon. You got a big old giant spear.

I don't know, sucker weighs probably 30 pounds. It's got like eight. Oh, they're heavy spears like that. Oh, yeah. So nothing like a pike spear. I don't know. The sucker weighs probably 30 pounds. It's got like eight. Oh, they're heavy spears like that. Oh, yeah. So nothing like a pike spear. No, you barely have to really chuck them. Kind of push them. You can just about drop them and it'll get into that fish. They like pour molten lead in the handle?

That I don't know. No, I think it's just a big steel rod. Yeah. Anywho, so we went and did it and we actually did it with some of uh chester's uh extended family uh his uh cousin right cousin cousin jake uh helped us out and um he's he's super into it and uh out of our group there were two sturgeon speared i believe in three days and jake and i actually each got to throw it at a fish but didn't get one which in the

sturgeon sounds about like our squirrel hunt in the sturgeon two and three days spearing no that's okay clay uh sturgeon spearing world two is really good people go years without spearing a sturgeon yep exactly um yeah i was happy just to see one. So these sturgeon have roe in them if they're a female of the right age class. And this roe can be turned into caviar. Caviar is really – Roe is eggs. See, I wouldn't have known what roe was. I mean, I do now because I watched –

Yeah. Yeah, fish eggs. It can I wouldn't have known what roe was. I mean, I do now because I watched. Yeah. Yeah, fish eggs. It can be turned into caviar. Caviar is very expensive. That's the one piece of information that I forgot to check in on is exactly how expensive it is. That type of caviar. Rick, do me a favor.

Just, yes, see what general lake sturgeon caviar could go for. I don't know. You probably can't even buy it because it's wild fish. Because there's no actual market. There's no actual. That's why you're probably under arrest. I will be shortly. Well, the farm stuff, which is not the real deal,

can go for $100 for eight ounces. American sturgeon caviar. That would give you a good ballpark. That's farms. The wild stuff, I'm sure, is a premium. That's a bunch of stuff. Mm-hmm. That doesn't sound as expensive as I thought it would be.

I was expecting it would. That's a half a pound. The River Beluga gold sturgeon caviar. I don't know how much. One kilogram for $6,000. I don't know what the... Let's just say that to make it more interesting in the story. Yeah. Real expensive.

Real expensive. When you start talking about stuff in kilos, yeah, you know you're talking about expensive stuff. So, a year later... Well, let me back up a little bit. The reason that I'm like more, uh, raveled up or wrapped up in this a little bit is because for this fur hat ice fishing tour episode that we did, we interviewed a fellow by the name of Ryan Koenigs, who is known at in, in Wisconsin as the Sturgeon General.

He's the lead sturgeon biologist that kind of ran all the management of that whole system. And that system is very healthy. It's like the standard by which all others are trying to meet. And not just in the country, but the world over. People would like to have a sturgeon fishery like they had. Like 100 years ago, they were nearly extirpated all over the world. And now here you have a place where it's so good that you can have a sturgeon spearing season. Ryan was very helpful in helping us produce the episode,

got us a bunch of other interviews with great people. Um, he himself gave us a good interview. Um, in general, we, we had good luck working with him. Well, year later, right before surgeon season this year, it turns out that Ryan was charged, has been charged with basically dealing in bartering of sturgeon eggs. Yeah. So there's, we don't know the whole story yet, I'm guessing, because they're probably withholding some evidence as this thing kind of works its way through.

So we don't know exactly what they're going to say. But what he's actually being charged with is more of like an obstruction because he supposedly lied a little bit about what he was doing with the eggs or how some of the people that were working underneath him were, in quotes, funneling the eggs from these check stations. So when you kill a sturgeon, you bring it into a check station. It's mandatory. And there's biologists there that take samples.

They cut them open. They tell you, you know, male, female, how old the fish is, all this stuff. And they're just collecting data. Well, supposedly, there's a couple different sort of mechanisms that had been in place for eggs to be sort of taken from there in a casual way and then gone to processors. There was supposedly like a cooler with a processor's name on it and biologists would say, hey, if you don't want the eggs, you're not planning on doing anything with them.

So the person that takes the sturgeon could keep the eggs? It's not illegal to keep eggs. Well, why wouldn't you keep them all? Well, because, I mean, some people just maybe don't like salty fish eggs. Okay. Yeah, man. I know with paddlefish,

that's a valuable caviar. And just friends of mine that go snag paddlefish a lot of the people are like aware that people do but they're like i don't like caviar i don't know and they don't they don't want they want the steaks off the fish they don't care okay yeah yeah so um yeah anyways he so ryan's's been charged with it alongside. There's also three, again, in quotations here, caviar processors that have been charged for bartering services for caviar.

So the way it works, and we've gone over this a lot, is that you could offer to clean someone's caviar for them for free. Give them all the caviar or the eggs now turned into caviar back to them. They could then, if they wanted to, because they're your buddies or whatever, gift you as much of that caviar as they wanted. Or you could pay the processor to have your row turned into caviar. But what you can't do is say, let's trade your services of cleaning for my processed caviar. At that point

you're bartering in the eggs. We've talked about this bartering thing a fair bit and one of my favorite stories about bartering is a buddy of mine was fishing he was shrimping this is in washington state he's shrimping and he's at the boat launch and there's a guy coming in from fishing salmon okay and they are like oh you got a bunch of shrimp tails oh you got a bunch of salmon

and just very casually it sort of emerges that they will do a swap some shrimp tails for a salmon flay and there was a undercover warden on that dock that did citations but fish for shrimp is not because they were bartering he could have said like because one was given more than the other no because it was like a formal because it's illegal you can't trade fish no there was a formal agreement but what you can do is i could go to your house i can go to your house and i could be like clay just got back from my fish shack, man. Love to have, here's some halibut. And you could say like,

I just got a, you know, I just pulled a bunch of tomatoes. Take some tomatoes back. I know you love tomatoes. That's fine. As long as we didn't say. If I said, well, you know, I would give you some of my halibut, but what's in it for

me and you say well i happen to have some some homegrown tomatoes and i say well that sounds like a deal so it's just that's bartering okay that makes sense i mean it's just semantics though is it not it's the quid pro quo of uh trading things this for that yeah and all americans know the word i mean essentially like if we went i mean if we went turkey hunting and i killed a bear and you killed a turkey and i was like hey take some bear meat home and you were like we'll take take a turkey breast that's fine yeah but if you said if i said i'll trade you i see what you have had now i want to point this out now too and we point this out for but i want to keep well because we keep getting emails about it so i'm gonna keep talking about it i went to are you got a good placeholder on this sturgeon story me yeah yeah

okay i went to uh an attorney that represented wyoming fishing game for many years and and and he said we have only he he could remember he could recall no instance of the bartering and trading prosecution outside of someone like really asking for it and it being a broader package of violations right that's the that's the situations when he could so if it's a bad guy that they're trying to just stick it to. That someone was just like, because I mean, how else would you, I guess how else would it come up? Except for the body of mine who were an undercover guy just hanging out at the dock, seeing who's coming and going,

witnesses a formal offer of exchange. Like a provisional, I'll do this, you do this. Wow. Is that what we're talking about here? That's what we think happened. Now, if this guy lied, that's not good. There's two separate...

There's the Ryan Kanigs thing going on, right? Again, I don't think we know exactly all the evidence, right? Innocent until proven guilty. You can't reach him and talk to him. But what he's been charged with is that he like lied about what was

going on and then he also has wiped his DNR issued telephone. That's where it got weird is they interviewed him, right? And then he wiped his phone. Yeah. Okay. So then these other, I think there's three other people

that have been charged. Chester's nodding knowingly. Three other folks that have been charged in the Fond du Lac area for basically, well, I think there's two that were charged

with processing the eggs and then trading their services for finished caviar. And then another fellow was charged for basically serving the caviar in a restaurant. Oh! Oh, so the thread goes deep.

When I first heard the story, I heard that he was channeling it to the Ruskies, which I don't know if anyone's actually connected it. So that titillated me. Yeah, and I've heard some other things that we haven't reported on, sort of like stories that people have heard,

and I don't think I want to bring them up because it's just like they are titillating. No, no, I should clarify. I should clarify. I have just – I want to defend it. I heard that. I have read or seen nothing that suggests anything to do with any ruskies it sounds good though but that's just what i think i think it's worth noting that the re like there might be people listening that wouldn't understand that one of the pillars of the north american

model of wildlife conservation is non-commercial use of wildlife it's just real simple yeah but it just gets complicated like we can't sell like i can't kill a deer and sell it. But you can sell... Furs. You can sell bear oil as a hairdressing. You cannot sell it as a food. But that's another podcast. You can sell beaver meat. You can sell...

