The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 300: Should've Been Clay

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Steven Rinella talks with Jordan Budd, Clay Newcomb, Dirt Myth, and Chester Floyd.Topics discussed: Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill; "it should have been me," the hot new joint from Clay Newcomb; Dirt Myth's myth about WD 40; The MeatEater Store on Black Friday; All-Set-Chet; a rumble in Vermont over houndsman using dogs to pursue bears; getting lambasted for knocking on doors and issuing apologies; catching a cod with a gold nugget in it; why don't folks eat squirrel balls?; the silly hysteria over catching Covid from deer; wearing gloves or not while processing; epizootic hemorrhagic disease outbreaks and North Dakota buying back 30,000 deer tags; when you leave your deer stand up, with your bow inside, on public land; Judge Steve; a private land access dilemma; depriving Clay of an elk shed; having to stop by the check station for NE rifle; all OTC; more turkeys; shooter bucks; how to hunt Jordan's hood; 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.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. Presented by First Light, creating proven, versatile hunting apparel from merino base layers to technical outerwear for every hunt.

First Light. Go farther, stay longer. Okay, everybody. You're joining us from the banks of the Niobrara River. Right? That's right. Near its confluence with the aptly named Deer Creek. Yes. Deer Creek.

It does flow into it. Not far from a bridge where none other than... Buffalo Bill Cody, maybe. Buffalo Bill Cody was probably photographed. Yes. Is he the same as Wild Bill? No. No.

That's Hickok, right? Wild Bill Hickok. What was Wild Bill Hickok holding when he died, Dirk? Dead Man's Hand. Yep. Yeah, but what was it? Aces and eights. And what was the fifth card?

I do not know that one. Some historians argue he had a seven of hearts or something like that. Not a cool card. I thought it was a full house. The interesting thing about the Niobrower River where we're sitting right now is if we looked out the window and saw one, it'd be on the wrong side of the river for us.

It'd be on the wrong side, yeah. It'd have to run through the yard to be on the right side. It'd have to jump that river and it'd be in our hunt zone. Yep. And we're actively hunting right now. We're taking a break.

We are. We're going to keep this tight. Last evening. Because we've got unfinished business. The last evening of our hunt clay got a deer a little too quick a little too quick he feels bad about he's got survivor's guilt i really do he's got like a version of survivor's guilt and he's writing a song called should have been me why isn't it that why would it be that um i think the song should be it should have been steve well what should have been you um well it's actually favorable to you because as

we're so the way this farm sets up steve has been off hunting and because i've filled my buck tag we can come back to that and we have been like a mile and a half away on a hilltop watching you hunt and watching deer and watching what's going on. And just the phrase that comes out of my mouth to dirt is, it should have been me down there on the battlefield. It should have been you. It should have been you. It should have been you up here taking it easy.

Me and dirt having the time of our life, just drinking coffee, writing songs, just living in the glory of a filled buck tag. Because I feel like the buck was rightfully yours. Because on the first morning, Jordan took you to the honey hole, and she put me in honey hole number two. You feel that that's what happened? jordan and here's why i don't think here's why i don't think that's what happened because she also goes and hunts that spot oh i'm she's killed deer it's not like she's like

she i feel it's like a toss-up well no and she rightfully should have took you there i mean it's like there's always i know honey there's always the best spot okay and she rightfully should have took you there. I mean, it's like there's always, I know, honey, there's always a best spot, okay? And she took you to the best spot, and y'all saw a buck that morning. And then that afternoon, we had a guest come into the camp, and there was some decisions made, and you wanted to go for a walk. In the guest's best interest. Yeah, I know. And that's why it should have been me.

That's why you got survivor's guilt. Yeah. And so they sent, so Jordan sent me back to where she was going to, where Steve was going to sit. And I mean, like clockwork, this really nice 10 point buck came out, incredible hunt. Deer came in, killed the deer. So, I mean, I call the buck steve's buck that's a good name for it steve for short and then steve and then steve's you know we we've struggled the we just hadn't killed a deer yet so that's all joined also by chester chester's here

chester's learning uh he's learning a new song tell everybody what song you're gonna learn for me chester it is tonight we ride you know and you're going to learn from me, Chester. It is Tonight We Ride. And you're going to put a... He's going to put the Who Yip-A-Song on hold. Yep. That's a Tom Russell song. Oh. I was just telling Clay about Tom Russell.

Oh, man. It's good. Bloody violent song. It's definitely violent. Dirt's here and then Lord Moon, who's always on but never says a hell of a lot. Tonight we ride. He sings, though. Tonight. He does sing. He sings, though. Tonight.

He's a sing-along, but he sure can sing. Okay. There's a handful of things. Oh, Dirt, right off the bat. We've got to talk about WD-40. So listen. This is a great story. Get your thing out.

Get your thing out. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. We're sitting there up at my new new mechanic my new outboard motor mechanic in ketchikan alaska tyler no that ketchikan honda advised us to when you're winterizing your motors when you're winterizing your engines take the cowling off and hose everything in there with wd-40 okay yep so dirt was doing a little winterizing and i instructed him to do this he came to me and and and i i tried to to

to please him with some trivia in which i asked if he knows what the wd and wd-40 stands for and i didn't but you you... You didn't. And I said what? You said water displacement. Then Dirt said, WD-40... Dirt's like, well, I'll give you a little known fact. Tip for tat. He's like, you're not the only one who knows little known facts.

Dirt says WD-40's not actually a lubricant. Just a water repellent. It's just a water repellent, to which I i said that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard and and as an example i said to dirt imagine you have a rusty hinge and you put it in a kiln for a decade no moisture so it's as dry for nine years and 364 and a half days. It's been as dry as could possibly be dry. And you pull the hinge out and hose it down with WD.

Dirt is saying that it won't make a difference. That caused me some pause because that would work. So, this is the thing I find useful, Dirt. Uh-huh. I like to think when I'm trying to think of something's right or wrong or whatever, I think of it in total extremes.

Yeah. It's helpful. Yeah, that's good. Dirt then, it's on his mind. A few days goes by and he comes up to me to prove his point. And he has a screenshot of an article he found online. Very gloatingly. Which says, and he's all proud of it.

He's all proud of it. And it says, WD-40 is not a lubricant. In bold letters. And what he hadn't noticed, though, is he was on a site of myths. And he hadn't noticed that the sentence he was pointing out to me was preceded by the word myth. Which, yeah. Clay realized that since Dirt's name is Dirt Myth,

Clay thought, Clay thinks that Dirt thought it was his own quote. Because it says myth, colon. And Dirt's like, see here, right here is me saying it on the internet these smart phones man or it was saying hey Dirt Myth read this he's like hey myth this will interest you it would have been like play

and then it told me something really good so I just yeah it's confusing when your name is Dirt Myth but the bottom the fact of the matter is it is just so folks don't get confused. It is lubricant. Oh, because they were at great risk of being confused and thinking that it was only a water repellent. It's also great for removing stickers.

Oh. A little hot tip. Really, really good. Hot tip from Chester's desk. All set, Chet. Yep. Oh, yeah. If you want to remove a sticker, use WD, on your carester's desk? All set, Chet? Yep. Glass or something.

If you want to remove a sticker, use WD... On your car, on your windows. What about your computer? Yep. Your computer? Why would I want to remove a sticker that says I love my dad? Not that one. The buff...

I mean, if you had someone... If I needed to get that Buffalo sticker off there? I don't want to be responsible for ruining people's computers, but I've used it on windows and glass, cars. Chester's on to his ninth nickname in a month. It's All Set Chet. All Set Chet. All Set Chet.

All Set Chet. Oh, here's the thing. So Thanksgiving's coming, and as we all know, Thanksgiving is only there for one purpose, to give us a Black Friday, right? So Black Friday, it's the day after thanksgiving and it's not it's become like a day where everybody likes to buy a bunch of stuff so if you go on now the very hot high selling fuds calendar if you go on to the meat eater store and make a purchase on black Friday, we're going to give you the F'd Up Old Deer Stands calendar for free. Oh, we got some good ones lately.

