The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 504: Lions and Ditch Cougars on The MeatEater Tour Bus

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Steven Rinella talks with Brent Reaves, Janis Putelis, Spencer Neuharth, and Chester Floyd. Topics discussed: Shaking in your tent; sleeping on the tour bus; what you want to have happen to your body when you die; family cemeteries; missing Gettysburg because the bus driver only drives at night; send us your original songs; the man with three lips; kid Steve's mismatched sneakers; what's appropriate to submit for our trail cam segment; hog claims; how everything changed with the freezer; mistaking house cats for real cougars; why taking photos of photos on computer screens make no sense; summer bobcats and poor spot quality; the black holes that Steve won't get into, like Chess; when Steve took his landlord to small claim's court; wolverines under ESA protection; hiding pocket knives in the drop ceiling of the airport bathroom; "moss is unclimbable"; Evan Felker's song lyrics and that Belgian-made Browning; some hard Chetiquette; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee 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. We hunt the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light.

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So, t-shirts and hats 15 bucks hoodies 30 bucks get yours now again at store.themeateater.com i will see you out on the streets or in the woods rocking your new tees and hoodies On the subject of sharing soap, sharing a bar of soap, Spencer, are you familiar with the quote, you can't stand in the same river twice? No. You get it, right? right yes okay because who said that just people the water's just always moving by i mean i don't i bet you it's not even it's so widespread i bet it's not a true you'll probably find where someone says that mark twain said it

because that's what happens with every good quote that no one knows who said it, but you can't stay in the same river twice, meaning the water is gone. I don't think you can bathe with the same bar of soap twice. You'll notice if you watch one over time, it gradually shrinks. Sure. Heraclitus. He did not.

Really? Okay. That's the first uh you're not saying it right i don't know how to say it right but that ain't right yeah it's my best effort so if you took a bar of salt and put it in your in your privates and then yanni's like hey can i borrow your bar of salt it's it's by the time it comes back to you, it's not that part. This isn't a hypothetical. Sometimes you grab

a piece of soap and there might be a couple pubes stuck on there or something, though. Yeah, but they're clean. They're all washed off. This is the second show we've ever done on a tour bus. The first one we did was i don't want to say it was a nicer tour bus but do you remember what i'm talking about yanni with luke yeah yeah we did a show on the tour bus yeah we're on our tour bus it's over now by the time you get this

because when we're going to release this episode but we're on a eight city tour going across um starting in uh on a live tour starting in in Denver and basically moving across a latitude more or less with some deviation moving in an eastward direction across roughly the same latitude ending at the coast and in fellow near you know near coastal in Philadelphia and and we're doing this in a tour bus. And I had, sleeping in my berth last night, I woke up one time in the middle of a nightmare that someone was shaking my tent because the bus was shaking.

That's interesting. I didn't have that, but I was trying to use the same techniques that sometimes I use when I'm in a tent and the wind is blowing like crazy. And it's kind of keeping you up and you sort of just have to accept that that's what the night is going to be like. And just be like, that's part of my sleep tonight. And sometimes I can just accept it and then fall asleep. And I was trying to tell myself that with the rocking that kept waking me up.

Yeah, and the bumps. But it never worked. Hard to sleep in a tour bus. I had a bad experience. I'll leave it at that. Oh, I thought that like half this podcast would be us discussing our last night's sleep. Phil and I already figured out how we're going to fix you tonight. Oh, what are you going to do?

Phil's going to wake up crying about two, and you can get up and rock him. Right back to sleep. That's what you're used to,? Phil's going to wake up crying about two, and you can get up and rock him. Right back to sleep. That's what you're used to, man. That's true. Yeah. Brent Reeves. Oh, go ahead, Spencer. One of the best parts, though, about last night's sleep was how dark it got.

Oh, that's why I slept so late. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Yeah. I didn't wake up until 10 because I was just waiting for the sun to come up. Well, if you notice that these bunks are set up not how they're normally. They're supposed to be three bunks. I don't have access to the light switch from the top bunk. So there was a light on from Hannah's.

She could shut it off below, but I didn't have access to that switch. So I had a light on in my cabin the whole night. All night? Yes. Are you sure? It was just... 100%. I'll show you after this podcast.

It was just Chester's mollies. He also fumbled his phone to the bunk below him. Oh, man. You see that bunk right there? About halfway through the night. Yep. So there's a switch on... Go on down below, Yanni.

You're talking about that light I just turned on? Nope. The bottom bunk. Okay. There's a switch on top. The top switch. Turn that on and then go look at my bunk. Why don't you talk to your birthmate? I don't see a light on it.

Because I already felt bad because... I don't see a light on in there. I feel like your birthmate... No, the top one. A birthmate sounds like your twin. Yeah, talk to your birthmate. Because I already felt bad because i dropped a cell phone on her head and something else right slid through that crack down into the

bottom bunk oh the one behind under your pillow yeah chester you can cover that up chester emerged from his bunk at 10 a.m he said he didn't sleep for a second i, that was exaggeration for sure. That's not true. But I barely got any sleep. Who snores? No one as quiet as Miles. Yeah, that surprised me. I do snore, but I couldn't achieve a deep enough sleep to get

to snoring, I don't think, on this bus. Brett Reeves is here. I was impressed how you don't hear any vehicles going by you. Did't hear any vehicles going by you did you hear any vehicles go by I mean we can't be driving above the speed limit so it must be cars passing us all night

and you don't hear them so the soundproofing is impressive where are you going to be Steve why are you in a rush joined today by Brent Reeves who did not sleep on the bus last night but he had Where are you going to be, Steve? We're in a rush. Joined in by Brent Reeves, who did not sleep on the bus last night, but he had 30 years in law enforcement,

and I asked him if he ever raided a bus, to which he said yes. Yeah, we were actually invited onto the bus. Tom T. Hall was playing in a little town in Bradley County. So you were joking about raiding the bus. Yeah, we were joking. If we had looked very hard, we probably could have found something. But turned it into a raid. Yeah. It just was.

I don't know where they would have put it, though, because it was beer. Ice chest full of beer from one end of that bus to the other. I don't know where they slept. If they stood up or whatever, because it was just cases and cases of beer. If I had an illegal substance on this bus, do you think you could find it? Sure. Think so? Yeah.

With what level of confidence? The amount of level of pain that I inflicted on you. No, I'm just kidding. You put a dog on it. You ever watch Tales from the Tour Bus? Yes, I have seen that. So, you know the dude that made, what's that, the cartoon, the Texas cartoon mike judge oh yeah king of the hill

so he made a whole series about the outlaw country era turtle soup yeah he gets into how uh johnny paycheck shot a man in an argument over turtle soup yeah he gets into how whalen's bus drivers or whalen's manager shot whalen's bus driver in an argument over hamburgers yeah he blew up a barn you know so in tales from the tour bus they taught there's a guy talking about when willie nelson's tour bus they put a drug dog on willie nelson's tour bus and it's supposed to find the weed and sit down and talk about how that dog just came up the steps and sat down yeah i wouldn't doubt that at all no you get i mean so talk about the guy who's busty ron because he wrote harper valley pta who's gonna feed them hogs yeah tom t hall he wrote a lot of

the uh he was called the storyteller and he wrote a lot of songs that you know for other people but he had a lot of good songs. The Ballad of Forty Dollars, where he's, him, the song starts out, it's one of my favorites, but he starts, him and two other guys got hired to dig a grave and mow the grass. And they're talking about, they're sitting down in the shade watching the funeral, and they see this big limousine pull up up and they're talking about how cool that car

is and how pretty the lady is. You know, I said some girls really do look black. You look good in black and they're talking about the wit or whatever. They talked about his truck. They heard that his truck was already up for sale and the

key, the linchpin of the whole thing at the end of the song, he says, yeah, the bad thing is the guy owed me 40 bucks. And now he's dead. Oh, he wrote that song, That's How I Got to Memphis. Yep. I like that song. Oh, he wrote that too? Oh, man, he wrote a bunch of them.