It's generally yes. Generally. Generally yes, but fur bears, and there's all these other designations. But generally yes. Generally correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and there's all these other designations. But generally, yes. Generally correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's why you can't just take a big sturgeon, fillet its eggs, and sell its eggs or trade it.

So that's the crime. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we're, yeah. Yeah. So a couple of these processors have been previously warned that the way that they were doing it was illegal. That titillates me.

And they sort of kept on doing their program. Yanni's like a subject matter expert. Listen to him over here. This is without notes. How much of this did you steal from Durkin? I mean, I don't know. It's all the same information.

But yeah, certainly to prepare for this, I read his article. Did you do any original research, Yanni? Outside of me being there a year ago, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I made a phone. Did you make some calls? I made one phone call, but it was more just to see how the sturgeon was going,

the sturgeon fishing was going this year, and we just happened to talk about this a little bit. And you got a little inside dope. Yeah. That's good. Which I'll tell you right now, which is what it is,

and which is why it makes it like a controversial, contentious kind of a deal right now because as easy as it is for all of us to do what we all just said, say, hey, take some tomatoes. Oh, yeah, great, awesome. I brought you some halibut.

It's very close to being illegal, right? And you can't trade these things, right? And so I don't want to say they're making an example out of it because it's illegal and you can't do it, right? The law is the law. The law is the law. But that's the way these things work, though. Yeah.

It's that culture begins to establish itself, and then at some point they go enough is enough and they pick somebody and they nail them. I have had two people in two different States write to me with proposals that they were doing on their own non-profit-y where they were looking to set up wild game exchanges through a social community a social network community of participants hmm both times was like dude you can't like you cannot do that hmm they're like I have so much elk I need some yeah that one of them was a

guy one of the guy was in the town we live in. Yeah. Wanted to set up a wild game exchange. Yeah. So the local, I think, feeling, a lot of people are like, oh, come on, why you got to do this to these folks and put them through the ringer? So much good has been done by these people for the sturgeon because all these people that are involved in this have also been very active in sturgeon because all these people that are involved in this have also been very

active in sturgeon preservation restoration for a long long time they feel that it's like making a big deal out of a minor handshake are you going to talk about the older couple

you know some stuff I just decided to limit. I had to cut it off at some point. Otherwise, this would go on forever. You were not trying to tell that part? Yeah. I don't know. It just didn't seem like it.

We needed to know who exactly these people are. We're talking about what the problem is. Because that was. Yeah. And really quick, just having grown up in that area, if you know Wisconsinites, a lot of them are just very great people with no ill intentions. You find that not to be true in the other 49 states?

No, but it'd be like you could go over there right now and you'd probably run into somebody on the street and they'd be like, hey, can you come over here and get the leaves out of my gutter and my mom will trade you for a couple rhubarb pies. You know, like, and say, tell your mom I say hi. Chester, is that wild? Is that rhubarb ball a wild game?

No, but I'm just saying, like, it's just like always these little. Culture of bartering. Yeah, a little crime break. Little crimes. But not even like... It's a community... They don't know they're doing it.

It's a community patchwork held together by the Commission of Small Crimes. It's just people being nice doing crimes that they don't know that they're doing. Yeah, and I mean... Welcome to rural Americaica hey like yeah so she was having a problem with the old man and i'm a good neighbor so i shot him

just that's just the community we live in that would be knowing here's a pie i know what you mean chet no i'm with chester i'm with you it's like i'm just teasing you i mean the law is the law at the end of the day. That's what it comes down to, but people trying to be good people is what I think a lot of this... Maybe not on Ryan's side, but on some of the other folks' side,

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meet. onxmaps.com meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. I'm going to editorialize here a moment. I don't know anything beyond what Yanni just told me. I don't know any of these people, but to editorialize a little bit. It's an op-ed segment.

Yeah, this is the opinion segment. Yanni gave the facts, I'll give the opinion. And I don't even really know. I could see... It's easy for me to envision, if I lived here and understood this all, it's easy for me to envision if i like lived here and understood this all it's easy for me to envision coming to that the conclusion of uh really really in terms of the the extent of the press coverage

even and we're adding to the problem right now that it let's like unless if the story was that people were going out out of season okay or like or um fabricating permits or committing wire fraud yeah let me slip something in here is that like if canigs a sudden is caught with like an extra 50k then no one knows where it came from yeah and he's got like three dead surgeon in his trunk you know something but you could just picture

one of being that there's just during the season there's this mad rush of all these freaking eggs right and over the years it just has kind of become that some jars of eggs get scattered around and and everybody feels like they're promoting sturgeon and looking out for the resource and we're not out like killing them just to carve eggs out of them and you know i mean i could just see that you would be like man they were being. They need to be put in their place,

but it's getting a little crazy. The reporting and the... Yeah, because the fines are pretty hefty. I forget the dollar amount, but I want to say it's like up to nine... Is it nine months in prison? Something like that? You know, with like

tens of thousands of dollars in fines? Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be, it'll be interesting. You know, I hope that it can be resolved in a way where the folks that did the wrong understand and will, you know, change their ways. And, um, you know, that the public that is looking at this will also go okay that was educational for me too i know what i can and cannot do and i won't you know participate and stuff like that a couple years ago i don't think we ever reported on this too much but a couple years ago there's a guy there's a you know a i don't want to name who he is. There's a hunter who does a lot of outdoor media. And all over the news one day, like, not the news,

but sort of like in the text message hunting, you know, sphere and on blogs and stuff is like, oh, he's a poacher, got caught poaching, hunting with no license. All over the place. You hear from so-and-so, hunting with no license. And it wound up being he had a license out of state hunting hat what he didn't have is his five dollar archery stamp he didn't have his five dollar archery stamp which he was eligible to have purchased so he had his certificate number for the bow the like what is that the national the sort of nationally recognized yeah the the archery safety class but hadn't so he had

bought his like 600 and some odd dollar elk permit but didn't get the five dollar archery enhancement but right and people get real excited about this stuff yeah and you look into it and it's you know you're kind of like i have a feeling that he wasn't like i'll show i just found a way to save five dollars they'll never catch me do you know what i mean oh yeah it happens yeah oh yeah he's not a poacher yeah no it happens where people get real excited about this kind of stuff yeah so but the phone deleting yeah yeah there's some shady stuff in there the phone deleting's a little titillating like i said i think we'll know more and we'll such a dirty sound of word but it's not dirty nothing wrong with that word.

But man, does it sound dirty. Sounds dirty. I wonder what the outcome would have been if there wasn't any hint of malice. I don't know this guy at all. I just would bet my truck that he's a good guy that wasn't trying to do anything wrong. But the whole delete the phone thing, like maybe he's just a stupid criminal. Maybe he's been the best guy his whole life and then realized he was in a little bit of trouble

and then did something stupid. When a good criminal who's been a criminal their whole life would have known not to do that. I mean, I'm not defending the guy. He'd have been like, i've just bet he'd have been like can't text i'll call yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so when then when that's right i'll call you from a payphone yeah that's what the good criminals do you know if there's a story that's all right now i feel like it came out before though i don't really understand this

someone check into this for me. Because Corinne pointed it out to me, and it's here in my notes. Does every year the squirrel hunting contest in New York by the German Sportsman's Association, they try to shut down their squirrel hunting tournament? Oh. So February 27, the Germantown Sportsman Association has their annual squirrel hunting tournament.

Seven years running. I should go. I'd like to go hunt this tournament, man. Seven years running. Is it teams or is it solo? They're getting death threats. They're getting vulgar phone calls. And they are not going to shut down their squirrel hunting contest.

Keep it alive, man. All the meat gets used. They use it for their fundraiser. They use it for the banquet. The argument against it is this. Killing in the name of fun and family bonding seems contradictory. They've never been squirrel hunting. Because, boy, is it fun and do you get to do some bonding

yeah they want them to replace it with something that promotes family values what do they suggest a beefsteak does that perose family values yeah if they had a big old beefsteak if they had a steak dinner would anybody be giving them grief and the damage in so many ways would be so much greater you get they i like this it's uh the weight of your bag oh that's a good way to do it like bass fish yeah so you get a limit they weigh out your limit man yeah you better go uh dude i want to hunt this tournament so bad germantown Sportsman's Association. So instead of calling them and making them death,

giving them death threats and whatnot, you should call them and say, I hope that you stay alive a long time. Steve, are there rules? Can you use dogs? Me and you and Yanni could roll up there with a couple of hot mountain feists and do pretty good. And they might not know what hit them. I know that on Facebook they have...

Tree and feist. Yeah. Somebody's going to call it tree and feist. 406 people are talking about it. 614 likes. But no, I don't know the details. We can get back with you on that. Or if you'd like, Clay...