One is one that beavers cut down, cut down the stand. And another one is a tree that got struck by lightning, and the lightning peels all the bark off down the tree and ends at the seat. Nice. Yeah, you'd have been a dead man. And it kind of welded the stand up a little bit i'm gonna put that on instagram hey do you think that the lightning used the stand as a conductor i think it was something like that i think it probably went the other way but if you

look at it it looks like this like bolt because it like peeled the bark off and it sort of ends at the stand so almost rather than being what it, the stand got struck and then went up the tree. It looks like it somehow like came down the tree and split the would-be hunter's head in half had he been sitting there. So you get an F-ed up old deer stand's calendar, free. And then also this, new rifle scopes. We got a hundred bucks off Vortex Diamondback 3x5 to 10x50.

So the perfect all-purpose rifle scope. Got it for $199.99, $100 off. Plus hats, t-shirts, hoodies, all 50% off. And then we're bundling our very rare meat crafter knife with some of our books. So go check that stuff out. Okay, Clay, ready for this thing out of Vermont? Yeah. See, people think that everyone in Vermont just sits around eating Ben and Jerry's all the time.

But it's not. They fight. I didn't know about this Vermont. I feel like I'm the only guy on the planet that didn't know about what's brewing in Vermont between the hound hunters and the non-hound hunters. Right. This is the funny part. I know about this only because a listener of this show wrote in saying that we should take the Goldshaw.

What's the guy's thing? Shaw Gold? Goldshaw Farm? I don't know. Come on. Clayton. Sorry, man. I told you like a week ago we were going to be talking about this.

Goldshaw Farm. Goldshaw. don't know come on clay sorry man i told you like a week ago we're gonna be talking about this goldshaw farm goldshaw he wrote him being like man you should really have a solidarity with the goldshaw farm guy because it's making hunters look bad and i was like oh what's this now this guy's this guy is so out of line crazy so out of line yeah there's a there's a what we're going to talk about here for a minute we got a story that we had a story on a week, like three weeks ago. Spencer had someone do a story on it at TheMeteor.com. You can go read the story about this hound hunting scandal. Bear hunting scandal.

Let me give you a basic. This is the best I understand. I never even heard of this guy. God bless him. You can't see him. Has an extraordinary similarity sim uh similarity to jay leno like if jay leno had a kid he apparently he uh grew up a city slicker working various jobs and then he's like i'm gonna go to vermont have a farm so in the great tradition of people who give up the urban lifestyle to go have a farm he starts a youtube channel um and makes video here's some

of his videos he's got a video called uh puppy versus geese he's got a video called, My Farm Dog Shot This Video. He's got one called, The Duckling Who Thought She Was a Goose. He's got, Livestock Guard Puppy Moves to Duck Farm. My Old Barn Cat Hates My Guard Dog, and I Risked My Life Feeding These Goslings. So he goes about his business. It's like his business. I think in all fairness, he makes i i think it'd be in all fairness you say he makes like cute cute farm videos right one day a couple local old-timers show up at his door knock on his door and they say our bear hounds chased a bear onto your property.

Is it okay if we go onto your property? He says. To retrieve their dogs. To get their dog. Well, he says, you're no way, no how going to hurt the bear, which is his right. Totally his right yeah totally his right okay and he says i will escort you to get your dogs at which point he decides because he's in the business of making these little videos at this point he decides to start filming this gentleman gets his name publishes his name and films the guy so a guy comes up to the house like

like imagine someone coming to your house to just have a conversation about a problem and your response is to start filming them as they go about their business and is this a good place to say that what the guy's motives were I'm going to get into all that next it's a hard story to tell because it's got so many components Vermont has a law it's called right to retrieve

they have a law that well it's beyond that if land's not posted it's open a landowner has an obligation to post their land. Okay? This guy's land, this guy's duck farm, isn't properly posted. So, technically, the hound hunter didn't need to come talk to him.

He could have just gone and got his dog could have gone and gotten his dogs without breaking the law because the land wasn't properly posted but he doesn't want to do that because it's not gentlemanly he's gonna go like a grown-up and talk to the land owner that guy's got good etiquette good great chetiquette d Downs Chetaket story. So, the duck guy is real bent out of shape about this. Because he points out, he's like, it would be too hard.

I think he's got 160 acres. It'd be too hard to post my land properly. But I'm like, if you're, make a YouTube video about it. If you you're gonna have a video like me and my dog post my land it's good marketing yeah and then he'd have to be careful though because while he's posting the land with his dog he needs to be very careful that his dog doesn't walk on the wrong side of a tree at which point he'd be guilty too of having his dog on someone

else's property but let's just trust that his dog has always had tremendous fidelity to this 160 acres never went off 160 acres he says uh the problem is dogs don't know when they're on private property. Ergo, that's Latin, therefore, ergo, you should not be able to hunt with hounds in the state of Vermont. And has now gotten hundreds of thousands of signatures on some petition to ban hound hunting

in Vermont because he's so concerned that a dog would come on his land. The icky dog on his land. I mean, come on. It's wild. What's also so puzzling about it is this whole thing of like, I moved to the country to be like a country person,

but I sure hate what these country people are up to. Right. of the country to be like a country person but i sure hate what these country people are up to right you know that's that's the thing is that and you've heard you've heard the the phrase that people left where they came from because they didn't like it and try to make it like where they came from when they move to where you are you know but what i was talking about the right to retrieve there are some states that have hound hunting laws they have a right to retrieve law because these are tree dogs so a tree dog scent trails game until that animal runs up a tree that could be a raccoon that could be a bear other and and a right to retrieve means if your dogs are treed you have the right to you can't take a firearm but you have the right to cross lines and go get your dogs.

And, you know, here's the thing. That is, yeah, that could be slightly intrusive to some people's ideas of private property. But when you look at the broad macro picture of North American hunting and even human existence on planet earth, people's connection to hunting dogs. I'm getting to the point where I'm saying that it is a, it is a legitimate argument that it is almost a human right to express part of our humanity by hunting with dogs. I mean, there's arguments that say, put that on change.org. Me and Jordan are talking about how come everything on change.org is annoying? You should put something like not annoying on change.org

and make that like a thing that's on change.org. Well, so here's all that I'm saying is that people should make a place in their world where it's okay for a houndsman to go get his dogs if your dogs get on your land. In Arkansas, the old-time farmers that have long history in our region in the Ozarks, they just kind of know that coon hunters might come on their land at different times during the winter. That's part of his thing that he's all bent out of shape about.

This is like the guy that came to his door to go get his dogs and on his property was the last straw the first straw being a night some raccoon guys had some dogs barking on his place and he got his dog to bark and that is just unacceptable when you're a real farmer that is just a bridge too far the other thing he's like i why you know he's like oh i'm not against hunting come on i hope he comes on the show this is the honest thing i know someone will send this he'll someone will send this to him i would love to have him on the show and tell me where i'm getting this wrong i mean a totally friendly way like i won't be like a gotcha deal it'll just be like i'd be like okay tell me the story just so i understand it better like what like what happened because he also gets into like he's not opposed to hunting

he's not opposed to using bird dogs but somehow he doesn't like hound hunting because the hounds have a tracking collar and you're not close to them and so he it kind of turns into like a fair chase thing for him as well but i mean aren't his ducks are in a pen what are their odds of getting away do a lot of them get away yeah you know people they wind up people use people use the gps thing as a way to talk about fair chase with hounds and i think it's i think it's bunk because we use technology in every other part of our life and even in every other part of hunting to make the process safer, more efficient, easier in some ways.

More educational, I'll point out. Because you're not going to go after trail cams. But you're going to make a point. I don't even have to go there. No, please. But I'm just saying that. No, no, no, no. Don't let me make the point.

I was just getting excited about your point. there no please but i'm just saying that no no no no don't let me stop make the point well i was just getting excited i was getting excited about your point i could i could give a thousand reasons why gps collars on dogs make it less likely that you're gonna lose your dogs less so it's good for the dog it's safer for the dog and he cares a lot about dogs because he's got a lot of stuff about his dog on his thing so i would think he'd want these dogs to make it home to cuddle at night. If he cares about his dogs, he will put a GPS collar on. He doesn't care about those dogs. So that they won't cross a highway. I can tone my dogs back off of private land.