That's been covered a lot. Yeah. Oh, this is great. This is a great thing. Wow, shoot. See, man, I'm tempted here because I got to talk. There's a couple things I want to say about music, is fitting for being on this bus which is normally full of musicians but there's a thing i want to say about getting buried so i had a plan like i had it all figured

out what i wanted to do when i died with my body and then now i kind of been changing it around when i was back home in michigan i went looking for a buddy of mine's man there's a buddy of mine got killed in high school a few a couple of guys got killed in high schools he got killed in high school and i always remember he uh they when they lowered him down in the grave his dad climbed down in there oh climb down in the hole it was horrible and i went looking and didn't have a ton of time because i was on the way to the airport my kids and i had them kind of scrum no that's a lie i was on the way to the airport my wife and went to right where i swear that was but i I couldn't find his deal. The grave.

Yeah. And there's kind of two cemeteries by where I grew up and that got me kind of wondering about getting buried where I grew up and I was looking, you can, where I grew up, you get, you could go into the twin Lake cemetery. It's only 650 bucks.

Really? Yeah. I was looking the other day. The weird part that I noticed is if you want to get dog out of the Twin Lakes Cemetery, it's $1,300. To move you? To get disinterred. Oh, wow.

Struck me as weird. You can get in there for cheaper and you can get out of there. For real. That might secure me a lot. We've got our own family cemetery. You do? Where I grew up. What do you guys charge?

Reeve Cemetery. It's like $300. Maybe I'll get a family cemetery. You do? Where I grew up. What do you guys charge? Reeve Cemetery. It's like 300 bucks. Maybe I'll get a spot there. You can? The problem I have with the Twin Lakes Cemetery is it's $650 for a resident and $800 for a non-resident, but I'm going to apply for resident. You follow me? Yeah.

I haven't been born there. Right. You should. You should. You'll be grandfathered in. Yeah. How big is the Reeves Cemetery? It's probably half an acre.

You guys ever disinter anybody out of there? No, so far everybody's been pretty well behaved. What year? No, you're 86. No, probably just so far. What year was the first Reeves buried there? Oh, that first was probably, it had been before the war between the state, before the Civil War. The war against Northern Aggression?

That one. That one. Same one. My grandmother would never call it the Civil War. She said there wasn't nothing civil about that so did you have any do you have any uh relatives fight for the losing side there yep i did uh one of them got killed in uh in the first battle at shallow really this bus the minute i got on this bus this bus, the first thing I said to that driver, and you can check with him, his name's John. I said, man, when we get to Pennsylvania, we need to make a little detour.

And it won't even really add any time on between Pittsburgh and Philly. It won't add any time on. It'll add like 15 minutes to do a 60 mile little loop cut off and go through gettysburg yeah and you go smack nuts through gettysburg but then it occurred to me he only drives at night oh yeah you don't have to bring some spotlight i know you got your coon light no i didn't bring any gear like that so i might now have to go up there and talk back to tell John again the plan's off. Speaking of music, we have been, much to the consternation of listeners,

we have been running Ride On by Chris Denny as the outro music. It's a much hated, some people, most people hate the outro song. I liked it, and the reason I used it is... One time we talked about something too long. It's like a metaphor, right? We talked about something too long, and someone said something like,

you beat that horse to death. Chris Denny's ride on is, we done beat this damn horse to death. It's time to ride on. There's another, the ACDC ride on. You ever heard of that one? No, but I don't want to try to license from them. Gotcha.

Because we licensed from Chris Denny. It wasn't a bad price. I don't know if it's the same song. It's another lonely evening. No. In another lonely town. No. That one?

I don't think it's the same one. Our license just so happens. We would be doing this anyways, but our license is expiring. We have to renew our license on Rhydon, so we're going to make a major transition. We're going to do away with current outro music and only use music composed and written by audience members. Because we've got a lot of great submissions great songs from people you know we sometimes use doug duran's song um we're going to use some of

chester's stuff crin's gonna call it chats frats you like that chester i like that uh so if you got music that you've written and composed and want us to use it for our outro music all you got to do is send it in where does crin want this to go to oh send it into the meat eater podcast at the meat eater.com subject line outro music um you can sing about hunting and fishing the podcast pole beans, subject we discussed in our episodes, whatever strikes you creative, fancy, that's a message from Corinne. So, go ahead and send in your music, and do us a favor

too of, if you send it in, do us a favor of giving us a written permission to use. We can start showcasing your music, which we do sometimes anyway. You got one, Chad? I have a bunch of songs, but the-

He wrote one last night. The Man With Three Lips. Yeah. Yep. The Man With Three Lips. It's a sad song. Sounds like it. It's not creepy.

Oh, dude, you want to hear a sad-ass story, man. This is what happened last night. You know the term green room where you hang out right did you ever raid one of those no you never raided a green greenhouse you find all kind yeah you'd find all kinds of shit in a green room yeah you'd probably find other people's stuff not even from the people who are currently in there check the couch cushion so i don't know why why did i tell you want to tell you a real sad story we were uh oh we were teasing chester's shoes i wasn't yeah chester had on a pair of reebok shoes which is i don't even know that company was still around when i was telling

when i was a kid uh i wanted like i said designer shoes like reeboks or nikes and my wife said i get what you're saying but you wouldn't like nikes and reeboks aren't designer shoes like Reeboks or Nikes. And my wife said, I get what you're saying, but you wouldn't, like, Nikes and Reeboks aren't designer shoes. So then I told my world's saddest story about how I grew up thinking, this is not the world's saddest story, but sad to me, I grew up thinking we were poor rather than very well off relative to a lot of our neighbors because I couldn't have things like I had to wear Keds,

I had to wear Tuffskins, Rustlers. I couldn't get like some kids that come to school with a single-serving bag of Doritos. Oh, yeah, grapes. Green grapes was my dream. You wanted to have those. Or kids would have that thing where there's cheese on the end and crackers and you peel

it back. All this kind of stuff meant to be. Or they'd have like name brand pop. They'd have an actual Pepsi. I thought Keds were like we always asked for Keds. I thought those were fancy shoes. You wanted Nikes and Reeboks and shit.

Adidas. Yeah. Oh, like, yeah, anything like that. So I, but my, it's just rather than being poor, my parents just weren't dumbasses. So we couldn't have that stuff and it killed me. Cause I'd have to go with like a sandwich that my mom made. And then she'd put chips in a little baggie. Rather than thinking that my mom loved me, I thought that my mom hated me

because I couldn't line up with the other kids at lunch. And then one day we're at MC Sporting Goods and they have these two pairs of Nikes, or a pair of Nikes, but it's not. They're not matched. One's got orange stripes and one's got red stripes. There's like subtle cosmetic differences, but they're the same size. And they're like next next to nothing so my mom buys me these nikes what do you think they

cost i don't know man it's too long i was in fifth grade yeah just ballpark it like nine dollars yeah like something like that okay like they would have had to have been competitive with no-name shoes hush puppies and shit i don't know yeah so mr brown i go down there and i was like no one's gonna notice that you know what i mean and i was saying man i didn't even make it to the door of the school those shoes don't match that's crazy and now but now that kind of stuff i feel like it's probably in style oh yeah like if you gave those shoes my daughter daughter, she'd wear them. She'd be proud as hell of that, you know.

But that prompted Chester to be like, that's not a sad story. And he told me a sad story about being teased over a minor birth defect. Bad. And then that night started writing a story, The Man with Three Lips. I got to tell the story now. Oh, yeah. I think you should, Chester, because it makes my story seem like a spoiled brat Complaining man

I want to know what Brent wanted instead of green grapes Like you got purple grapes Right but you had purple grapes instead No grapes What have you settled for purple grapes No I've never seen a purple grape This kid was a doctor's son

And he had a Ziploc bag full of green grapes. And I'd ask, I'd say, man, let me have one of them grapes. He'd give me one. But I would have bought him. If I had any kind of money, I would have bought him. But I swore if I ever have money and my kids want to have green grapes to go to school with, and they don't even eat grapes, but there's some in my icebox. Really?