We'll go up there with some mules and dogs. Listen, I got this idea. Why don't you... I knew you were going to say that. Call over. Why don't you call over, why don't you call over, conduct some interviews, and come back and report

to us about New York's squirrel hunting tournament. Done. Another quick squirrel, a couple quick squirrels. If you go, I'm going to. We'll leave him behind, but I'm going. No, no, no. I'm not saying to not go. You're not going to make it this year. Oh, no. This is a quick turnaround. Teams of two. Oh, no. This is a quick turnaround.

Teams of two. Oh, look at this guy. This guy's like a... We'll split it up. Cash prize. We'll take tests. Bonus weights given for red or black squirrels. Me and Seth got tests. So if you get a black face, if you get a black...

Now, do they mean red like what? What do they mean? They mean Fox. Guaranteed. So bonus for Fox. Really? Bonus for Fox? And you get So bonus for fox. Really? Bonus for fox? And you get a bonus for black phase gray.

Now that's getting a little too flashy for me, boys. I'm all about the mean when it comes to squirrel hunting. I know of a spot in New York where all you see is black phase gray. You best get over there. Yeah, if you want. I know a spot in southwest Michigan, same thing. So if you wanted to do, if you're like a smart criminal, you could hunt up a bunch there and make a quick drive.

Put them in your bag. Why don't they do this? Metal detecting over the piles of squirrels to make sure someone didn't stuff lead balls down their throat. Yeah. I remember reading about that in a shark tournament. They found a shark pack full of sash weights so then they started x-raying the sharks hey that might be a reason to use lead

shot for squirrels up there rather than 22 head shooting yeah because with 22 headshot you lose weight yeah yeah you care that carries off some of the weight you know i i one time uh i want to get back to this squirrel news but we years ago were turkey hunting turkey hunting wisconsin and the local bar which like all the revenue at this bar seems to come from the same six alcoholics what was that town oh yeah eli no no damn it we're all looking at chester no not roscoe not in chester oh yeah you're on to it l l roy anyway this here's the funniest part about the story so there's two funny parts anyways Anyways, there's a bar in Elroy.

And no disrespect to the drunkards that spend their entire day in this bar, but if you ask them, they are all exceptional turkey hunters. So I get a big turkey, and everybody's like, and my buddy had already signed me up for the big turkey contest. And he had to put like three bucks in or five bucks in to sign me up for the big turkey contest. I killed turkey. Got it. Hot day.

I got it and bring it down. But it winds up being, for a while, it's on the leaderboard. I'm like number one heavy turkey. You're trying to tell him, oh, if I hadn't got it. Oh, and the old drunks in this bar. He gutted the turkey. Have you ever? He got in the turkey have you ever he got in the turkey we go back in there a couple days later and i can hear him they're still in there and get this he got in the turkey

and i lost that damn thing by ounces the funniest part about is i knew we were like by doug durans kinda and doug durans talking about being over in Elroy like you're in Marrakesh. Okay? Like, oh my God, over in Elroy. Right? And one day we decided to go to Doug's. And it's like, we like drive down the road like, I don't know, minutes and we're at Doug's house.

I was like, oh. I thought, it's like Doug could like yell over to Elroy. Oh my God, Elroy. So, oh, here's another good squirrel story. They had a squirrel with a radio collar. We're talking about squirrel distribution, which I've taken interest in. I don't want to tell anybody why. It's a secret.

But in fact, there was a thing about what I don't want to tell anybody why. It's a secret. But in fact, there was a thing about what I don't want to talk about in here in my notes. And I deleted it. Then I put it back in, but put a comment note that this is a secret. Secret thing I know about. Anyhow, the secret I know prompted a question

to the squirrel biologist we recently had on. That episode was called The Squirrel Doctor is In. In Pennsylvania, Seth, you'll appreciate this. In Pennsylvania, they had a ear-tagged squirrel that traveled 62 miles. Really? I believe it. We'll have mass years in PA where there's just nothing and all the squirrels disappear. Gone.

Can't find a squirrel anywhere. Traveling. And then next year, good mass year, all the squirrels are back. gone. Can't find a squirrel anywhere. Traveling. And then you, next year, good master year, all the squirrels are back. You know what I'd do? You know what a radius is? In a circle? Yeah.

I would put the, I would make a radius around that, wherever you are, I'd make a radius 62 miles around that point and then I'd get in radius 62 miles around that point, and then I'd get in my car and drive. Do some surveys. Someone real sharp could figure out how far you'd have to drive. I'd drive.

Pi. Yeah, that's the equation. And I'd find them. It's for conference equals something, something. Pi divided by R. Okay, Clay, do you want to start on, do you want to start on... What do you want to start on? I think we should start on raccoons. Really?

Okay. Hmm. Yeah, it's fresh. Yeah, man. It's the freshest in our eye. Well, primarily because I feel like we've reported on squirrels so heavily over the years. Yeah. And we'll continue to report on squirrels.

We're going to report on squirrels today. But we have not given due reporting... To coon hunting. To coon hounding. Yeah. And we'll continue to report on squirrels. We're going to report on squirrels today. But we have not given due reporting. To coon hunting. To coon hounding. Yeah. We've had a tough, we've, so you've only been here for three nights, Steve. So you've hunted the last three nights. Yanni and I have hunted the last four nights together.

And this is about as tough of conditions as we've as i've ever hunted in you know we have right now in the ozarks or when yanni got here there was six to eight inches of snow yep on the ground which for here is a lot it it does happen but it's a lot we had record yeah it's so to back you up it's so rare that I called a buddy of mine who used to hunt a lot of coons in southern Missouri, which is not far from here. I was asking him about cold, snowy conditions. He's like, I really can't tell you because I think I hunted those conditions twice in all my years. Well, that's exactly what I told you. You said, hey, Clay, have you ever hunted in the snow?

And I was like, one time I hunted in the snow. So I didn't really know what to expect. But the low temperature. Record lows. It was negative 12 on my phone for the town that I live in in northwest Arkansas, like two days before you got here, Sunday morning. Yeah, there's ponds around here that it looks like you could walk on, on the ice and go ice fishing.

I walked out on one and my Seth knows about this. Ice talks to me. I walked out on one and it was not. I didn't like it. There's just something about it. And I got off quickly. But still, how often

do you even see a pond frozen over? I mean, not like this. So what was... Hold on a sec. I didn't set this up properly. I didn't do a good... I have a better segue. Okay.

Because, see, I set it up like we're going into Squirrel. And then you switch it. But we went into Coons. So check this out. Let it rip. We were talking about how when they train dogs in Germany, apparently, NAVD and all that,

you make the dog get into a barrel or a cage and scrap with a raccoon. You know about this? I've heard of it. And I got to talking about people putting a dog in to fight with a weasel or to fight with a rat i've done the weasel fight thing really yeah really just like with what kind of dog no just personal oh yeah yeah i had one in a culver pipe yeah yeah did you have to scrap he he was setting a trap and he went down there and set the trap and the weasel was in the culvert already they're going to set a weasel screamed like a baby i did not oh hold on you got this is in texas no this is montana he talked about it on

i reached down in a culvert pipe to set a trap and there there was a weasel in there, and it snarled at me. But it was in a culvert pipe, so it's – It sounded really loud. Yeah. It sounded like a tiger. He said, it's a Bengal tiger in there. It made me step back. I would have jumped, too.

And when you put your nose down there, you could just smell that weasel in there, too. Phil, I think you should take out Steve saying NAVDA, too, because I believe NAVDA is North American. I know, but listen. No. Okay. Take out me not being able to find my stuff,

but keep Yanni in saying to take out NAVDA because NAVDA is heavily influenced by German versatile hunting dog stuff. Correct. Heavily influenced. But I know, I just don't want to make it sound like you're saying that NAVDA now has these things going on where they like make dogs fight with...

I can tell you, they maybe don't condone it. They maybe don't talk about it. But I can, listen, I'll take this to the grave. I can tell you, there are people who are, okay, not NAVDA. There are people who are into the versatile hunting dog aesthetic on this continent who might pay attention to NAVDA and be interested in that stuff who are still believers in making them duke it out with a raccoon. I totally agree. Okay. This guy has firsthand knowledge of a farmer who had a wiener dog.