My dog's tree on another piece of property, I can tone. And tone doesn't mean shock them. Tone means just beep their collar. And they will come back to me a lot of really a lot of houndsmen have that capacity of their dogs to long range give commands to their dogs that will cause them to come back um so this whole idea that you know gps makes it not fair chase is not is not okay i got another point about this whole thing that hopefully we can have this guy on the show we can ask him about not too long ago my kids were out shooting their bows in the yard and they're not they're not above just letting one fly now and

then to see what happens well he i don't know he had a whole thing about what happened but long and short of it is they launched one and stuck it into the neighbor's garage oh wow okay out of a stick bow he didn't want to do this but i said you're gonna go over and you're gonna knock on that man's door and i know the guy he's an admirable guy i'm like you're gonna knock on his door you're gonna tell me you gotta tell him something and you're gonna take him and show him that arrow in the garage and i knew i already know the guy so i know the guy is not he's cool and he's gonna be like he's gonna deep down think it's funny but uh like so i'm not sending him into dainty like if i had any question i wouldn't have done it but i i you know i mean i know how it'll be i know how

it'll go and it'll be a good lesson for him to go and fess up. And his buddy, my kid's buddy, already took off. Crying. Oh, wow. The moment my kids are out there and his buddy's crying and his buddy rides off on his bike, I'm like, what happened? And Jimmy's like, I don't know. So I said, listen, man, you're going over there right now, friend or no friend. Okay?

Imagine that he'd gone over to knock on the door and the guy that answered the door answers with a cell phone and shames jimmy and records him and then records him going around to show the arrow records him apologizing and then goes and posts it to YouTube and says, this is a boy named Jimmy and here's roughly where he lives. Here's how to find him. He's a danger with his arrows. Complete disregard for human safety.

And it made my dog bark. No one would do that to a person. Yeah. It's a war on christmas it's like i'm gonna get all riled up about it but just like it just burns me man what the neighbor do though when jimmy confessed just do what i thought he'd do yeah just until he thought it was funny but he's like okay just don't shoot the garage anymore like i said i wasn't like feeding him into the mouth of a lion you know let me let me say something about so there's this thing that there's a trend that happens with uh social media and with where there's these isolated incidents that make and it's a lot of times hound hunting look really bad in the public eye.

And so this guy got on there and started this petition to ban hound hunting in Vermont. It's got a ton of traction. Oh, yeah. And I guess it's like social media following. Now it's it's a one-stop sell to tell someone that has no history with hunting no history with hounds no history with rural life it's a one-step sell to say these hillbillies out there are using dogs to hunt bears that equals bad that's a one-step sell because they got radio collars that's right they're like even hillbillies because they got radio collars. They're like sophisticated hillbillies, which is the worst kind. It's a much

harder sell to take someone with no historical understanding of why would someone use a dog to hunt a bear. It's a five or ten step sell for me to say, you know, to talk about the historical

aspects of humans hunting with dogs and the i bet if you went and interviewed this houndsman i bet money that he's got family history of his family using dogs in vermont for years he's not from there i don't think or wherever he's from yeah but it's he's just there for the maple syrup. And Ben and Jerry's. It's a harder sell to make someone even begin to understand bear hunting with hounds. Does he think, like, should the Cherokee not hunt with... Like, the Cherokee hunted bears with dogs. Oh, they did for sure.

Should they not be doing that? Is that naughty? If they put a collar on it because they want it back at night. Yeah. Here's a good story. You got anything more to say about that, Clay? I'm good. That's a little sophisticated for the book of Chetiket.

Yeah. You could probably put some kind of short in there. Clay, you should. Like a little sidebar. The book of Chetiket could have little sidebars of little things that happen. That would be great etiquette. Great etiquette would be great etiquette. Great etiquette would be if you live in a place where they use hunting dogs,

if you see a hunting dog, what do you do? Say hi to it. If dogs are on your land, what do you do? Yeah. And typically, you don't want to do anything to them. Snuggle them. If they have a tracking collar and the dog looks in good health, just don't mess with it. I mean, if the dog, yeah, if the dog,

somebody knows exactly where that dog is and they're trying to get it back. If it's in some place, it's not supposed to be. If the gentleman, if the farmer guy, the duck farmer, Gold Shaw Farm, we will fly you out. We will put you in a hotel. Full treatment. That we give special guests. Hey, it's a nice package.

It is. Mr. Gold Shaw. Fly you to Bozeman. Put you up in a hotel. Come on the podcast. Tell the story. Maybe I'll be like, yeah, you're right.

That's a good point. I don't know. What about the Houndsman? Are're not inviting the houndsman i can't have both out at once i mean we already interviewed him for the we already you could be like judge judy we'll set we'll set it up like a courtroom right here's guilty and this guy no i'm not a listen i'm all for his story because we already interviewed the houndsman. Yeah, we know what he did. We interviewed the houndsman. I'm just saying he's probably an upstanding guy.

The houndsman thought he was. Upstanding guy. He thought he was. He's the. It's another thing. Like, he's the head of the local houndsman's association. And the farm guy acted condescending about the existence of that. He's like, yes, there actually is a thing.

Like, that's naughty. He's like, yes, there actually is a thing. Like, that's naughty. That's ignorance. That's the story of ignorance. He's a part of the Duck Farmer Association and yes, there is a thing. It's like... I hope he comes on. I'll be way ass nicer.

Super nice. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to

exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet.

OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Do you guys listen to this show when you're not here when are you on the show when we talked about the alligator that had the projectile points in his stomach which is the craziest thing in the world no but i was somewhere where i heard that story what i don't know if his prince of wales or on this trip but just recently a guy found a alligator apparently i didn't know this thing yanni knows all about apparently alligators. Apparently, I didn't know this thing. Yanni knows all about it. Apparently, alligators eat rocks. Okay, for their digestion or their... Something like that.

There's even a term for the rock. Anyways, a guy found an alligator, and the alligator had full on... Was it one or two? Projectile points in his stomach. Like ancient stone projectile points. That's interesting. Just eating junk on the bottom of the swamp. Well, here's a weird deal, and there's even a picture of it.

A fishing guide from Montauk wrote in. He had a client in the early 2010s. He took a client cod fishing. One of the clients was Joe Lean. L-E-I-N. Line, Lean, Joe Lean. Joe Lean. Joe Lean. Dude, if I was that guy, Line. Lean. Jolene. Jolene. Dude, if I was that guy, man, that's all I would do when he was around.

Jolene. That's his first and last name? Jolene. Jolene. Joe Lean. Wow. L-E-I-N. That's a really unfortunate name for a man.

Dude, he's got to be so sick of that joke, man. This guy was really cool. The guide liked Jolene a lot because he's a client that liked to clean everybody's fish. Just to save work for the guide. He's cleaning one of the cod and finds something weird in its stomach. A cod with a big gold nugget in its stomach. Wow. Someone dropped it. I don't know.

Like a rugged looking gold nugget. About half the size of the Z on a quart size Ziploc bag. That's an interesting descriptor. Well, it's because it's in a Ziploc bag. There's a picture. In the picture. Next to Z. Oh, it's because it's in a Ziploc bag. There's a picture. In the picture. Next to Z. Oh, okay. Dang.

Wow. So are we going to the question of whose gold nugget is it? Well, there's a lot of questions. There's, yeah, well, there's who's gold. Sure. I mean, is it the guy that found it or the guy that caught the fish? I would say that it's definitely the guy that caught the fish. I would say it's the guy who cleaned it.

And the guy who checked his stomach. Because not a lot of people do that. Listen, Dirk. Let's say you and me are out fishing. Yep. We've done that. And you catch a big halibut. And we open it up and it's got a million dollars in it.

But I'm the one that slits its stomach open. You've caught it. I slid its stomach open. You're caught it. I slid its stomach open. You're saying that that's now my million dollars? I think we'd split it 50-50. That'd be generous. This guy was putting in a lot of effort

more than just the one fish, right? I bet you if it went to court, like to Judge Judy, the gold nugget would go to the fisherman i think so because he owned it was his fish and legally here's the thing like think about illegally yeah had that fish been taken illegally it would have been his responsibility and it's his legal property yep okay by like it's a it was property of the state he caught it it would then transferred to like his legal property

that's why i think he would make a great Judge Judy type figure on a show. That'd be a good show. That's what we should make. Judge Stevie. Yeah, we should make a show. It's just a matter of if we can find enough people fighting about stuff. Oh, yeah. It sounds like every...

We may need to take this off of the podcast, but this is a good podcast idea. That's what I'm thinking about right now. You and... We just comb the world for people in fights about whose buck is it. I hit it in the knee, and then three days later,

my cousin got it. I feel like it's my buck. Hunting spots. We're going to get to one of those in a minute. Who should hunt here, kind of like when Jordan put me in. And the Chatticook book could be like the rule book that Steve would go.