Do you like them? Oh, see, I would love, anything that I wanted to have when I was a kid, if my kids act like they wanted, I'd be like, no. I mean, they have a lot of stuff. But if it was up to me,

I'd torture them a lot more than they're my torturers. Yeah, them green grapes, man, that was good. It reminds me of my dad. He said that he remembered being in school and sitting there, and he said that he remembered being in school and sitting there,

and he said that he brought his lunch in a sack. The kids in town had brought a lunchbox. They'd open their lunchbox up, and they'd have sliced bread in there, like Wonder Bread and bologna and cheese in there. He said, I'd open my sack up, and I'd have homemade sourdough bread and cured ham. He said, I was sitting there by that kid that was eating that Wonder Bread and bologna

thinking, man, that guy's got it made. Well, he actually, you know, he was winning that war. Should I tell the sad story? Oh, yeah, the man with, yeah, just sing it, Chester. Oh. Once was a man. Sorry, my feet stink, too. That's fine, Chester. Oh. Once was a man. Sorry, my feet stink, too. That's fine, Chester.

I didn't notice. You're fine. Spencer's got some soap you can borrow. Spencer's throwing Wayne over there with his arm around you. Go ahead and. You got your arm around me. Oh, that's what I do, yeah. We're just getting nicer clothes.

And Yanni's got his arm around Chester. Tell us a few stories, Chester. We don't want you to feel too sad. When I was a kid, I went to a private Catholic school right down the road. Tiny little thing. Called Our Lady of Angels. Well, that sounds Catholic.

Something about it. It just goes to show you that this story, after I get done with it, they're not all angels there at this school. You can say it. This is a story about having three lips. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. So when I was a kid, all the way up until like fifth grade, when I'd smile real big, my lip would kind of curl over and it looked like I had three lips. So I ended up not ever smiling. I'm going to do a visual for the camera. This is Chester's mouth. Upper lip.

Here's his mouth. And this is what he looked like. How's that look, Phil? Fantastic. Great illustration. I mean, I had some buck. I kind of had some buck teeth, too. You you know like three lips and some buck yeah real display yeah it says it said hello before you did yeah so i would i i eventually like once i knew i

i stopped smiling because i had kids picking on me and calling me three lips and i didn't really let things bother me too much but eventually that one kind of i started to realize that yeah this isn't quite normal you know so that's terrible eventually uh we went to the doctor and um this guy was confident that he could make it better um and we went there and he cut i kind of had i don't know what they call that but the skin on your lip bridge goes down farther and it was down further than normal he cut that off and it made it worse so you could you could like now now i know it just now i had it all the time. Oh, God. You know? Yeah.

So, you know, and I got super self-conscious about it. And to the point where I actually had plastic surgery on my upper lip to get that excess skin removed. Yeah. You got some old pictures of that lip? Old three lips. I got to, I'm sure I do. I got some old pictures of that lip? Old three lips. I'm sure I do. I gotta ask my folks. Man, I thought not having green grapes was bad. It's called a frenum

or a frenulum. It's that little flap of skin. Three lips. But the thing about all this, I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and she was talking about going in and taking like, you know, like putting a mask on and earphones on and taking like hallucinogenics and stuff to try to like tap into your inner problems and stuff, man. I think if I did all that, I'd just be thinking about them Doritos and shit. Sneakers and stuff, you know?

It's like, it's not a big deal, but some stuff sticks with you. That $1,300 disinternment fee. You think that's what it would go back to, huh? I don't know. I don't know why I always think about that. Yeah, it was a weird deal. Not the two dudes that died in high school? No.

Or the time we I told you about the time we went to that airplane wreck. Oh, yeah. Watch them pull them bodies out of that. No, it'd be either way. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness,

do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew! Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there,

OnX is now in Canada! The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right.

We're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater Podcast. Now you guys in the Great White North can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more.

As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. So here's the deal. We're getting to the meat of the show here now. We a long time ago... Is that right? That was all just crazy.

No, I'm serious. Okay. This is the meat of the show. Long time ago, we had asked for your crazy trail cam pics. Because we want to start doing a crazy trail cam pic segment. Which I'm committed to because I'm a big fan of trail cameras. I like looking at trail camera pictures. Have we thrown around the idea of doing a crazy trail cam pic calendar?

We did. Or I thought of it. But we haven't done it because we're doing old shitters right now yeah but that'd be a good idea something to keep in mind it would so we had asked for and i just said like send us your crazy trail cam pictures we're going to get into our first crazy trail cam picture segment right now and it's gonna be about cats it's gonna be about cats but the first picture is a pig well that this is a prelude because we didn't do a good job of clarifying what we meant by crazy trail cam pictures

uh there was an overwhelming response corinne can't even get through all the trail cam pictures but this is a note from corinne i do want to clarify the specificity of our trail cam pic submission parameters and ask you to check yourself and be thoughtful about what's warranted. This isn't an excuse to send Corinne... I don't want to use the word she used. To send Corinne pictures of fetishes out in the woods or full frontals of some guy taking a whiz onto a bush.

Oh. I think she's mostly joking. But this is an important thing because, well, we pulled up one example. A guy sent in a picture of a wild pig, and it seems like the only thing that he's interested in is that it has its lipstick out. Five-legged hog so yeah so it's like he's like hey here's a trail cam picture of a wild pig with an erection so that's great but that's for the whole there's just a limited there's limited there's limited now if you send in a picture of a deer with a greatly enlarged scrotum that would warrant discussion because it could be all sorts of problems and we would send that

to a deer specialist we'd send it to a wildlife a veterinarian who specializes in wildlife and they might come back with oh that's a very thing, could be an engorged tick bite, all manner of reproductive ailments. So that would be interesting. But just the fact that this hog has his lipstick out is... But if you look closely, the hog also looks like it has a unicorn horn or something kind of like that. That's his ear.

That's his ear? Yeah, that's his other ear. Oh, that's his ear. That's his ear? Yeah, that's his other ear. Oh, that's his ear. That's how it looks like he's been marked. See that notch out of it right there? Oh, yeah. He's got a cut. Oh, I see.

So his ear is just split. Well, that's a thing guys will do too because they'll, you know, guys will castrate him, catch him, castrate him, turn him back out, notch their ear with a certain way that they like to notch them so they know that they're the ones that did it. As the guy put to me in Yanni, it takes their mind off ass and puts it on grass.

They called it a bar hog. Barred hog. Barred hog, yeah. And we went out with him and barred a hog. Sketchy. Yeah, but he ran right off. Yeah. You done that to me on laid there

we're trying to fight you my brother's in-laws you know where i grew up that was having hogs in the woods having a hog claim was like a deer lease i mean you claimed from this creek to some other place another natural barrier or something, or somebody's property. And all the hogs that ran on that property there, they were ours. Even though it was public land? It wasn't public land.

Oh, it wasn't? Okay. No. This was down in, the Potlatch Timber Company is all owned by a timber company. But we would have a claim in there from one piece of property to another, and another family would have that as well. It would be documented somewhere. In a courthouse.

Okay. Oh, okay. Cleveland County Courthouse. I thought you meant claimed like you told your friends. Well, that's where it started, but it would be documented there. But each family had their own mark, which is like a brand. Like ours was an under bit on the left and then a crop on the left

and then a split on the right. The under bit was the bottom side of that ear, hog's ear on the left side was lopped off and then the end was cropped off so it was blunt and then flat on the bottom and the other side you just take a pocket knife

and split it so that this is when you borrowed a hog yeah and that's when you cut the castrate the hog well my brother's in-laws they were catching hogs like folks did back in the day and cutting hogs and they they caught they down there they were squirrel hunting and they the dogs made this big old hog that had been trying to catch forever and nobody they're digging around in their pockets and nobody can find a pocket knife. But my brother's father-in-law,

his brother, I believe it was his brother or his uncle, had a Prince Albert can in his pocket. He had Prince Albert's back end, a tin can. So he took that Prince Albert can and broke it in half to have a sharp edge, and that's what they cut that hog with.