Dachshund. Dachshund. He's a grain farmer. And he even has it here. A Dachshund, and parenthesis wiener dog i'm looking at it right here i believe you just went the other way with it i don't know how to pronounce it i don't want to get caught not knowing how to pronounce it yeah i thought it was a dash it looks like yeah dashing and i knew i'd mess it up and then

everybody have a laugh at my expense and I like to laugh at everybody but I don't want anybody laughing at me so he had a grain silo so he's got a grain farmer he had a wiener, a dashing dachshund he had a dachshund that he would put in a box

and make him duke it out with pack rats because he had such a problem with pack rats destroying the wiring on his trucks and equipment when he stored it for the winter. So this dachshund, am I saying that right? Dachshund? hated pack rats because of having to fight them in that box and would go hunt them and protect the equipment and trucks during winter storage i have you know we've had who would lie in an email yeah right here where we said for everyone we've ever elected to office we've had thousands of dollars of damage on my wife's car from pack rats getting in and chewing wires i bet

that's what your dog ate last night probably i wasn't thinking when i was thinking about what that dog ate i wasn't thinking about it that's what it was big pack rat yeah what the hell else would have been yeah that's the only kind of big rat we have okay the hell were we talking about oh i still haven't segued it watch this now um what made him right in was Yanni talking about his raccoon. Okay. His dog. That was a good lead. Now go talk about coons.

Yeah. Oh, like a long time ago when I was talking about training Mingus on the trapped raccoon. Yeah. So I brought it full circle. Man, that was good. That teed it up really good here. Now people would be better prepared to track the conversation.

Yes. So we've just, we've, so I mean, I have. You could say, speaking of tracking. I have raccoon hounds. To start from zero to bringing everybody up to speed, I have raccoon hounds. Okay, a raccoon is a mammal. I would say coon.

I would say, I mean, I would just say coon. Not a bear. Not super close cousins to a bear. Yeah. I would say coon. I would just say coon. Not a bear. Not super close cousins to a bear. Yeah. So I have coonhounds. And so coonhounds are, there are multiple breeds of coonhounds. Five or six different UKC registered coonhounds.

Rattle them off. Well, there's a walker, blue tick, black and tan, red bone, English, and plot. Is that all six of them? I sounds like yeah and so tell them about how the one hand all five yeah so well it's easier to say the plot hound the american plot hound is the only tree hound that did not descend from european fox hounds so black and tan blue tick walker red bone english all descended from european foxhounds. So black and tan, blue tick, walker, red bone, English, all descended from European foxhounds. If you look above you, gentlemen,

you'll see a painting on the wall. I can tell you about that. Well, that's a ceiling. I'd call that a ceiling. I'm sorry. Yeah, there's an old depiction. That's a whole other story. You want me to talk about that later.

It's a guard the gate thing. Essentially, that scene no longer exists on the earth. Because those dudes didn't do it right. And I understand the principle of guarding the gate, and I believe in guarding the gate, but I just don't know how. I just don't consider those my brethren.

Well, listen, I'm with you. I don't either. Getting dressed up in fancy little hats and riding around on a horse chasing a fox. I mean, I just don't. Look. Look at that scene. That was us yesterday.

Who? Look, there's a family of people. They're on horseback. That's the land – There's dogs. You were on a mule. We'll talk about it on a separate ancillary. No, I'm just saying that was a valuable –

So what I've got, guys, is I've got this old painting of a European fox hunting scene. Men on horseback. There's 20 walkers there. But it's not even... I don't want to take up everybody's time. There's women too. I'll talk about it with you later. Sure.

God bless. I hope they hunt and chase fox till the cows come home. It just isn't... Relevant? It's not relevant. If you had let me tell the story, you. It just isn't relevant. It's not relevant. If you had let me tell the story, you'd see why it's relevant. Why that's there. No, no, no, no. I don't want to talk about that.

That is symbolic, that picture, because that no longer exists. That's why it's on the ceiling. No, I think it's... I'm being dead serious. That's where I put everything that no longer exists. That's right. Goes on the ceiling. Yeah, yeah. The walls are for things that still exist. I'm slapping Yanni on the knee for emphasis.

I don't want there to be a painting of me and Steve and Yannis on mules with feists and coonhounds... On my ceiling. ...that they have to make paintings of because you can't do it anymore. Oh. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Sure. That's the metaphor. That's why it's up there. to make paintings of because you can't do it anymore oh yeah you see what i'm saying sure that's that's the metaphor that's why it's up there because i don't want that to be me i want

my kids to be able to ride mules and hunt with dogs and do the stuff that we've done so that's that's the metaphor i think it's a little flawed though because i think usually people make paintings of things that are celebrated so in in a way, I do want a painting of us, but I don't want that paint to go onto a ceiling. It'll be on a regular wall. You don't want it on the ceiling of this place. So we coon hunt. So we have coon hounds. It's something that I got my first coon hounds when I was 14 years old. I hunted until I went to college, got rid of my dogs, took a hiatus from coon hunting for about 15 years until my family was kind of of age and my kids and people were interested. And six, I think six years ago, I got back into coon hunting

and just kind of stepped back into it. And it's a pretty, I mean, if you're an outdoorsman and you're looking for places to spend time in the outdoors it's pretty unique because you do it at night i mean almost even from like a logistical perspective first of all it's an animal that is abundant that most people don't care about and you hunt it at night yeah i read involves a dog it's it's virtually no there's virtually no stress on the resource right now because the furs are not valuable enough to warrant trapping for them and generally trappers trappers are like when fur prices are high they're killing nine out of ten that get killed yeah yeah yeah high volume

like high volume commercial dudes yeah and that's not happening right now nerd out even more you know the whole meso predator scene like mid-sized predators you know the the big main predators in north america in this part of the world which would have been mountain lion wolf they're gone the meso predators mid-sized predators are more there i've got some research papers over here from some stuff i was looking at like there is an unnatural amount of raccoons in North America right now as compared to pre-European settlement. So that's just true. Yeah, I was reading in our little fact sheet. I want to say it was like,

how many people are in America now? 325? Yeah, rough. Yeah, around. I think it was around 300 million raccoons in our country. I remember thinking like, wow, it's almost as many people as live here. I think that's incorrect.

You do? Just gut. Just gut. Rick fact-checked me. Dude, Rick couldn't. You see how fast he grabbed that phone? That's the kind of thing.

Yeah, but you know why? It's because he wrote that fact sheet. I didn't. I didn't, actually. Oh, all right. Okay, go ahead, Clay. So we, when you couldn't hunt, you coon hunt at night

And you cast, you turn loose Really, 300 million coons in North America You ever hear about how they do that Wildlife services does that drop of Rabies vaccination pills From the air to spread, to stop raccoon Rabies, that's some interesting stuff Go ahead, Clay

There you are, you're in the pawn shop I was just going to describe. Yeah. And I call the guy, and I'm like, I'm bringing you some shedhorns. So when we coon hunt, what we do is we go out to a likely spot. It usually involves water, big woods, like you want to turn out around a creek, around a pond. And these are trained dogs.

We could go a thousand different ways of how you train dogs. A lot of it is breeding, getting the right dog to start with and then you condition that dog and train it yeah we had to get into the training a little bit because that's the whole reason that Chester and I are driving 20 hours each direction yeah with my dog so he gets the training done let me just like set up what coon hunting is how we do it so we turn loose our dogs in a likely spot these dogs are free cast which means we just turn them loose and the idea is that they would they would go out on their own find coon scent trail the coon and tree the coon and so what i was telling yannis and i want to add into that like the the the reason there's like a name for free casting.

That's not the reason, but the other version of cutting a hound loose to go track something is that you, like we do in Montana looking for mountain lions, we find the track and then you put the dog's nose literally on that track and start him there. So the human finds the track in the snow or in the mud. You turn a dog, you bring a dog to the track. Set him on the right direction too. Freecast is where, I don't know where a coon is. You know, I just know by this pond, there's likely a coon within three, 400 yards of here. Maybe he's 50 yards. Maybe he's 500 yards.

I'm going to turn this dog loose. This dog has the instinct to hunt and prey drive he is going to pursue he's going to seek out coon scent and real quick of interesting you told me tell them about what's the call to yanni when you don't free cast is there a term for it put them out on the track well i mean if you're big game so there's lots of different things if you're big game hunting a lot of guys rig dogs which means you drive around no no i mean what's called a stick his nose in a track i mean just turn them out on a track just turn them on a track yeah we talked about this i was like what happens when people if a coon cuts across the road in front of you yeah clay was saying that the the strategy is

drive past it wait a while so it's not too hot it's and then bring them back and put them on it when it's not too hot anybody that's listening to this podcast that's a coon hunter for very long has had this happen you're going coon hunting and you see a coon cross the road. The first instinct you have is to slam on the brakes, jump out, grab your dog, and just throw it on the track. And I mean, just universal. Have you done it?