Yeah, we could do the whole combo thing. Guess what they call that fishing spot now? Joe passed away just recently. The angler, Jolene. Jolene passed away. Guess what they named that fishing spot? Joey Nuggets. That's the fishing spot, dude. Nobody's tried to claim the gold nugget.

I lost that. No, it's not a real descript nugget. It might be a hard sell to act like that was your nugget. When you lose a raw material back into the natural world, it's anybody's. Now, my friend, I i seen a nugget similar to that and it was my friend uh ron layton who was on the show years ago his late wife joan had a bunch of gold jewelry not a bunch a small amount of gold jewelry but their house burnt down and ron went in there after the house burnt down and went over to where he figured

the jewelry was and found a glob of congealed gold that the earrings and whatnot had all melted and came in just this like kind of amorphous blob of gold and so joan drilled a hole in that she wore that around her neck it Knows all of her jewelry. That's interesting. Speaking of nuggets, a guy wrote in, how come people don't eat squirrel nuts? Squirrel oysters.

I've never done that. They're big enough for sure. I mean, a fox squirrel. Yeah. He's saying that. Great squirrel. He for sure. I mean, not a fox squirrel. Yeah. He's saying that. Great squirrel. He talks about how it seems like quite a little morsel. Yeah. He's wondering if we've ever eaten them.

I have not. Neither have I. Uh-uh. It'd take a lot to make a... My wife's been shelling a lot of peas and beans. It's amazing how many, how big of a pile of beans you've got to have to make a pot. To get a meal? That's a good point.

I'm thinking about that in terms of the size of a bean. Yeah. I will say the Rocky Mountain testicles, you've got to eat them fresh. I've got a branding. Really? They're better than the ones that you don't like them frozen? No, we went to that testy fest. Testicle festival?

Yeah, we used to go there all the time. And they'd stockpile for the masses, you know. Frozen? Yeah. Because, yeah, they didn't have that. They had it in September. They didn't. Yeah, it wasn't during Brandon's season.

And that was a different experience from. I always liked those, though. Not the Testy Fest ones. They're like chicken fried and you didn't catch up. Jordan knows all about chicken frying. Yeah, they're good fresh, but not stockpiled and frozen. They're like chicken fried and you dip them in ketchup. Jordan knows all about chicken frying. Yeah, they're good fresh, but not stockpiled and frozen. And I'd imagine it'd be the same with the squirrels.

Jordan, how come you never said anything about what your take is about the guy that the – because you come from a long line of cattle ranchers. What's your take on that whole dog thing? The dog thing? Give me the landowner perspective. Oh, man, the landowner perspective. I think, like, you should have, I think you made the point, you should have, like,

I don't want to say a soft spot, but the guy's just trying to go get his dogs. Like, he's not going to try to do anything crazy extra. I mean, I don't think he had any ulterior motives. He didn't have nefarious motives. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that don't think he had any ulterior motives. He didn't have nefarious motives. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what I think. Yeah, I hate to return to it, but if

the story had been that all of a sudden the duck guy hears like, come on, pouch! Out back and runs back there and there's some guys skinning a bear on his property. It'd be an entirely different story. That'd be way different story. But then it'd come down to that posting thing.

We'll not rehash all that. COVID making the news big time. See, this is where I don't think this show gets enough credit because we've been talking about deer having COVID for months. Now it's all this hoopla. People being like, you shouldn't go deer hunting because you're going to get COVID from deer. I'm like't as i can attest you don't need to go deer hunting to get covid

so they're like this guy's like i always like to eat deer tongues but now i'm afraid i'm gonna get covid from eating the tongue it's like i don't know man i just you gotta cook it to 150 degrees and it kills it so here's a quote from our article at the meteor.com here's a quote from it the risk of white tail deer transmitting the virus back to humans appears to be low although a proven instance of deer to human transmission is yet to occur the risk must be considered hunters should take precautions when handling harvested deer in the field particularly tissues not that it's boring um you can wear a glove you could wear a mask when you're it's just come on hmm i you know come on this is the last thing on my mind true zoonotic diseases, though,

the idea that they're carrying the same disease to us is kind of spooky because we all know that if chronic wasting ever transmitted to a human, it would be major. That's why I'm a big proponent of doing everything we can do to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease. Yeah.

Yep. I'm just saying, I'm not a doctor. I don't know if you knew that. Just a judge. Just a judge. I just feel, personally, I'm out of place. And I'm not going out on a limb here because I keep seeing editorials. I even saw an editorial in the New York Times basically to this point.

That there will be a point at which we've done about everything we can do. For COVID. Yeah. There's a vaccine. If you want to take it, take it. If you don't want to take it, take it. If you don't want to take it, that's your call. But at a point, we're just – it'll be like the cold.

I don't – I just – I personally, I'm not – I don't know anything. I just know what I read. I just read stuff and analyze it, whatever. I just don't think the genie's going back in the bottle here. Now, CWD, that's different. Catching COVID from a deer just seems, I suppose I already had it twice anyway. Mm-hmm.

Seems like a COVID magnet. Full times from deer hunts. Once. Yeah, dude. I'm a sucker for COVID. I get it unvaccinated. got a vaccine if you had killed that deer you might have got a cope third time but i killed it so i skinned it do you feeling i feel good i feel strong the the worry and this is a legitimate worry the worry is that

um the worry is that this narrative that there will be this narrative about deer as dangerous or deer as you know you know i'm i'm personally anti-glove when it comes to skin and stuff how come it's probably dumb and i'm ready to i'm ready to change if someone gives me the the correct you know a better perspective but yeah spencer new hearth he always sends me a picture of himself when he's got a deer wearing gloves because i think it just kind of ultimately makes you weak what if you're allergic it's a great argument what if you're allergic to the deer here just i mean just then you already are weak.

Then you should be a duck farmer in Vermont. It's funny Seth Morris is not here because he's sick. So he's in a weak condition. And Clay has revealed his total weakness. Seth is allergic to the dander on deer, so he needs to wear gloves. Is he really? Here's my take on gloves. As a guy that doesn't wear them, but recognizes that you probably should. I can picture a world in which you'd regret not having worn gloves,

but I can't picture a world in which you'd regret having worn them. This from a man who does not wear them, but that's the thing that's always in my mind. Yeah. I'll wear them if I have to skin, for some reason, skin in a box or a coyote makes me want to put gloves on. You're a coon.

I don't know why. I'm with you. Well, you know, remember Remy, Remy Warren was dealing with a dead head that had been in the sun a couple of days. He was anti-glove. Yeah, but the gloves wouldn't make any difference because he cut his hand.

And that's probably- Latex glove isn't going to stop Was it just a bacterial infection though He didn't get some weird disease He got blood poisoning He didn't get a disease he got blood poisoning from an old dead head But for some reason didn't he start wearing gloves after that When he processed

Probably just put the fear into him Here's another deer disease And this one seems to not have any implications But this is going to Jordan you'll be able to speak to this one. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, EHD, which a lot of people in the hunting communities will say like blue tongue, which is like a form of or version of, but EHD. If you feel like you've been hearing a lot about EHD lately you have they're pointing out that Northeastern Nebraska had

bad EHD this year real bad EHD this year North Dakota had such an outbreak they're trying to buy back deer tags right now wow Jordan lost one of her best bucks probably to EHD.

I think probably. He was laying next to the water. They had to go to water. Yeah. Died by the creek. Wasn't shot. No. I mean, we haven't found one since, but I just have an inkling.

North Dakota's trying to buy back 30,000 deer tags. Wow. In the western part of the state. So, EHD is spread by a little gnat, like a little midge of some sort. And the reason they think it's popping up so bad right now was this EHD and blue tongue. I need to take five seconds at some point to understand the differences, if there are, between EHD and blue tongue. But it's spread from deer to deer by certain biting midges or gnats there's smaller mosquitoes um and water plays into this because the midges are found near water

and the it gives the animal a horrible fever so when there's an ehd outbreak people find all the dead deer out on pond the edges of ponds in stock tanks in creeks along creeks they just because they get a horrible fever and try to go cool off and it kills them quick once it sets in but the drought uh is congregating deer at water. So it's able to jump more. Like you have isolated water sources, a lot of deer congregating around isolated water sources, and so they're all getting infected more than you have, and the drought is driving worse EHD outbreaks.