And when they turned him loose, he didn't hang around either. But he said it was pretty wild. Messy. So what is the significance? Unless you're dating it, who cares what market's got? If you catch a hog and it's barred well unless you know the date what do you care that's what like the that's what folks were feeding their families with that was property no i understand i understand that but you're claiming the area yeah so why do you need to

have the area because there's no fences okay okay let's say i'm claiming this the area of this computer right okay and and uh this area the computer is mine and you catch a pig on my thing i catch a pig on my area okay now if it's got some other dude's mark i don't care it's in my area oh no that's not the way it works oh it does not work that way no that, that's his hog. Oh. And people respect that. Yeah. Hatfields and McCoys, that's what that started with. So you have to catch your hog in your area.

If you catch a hog there and it's mine, you send me word, hey, we got this hog. Come get it. You want to turn him loose or you want him? That's how it works. It's all on the honor system. Gotcha. And that's what the Hatfield you want him? That's how it works. It's all on the honor system. Gotcha. And that's what the Hatfields and McCoys was. That all started.

So where's the real value of having the claim for the hogs on the chunk of land? Well, the hog claim was just for, you know, this is where we operate. This is where our hogs are going to be. Your hogs can come through, but this is our headquarters. This is the place where we're going to catch them here. We're going to be your hogs can come through but this is this is our headquarters this is the place where we we're gonna we're gonna catch them here we're gonna skin them we're gonna render them here whatever we're gonna do with them and then but this is our our spot and we're gonna turn them loose whatever that was just an area more or less that that you did your operation but there were no fences you know so it was just free range were there

like not enough freezers then to just kill the hogs on the spot and deal with them that way there wasn't any freezers no freezers no you know what this is not in my lifetime now this is when my my grandparents sure you know uh if you've ever heard one when dr. Randall did his dissertation, when he's doing his special PhD, he got into the way that American hunting just really changed with the freezer. Oh. It just really changed how everything went down once you had a freezer. Changed the way people talked about it. The idea of a full freezer.

You know what I mean? It was just not like that, man. You got a deer. You'd get a deer and you consumed it, dried it, gave it away. But, like, the whole thing of, like, filling the freezer, obviously, without a freezer, wasn't an issue. Yeah, that's, you know, everybody, not everybody had a freezer. Very few people did. But everybody had a smokehouse.

And, you know, smoked their own meat. That's what they kept. Very few people did. But everybody had a smokehouse and smoked their own meat. That's what they kept. Country ham. Yeah. I mean, they would last for years. You could keep them for years. Yeah, you go down in Virginia, man, and they sell those hams. They're on the shelf. Yeah.

Next to the canned beans. Yeah. So damn salty. Yeah, they'd be there forever. In a sack of salt. So what does that look like? I mean, it's literally a ham, super salted, smoked so there's a good crust on the, protective crust on the outside.

Yeah, you got to purge it with all that salt, man. You couldn't eat it. No, you couldn't eat it. It would be, it'd be bad. And it's not salt like, it's curing salt. It's a little different salt than what you're shaking on your eggs. And you purge it by just putting it in water? Yeah.

I want to get back to our special camera thing. We're going to talk about cats. First I want to talk about a couple things with trail cams. And you guys can throw in. Far and away, the number one submission we got is cat questions. Far and away.

Cat. Oh. Cat. Is this a mountain lion? Oh, yeah. Got it. Is this a mountain lion? Is this a mountain lion? My buddy says this is a mountain lion. Is this a mountain lion? This is a mountain lion. Mm, cat. Is this a mountain lion? Oh, yeah. Got it. Is this a mountain lion? Is this a mountain lion? My body says it's a mountain lion. Is this a mountain lion? This is a mountain lion. Mm-hmm. Yes, unless you're in Tennessee.

You need to, just as a trail cam setup deal, when you get a really good picture and you and your body's all swear you got a mountain lion in Illinois, maybe you do. picture and you and your buddies all swear you got a mountain lion in illinois maybe you do there's always that so mountain lions have shown an incredible ability mountain lions panthers catamounts whatever you want to call them have shown an incredible ability to show up in weird places they'll go on big mega jaunts you know a mountain lion will come out of the black hills get hit by a car in connecticut so at this point now 20 years ago if you said you were crazy but at this point it's accepted

these things show up in weird spots a couple of show up in wisconsin like they show up in weird spots but the first thing you need to do when you got it when you're gonna when you get a picture and your buddies and you are all arguing about what you have on the camera. Take a tape measure and go over to wherever you think the thing was standing and figure out some dimensions. Try to put your camera. If you've got to put a thing in there, stick a thing in there. Stick a branch. Something somewhere to use for scale.

So if it's just looking out over a field, bury some sticks so you can start getting a sense of how big was it. We get a lot of mountain lion pictures, and I look at them like, it's just a ditch cougar. That's a house cat. You got a house cat. If you guys go down and look at this one image. So this is a very, very typical note.

Guy writes in, debate on whether this is the return of the infamous mountain lion that came to Connecticut. Now that, okay, that particular, there was one mountain lion that got killed in Connecticut. And so he's like, is this another mountain lion in Connecticut? Could be, because mountain lion that got killed in Connecticut. And so he's like, is this another mountain lion in Connecticut? Could be, because we know that it's happened before. He says, I think it's just a house cat. But he's alone in that camp. Tell me I'm not crazy.

Yep, Greenwich, Connecticut. His cousin used to have hunting access. Makes you think he did something bad and lost his hunting access. It was a property once owned by the Rockefeller estate. Oh, it got sold. He didn't do nothing bad. Not too far from Milford, where the one from South Dakota was hit by a car. That same mountain lion was also spotted in Greenwich just days before he was hit by the car.

So it's possible. But I believe it's just a house cat. That's a house cat. I concur. That is a house cat. But here's the thing. Why are you and your friends not out with a tape measure between that log and those trees? Well, just taping the diameter of that log,

just measuring the height of that log from the ground to the top of it would tell you that it's not a mountain lion. That's an eight-inch log, and that's an eight-inch tall house cat. Yeah, exactly. A yellow one. And listen, people shouldn't be ashamed. I'm not dogging on the guy. Yeah, but I think people are when they're like, and that's why they're so adamant, you know, once they say it once and they believe it.

But like when I went and interviewed all those biologists in Washington that are dealing with all the mountain lions and then talking to them about the calls that they get. I mean, they talk about just how and that they've seen it in like the right scenario where just visual perception and just tricks of the landscape that like it's it's a house cat but in that scene whatever it makes it is whatever illusion is there it looks 10 times bigger than it is and you're like oh yeah it's a lion and then it's not you know and i think it especially happens in these trail cams that just like you lose Deaf perception it's glowing White because it's at night yeah Yeah but even like the facial profile Now we got a lot of submissions Where

There's just nothing to Really talk about because There is no thing for scale It was too blurry You're like I have no idea What that is and I wouldn't trust anyone There's not even enough there that i would trust anyone to to even have an opinion it's sort of like a photograph that

just doesn't warrant any kind of respectable opinion because the amount of detail is so absent you say you might look at a picture and be like i can tell that there's something that seems you know alive-ish off in the distance. So for a lot of those, we couldn't really take it on. But this one, and you have this up, Phil? Yeah. Okay. So if you go and look, we'll post some of these.