Oh, yeah. Many times. There's too much in the air probably. I've learned, not just from my experience, but from others telling me the same corresponding story. Dogs have a real hard time with a super fresh track they'll usually take it the wrong way this happened i saw a coon track this was like three or four years ago i saw a coon

cross the road in front of my truck going to the right going off down the valley. I turn Fern loose on that hot track. She just erupts. She goes 250 yards the other way and trees a coon on the side of the mountain over there. Dead serious. Like that,

you know, you just feel like she's going to hit the... So what you do if you can discipline yourself enough to do it is you just basically wait 10 minutes before you turn

on the track and then they hit the track and whatever happens with the scent so like there's a there's a lot of science behind the way dogs use their nose with scent like there's a scent plume like that dog is sometimes tracking ground scent which means the pads of that coon are touching dirt and grass and soil leaving scent the primary way that they're trailing a hot track is from a scent plume so as that coon or even you or me are walking through the air micro particles are constantly falling off of our body i mean like skin particles hair particles particles from your shirt falling off creating a scent plume that's why a dog will run with his head up and not put his head right into a track. And so depending upon how hot, how fresh the scent is and how good the

conditions are, conditions are everything. If it's cold, it's one way. If it's hot, it's another way. Like, so there's just all these variables that come with the olfactory conditions that a dog can throw. So what, to go back to the sequence that I wanted, that I told Giannis and Steve. So to a coon hunter, like the objective is to get a coon. Like we're after a coon. There are better ways to get coons than with a dog. Like if we were just like, if Steve was like, Clay, I got to come to Arkansas and bring 10 coons home with me. I would have said, well, let's put out some dog-proof traps. You know, let's like, there's a more efficient. Yeah, there's a more efficient way. So like the whole thing is about working with this dog.

That's part of it. And so what happens when you're a coon hunter is if I took Rick Smith out, he might have, if he hadn't heard the spill the first night, just been like, the dogs barked and then there was a coon. Like, big deal. My yard dog barks. Well, to a coon hunter,

the nuance inside of those barks is like a book. It's like a story. And man, I mean, y'all, it was dark last night and i can't hear out of my right ear and uh you got holy cow you want to talk about a handicap no this guy no doubt i'm sure everybody knows this but when you hear a sound your ears are making a calculator it seems crazy but this is when a sound hits your head, what are you laughing about? No, it's true. It sounds insane. Your brain knows which of your ears the sound got to first.

As fast as that is traveling. In fact, that's why when you're underwater, you can't tell where it came from. Because it's traveling, what, 13 times faster or something like that look that up my guess is seven times faster look at when you're underwater and you hear like a whale way off or you hear a um boat motor you feel like you're gonna get run over and faster than in air oh yeah so fast that your brain can't pick it. That's why when you hear... Four times faster. That's why when you hear an outboard,

when you're diving underwater and you hear an outboard, it feels like it's going to hit you from some direction, but you can't tell what, or you feel like you're surrounded by whales. When they're... That's what a whale sounds like. Kind of like coo now. Yeah.

Kind of like a crow whistle. Yeah, that's why it's so disorienting. Your brain knows what ear that sound hit first And it like Calibrates direction It's unbelievable Clay's got a bad bum ear Every noise Clay's like where'd that come from

He cannot tell where it came from He could play a hell of a trick on you Oh you could for sure I'm going to start hiding out in the woods at night. Hey, do you want to know how I learned that I couldn't hear direction? When I was a kid, I'd be hunting with my dad, and he'd holler at me. We'd split up to scout for deer, and he'd be like, Clay! And I'd be like, yeah, come over here, there's a buckrub.

And I'd just take off going that way. And he'd holler, hey! And I'd be like, yeah! And he's further away and I'd take off after him. And I mean, it would just... So that's not like a result of blowing an ear out. When I was in the ninth grade, my ears started ringing after getting a.22 pistol

and burning up about 2,000 rounds out of it. There you go. But I didn't shoot guns. If you're listening at home, kids, where are your ears? What's funny now is day late, dollar short. Dude runs around all day with earplugs in now. Oh. I'm like, well, you don't want to lose the other one.

Hey, Steve, if you clapped your hands real hard by me my bad ear that i can't hear out of will ring so loud i can't hardly hear people talk oh like if you just went pop like close that's good to know too do that too yeah i mean like so so i i'd really take care of my bad ear because that's the one that rings so that's the one you're protecting when when you'll learn if you hunt with me very much, I always ask people to tell direction. I was doing it with y'all yesterday. Oh, you're not even ashamed of it.

I was like, I say, point where that dog is. And Steve would be like this way. Michael Anear does it. I say, point at those dogs because I hear them. Because I've got a good ear. I've got one ear that's great, which is a blessing. If they were both bad, I couldn't hear people talk. I can hear you talk fine.

Oh no, you hear it. You just don't know where it was. Makes for a tough turkey hunt. Oh dude, it's sort of ruined my solo turkey career. No doubt. I want to train my mule to key in on gobbles. I'm serious. I've thought about getting a gobble

machine and and then gobble machine. Yeah. And then go feed the mule. Have a treat. Have a treat for it. Set a treat next to it. And then so when she hears a gobble on a spring morning, ears go up. I was a little surprised that the mule I was riding squirrel hunting, I was kind of wondering,

how much would you need to do this before when those dogs bade they go to them that the mule would just be like i might just go over there because this guy's gonna be kicking my side yanking on my reins and whatnot i feel like now see the mule you were riding would be one that we ride less uh-huh like izzy my mule like every time that we hunt on mules i'm riding her and i i'd be stretching to say that when she hears dog bark she just starts going i think it'll eventually happen she she tends to go the way they go you should every time you get a squirrel feeder give that mule something to eat it's a good idea just so she's like over there where those dogs are those dogs are that's a great idea those dogs are banned by some grain.

That's a good idea. That's solid. That would work. That is a good idea. It really would work. Those mules would sell their soul for a handful of grain. Yeah, Phil cut that out because I'm actually going to sell that idea to somebody. A book.

He's going to make a book. 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.

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months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet on x maps.com slash meet welcome to the to the on x club y'all we were talking about the sequence and i said like in the dark you're listening for these certain things to happen what might seem just like a bark to someone else is like this this story and so there's four things that are happening on a coon hunt you turn the dogs you free cast the dogs and the first bark that you hear that is what we call strike so you would hear us say that man fern just struck a coon that would mean she located the scent of a coon and there's

an excited bark i mean it could be a variation of barks but it just there's no like that's what a strike someone stepped on their tail they strike the coon but every dog is different so you know your dog's strike exactly sound okay like for instance and i didn't even have time to get into it the other night but there was one time when fern went way out and barked down in that field where we thought we heard a coyote and when i heard her open strike i didn't think it was a coon i thought thought she was booger barking. Well, no. She got sprayed in the face by a skunk, right? Well, that was another time. You got to explain booger bark.

Well, let's not. Let me just... Well, I can't. I mean, a booger bark would just be a... Meaning the dog was scared by something. And like if a UPS man drove up in the front of your yard and the dog was out, it would be like... Just kind of stand there and look. When fern strikes, she has a squall. And when I hear a

squeaky squall at a fern, I feel good about that. It's a coon she's after. So they strike. The next thing they do is they trail the coon. And this is part of the sequence that every dog's going to be different. There's no dog that's going to be the same. But what they're doing is they trail the coon. And this is part of the sequence that every dog's gonna be different. There's no dog that's gonna be the same. But what they're doing is they're trailing the ground scent of that coon. The tempo, cadence, loudness, excitedness of that bark tells you how hot that track is.

If they just blow out of there, then man, you're like, man, that's a hot track. If it's like, we heard a lot of this this week. You're just like, man, they're working it. And on a textbook track, the track would get hotter and hotter, but it's rarely textbook. So there's the trail sounds. When you're hunting an animal that climbs trees, you have, and these dogs are tree dogs, which means they are bred to run game.

And when that game runs up a tree, they stay there and bark. And that's a special thing because most hounds would be dogs that would just want to pursue game. So like running dogs, that's what we call a game. So like running dogs. That's what we call a running dog. A running hound and a tree hound is different.

A running hound, when he chases a coon and it goes up a tree, he goes, dang, this isn't any fun anymore. I'm going to go somewhere else and find another one to try to catch. A tree hound, when he gets to where he believes the animal left the earth and is standing up in a tree, he will stay there and bark. Which is, think about this though, Rick Smith,

this is an unnatural thing for an animal to do. Like in the wild, there is no replication of that thing because a tree hound has a human partner that will then come to the tree and harvest the animal. So like a wolf wouldn't be a tree hound. A wolf would run you up a tree and be like, I ain't getting that guy, I'm gonna go catching it. You see what I'm saying?

So it's this influence of human artificial selection and breeding that makes something really special. So like when I say that dog's a tree dog, like what I'm gonna say about Mingus in a little bit. I got a question. Can all of the breeds of the hounds, can they all be tree dogs? Well, I mean... And all be running dogs?