And when you get an EHD outbreak, a bad one, it's not uncommon to carry off 75 of the deer oh it's 100 fatal if they get there's that thing yeah that's what i read yeah and the incubation period is like five to seven days and once it they start getting the effects it kills them within 48 hours hold on lay that lay that out for me again uh they said the incubation period could be anywhere, I think it said from five to seven days. That's what the internet said.

And then they start feeling ill. And they're dead within 48 hours. So it said when you find them, they don't like shrivel up and die. Like they just die. And then what ends an outbreak is the onset of sub-freezing temperature. Like frost, yeah.

You get a frost, kills the bugs, puts a stop to the EHD. North Dakota, second straight year that they've been buying back, trying to buy back tags. The Game and Fish Department there had 1,000 reports of dead deer after EHD surfaced in late August. I always thought that EHD hit harder on high water years because there's just more midges. That was my thinking. And it seemed like when I was floating

down the river, like on the... What are the... What is that? Is that just turkeys? Those are turkeys, rocks out of the river dirt. Or it's really little short deer. Still in a black tail mode. No, it's turkeys coming down the creek.

Anyways, find out... You have turkey hunts here, right, Jordan? Turkey hunts, yeah. Spring. See, I kind of want you to not book up that one year. I'll hold it. Here they come right now, people. Here come the turkeys.

I'll hold it. Yeah, you can book a turkey hunt. You're booked out for next year, right? Booked out for 22, yeah. So this upcoming spring. Someone can still get a turkey hunt. 2026. No, I'm full.

When are you full? Full for 2022. But you have room for 2023. Yes. Go on, Dirk. Sorry. Oh, no. Chester.

Oh, that's right. You were talking about turkeys coming down the creek. I was saying floating down the Yellowstone, high water years, seems like you'd find mature bucks dead next to the water. More so high water years. I should point out that this feller here, the veterinarian for the North Dakota Game and Fish Wildlife, so their veterinarian, Charlie Bonson, not Charlie Bronson,

Charlie Bonson. Isn't that that guy from i think the right guy you're thinking of charles bronson that yeah not him this is charlie bonson he just he's throwing it out there he says he said one theory could be so he's not acting like he's got it all figured out he's's just, you know, making an educated. Humble man. Making an educated point here that record-breaking heat in October. So instead of record-breaking cold, which would be killing all the midges, it's record-breaking heat. An extended period of time they can get it.

And he feels that the drought. So record-breaking heat inober created conditions favorable to midges and more viral spread the other thing about the low water is just the thing about concentration of because it's communicable right it's like the same way malaria spreads like malaria is the mosquito moves from one person to the next person so a mosquito bites a person a mosquito bites another person that's how malaria is spread. Well, that makes a hell of a lot more sense. I could see that being valid.

Like, there's more than just a low water or high water year, because, like, the river and the creek never change. Like, those water levels never change year to year. So it has to be something else to go along with it, you know? Temps or... Yeah. I don't know, man.

That'd be an interesting conundrum to sell back your tag. Yeah. You'd want to be like a team player and, you know... Their intent... But imagine that you wait and wait and wait, you know, and all of a sudden, like, yeah, I'm going this year, man. And all of a sudden, they're like, ah. Just to clarify, their intent is to reduce harvest,

not to EHD deer and not... Their intent is to reduce... They issued tags. Every year, you're making an educated guess about... Right. You wait as long as you can. Your biologists are out. They're doing their surveys.

You're looking at conditions, and at some point, you issue tags. Yeah. And you're like, okay, it looks good. We're going to go with 10,000. And then, whap! you issue tags yeah and you're like okay it looks good we're gonna go with 10 000 and then i told people are still buying the tags right you're like and then all of a sudden there goes 75 of your deer but you just you issued tags because you thought and so they're gonna hit them pretty hard and so then you're like man we got to do something to try to

rein it back and you know they they put it to you voluntarily like if you want we'd like to buy your tag back yeah that'll put a little bonus on there there's some lotto tags too oh you think it should be a bonus well i'm just saying i mean like if if you bought something for me from 20 bucks and you wanted it back and you're going to pay me, or if I sold you something for $20 and you wanted to buy it back for $20, I'd be like, I'll sell it to you for $25. Oh, yeah. Like an incentive. You'd be like the incentive to turn it back.

You see what I'm saying? I don't think you would do that, though. Because you're like an honorable dude. I feel like you'd let them have it back. Business is business, Steve. Man, them turkeys are still piling out. A new flock. That's a nice group of turkeys.

Look at them. Oh, they're crossing the river. Going into the other. Here's a good one. This has Chatticott implications. Luke from Kentucky. He hunts public land in Kentucky. He's struggling with, he's got an interesting thing and he thinks I'm going to be on his side, but I don't know that I'm totally on his side. He's struggling with what he has deemed to be squatters, which is a harsh

word. He's rubbed the wrong way by individuals who are putting their stands out the night before weeks before season placing a stand on public land and yeah he hasn't yeah he has an encounter with a guy that took it a little too far a guy not only puts his stand up but leaves his bow in it on public land so he gets there and it's like the stand and the bow

that's unusual you doing that it's like let's just be frank you putting the stand there that you just have to face the facts anybody can hunt the stand yep it's public land it's like you putting it there does not well there's earn for you the spot in by law there's regulation in most states about how long you can put up a stand and leave it oh please you know more about this me tell me well i mean it depends but does it give you the spot

no a guy could get in a tree right beside you some states you can't leave that's right and in arkansas on wildlife management areas you have to have your name written on the stand and your phone number and you can only leave it there for a certain amount of days i want to say it's two weeks so you could go in early and put up a stand and it would be legal. So I would say that there's law that's probably prescribed that would, that would give this guy, I mean, I don't think there's, as long as it's within the timeframe that they say you can leave a stand, I'd say he's good.

Well, his deal is this. Let me hit you with the other part of this and you can speak to the whole thing. his deal is this let me hit you with the other part of this and you can speak to the whole thing uh his deal like he's not saying you shouldn't be able to put a stand out he's talking about interactions with other hunters in which someone feels that that makes it their spot yeah i like he had a when he had a run-in with the guy he said, that's where my tree stand is, that's where my bow is, so that's where I'm going. I think if it's legal to leave a tree stand overnight in a place,

just because you left your bow up there does not mean that's your spot. He should have left his ass up there. The guy who walked in there with that ground blind did not know for sure that that guy was going to come back and he was there first so in my opinion they both had a talk before they hunted which i think is smart to do and yeah he saw a light coming and waited up for the guy because he's like hey i'm gonna wait up for him yep i've got that little detail he waited up for the guy because he's like hey i'm gonna wait up for him yep i've got that little detail he waited up for the guy coming behind him on the trail to be like where are you going where here's where i'm going and he's like well here's where i'm going he's like no you're

not because i'm going there because my bow's there yeah and i mean i'm just going off of what i would do personally and let's say i were the guy who left my bow in the tree stand, which I would not do. Let's say I left the tree stand because it was legal in that state, and I went the night before and set it up. And I came, and there's this guy sitting there in the ground blind. Personally, I would not hunt my tree stand. I may quick take it down, but I would probably be like, listen, dude, you were here first.

You didn't know I was coming to hunt my tree stand. I'm going to go try and find some other spot. What if he did figure you were coming, but he's just there first? Either way. Yeah. You know, what if he did? I mean, the bow was up there, so they probably maybe figured some guy was coming back. You know what I would have done?

I would have left my kid up there. Rotate him out. I'd be like, listen. You guys got Mondays and Tuesdays. Don't you move when I come up in the morning you can run back go to school

what would you have done Steve? here's the deal here's why it's hard for me it's like it just depends on it depends on a lot like it depends on like

how much space how tightly people are concentrated do you know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of variables. There's a lot of gray area in all of these. Like if I look and it's,

and it's like an old man barely coming down the trail, you know, he's 98 years old. Sure. Yeah. I might be like, just, you know,

that's cool, man. Let's go. You know, he's like, I had to leave my bowl there. Cause I can only carry my one thing in at a time. And I don't know.