You can go on YouTube and look, and you'll see the cat we're talking about. That's a ditch cougar. That's a house cat. Now, here's one that's super interesting super interesting and i gotta i gotta predicate this one by saying you could always be getting duped and someone could be sending you a not legitimate photo they could be sending you something they found on the internet whatever we saw some of those and threw them out but some of them you just kind of got to take someone at their word. We might be writing back and have a little bit of a dialogue with them. This one's interesting.

Hey everyone, Phil the Engineer here. Steve and the crew are still on tour, so the responsibility falls on my shoulders to butt in here like Ron Howard and Arrested Development to let you guys know that we got duped. That's right, this picture that we're about to look at and discuss is not from Baker County, Florida, but it's a melanistic black leopard from South Africa that's been raised in captivity. This picture has been floating around the internet for years. The leopard's name is Cole, which is very fitting because that's exactly what the person who sent this picture in will be receiving in their stocking this year from Santa Claus. But in all

seriousness, we could have cut this out, but we thought, hey, let's let it in. The discussion was fun. Let it be a cautionary tale for those looking at trail cam pictures on the internet, and that's us included. So just keep in mind, this is not from Florida. It's a leopard from South Africa. But with that in mind, back to the show. If legit, this one is interesting because here he goes real black panthers this photo was

taken at my hunting club in baker county florida my dad also had a video of a mama panther and two cubs a couple years ago but he deleted it before i could get a video he says this is from my friend's hunting club in Ludawicki I don't know what the hell that is Georgia it's in the southeast part of the state so there's two of them now the Florida one man everyone knows there's no such thing

as a black panther or do they what in the world is this are you talking about the one that's the full frontal or the one that's in the shade that full frontal cat is not a house cat that is not a ditch cougar barn cat that is a crazy picture but aren't there like uh it's a black phased jaguar that's not a thing not a thing no there aren't any melanistic ones that's my understanding now i've also heard that a black panther is a wet mountain lion a black panther is a wet panther a black panther is a muddy panther i'd like to see more of this guy right here.

Tell you what catches my eye is that rear pad, paw, foot. It's held kitty cat-like. Well, and it looks small. Now, they are smaller on a cat on the back feet than the front feet. But, yeah, I don't know. Something just looks a little odd. Yeah, the fact that it's a Black Panther looks odd. Well, yeah, but it's a little shiny.

Oh, real shiny. It's a little famished, scrawny looking. That back foot just doesn't seem quite right. He holds out that it's an escaped zoo animal, but I don't know what the hell zoo animal it would be. And he said he checked around and he hasn't heard of any escaped black leopards. Because there are leopards. Yeah, leopards.

There's a melanistic leopard. Is there a melanistic jaguar? I don't know. That's what I was asking. There's a melanistic leopard. Is there a melanistic jaguar? I don't know. That's what I was asking. There's a melanistic leopard. So if someone brought a melanistic leopard over from Africa and cut it loose in Florida, that would explain everything, but he hasn't caught wind of that. Well, what about the grass, the natural grasses up there?

Are those native grasses? Man, that's something we hadn't thought to show. We should show that to uh we should show that to yanni's wife oh yeah i don't know she's gonna say can you get me a closer picture the seed pod yeah what i can't get over is all like 70 of these pictures sent in are a picture of a picture like they took their phone and they took a picture of their computer screen and so we've now lost like 40% of the quality through that process. That's real common.

And so you can see the reflection of their house from when they took the picture of the picture. Right, click the photo, save it, and email that to Corinne. Don't take the photo of the photo. You've like ruined what could be an amazing photo by doing that. My brother sends me trail cam pics all the time like that. It's like, man, did you draw this? He's like, no, I took a picture with my phone.

Gosh. It's like one of them Flintstone cameras. You got a bird in there picking it up. This is a very compelling photograph. We should at least send this guy a believer hat. For real. A black painter believer hat. I feel like, yeah. Again, we don't know what that grass is but it's

extremely tall compared to that animal uh i know there's tall grasses in that part of the country but uh well it looks like goat weed everything looks like goat weed but i mean i'm not saying it is. I'm just saying it looks like. It would not surprise me whatsoever if it was another ditch cougar. Dude, listen. There's a lot of things that could be. That's not one of them. That head is not a barn cat's head. Look how long his snout is.

Angle, light. Man, there's just so many things at play. I'm with Steve. That does not look like a house cat. What this guy would have been really helpful if this guy would have done is taken his tape measure. Is this thing five feet long? Or is it 28 inches long?

Yes. The snout just is way longer than your typical house cat. Phil's weighing in over here. Yeah, I understand. At the same time, my wife and I lived at a house north of campus in Bozeman, and there was a stray black cat who we called him Jafar because he sort of reminded us of just kind of like a sinister, like he looked close to this. He had a longer snout. If you saw him from a distance, you'd be like, is that a cat or is that something else? They do exist. Did you send this picture in, Phil?

That's a compelling photo. Now, the one down is another interesting thing about trail cam problems. When you have an animal cast in shadow, it's hard. And again, where is the tape measure because that tuft of grass would be a great place to start laying out your tape measure because if that tuft of grass is 10 inches wide that makes this a really interesting picture. If that tuft of grass is 2 inches wide,

it makes it not a very interesting picture. Is that a gravel road? Yeah. We don't know. It's another photo of a computer screen. And if this person's computer screen was facing south, it looks like they were standing on the southwest side of the computer when they took the photo.

There's just no level of detail in it. That's just's gonna kind of hurt everybody's i mean it could be an incredible photo it's gonna hurt everybody's feelings and you're not gonna say anything no but spencer's 100 right it's like why wouldn't have you just sent the original i think that maybe we should have in our uh yeah only send what kind of cameras he's running he's running a moultrie yeah he should yeah send originals and but this is alert because this is the first segment yeah so i'm using cats because they come up i select the cats we'll get into the next segment maybe it's diseased animals i don't know it's animals with with uh wounds it's animals carrying arrows sticking out of them, whatever. Today is cats, but it's meant to be a little bit of a primer,

a helper on how to help yourself. Don't send pictures of pictures. Try to get us the actual picture and try to do a little bit of, take a thing of known scale. Take an item of known scale, take a five-gallon bucket, and go out at a minimum, take a five-gallon bucket,

go out, set it where you suspect that animal is standing, and take a test photo and capture that and put together a little dossier of information that we can then share with experts to help us out. A fact sheet. Yep.

Yanni, what's your craziest trail cam photo? Anything exciting? I get a lot, which I find exciting and interesting is I'll get bobcats with, uh, prey, fresh prey in their mouth. You know, they're cruising around with like a squirrel or, you know, a grouse. That's always interesting. I've gotten a couple, uh, collared wolves in Wisconsin. Yeah. And our neighbor to the South, I mean, literally bordering us,

got a mountain lion picture this year. Really? One just got hit. No, I think it got hit in Minnesota. Well, the guy that, in self-defense, shot the one with the bow in Wisconsin and that wasn't too far from us. Oh, I heard about that. Was that legit?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Self-defense. What does he mean? The guy just said that he felt like that cat was getting ready to come into his tree and tussle with him. He felt fear for his life. Pat wrote a good article on it. Yeah. On TheMeatEater.com, I think.

Yep. I saw it. I got to get more educated on that. Keep scrolling down because this gets great in terms of cats. I've held on to this photo for a few years now. This is in reference to one from another Connecticut one. Wow. Jeez.