They're coon hounds. Like all the six breeds that I just described to you. Oh, those are all coon hounds, so they're all tree dogs. They're all tree hounds. Yeah. What's a hound that is not a tree hound? Well, there's lots of walkers that are running walkers like guys that run deer guys that run foxes guys that run coyotes those are running dogs

um so is a beagle beagles are running dog yeah if a beagle if a rabbit could climb a tree a beagle would just leave it in the tree and go find another rabbit to run my dog my dog's a snuggling dog you see someone on the couch that's where it's going yeah that's a snuggle artificial human selection our dog is such a snuggling dog that now and if we let the kids go into we don't have like a living room with a tv area and and when the kids go into the if it's like oh yeah we get sick of them like you guys can go watch the show. And if that dog hears that a cartoon or something come on, like a beeline,

whack, runs in knowing it can go snuggle with them on the thing. Wow. That's a snuggle dog. Yeah. And it stays on that snuggle. So we're at part two of four.

Okay. So, so strike, trail trail and then locate and these are all things that i could call in a sequence the locate bark is when the the the animal in our case a coon has gone up the tree and it may seem like the dog would just trail footsteps right up to a tree and just start barking but it's never the way it happens like y'all saw last night like fern trail that coon got to generally where she believed it was but the scent trail was indistinct to which tree it was i mean she was checking every tree in a 50 60 square yard area she didn't know where it was and she during that time will let out a series of elongated barks that indicate that she

is no longer on the actual linear trail of that coon. And she's like doing circles. And every dog would be different. I know what Fern's locate bark sounds like. If you're a coon hunter, you'd say she's looking up, but she doesn't know where it's at. Looking up would mean the dog is trying to locate the coon in the tree, but it's not real clear. They almost always locate. And so you get excited when your dog locates. So the dog strikes, the dog trails, and then when she locates, you slap your buddy on the knee and you go, man, we're about to be looking at a coon. And then the fourth thing, the fourth sequence is the dog

begins to tree that's when the dog locates the coon and the dog begins an excited series typically of chops not all dogs chop some Some dogs bawl. But like 80% of these coon hounds that are in these breeds will chop on the tree. So it's like... Locate. Strike trail. Locate tree.

Last night when we were having such a time when they're having such a time untangling that track what i thought was interesting was you um they hit a tree and you said i think the treed and we ran over there and i said, I think they're treed. And we ran over there, and I said, well, there it is. I could see it up in the tree. And you seemed real surprised. Yeah. Man.

Just because you were getting frustrated with how long it took to sort the track out? You know, yeah. What we saw last night was, in some ways, it was great dog work. In other ways, it was bad dog work. I ways it was bad dog work i mean it's just kind of which side of it you wanted to look at for whatever reason that was a hard track for them to sort out and i can't tell you why it was um they made a massive loss so i should have never gone in there steve i was i was just that got him confused no well it doesn't help him any but like when i was looking at my garment and him confused no well it doesn't help him any but like when i

was looking at my garment and there's like eight people looking over my shoulder and we've been hunting for four nights and and we hadn't even seen a coon yet and this is so not a big deal and now it's one o'clock in the morning on the fourth and i hear fern locating and i'm watching my garment and i see her doing tight circles i felt like she was treed and i said let's go to her and i made the decision we're gonna go and we got in there and as soon as we got in there and I see her doing tight circles, I felt like she was treed, and I said, let's go to her. And I made the decision we're going to go. And we got in there, and as soon as we got in there,

she wasn't where I left her. You know, she wasn't. So you knew she left the tree. I knew, and it wasn't, she didn't leave the tree like a bad thing. That would be a bad thing. Yeah. She just hadn't committed.

Like hadn't got bored and left. No, no. She just knew it wasn't there. She wasn't certain where it was. So we got in there, and I saw her nose on the ground and not pointing in the tree i just was like doggone it and this is after several nights a tough coon hunt i like that you yelled at me in there too uh you said don't start shining your light up in the trees yeah yeah because then they'll think they got the tree yeah yeah which is interesting they got that well

i mean they bunch of dudes come in shine light the tree they're like oh it must be the raccoon exactly well i mean think think about a couple hundred times or more in their life the only time we shine up in a tree a coon comes falling down you know what i mean so you don't especially when they're struggling you don't you, you just cut your lights. You just kind of want to. And when we did go in on the tree, when you finally like, you, the dogs were doing a bunch of, they going all over the place and couldn't sort it out. But then they finally like really committed to a tree. Yeah. But you're still a little incredulous just because there's so much weirdness that already

gone on. Yeah. You had me switch my light to a green light. Yeah. So that I didn't get, so that I didn't, if they were not, if they were not sure yet that I didn't make too much of a suggestion. Okay, that wasn't my thought at all. Oh, I assume that's what it was. Yeah, I can see why you'd think that, because I was telling you at one time not to shine your light.

And then you said put it on green. I said put it on, yeah. I had mine on red. The reason I did that, Steve, is because we were in a cedar thicket, and those coons would get up in the top of those 30-foot cedars, and you can't see them. Yeah, if that coon was another 5, 10 feet higher in that tree, it would have been harder to pick up. A coon? Oh, I would have.

You saw how quick I found that thing. You found it quick. You know what I saw? That tail. The ring on the tail. It was beautiful. Well, what I wanted that coon to do was look at it. He'll look at a red light and he won't look at a bright light.

Oh, so that's what you were thinking. You're looking at my eye shine. A lot of times you get one flicker of a coon eye right when you walk up. When you walk up, they're trying to figure out what's going on. They'll look at you and then they'll close their eyes and just hunker down and if they're up in the top of a cedar tree that you can't see all of it you might get one look at him in a red light they'll look at a red light or a green light so i was worried about finding the coon i saw fern standing on the tree barking i was like whether she's got it or not she's committed i'm going in

and then the coon was not very far up the tree. Steve saw it right away. I was excited, man. Well, I mean, if it was way up, I could have saw it right away too. Clay, do you think the dog's getting sprayed by the skunk, messed with him at all? You know? Because that smells so strong.

Chester said it. Somebody said it. I kind of doubt it did. And let me tell you why we have this sense of what it's like to use your nose to navigate life because but a dog's navigation of life through its nose is vastly different than ours the way i've heard it described by someone it would be like walking into a house and let's say your wife was cooking lasagna or you were cooking lasagna Yanni and you'd walked into the house you would smell lasagna your dog would walk in and he

would smell tomato sauce boiled noodles ricotta cheese and Italian sausage and he could distasteful oregano he could distinctly... Basil, oregano, black pepper, garlic. They would be like distinct colors that he could separate from one another. So, yeah, my dogs were out. I gotta qualify this because people are gonna think I have skunk dogs.

My dogs were... I think they were working a little drainage and both of them just erupted. Just... Just for probably four or five seconds. Like ran into it. I think they just spooked a skunk. There was a lot.

I don't know if you noticed. There was a lot of skunk tracks last night. They were out. Yeah. Because I think that warm break in the weather. And a lot of grinner tracks. Yeah. We haven't seen a grinner track, I don't think.

I didn't see one. We saw a possum. He left, I don't know if you went and looked around that area. It looked like he had had a hole down in that area. Is that right? Yeah. He'd been working and working and working, and it was up in there. I remember asking you what that little outburst was.

Yeah. Because the dogs kind of went crazy there for a second you're like they probably just jumped something yeah and that's not good you said they maybe they maybe like kicked up a deer and it scared them or whatever because they didn't run it i mean that like if they had to run it out of the country i mean they just typically don't they're pretty straight dogs but it was as tough of conditions as i've ever been in for tree and coon the last several days and just so everyone knows those dogs treed that coon after they got sprayed by that skunk yeah so yeah probably 30 40 minutes after they got sprayed by skunk yeah they did

uh what'd you think about that one uh you know yanni's one of his nicknames is the latvian eagle what'd you think when yanni spotted that know, Yanni's, one of his nicknames is the Latvian Eagle. What'd you think when Yanni spotted that squirrel's eyeball up in that tree? That was impressive. It really was, man. Good eye. That's when the binos saved us. Yeah.

We lost a squirrel in the tree. This is a segue into squirrel hunting. No, we forgot something. Yanni's dog. Yeah, the ballad of mingus the dog um we lost a squirrel in a tree and yanni there was a crack in the tree and yanni found its eyeball up in the crack just like a little hole look like a you know like a hole yeah not too small i mean you could probably make a volleyball stick into it yeah and jam it in there eyeball

looking out but it wasn't deep and so when i glassed up there you could see see a little squirrel head yeah you can see a head and the shine of its eye that was an interesting call on squirrel hunting is like you could see his head in there and you definitely could have shot him in the head but then if you stoned him he might might not come out. But the nature of the hole was such that you had to actually do something, go for a less ethical kill in order that it would have enough life to scurry itself out of that crack. Well, that's not what we did, though. Oh, you didn't?