I'm not gonna be like, well, tough shit. Sure. It's just, it's so circumstantial. it's so circumstantial it's so situational it's so situational yeah is it that there's 400 acres of land and you go out and a guy pre-did his stand you kind of in your head like i don't know man like he's got a stand there let me check. But maybe it's that there's 12 stands on 400 acres of land. There's nowhere to go. And at a point, you got to be like, man,

I'm just going to have to be that it's going to be first come, first serve on opening morning because I can't untangle everything that's going on out here. Are these legitimately here? Did some guy come in and put all these up as a way to claim the whole thing? You just make a little judgment calls. I'm a big fan of the hang and hunt and take it down just for those reasons. And people not getting lazy and forgetting their tree stands in the woods and leaving them up, which happens all the time.

You see it in Montana. But, yeah, it's a lot of gray area, like you're saying. Yeah. Here's another one. Hang tight there, Jordan. I want you to know I skipped a lot of stuff. Skipped a lot of stuff? Yeah.

Okay. Just to talk to you more. Here's another one. This is another landowner dilemma. This falls outside of Chattaket, because this is just a whole different kind of peculiar thing, but it kind of fits what we're talking about.

Corinne did a great job of bundling all this. Like Corinne and I will talk about things we ought to talk about and she bundled a lot of these like private property things. They're property issues, you know.

The guy wrote in, he lives in St. Francisville, Louisiana. He owns 450 acres north of his place. On said property, there's a creek. Along said creek, there are three grave sites from the 1800s. A fellow named John J. Austin

and his wife and daughter all buried there. John J. Austin was a decorated veteran of the War of 1812. Oh, you know what? That'd be a good song for you to learn, Chester. In 1814, we took a little trip. Mighty Mississippi. Took a little bacon and took a little beans and whooped the mighty British at the Battle of New Orleans.

Fired our guns. So John J. Austin. John J. Austin, decorated veteran of the War of 1812, presumably from the Battle of New Orleans. He dies, okay? His wife dies. He homesteaded on this 450 acres. He dies.

Oh, man, this story really makes its own gravy. I forgot to mention. The feller that rode in, his family's owned this place for 100 years. They've always hosted these graves on their place, of the people that homesteaded the place. This feller dies. His wife dies of typhoid fever. Daughter dies of something else. No, his daughter died of typhoid.

Listen, everybody dies. All three of them die. There they are on the property. This guy's owned the place for 100 years. The historical society is leaning on them to put a fence around the graveyard and build a road into there

so people could come in and look at the dead people's place. No way. He doesn't want the general public to have that much access to her property. It's on the back end of his place. They run cattle there. They hunt in there. In fact, the grave site is real close to where

his daughter killed her first deer last year. Just feels to him like unnecessary. He's wondering what we would do. This is a real clear answer to this. Listen, if it was Abe Lincoln or something. Still no.

Honest Abe, they would have took it a long time ago if it was Honest Abe anyway. They wouldn't even be talking about it anymore. But let's say it turns out that that's where Honest Abe was buried. I'd be like, listen, it's Honest Abe. I'm relocating. Great emancipator. Yeah.

Let's put a road in. But just, I don't know. Sure, he's a great guy. John J. Austin. God bless him. Yeah. But I just don't know i'm sure he's a great guy john j austin god bless him yeah but i don't know if that like if that of all i don't know if that warrants that because then the next thing you go to do you know like like you go to do like some habitat work like you're just going to create friction that's going to burn you down the road yeah well what you say if you don't want

to be just a total jerk is you say hey if this is your family i'll take you back in there anytime you want yeah dude judge judy bam maybe he should be writing a book called clay a kit so you just say that's a great solution clay that's what i think this gentleman should do he should say it even makes it better. If it has like, if there's some emotional attachment here, family. I'll take you back in there myself.

You're a historian. Just please reach out. We will get you taken care of. But you don't want just random people coming back there because they can. And they got no business being there. Don't know these people. You put a road in there,

you lose some of that integrity of like the actual cool old grave site too and stuff and then you got the grave diggers coming in the meat eater super fans claiming their family to go check out this grave site you got a guy being like it's my grandma and i was thinking about how i'd like to visit her on opening day. She always felt the opening day was very special. And I'd like to be there to honor that with my old rifle. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good solution.

I think so. That's good, Clay. Man, we got to do a Judge Judy show, man. Does your verdict hold up when you decide guilty, nonguilty well that's the hard part because then you have to have the historical society be down here you have to have like the the duck you have to have the duck guy and the bear guy sitting here they have to all agree six hundred dollars all right to duck farmers of america hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear

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That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the on X hunt team. Some of our favorites are first light, Schnee's vortex federalortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com. onxmaps.com. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Jordan, I got a couple questions for you. Okay.

I know you haven't been live terribly long, but this place where you live has been your family for a very long time. Yeah, 39. This is when my grandpa bought it. Grandpa bought it in 1939? Mm-hmm. Do you feel that you've watched like we're hunting white tails yeah do you feel that over the course of through your family's experience that um

white tails have kind of like displaced because we see mule deer very few we see a like we've seen like a mule deer buck yeah maybe two mule deer bucks do you feel that um white tails are kind of have the upper hand here i think so i think it's definitely changed i don't know if it's just like we've definitely seen the white tail population rise and with that has been like an equal decline in mule deer and i remember there being like nicer mule deer bucks here when i was like like upper grade school maybe middle school but uh yeah it's definitely it's not that way anymore we have a hard time seeing like honestly like the buck we saw last night's one of the better mule deer i've seen out here in like oh that was three or four years yeah huh and then uh what about pronghorn that's that's shifted too i think some of that has to do

with uh i think that they're wintering to agriculture fields and they're not coming back they're just staying there they're so you would add pronghorn here yeah i mean even one even when i was in high school we had like a huntable population population, I would say. Wow. But last year. So you think like ag coming in, and you have all these irrigation. Yeah. You have like 19. Pivots. It's like a cluster, yeah.

Yeah, you have nine. I think there's like four center pivots per, or four per section, or two per section, or something like that. So it was 19 of them to the what? South of you? Mm-hmm. South. And when your father was your age, those weren't there.

That's what I understand. At least there definitely wasn't as many of them. Yeah. And that changed stuff. Definitely wasn't. Yeah. I think that that changed stuff a lot. I think that we saw the effects of

that even a little bit on this hunt where normally the deer would just live like on the river and maybe there wouldn't be as many of them but they'd still live on the river and in the hills and stuff but they um all suck into those pivots and it it's hard to, tougher to hunt them. Another new thing. Oh, go ahead, Clay. It's interesting. So the other day while I was writing my song up on the hill looking, watching you guys hunt. The song about me or Werner Glenn?

No, the song about, it should have been me. Sorry. Yeah, the song about you. Yeah. That I'm involved with. I saw, we saw, Darren, help me. We saw whitetail deer. We saw mule deer. We saw, we saw, Dirk, help me. We saw whitetail deer. We saw mule deer.

We saw bison. Now, these weren't wild bison, but they, to the eye, appeared to be wild bison on a big land far away. We saw wild elk. We saw 30 elk come through. We saw wild turkey. The only thing that we didn't see that you just described was antelope. But, I mean, that's a pretty – Andy, I've seen white tail, mule deer, pronghorn, elk.

I'm just talking about – yeah. And a bunch of things that aren't – yeah. I mean, that's a pretty good swap of big game right there. And then the bison off in the distance, which like I said, aren't wild, but for the vast majority of our landmass here, that's the best you can hope for. Yeah. They're just pretty neat.

Pretty neat. Was that feller that killed that big elk here your first elk client? It was, yeah. You guys killed a big bull? Mm-hmm. We did. We got lucky.

Tell about how that whole thing's going down because those definitely haven't been here a long time no like i think just nebraska as a whole has been seeing an uptick i think they added like i don't want to say 50 but it was something like that like 50 more elk tags this year just to the whole state um but it's resident only hard to draw once in a lifetime once in a lifetime so how did you get hooked up with the elk client? He just called me. Honestly, I don't even know. I think I learned after that he called everybody else,

and everybody else was full. So he got a hold of me and asked if we could make it happen. But how was he picking where? It's statewide or not statewide? It's not statewide. Oh, I see. No, it's unit specific. Yeah, of course it's not statewide.