And very seldom do I break it out to show someone. Allow me to elaborate. You see my home state is in Connecticut. No, his home state is Connecticut. His home state is not in Connecticut. And home state is connecticut his home state is not in connecticut and people lose their minds if you say mountain lion if a questionable photo pops up it's immediately discredited as a lion yeah oh it's immediately discredited if you if a photo pops up and you say it's a lion it gets immediately discredited people refuse to believe there could

ever be one in the state even when and i believe it's been lion, it gets immediately discredited. People refuse to believe there could ever be one in the state, even when, and I believe it's been mentioned on the previous podcast, one was hit by a car in 2011. I've seen many bobcats while sitting in the trees in the fall. I'm not 100%, but my gut leans toward a mountain lion. He apologizes to Clay that it is not a black panther. North Stonington, Connecticut. We're on the border with Rhode Island

Bobcat I'm going 100% Bobcat But that leads me to my point The bummer is the tail's absent Which also leads me to my thing How many photos do you have set? And do you have video? I'm asking this feller because if he had a three if he had a three photo spurt separated by a couple seconds he'd probably have a doozy but if he's got

a single photo he's going to wind up always being disappointed yeah and if you have there's nothing to keep in mind because some people don't realize this. If you have a cellular camera and you're allowed to use cellular cameras in the area, generally you'll get texted or emailed, whatever, one, but the card holds the video. You follow me? So if you had this thing on a burst of photos, you might have caught him when you could see his butt and see what he had for a tail. But I think you're looking at a bobcat,

especially because the dude says he sees bobcats all the time. I think it's a skinny summer pelt bobcat. Any dissenters? I don't see enough fluff to his head to make me think Bobcat. You see them all the time. Summer Bobcat. Yeah, if that picture was in Montana, I'd be like, yeah, it's like 80% chance that's Bobcat. But Connecticut, because it looks like a Bobcat, I'd say Bobcat.

Now, the next photo is a really good one. Is it? Yeah, because it's one that you can absolutely solve Okay It's the only one that can be categorically solved This one looks like photo inception Like someone took a picture of a computer screen I like your high standards for this

And then someone took a photo of that screenshot Yeah And now we're like four layers removed And then his mom took a picture and sent it to us. But I like this one because it's solvable. It's a cat squatting in tall grass.

Very poor quality. If you were walking through a, you remember in the old days when you used to be able to have your TV set on static? Like,

because you had like three channels. And if it was on any other channel, it was just like static. We'd call it the bug show when you used to be able to have your tv set on static like because you had like three channels and if it was on any other channel it was just like static we called the bug show when we were kids you think that this is just a set on static yeah but if you look carefully you start to make out that it's a cat there's tail but yes you okay where does he say what's going on southeastern minnesota on a watering hole. We have not been able to figure out what this is, and it's been a topic of discussion. Is it a deer?

No. Bobcat? We'll talk about it. Or mountain lion? We will talk about it. Aaron. Aaron, go to the right end of that cat. First off, where's your tape measure? Second, go to the right because you'd be able to go to the right end of that cat. First off, where's your tape measure?

Second, go to the right because you'd be able to go to that spot. The clumps in the grass would guide you right to that spot. Go to the right side of that picture. That cat is squatting and taking a piss. And its tail, to not get soiled, his little bobcat tail is curled up and black tipped its tail is bobbed it's a bobcat 100 that's what it looks like bobcat and you if you look i was i was looking i was trying to find the spots but if you look right right there, Yanni, look at that. But they have poor spots out there.

Ain't that spots? Really? You think? That's why they're not valuable. That's why a bobcat from the high desert, like a bobcat from the high desert, like the Mojave or something, all manner areas and Idaho places in Utah, whatever can be worth a thousand bucks. And then a Bobcat from Michigan can be worth 15 bucks.

They just don't have the spot quality. They don't have good spot. They don't have a white belly and black spots on it. They're dirty colors. They don't have clean spots. Like when I was a kid, we, I,

we, I didn't even, I wasn't even trying to catch Bobcats because they were worth nothing. And meanwhile, guys are selling them for 800 bucks, thousand1,000, $1,200. Montana cats are good cats, right? Can be valuable. What about a southern bobcat?

No. Nope. Like the spot-wise. No, it's not good. No spots. You want... High country, usually. Yep.

You want... They get valuable when you got... Like if it's four fingers wide on the belly and pure white with very cleanly defined black spots that's going to wind up on an oligarch's wife it's going to wind up

lining the coat of an oligarch's wife I learned recently speaking of furs I was thinking about getting one of my first light big puffy down jackets lined with a coyote that I had of my own. Oh, the trim? Yeah.

I'm fixing to do that. I didn't know this, but you also rate the coyotes by how many of those rounds that you get. I didn't know that it's cut like... It's a circumference piece, not a length piece. I didn't know that

until recently. It makes total sense. I didn't know that until recently. It makes total sense. Yeah. You take that hide and cut it like you're cutting firewood. Yeah. Yeah. Once someone said that to me, I was like, man, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. There was an old guy that lived in our neighborhood.

Or I'll say our neighborhood. He lived in the country where we lived. And he talked about making shoelaces boot laces out of squirrels squirrel hides i think how in the world could you make a you know a pair of boot laces leather boot laces out of a squirrel and he he said well it's easy and he they tan it and tack it up on the barn on the side of the barn and they take a knife they'd cut it in swirls like that. Concentric circles. Yeah. And then he said that you would wear out a pair of broken-hand shoes

before you broke a pair of squirrel laces. Oh, you're kidding me. That's what he said. They were absolutely tough. I'm doing that, man. For real. That's interesting. I've never done it.

One time I took a buffalo hide and took a knife and started doing that, cutting a half-inch-wide strip of leather around the edge. You realize you can make something. Oh, yeah. You get a 100-yard rope just by doing that, round and round and round. That's what people do to make those big, long leather ropes. How many squirrels have you tanned, Steve? Man, we used to try to tan them when we were kids.

We never got one to successfully work out. We would take saddle soap and stuff and try to rub it in there, and it never worked out. What do you think the shortcoming was? Pre-internet. Okay. People don't remember. People are like, you don't know this.

You used to not be able to find things out right in the encyclopedia if you looked it up it was only current to the date that book was printed yeah there was no one we had in our house was one they got my brother when he was i mean they were 10 years old there were countries in there wasn't even the same name you're right man you'd look and be like the ottoman empire what where's that exactly we used to try and tan like rabbits and squirrels with remember that orange uh bottle like tanning kits that you'd order. Oh, that you'd order? Yeah, I know what you're talking about, yeah. And we'd always... You could get them on Cabela's and stuff. Yeah, we'd salt them.

We'd salt them and cure them and that stuff. But they always just, which hides do, turn rock solid, and we just never had the patience to break them and soften them. Just put them on a staking board and do that. Yeah. I was living for a while in Missoula, and there was this kind of old hippie couple next to me in the house next to me. Oh, you want to hear a story?

Not about them, but about that house, dude. I never really told a story. That time I took someone to small claims court. Was that the only time? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and the judge was so mad at them, they yelled at them. Really?

And I got my money. I walked out of there proud to be in there. Oh, that's great. The judge was mad at him. When I got that person, finally got that son of a bitch into the small claims court, the judge, I laid out my whole deal. And the judge never even wanted to hear the, whatever they call it, mitigate or whatever. Didn't even want to hear what they had to say. Are you going to tell us?

Just laid into them. Really? Oh, yeah. I'll tell you real quick. I'll try to tell us quick. Okay. Anyways, next door was this old hippie couple

and they were brain-tanned deer hides. But I was always surprised how much they shrank. Whatever process they were using. Real, like they'd want, you know, good-sized deer and you'd wind up with something like, you know. Really?

I mean, small, yeah. I couldn't ever figure out why their stuff was shrinking so bad. I wonder if that's typical for brain tans. I don't know. I'd like to get into it. It's just one of those things like chess, brain tanning. There's just certain things I'm not going to go down that path. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Chess? Is that what you said? Just certain things that just seem like a deep hole you know and once you go into it once you go into it it's just you're never gonna get to the bottom of the hole uh you know you follow me sure and so i don't go near stuff so yeah i'll check this out i'll explain it real quick. We're living in this house, and you know sometimes when you're in a lease and you get a new, like, you're always trying to time your moves

so that you don't pay rent in two places at once. But me and my buddy were in this one house, and this other house that we really wanted came up. And we just had to do one of those deals where it sucked, but we had to pay the two rents. But in the long time, it was advantageous.ous like we'd recover our money because our new place was cheaper so we had to play pay two rents so we're paying simultaneous rents we moved most of our stuff out of the house and we're in our new house but then our other house that we're paying rent on

it's like the seventh of the month that house burns down to the ground not our fault it started in the wiring in the it started in the wiring somewhere in the house the fire department did an investigation they're like it was a wiring issue nothing to do with the tenants we weren't even there anyway so is there a moment where you thought it could have been your fault i didn't know but i mean they like very quickly uh no because we weren't in there. So, I mean, we didn't do it. It wasn't like we were partying or something. Someone caught something on fire. Um, I wait a respectable amount of time and I go to the landlord and I say, I need the, my rent back from the seventh to the end of the month because the house doesn't exist anymore.