Do you know what we did? You just spooked him out? Yeah. I shot right under the hole. Oh, okay. So what we did you just spooked him out yeah i shot right under the hole oh so what we did so we had 22s on him we had michael lanier with the 12 gauge i had i was carrying a 410 and i the the fact that we could see the squirrel in the hole told me that the hole didn't go deeper like he was taking advantage of it he was just in a little cavity and so i said well i'll just shoot right beneath the hole. And it worked.

Shot, and he ran out of the hole. It was delayed, though. A shot, boom, he didn't move. And then he broke like a few seconds later. That's the way I remember it. And then he ran up the tree, and then I guess Michael ended up shooting it with a shotgun as it was going up the tree.

All right, talk about a Mingus update. and then I guess Michael ended up shooting it with a shotgun as it was going up the tree. Yeah. All right, talk about a Mingus update. We need a jingle for a Mingus update. A little song. A little Mingus segment. Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus. A little Segway song. Something like that.

Oh, you know what I want to do? You know that old Kiss song, Beth? It goes, Beth, you hear me calling? Yeah. Beth, you hear me calling? Beth, you hear me calling. Beth, I hear you calling. But I can't come home right now. I'm going to do one. I want to rewrite it so it's Seth.

But I can't decide if I want it to be a turkey hunting song. A coon fleshing song is what you did last night. Well, I know, but now I got to thinking. Seth, I hear him calling. Oh, I like that. That'd be us hearing a gobble. It'd be all about me and Seth hearing a gobble. Seth, I hear him calling.

Yeah, I like that. I like that better than the fleshing. Yeah. I'm just in a turkey state of mind right now. It's coming. It's going to be sweet when I get that song written up. Jesse's going to help me with it. The creative projects just

flow around here. Throw some chords in there. So then also when you get working on it, work up a jingle for Yanni's Mingus update. Okay. Yours will be... Mingus, Mingus, Mingus. Mingus, Mingus, Mingus. Don't make it that. Go ahead, Yanni. They're all the same. Steve's songs

are all the same. Well, I'll let Clay speak to it more because Clay's got more experience so he can see what my dog did and learned. But to set it up, Mingus has been trained a little bit with one live coon and a dead coon in Montana, maybe

four days total. And he got to trail one and he fought one for a little bit and then we shot it out of a tree and um you know you got to smell it a little bit when it was when it was not had much exposure with not much not much and he's been at two lion trees now he's been on quite a few more hunts but my hunts just haven't been panning out so he hasn't actually gotten to run a lot of tracks so i wanted to bring him down here for this yeah so you get some more experience yeah well first of all for the houndsman out there or the non-houndsman mingus is a and i'm not just saying this because i i don't just walk around

telling people they got good looking hounds that's just not a compliment you throw around too lightly but mingus is like big old handsome looking dog. It really is for a hound. Handsome looking dog. Loud. Are most hounds known to be ugly? I mean, they're not always pretty. I'm being serious.

They're a working dog. Right. What sentence would sound more familiar to you? An up on the porch is an ugly old hound dog. Or an up on the porch is a beautiful old hound dog. Or an up on the porch is a beautiful old hound dog. Ugly. That seems like something you'd call him. You wouldn't really call a hound beautiful. You might call him.

Handsome. Regal. That's a beagle. Regal, eagle. Yeah, no, really. When I saw him, I'd seen him when he was younger back in Montana, when he was just kind of a pup, maybe three-quarter grown. But, boy, he's a big old dog. And a pound puppy. Yeah, Giannis got him from a pound, didn't know

anything about him. So we don't know the... Daughters picked him up. This is what would be interesting about Mingus to me is that Giannis doesn't know any history of this dog. Like my dogs, I would be able to tell you back to about 1750, their lineage. And I'm sort of being serious. Like, you know, you just know so much. This dog, we don't know anything. But Giannis said he was going to bring the dog. I didn't, I mean, I was all for it.

I didn't think the dog would do much. Not because he's a bad dog. Just because he was coming to a new environment he's gonna be with new dogs he's gonna be a new territory running something he's not familiar with and uh and he's a puppy and he's just yeah he's a pup he's a how old is he probably 15 months yeah anything under two years old in a hunting dog would be kind of considered a young dog and he might be out of the puppy stage you might be into a young dog stage they're pretty pliable until they're about two two and a half years old you got a lot of room to train and such but the dog we cast the dogs with my dogs

and uh i mean he went hunting which number one that's a good thing he didn't just stay at our feet the whole time yeah he'd go away the hell off oh yeah around that that's a good thing. He didn't just stay at our feet the whole time. Yeah, he'd go way the hell off looking around. That's one of the main things I'm looking for is just drive to go. Yeah, my dog would go back in the truck. Well, you kept making the joke of when you'd see a dog that was doing that. What's the line going? I don't even remember. Oh, you're always saying like, Oh, Mingus is just over there standing there thinking like,

Boy, I enjoy love watching a good coon hunt. Yeah, Fern every now and then comes back, and she'll hear Jed bark out there 400 yards, and she'll just perk up and listen like she's so proud of him. She's just like, man, she loves hearing a good coon race. And then, yeah, so we cast the dog. And what I was most impressed with was the first night, my dogs went, I think, 800 yards,

which is essentially half a mile, and treed solid. And we're going to the tree, and my dogs are not big dogs. And my plots are not loud. Like, they're just average in a lot of things, which is not factors i'm that worried about and we hear like the volume and you can you said it too seth the volume of noise coming from that tree like tripled oh that's right you guys can hear it i mean it would be like this would be like two i mean just like yeah we thought we thought they turned around and came towards us

yes and and essentially mingus went to him and started treeing yeah which which to me that's what i was impressed with his tree instinct that he didn't see the animal just that he has the idea that you stand here put your feet on the tree chew on the bark make a raucous and don't leave you you don't know how special that is unless you you're after a tree dog and you see all the ones that won't do that even ones that are bred to do that that don't do it very well well and the reason i have some now understanding of why it's it is something whether it's special or not i don't know but you know it wasn't but probably i don't know in december wasn't but probably, I don't know, in December sometime, so two, three months ago, we're at a tree with three other dogs

that are treeing, barking nuts, and there's a lion in the tree, and Mingus is walking around and wanting to play grab bass with the dogs and just kind of wagging his tail and like not putting two and two together at all you know what i mean yeah i remember you saying you were trying to make him look up the tree and someone told you that don't work yeah yeah so like yeah even though there was a when we knew it was a very because on a lion when you come up to that tree that lion ran into that tree like a coon might have been there for half an hour, right? But a lion's been there for minutes by the time those dogs get there.

It happens like that. There's a good smell on the tree. Even with that, he just would kind of put a paw up on the tree, but there was no barking. He was just kind of like, eh. So what turned him around on that? They just click, man. They just put the switch.

Well, eventually, and I told this story, I believe. Showed them a lesson. I'm trying to prompt you. Yeah, so the next time, the line was a little bit lower on an exposed branch where you could just see the whole cat,

and the hill was so steep when you backed 10 yards off the tree, you were almost eye level with it, and he was kind of just walking around looking, looking. The other dogs were barking. That's when I grabbed his head and I pointed it up there and i felt his head quiver for a moment as he locked on and then he almost blew my hands off guys guys yeah yeah yeah and when minga says guys cat in a tree, it goes... It's loud.

He's loud. He is. Well, I was just impressed that he did that. So if you imagine your own honor as a man, Clay, you wouldn't shine Giannis up just for the sake of sparing his feelings? Nope. I really wouldn't. Now, what I want to qualify, I've tried to be encouraging to Giannis.

Yeah, but don't treat him like a child. No, no, no, no. Okay. I just know there's a lot of people that if your dog does something good, they wouldn't tell you it was good if it was the best dog in the world. And I'm just not going to be that guy. You know, it's like, yeah, the dog's doing good. I don't want to say that, like, there's so many other components

that make a whole balanced hound. Right. That's just one of them. Yeah. And he's got it good. So there's all, like, so that doesn't just mean because I and he's got it good so there's all like so that doesn't just mean because i say he's a good tree dog it means that mingus is going to be the best lion hound in the west there's a lot of other factors that come in that are going to determine like his end goal

but for a pound dog that's been your yard dog i mean i was totally impressed i mean my dog that i've got out here that's the same age as mus, that we did not hunt, that was bred specifically. I mean, it's out of my fern dog. Won't do that. So, I mean, I'm just saying. You're hoping it will. Yeah, it will at some point. It just hadn't yet.

So, I'm not trying to shine him. I was just impressed with the dog. Well, look, we, as a team, Mingus and I, got benched too yesterday because it was tough conditions. That'll tell you that I'm not afraid to hurt his feelings because I actually wanted to talk to you about that in private to make sure you didn't think I was being a jerk. I'm being serious.