Yeah. That makes sense. So he had a unit unit and he was calling around yeah called you i think he was yep i think he was late to the game and told me that a bunch of other people were already full so he called me and asked if we had a decent like if we had a good chance and i said we i thought we did and yeah shot a like a 365 bull was he pretty happy wow he was super happy yeah did you guys have fun yeah he was super happy yeah it was good it was honestly the first evening oh really the whole deal yeah and and it was like the elk i would not say were like residing on the place they were passing through so it was just a it was a huge waiting

game were you were you just sweating it going into that oh yeah how long is the season yeah uh it starts let's see it ends and it's like five weeks oh so he had time to try something else yeah yeah he had some time we didn't get in on the opener. I was on another hunt, I think. And so I couldn't get here until the very end of September. And it starts the third week of September. Since that was just your first elk client, did you just kind of make up a price? Pretty much. I just looked at what everybody else was doing and got right in line with what I thought they were doing.

Can you explain how the state requires? else was doing and like got right in line what i thought they were doing can you uh explain what how the state requires like they have a they have a landowner thing but like the requirement is interesting yeah so if a landowner wants to enroll you have to prove from what i've i've been working with a game and fish guy to try to get us in like as a landowner, there's like a landowner section that's like North of town. That's like all the landowners just automatically, they can apply for land or tag,

but us where we're kind of out of like the main zone of where I would say most of the elk are or have been, we have to apply like individually. So we have to like enroll the ranch into the landowner program. And then all the family members can do it. Yeah. If they're directly related to the owner. Okay.

They can, yeah, they can apply. And it's something like for every 640 acres, like two family members can apply or something like that. And it's still a long shot. It's still a long shot. It's still a long shot, yeah. And so you have to prove that you have elk on your place for,

I think it's three of the four seasons. That's a neat requirement. Yeah. Yeah, so you have to prove it there actually. How do you prove it? Trail cam photos? Like what do you got to have? Yeah, pretty much.

Trail cam photos, like any video, any of that stuff. I'm going to use trail cam photos just because it's date stamped and whatnot. So you can like prove that kind of thing. But the interesting thing about being in the landowner deal is you can, once you prove that you hold elk on your place, if you draw a tag, your tag is good for all of the bordeaux unit or all of the unit that your land is in not just your land yeah which is you could go hunt somebody else's place if you had that's different than deer you could yeah deer you have to stay on your own place um you know those like hostage things where you have the hostage holding the newspaper you gotta get like an elk holding the newspaper to prove when he was there you know uh-huh yeah i wonder

how uh to what degree do you gather that it's pretty friendly or like to what degree do they kind of put the screws to you you know just sort of saying like no i mean because you can set the trail cam whatever the hell day you want yeah i don't know i don'm saying like, no, I mean, because you can set the trail cam wherever the hell day you want. Yeah. I don't know. I don't think I've gotten that far into it. It'll be interesting to see how that goes. They just kind of put me on the list. Like, is it like a real good faith thing? Or are they like, are you sure?

Well, it seems like if somebody was trying to fabricate that and couldn't prove it, they wouldn't have elk there anyway, so they couldn't kill one anyway. You see what I'm saying? No, it's good for the whole unit. Yeah, it's good for the whole unit. So if we drew as a landowner. We caught Clay not paying attention, didn't we?

I'm trying to follow, man. But yeah, you could go for the whole unit. So it's interesting. They haven't really, I mean, like 20 questioned me yet. They just put me on a list and told me to start gathering some things to prove that elk have been through there or we hold elk at least some of the year.

And then they would get a hold of me later on. Tell them to ask me in dirt. Yeah. Oh yeah, you got some eyewitnesses. You got fall held up. Yeah. We have footage of it. Oh, you know what would be great? Keep this in mind. You know how that shed we found

that you haven't picked up yet? Yeah. So there you know. Wait a minute. You don't have a story you hadn't told us about? Yeah. You spotted a shed?

We've blasted up a shed twice and she hasn't walked over and got it yet. Really? The elk shed. You need to go over there because you know when they, like the date range that it dropped,

get a real nice picture of how it's kind of settled into the sand and whatnot. In C2. It's in C2. And be like, well, you know, he was here in March, whatever. Mm-hmm. I like that. That's good.

That's detective work right there, buddy. We're building a strong case. Is it brown or is it white? It's white. Yeah. It's on your land, though? Mm-hmm. Really? Yeah. Y'all been holding back. I found i found y'all should have told us this yes we found that first uh first morning

yeah the first morning we would have had time to go get it i feel like this this is a little bit off topic but this is i'm i feel like i need to bring this up because we're hunting in two different you know like we're going hunting and you are going hunting so when we come back together i'm kind of a stickler on this and the camps that i run okay is that there needs to be a formal meeting to i saw you try to do that to give information because like i'll i'll pass by jordan and be like what y'all see and you know she'll say something and you'll pass by and say something totally different and then the cameraman go well this happened and no one knows what's going on so that's why that's why i like if when he come back it's like all right pow wow and it's like steve is gonna tell us what happened today and that's where we would have known about the elk shed it's the last day of the hunt this case in point to

clay's yeah you're right here we we are. We all knew it. You didn't know it. My hunt would have been more robust the last three days if I'd have known there was an elk shed on this property. Glassing that sucker up. We're trying to. Y'all took this from me. It's still tonight. When you guys get a deer here, you have to go down to the check station.

Yeah, that's a rifle season thing. That's what that's for. Yeah, that's a rifle season thing. So talk to me what all, like why and what all happens and where you go. That might be interesting to people. I mean, the why is probably a good question. We didn't do it last year with COVID and stuff. They just didn't have check stations.

Yeah, muzzleloader, you don't have to do check stations yeah muzzleloader you don't have to do check station and archery you don't have to check station you just call in and like you tell them like male or female white tail or mule deer if it was a uh like if the buck had more than 11 inches spread or something like that and do they pull a tooth no so why do they need No. So why do they need the whole thing? Why do they need the whole thing there? They don't take any like biometric. Do they take any measurements or anything? All the bucks are two and a half years old.

Yeah. That's the other thing that happens. He didn't take a CWD thing, did he? No, I told him he could and he didn't. Yeah. He just cut the, he like cut the side of the mouth open and he looked and he said, look like sharp teeth, two and a half years old. Didn't pluck one. Didn't touch it.

He just said they're sharp. And didn't pull a gland. No. I thought they had. So they just want to have it be that they're like, by golly, that's a dead deer. I think so. Oh, and then he puts the metal locking tag on it. Yeah, locking tag.

So there is a thing that goes on down there. But they're not really maximizing information that could be pulled from these deer. No. I've seen them sometimes. They'll cut and pull a gland. Yeah. I assume for CWD. But I don't.

Other than that, that's pretty much all that's ever happened. Yeah, me and my kids went into it. We took a deer into, after the youth season, we took a deer into a check station. And they grab a tooth and they will pull a gland. Yeah. We missed out on the gland pulling because we already skinned the head. Oh, yeah. I wasn't thinking about it.

I would have saved them one of the glands if I'd been thinking about it. Yeah. In Nebraska, you guys, everything's over the counter. Yeah. The rifle tags are capped, and they are unit-specific. So, like, muzzleloader season, over-the-counter. I don't even know if there's a cap, and if there is,

I don't think it's ever been met, and that is statewide. There are certain, like, restrictions on, like, mule deer in the Pine Ridge area. I know you can't shoot mule deer doe, like ridge area i know you can't shoot a mule deer doe like on the north side of the river here um and then i think you can only you could still shoot a mule deer doe on this side of the river yeah on the south side huh really but not on the north side i don't know if that's a great idea yeah so then you might be speeding along the inevitable yeah yeah so that's one thing and then there's

like certain areas in southern nebraska where there's like mule deer conservation areas where you can't shoot a mule deer inside of them at all or you have to draw for a buck tag in those archery is the same way but rifle they make you they're unit specific and they are capped and they sell out pretty damn fast the mule deer tags on the north side of the river sold out in like two days got it do you guide those um yeah i i kind of shy away from the mule deer thing just because of what we're talking about like a lot of the guys that want to shoot mule deer you know they want like a good representation of a buck and i just don't think that i can't like promise that type of a deal so if they want to shoot a mule deer like we'll hunt for a mule deer but i sell a whitetail hunt and then i do like a trophy fee type thing on top of the mule deer or on top of

if they shoot a mule deer just to make people more conscious of like don't shoot a two point type of a deal just to shoot a mule deer. I'm trying to help us out there. You know she killed a real big mule deer a couple years ago. I don't know if you want to talk about that. Well you killed a real big one this year. That was Idaho.

So you killed a big one in this place. 2016. He was like high 190s. Really? Yeah. Really? Monster. But up by the highway.