And I'm renting it. Right. And they're like well you're not living there anyway to which i said well we had a bunch of stuff in there and it's now gone and it's none of your business and i could be renting it it's like i could have never stepped foot in there ever what's it to do with you if i wanted to go there it was mine to go to i'm renting it how do you know where i'm going the only reason you know i'm not there is because i told you i'm not there it's it has nothing to do with the issue whether i'm sleeping there or not it's like it's gone it's not my fault and you can't rent me a thing that is burned down because you have faulty wiring they wouldn't give me the

damn money so eventually i get down to the small claims court, and I come in there, and I got the fire department report and all these pictures and paperwork, and I get to go first, and I lay my thing out, and that judge turns to that landlord, and they're like, you know, she's like, oh, you just cashed them checks when they come in. Month after month after month. And the minute there's a problem,

you can't be found. Boom, boom. Not happy with that landlord, man. And the minute there's a problem, you can't be found. Yeah. Boom, boom. Not happy. Not happy with that landlord, man. And you gained some faith in the American court system. Oh, yeah, man. Okay.

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Keep sending them in, but try to take some lessons from what we discussed today. Two primary lessons being, Spencer, the original photo, and the tape measure. And this segment will improve greatly when we have those things. Yeah, it's not coincidence that a lot of these questionable animals come in the form of a questionable picture. So we haven't got any pictures of wolverines, fake or real yet. However, a little interesting news bit is Colorado, after their very contentious ballot initiative to reintroduce wolves, which got a lot of people fired up, they're now shooting to reintroduce wolverines, which I'm predicting will encounter zero pushback. I say that's a great idea.

Yeah. Ain't going to bother nobody. Well, Brody says this. Brody feels that knowing Polis, knowing the governor in Colorado and how antagonistic he is to hunters, that this will quickly be used to put in further fur trapping restrictions. Oh, I could put riders on this bill. It'll be the Wolverine. So now we have Wolverines and we don't want someone

accidentally catching the Wolverine. Therefore you can't do X, Y, and Z. But if you do the reintroduction, it'll go in as an experimental population. So it'll be a little bit different. Maybe Brody's being a little cynical, but Brody's watched Colorado change a lot in the current administration. Like like I said, is so outwardly antagonistic to hunters. Um, and the governor has also expressed support for ending fur trapping altogether.

Wow. Express support for, uh, protecting black bears and mountain lions, um, from any hunting, regardless of population levels. So Brody, uh, our very own Brody Henderson is supportive of wolverines being on the landscape, but not supportive of what the end goal might be. If this is just an honest deal to bring in wolverines, great. Wolverines are cool. Yeah, they're traditionally there, aren't they, in that area?

In the high country, yeah. Problem with wolverines, we've gotten to this a couple times, it's just they're a hard animal to count. How many have you seen in your life? One. That was in Alaska? With Yanni. I saw one on that.

I saw one on the moose hunt that we were at with these guys. It was incredible how much it moved. It was going in where those wolves were. Remember? Oh, you saw a wolverine on that trip? Mm-hmm. Yep. Oh.

It was running from miles away. And I first thought it was like a bear, and it was like running for a couple miles just right to where those wolves were. It got right in to where those wolves were and down in wherever that kill was. Yeah, I've seen one lynx and one wolverine. I hope to grow those numbers.

Do you have any trail cameras in Alaska at your fish shack? I have, not currently. I do, I really should. Just right now, unfortunately, I don't. I'm going to plaster that place next time I'm up there. Would that be a hard landscape to have have game walk within 10 feet oh no when i had one in there it was just i got tons of images of what there's deer and bears that walk right by the uh martin black bears black tails predominantly yeah um no it's a great place to

have them out i just right now don't and i know right where i have some good spots where i want to put them and i'll get some wolf pictures and stuff. Here's a good story. I don't want to get too specific because I don't want to get this particular TSA person in trouble. And I don't want to ruin a good, this is a cool thing. It's a great system.

I don't even want to name the state. Yeah. I'm not even going to name the state. No, don't. It's a good call. Well, it's similar to what we heard a lot of people do at that, wasn't it the Denver show

that we did a long time ago? They wouldn't let people in with their knives yeah and so everybody started stashing knives and they'd go to a rock or was it a down down spouse people you guys goes to put his knife in a down spout and there's already something i love this i buried one out i was somewhere in my wife right now there and they wouldn't let me have my knife and i just buried it in a tree well you know like how they put the trees on the sidewalk yeah i just buried it under the wood chips there when i got it later this guy says he uh he's going through tsa in an unnamed state and he's forgets he has a he has a bench made in his pocket and the lady says well go hide it go hide it in the drop ceiling go hide it in

the drop ceiling of the bathroom the coolest tsa agent ever he says three weeks later he's gone for three weeks so he's departing he's on a three-week trip comes back three weeks later and goes and lifts up that drop ceiling panel and there's three knives up there. That was like the dance battle. He said, I found a knife and pulled it out. Nope, not mine, and put it back. Found another. Not mine again.

And put that one back as well. Third try did the trick. I went home pleased. It seemed like early on, TSA would, or no, it wasn't TSA. It was just like USPS would have like a box. And TSA would be like, oh, right over there, there's a box. There's an envelope.

You can very quickly mail your item that you can't take with you back to yourself. But that's not around anymore. That'd be a great idea we should look into, man, is maybe like at our local airport, like a charitable thing thing where we have a little kiosk so you can mail your knives to yourself. That would be good. You'd get a lot of action. Clay and I were flying somewhere I think maybe up to BC

and he had a knife you could have sword fought with and his shaving kit. That doesn't surprise so classic right next to his coffee table book and fayetteville but it was in fayetteville and they let us call mister to come pick it up and we'd been somewhere else they just confiscated sure took us out back and shot us but because it was so well no they yeah they'll you know it depends how early you are but you always have the option to retreat and go do something with it.

Or you'll run down and get in your check bags, but if they can't pull it up, you just got to ditch them. Yeah, everything. I was with Cal. Now, a pistol. Oh. Different deal. Yeah, my buddy got, I got a couple buddies that got in a lot of trouble over pistols. I told my one buddy, I said, man, if you got a pistol in your bag that you don't know about, they should shoot you in the leg with that pistol.

Like, how do you have a pistol you forgot about in your check bag? Yeah. He had some whole elaborate story to explain it. But I'm like, how do you lose track of pistols? He flies. Buddy of mine flies to Vegas wearing this coat that he's got on. They're coming back through, coming back home. And then something goes off in his pocket.

And he's got two.22 rounds in his pocket. And, man, it was like cavity search and everything. Yeah, I had to do that. But it was the same. He went out there. It was never detected when he was coming back. It was in there. When I had a shotgun shell on me, their attitude was, you dumbass.

It was like, now we got to do all this stuff. I said, man, we were ptarmigan hunting and blah, blah, blah. And their attitude was very much, I get it. Obviously, you're not going to try to take the plane down with a shotgun shell. Right. But now we got to do all this dumb stuff. And it's really irritating that you carried that shotgun shell on here. And just bear with us.