No, I understood. I'd like to tell this. Yeah, sure. Can you tell me if I mess it up? The dogs are struggling on a couple tracks that were hard to sort out, and Mingus being impressionable as a young youngster and liking all that excitement the dogs would come in and they'd check some trees and they're trying to figure it out and mingus would be like there it is it must be in the tree and then he gets worked up and they're like well it must be

in the tree because look at him yep he's why would he be that excited yep and then it sets off a false tree and i yanni i wouldn't have known that except for when i walked away from at one point i walked away from the guys and i walked in there and i watched fern on my garment come down make a certain it's in the dark I'm just watching a Garmin and listening with my one good ear and I hear fern locate bark like once or twice make a couple of tight circles and then move on Mingus comes down and I don't have him on my Garmin but Mingus comes down, gets to the same spot Fern was, and just, just starts treeing like crazy. Fern piddles around for probably five or six minutes out here hunting, trying to work the actual track out. And then Jed, here's Mingus, and Jed's 300 yards away. He comes to the tree, and Jed's like, oh, it's here.

He starts treeing. And then Fern's like, well, doggone, Mingus and Jed are treeing over there. Here I am like some sucker. Yeah, and that's a fault of my dog. And that's what I wanted to say last night. I wasn't trying to make an excuse for my dog's slick treeing, essentially. Like treeing where there's not a coon. And that's just whatever. They just did it. You knowing where there's not a coon. And that's just whatever.

They just did it. You know, Yanni's an honorable man himself. And he's a grown-up. I don't think you hurt his feelings. Yeah. I didn't want it to sound like I was being defensive. Did he strike you as being diminished and hurt last night, Seth? Oh, no.

You thought Yanni took it like a man. Yeah. I thought he was taken as like this is more valuable for my dog to do this well and the thing is if we hunted together two or three nights a week it wouldn't be any big deal i would probably i mean just but we were we kind of had a mission we had to accomplish which was tree of coon and and it just it was just another factor and we could even go deeper on why my dogs are more susceptible to honoring another dog which is true my my dogs the way they're bred if they hear another dog bark they're probably going to go to them a more

independent bred hound would hear mingus bark and would be who cares i'm going to find my own coon yeah clay was talking about in uh coon hunting contests where you like basically it's a it's a dog handling like a display of dog handling that's right that they might put out multiple dogs that are competing against one another and they each got to find their own thing and you got to get a dog that doesn't care what's going on that he's in a silo not like a group thing but in other kinds of hunting you want that group aspect so in big game hunting it takes more than one dog to tree a bear a lion and so you want a dog that when we call it honor will honor another dog and uh my dogs come from a long lineage of big game hounds.

So they have not been influenced by the competition coon world because you can breed that out of them. They got a pack mentality. Yeah, so they hear Mingus, and they're like, phew, going to him. So what happens when guys' dogs struggle? And I was frustrated. I really was. I mean, you guys come all the way down here to go coon hunting with me,

and I'm like, oh, yeah, we'll tree all the kind of coons, and then we can't tree a coon. I'm frustrated. And I'm not frustrated at Mingus or you. I'm really not. But I see what's happening, and I'm like, probably be best to hold him back. What I thought was fun to watch, because it's on such a micro scale,

is watching when you and your buddy had out the four squirrel dogs, and there's no leaves on the trees, so you can see pretty far out in the woods and a lot of times you kind of know where they're all at yeah and wanted to hit a tree you liked and just watching those other ones be like yeah let's go and they just come running from all directions to join that one at the tree it was kind of fun man and i won't lie it's like it's no fun to get taken out of the game no different when you're in a basketball game and you know you're taken out you want to be in the game and now you don't you're just sitting there like trying to hang on to the 70 pound beast trying to yank you through

the woods but I told you the first night or maybe the second night I said man if I could just hear him bark out in the woods one time on like what we think is a coon track or a coon tree like i'll consider this trip a success so when i thought that through i was like man we're like we blew that goal out of the water you know yeah yeah clay i've got a question for you you know you were saying how competition dogs are good when they get them out of the truck they get on scent and tree quick do you think mingus would be a good competition dog because he does lock down and tree or you know what i'm saying i see what you're saying and i don't think the we have enough data points to like say that for sure because there's other things i mean, my dogs will go out and tree a coon quick

and lock down on a tree if there's a fresh coon track there. You know what I mean? We saw kind of an atypical series of coon hunts this week because of the extreme temperatures and whatnot.

On that extreme temperature point, I'll tell you what's interesting as hell we're out squirrel hunting and ridge pounder finds like it looked like a taxidermy to robin laying on the ground not a ruffled feather on it and we're like what the hell is that all about like no broken neck nothing and last night we'll be fine three froze to death woodpeckers yeah steve i didn't even like laying there like completely completely fine like anytime you find a bird in the woods he he looks roughed up, generally. Like, in some way, roughed up. Just like you gassed it in a bag

and laid it out on the forest floor. It just got froze out. Yeah, negative 20 or whatever. Fayetteville got negative 20. Killing all these migratory... Yeah, negative 12. Killing, like, migratory... Like, killing birds that are...

There was a dead bird right by my house. I didn't tell y'all that. But the morning I was skinning squirrels after our first day, there was a... I mean, he was alive laying there. I kind of nudged him and I could tell he was going down. Yeah. Those woodpeckers like froze to death.

All of the same vintage too. It was like, oh, he died a month ago. It was like... Yeah. Remember when we went and got coffee the first morning? We park. froze to death all of the same vintage too it was like oh he died a month ago it was like yeah remember when we went and got coffee the first morning we park i get out and i could have missed it but you don't think i would miss it because it's like it's one of those spots on the sidewalk where they've got a little spot cut out there's like a little bit of dirt and a tree growing out of it you know so there was snow holding there tree well tree well whole snow holding there. Tree well. Tree well. Snow holding there. And it was fresh as could be.

We go and get coffee. And I come back and I open the door. And as I open the door and I look to the ground, and right there, you know, like the door had to swing over the top of it, is a dead bird. Clean looking. And I was like, probably hit a window. But now.

Right. Mass event. Just think how many. We may have cleaned the woodpeckers out of this place. Well, not just woodpeckers, but I bet a lot of birds died. I wouldn't have picked birds to die. I would have thought rabbits died. You know, and this strikes at me personally because I have an interest there,

but a lot of neoguy died in Texas. No way. Yeah. They just aren't built for cold. No. Hmm no i guess it was real hard on seek a deer no not seek is uh axis axis deer a lot of dead axis deer a lot of dead neoguy a lot of those exotics i got a all right thanks for joining oh so you got the pigs are just licking their tusks what did the book i mean when did you start coon hunting and did the book where the red fern grows how that did you read it as a kid you know i i don't it was influenced it influenced me just kind of culturally i can't say that like i read

where the red fern grows and wanted to start doing you know want to start coon hunting but you know so that book was took place in northeast oklahoma if you remember in the book taliqua the city of taliqua is mentioned that's where billy coleman got his dog and anyway taliqua is like 45 minutes from here oh yeah yeah so i mean it's like this is this is coon hunting country you know it's funny when i when i was a kid and read that book i I didn't really, I imagine the South, but it all didn't really, I didn't think of it like a place like this. Yeah. Felt like it was, I don't know.

But that was the first book I read that I remember. The first book you ever read? No, that I cried after reading. Really? Yeah. I just remember being like. You were born to be a coon hunter, Rick Smith. Well, you never know.

You never know what's going to happen. Suburbs of Bellevue. Come on. There's a marketing thing that people use in marketing about touch points. And you like to get someone to buy something, right? Oftentimes, it needs to be six touch, like on average, like six touch points. And in marketing, you're just trying to provide yet another touch point you could describe where the red fern grows as perhaps a touch point yeah in your journey for sure read the book great movie i especially like the nighttime scenes

really felt like it was nighttime really warms my heart to see those nighttime. Our nighttime scenes are going to really feel like nighttime. We got some good stuff next season for all you listeners out there. And all the child performances were stellar. Everybody did a phenomenal job child acting. Is Mingus back? Clay and I are going to go out again tonight. Is he back on the team? We're going to get the cast?

See, that's what I wanted to say. You're not going to bring Yanni out there and make him stand there trying to restrain that dog? That's what I was saying. If there's not anything, we'll just turn him loose tonight. Saddest thing on the planet, man. Poor Yanni standing there trying to restrain that dog. Hey, I want to say. No, your son, Bear, and I, we have a plan.

And that dog crying because he can't go out? No, hey, it means the world to me that you guys came to Arkansas. For real. I mean, like, for real. To my family. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. It's awesome down here.

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