Mm-hmm. So he wasn't even down here, but still. Killed it with a bow. You did? Yeah. Is that one of the ones in the hallway? It's the picture. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know if there's a picture of him up there or not. There's some big Muleys pictures. Yeah. You shot that one with a bow out here. Mm-hmm. Up off the meadow. That's doing something, man. What'd you do? Creepuleys pictures. Yeah. You shot that one with a bow out here. Mm-hmm. Up off the meadow. That's doing something, man.

What'd you do, creep up on it? Yeah. Or did you have a blind? A little canyon. Really? Yeah, I creeped. Really? Mm-hmm.

That's cool, man. I didn't know that. I was 16. You got a big stomper out in Idaho this year. I got a good buck in Idaho, yeah. How big was this? This one. He's probably like a mid-160s buck.

I never, we haven't measured him. He's in getting a Euro mount currently. Freedom mount. Freedom mount, that's right. Forgot about that. Do you know this about your state? This feels like a western state, right? 97% private.

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. Wow. That's tough going. Actually, 97% surprises me a little. There's probably some parks. It's pretty much what it is. You run into that too, like when you see Texas. Yeah.

I mean, they even sold off their school trust lands. But they have like a 2% or whatever the hell it is, public. But Great Bend National Park. You can't hunt in there anyways. So you can't hunt anyways. Yeah.

So it's kind of like, yeah. Not like what good is it, but it does, I mean, from a hunter's perspective. So you go like, oh, there's at least some public land, but then the bulk of the public land is park and you can't hunt it anyway. Yeah. So you probably got a situation like that there are some parks but most of the i think some of like most of the public lands all in the northwest corner of the state like chadron area harrison and it gets hammered and that's all like in the pine ridge unit so on the north side of the river that's where some public is yeah that's where yep that's where a lot of it is. But this state, they have an open fields and waters program,

which is cool. Yep, that's like putting your CRP or whatever you can open it up to the public for a clock in. 375,000 acres in that. 40,000 acres enrolled in something that I never heard of called the Stubble Access Program.

Haven't heard of that either. Well, after you harvest wheat and milo and whatnot, it's people can go in and hunt birds in western Nebraska on the stubble and adjacent habitat. Oh. That's not a bad program. No. It's very specific.

It is. That's kind of what I thought. Harvest your crop. Once you harvest your crop, guys can come in and hunt the stubble fields. But they keep people out of it when the crop's still standing. They're nothing. Nice. Yeah. For sure.

Not bad. More turkeys. What's that? More turkeys. Good idea. Yep. Alright, listen. We got a real problem. We're running out of our hunt time Steve hasn't shot a deer yet I don't care I've had a great time

yeah cool I'm glad I've had one of the better times I've ever had doing anything it's been humbling for me cause I'm I don't think before this a rifle hunt's ever gone over two days I can tell you're sweating it but here's the thing we could have shot bucks me because i'm i don't think before this a rifle hunt's ever gone over two days really i just kind of assume i can tell you're sweating it yeah we saw but here's the thing we could have shot bucks

could shot one a minute ago that's true we could have shot smaller deer but and there was one that we watched for a while and you're like steve let's get serious what do you think about that buck yeah there was a point i kept looking at him and i was like i mean it's not a bad deer but it's just we've all but here's the thing we've all seen bucks where you said i'd shoot that buck yeah so the difference between what you think about that deer and i'd shoot that buck you know that was a difference he was like on the border and i was like, no. Yeah. Not going to do it.

We've seen multiple ones where you're like, there's a shooter. I was making some commentary on the hilltop when the buck in question came out that was kind of the one that she was going, well, you know, that's a decent buck. They bet it down out by us twice. I was sitting up there, and I said, Steve Rinella on day three is going to shoot that buck. No, we've had bucks. We've had bucks. We just haven't had seen a lot of nice bucks far off, seen little bucks up close, and we just haven't.

The corn is up. That's one thing I don't think we mentioned. There's a bunch of pivots in this time of year a lot of those deer are still in i think it is a hoedown in that corn yeah i mean miles of corn it's like the wild west miles of corn yeah i think it's holding them maybe more than i thought it was going to well Well, it's just, it's so unpredictable. Like being on the hilltop, you see, like we've seen a shooter buck almost every single time we've set up there.

Yeah. Because we have this macro view. And it's just, you know, sometimes they come out here, sometimes they come out there. There's just so much surface area, that corn, it's just hard to know where they're going to be.

Yeah, we saw a shooter buck last night that was a mile and a half away going the other way. Yeah. Chasing hot after a doe. And you're just like, it's kind hard to know where they're going to be yeah we saw a shooter buck last night that was a mile and a half away going the other way yeah yeah chasing hot after a doe and you're just like it's kind of like you see it but it kind of doesn't doesn't matter yeah i like seeing that stuff though oh for sure man it can easily go the other way where uh people are like well it doesn't even matter so why are we sitting here if we can see him but we can't get to him i'm like well valid i guess yeah i don't want i think i've had a wonderful time hunting here tons of opportunity every sit is like it's half it's half sitting half spot stock yeah every. Every sit is exciting. I've been seeing big bucks.

Mm-hmm. Clay got a nice buck. Steve's buck. Yeah, I can tell. Whatever happens tonight, if we had another day, I'd have no doubt we'd get one. We're probably going to go get one right now.

Yeah. We got an evening left. Did the wind let down? Bottom of the ninth. Oh, no. It kind of picked up. Jordan, tell everybody how to find you again. We told them how to find you before.

Yeah. Runningwaterhunting.com is probably the easiest. And all my contact info is on there. You can kind of get the layout of what we offer. Hunt turks, hunt whitetails. Yeah, turkeys, whitetails, like very limited amounts of mule deer. Elk, it sounds like.

If you're a Nebraska resident, elk. And you're one of the lucky few, one of the chosen few. You'd do it again? You're feeling cocky about it now that you killed that huge bull? I would do it again. I would only do like one a year. You'd do one elk hunter? Yeah, maybe. Depends do one elk hunter? Yeah.

Maybe. Depends if you have elk or not. If the landowner... Yeah. If somebody drew a landowner tag, we probably wouldn't take anybody. Oh, really? So you're strict about it? Yeah.

You play pretty conservative. I think so. There's some other outfitters that have taken a lot of elk hunters, and I heard this year that they were having trouble finding the size, and I think that's from a lot of numbers. Got it. I think even deer and stuff should be,

if we're not going to put a size restriction in, a lot of guys are doing, we're not going to shoot a deer under 140 type of a management style. I think if you don't do something like that, you got to be kind of conservative on how many people you take. Got it. Well, we could have killed an elk

if we'd have been hunting elk this week. I mean, we had elk that we could have made a play on on Jordan's land. Is that right? Just to say, I mean, like this one little sector of calendar, because those elk that we saw the other day, yeah, they were coming right through. I mean, I'm not little sector of calendar. Because those elk that we saw the other day. Yeah, they were coming right through. I mean, I'm not saying it would have been easy,

but we could have. We just seen elk. We could have got on. It's cool to be looking out and see all those bison, and here comes a herd of elk. Oh, yeah. It really was. So weird.

That's pretty sweet. All righty. We better go. Yeah. We're going to shoot a deer. I got to take my pajamas back off again. My regular clothes bag on. We're going to go.

Get a big box. Hey, Jordan, thank you for hosting us. It's been awesome. This has been great, man. Thank you so much. This has been great. People don't know it right now, but we're all sitting in Lazy Boys. Yeah.

Yeah, I was going to say something about this farmhouse. It's really neat where you keep people. This farmhouse, it feels like you're in someone's home. Small, yeah. It's great. Cozy. That's what we wanted to take it. It's been great. Appreciate it. He doesn't have a lazy boy. No lazy boy.

Cozy. A lot of western art hanging in here, which has got me like I feel like I'm going to go deep on. This year I asked my wife for Christmas to get me I want a frame. I told her right where I'm going to put it on. This year I asked my wife for Christmas to get me, I want to frame, I told her right where I'm going to put it, in the bedroom, I want a framed print of C.M. Russell's The Free Trappers.

And I was going to be like, and that'll be the end of it. That'll be the end of it. But now I've found another one, Following the River by Robert Duncan. So I'm going to have to go talk to her and be like, listen. Two requests. Nat wall. For Valentine's Day.

For Valentine's Day. I need Following the River by Robert Duncan. It's a good pain. All right, guys. Thanks so much. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

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