But you're really annoying. You're causing us paper yeah it was kind of like it was very much like there was no like actual suspicion it's like oh brother now we gotta go through the whole shotgun shell deal that was at the end that was at the end of the shift those folks were hot they were trying to go home when my buddy got hey when my buddy had his pistol he winds up needing to go to court, you know? And he gets a very, like, after everything came out, he gets a very lenient deal, and he says, he whispers to his lawyer, ask about the gun.

His lawyer says, forget the gun. You're not getting it back. Oh, man. A guy wrote a very spirited thing about my theory on the morality and Cormac McCarthy being naive and juvenile. I'm not going to read that. Another guy wrote in. Oh, come on, Steve.

It's just a lot. It's like I studied literature in school. Well, no, he's rather pedestrian and short-sighted. He says, sure, some of his later more obvious works, yes, but it's not... My theory does not hold up to his earlier works.

That's a fair point. Old Tommy sayings, guy wrote in because I was trying to get that saying going, a fresh set of eyes always find more beans. He says, man, me and my buddy's got a lot of those. Always leave a log for the next camper. That's good. Some are dumb.

Got to give a pisser some space. No. No. No. Never judge a game by its box. That's for people that don't read. Something I don't get, when two fur traders throw down, they get naked. You used one today I've never heard. Sometimes a sheriff's to shoot his deputy.

That is wild. Moss is unclimbable. What did I say today? You said he had his lipstick on. Lipstick out. Lipstick out. You were taking lipstick and twirling it in? Yeah, sure.

I assume it's like people use it about dogs. It's quite graphic when you think about it. Yeah. Use it about dogs? I assume that's like when people mostly use it about dogs. Sure, yeah. I'd never heard that, though.

You know what else? I got what you were saying, though. It picked up very quickly. You know what else? If I had to go to one of those things where you trip, you know, to try to find out what's deep in your mind, I remember when I was a little boy, man,

coming running into the house. We had this dog, Bobo, this rabbit dog, Bobo, coming into the house. Bobo's guts are hanging out. Oh, last thing, then we're going to be done. This pisses me off. Oh, no, there's two things that are good. This one burns me up.

Listen, when we had Evan Felker on from Turnpike Troubadours, and we were talking about him and the Bird Hunters, which is a beloved song, it's a great song, and I'm talking with Evan Felker about the fact that he throws out that the guy's holding a Belgian-made Browning. Yep. And I said to to him as a songwriter i like these little references do you worry though that a reference might be over people's head and i bring up there's a there's a luke combs song where he says that the guy has a Johnson outboard.

When you select that, the guy doesn't have a Honda outboard. That's different. You're setting the scene. He's got a Johnson outboard. He's an older fella. He's got an outboard that's not even made anymore. It takes a certain amount of effort to keep the old thing running. It's just a different you know. He doesn't say he's got a

four-stroke Honda. That's like not the guy. It's this guy that's like loyal to his wife right whatever and he's got this old ass motor. So you're setting a you're using a detail setting a scene and I was pointing out that you do that and it

might be that 60 70 80 percent of listeners don't know to bring it back to corinne mccarthy corinne mccarthy's saying that someone rode ahead with the horn of fire how many people read that and never ever ever know what he's talking about yeah but the the people that know love it you're like fan for life. Talking to me. You got it. Yeah, so I brought up to Evan Felker that idea about these little details that mean a lot to a handful of people, but you run the risk of it being over people's heads. And then multiple guys write in being like,

can't believe Steve didn't see the significance of a Belgian-made brownie. That's not what I was talking about. I wasn't throwing myself in with those people i was just saying that there's a risk right of being too esoteric that i appreciate the risk taker take that andrew and jan hey wait a minute let me add let me add my nephew to that list matthew my nephew matthew he Matthew, my nephew Matthew, he works for ICE down in Louisiana.

For ICE? Like to drink? Nope. For customs. Oh. He says, I just finished listening to Elvin Felker

interview on media. Aaron L. actually gave him some crap about mentioning that Belgium made brown. I did not. My old man, listen, my old man had what he always said was a Belgium made brownie.

And then we looked up the serial number. It was not a Belgium made brownie. Where was it made? Huh? Where was it made? It must have been a mom of 11. Where'd they move them to? I don't know.

It just wasn't. He always says, it was actually my mom's dad's. It was my maternal grandfather's autoloader that somehow my dad claimed. I don't even know who the hell's got it now. It was my mom's dad's goose gun. And my dad always said, that's a Belgian made Browning. It's a Belgian made Browning. So that, I mean, that was 20 minutes before we started this. So I took a picture of him, of you and sent it to him while you were on your computer.

Said, you want me to punch him? He said, I think you have to. Listen, dude. His name's not Jan, is it? No, it's Matthew. Right at the bottom, Steve, Andrew says, that's the great thing about music. It paints a different picture for every listener. This guy says, the Belgian made Browning reference in the song The Bird Hunters was to signal

to those in the song The Bird Hunters was to signal to those in the know... Dude. You're playing checkers and I'm playing chess, buddy. I know. Steve doesn't play chess, though. Well, you know, metaphorical chess. Metaphorical chess. I know that.

Sons of bitches. Yeah, we must have just not done a great job explaining it in the moment that's all it is it's like that kind of specificity in songs that like grounds it grounds something to reality and like even if you don't understand the reference it kind of it still feels like i don't know more relatable and universal john pratt did a lot of does a lot of that stuff uh ches you ready for chetaket sure i said we're done but we're not done. I feel, though, a lot of people nowadays, could be wrong, don't actually really listen to the lyrics.

The radio songs, you could be mumbling and have a good backbeat and stuff, and it could be a number one hit. Oh, I listen to them lyrics, man. I do, too. Bad. That's what I like. Bad listen to them. Hard. I know. I don't listen to them lyrics, man. I do too. Bad. Bad listen to them.

Hard. I know. I don't listen to the lyrics of a song until I've heard it like 20 times. I'm on like a music head first. That's why I listen to it 20 times. Oh, I'm on more like 20 years. Like, what's the song where he leaves to go to the bathroom and he comes back to bed? Someone's taking his place.

That's Paul Simon. Yeah, forever. I thought that she was shaking his coffin daily. And then Jennifer's like, what are you saying? No, he's shaking his confidence. I was like, oh. Shaking his coffin daily.

Wake up! I'm a big lyric guy man You know I've talked about this before But I haven't talked about it for years So I'll talk about it again I once read that Remember when Diamond Dave

Left Van Halen No I don't Yep And they brought in And they brought in Sammy Hagar Yeah I mean not the doggone Sammy

But it was a horrible day. It was the same. Yeah. So Van Halen, Diamond Dave left Van Halen. He actually went on to become an EMT. I don't know if you knew that. No. Yeah, he became an ambulance guy just because he wanted to serve people a little bit better.

So this leads to one of my favorite quotes of all time, too. Anyways, so Van Halen ditched Diamond Dave. What was his last name? You're blanking on it. Good gosh. People are screaming at their stereo right now. David Lee Roth. Van Halen ditched Diamond David Lee Roth and hired Hagar.

Then later, Hagar got fired from Van Halen. I remember I was listening to Howard Stern, and Howard Stern was interviewing Diamond Dave about Hagar's departure from Van Halen. And Diamond Dave said, you know, the sun's going to shine again for Sammy. He's got that beautiful place in Hawaii. He's got his family.

And Diamond Dave says, but what do I know about losing a high profile career but hagar supposedly would get his lyrics by misunderstanding other lyrics and then he'd find out what they were actually saying and he would just make his lyrics what he thought they were saying which is a great move. But I don't, and I said this before, I don't know how that leads to I Can't Drive 55. Yeah, where'd that come from? Or

Mas Tequila. But still. Last one. Oh no, two ones. Chester, here's a Chattakit for you. Ready for this? I haven't read it, but yep. Well, I'm going to read it to you. I work with a guy who owns a crap load of land.

That's like a hectare. Huge hunter. Last night, a friend of his asked him if he can bring his 12-year-old grandson out to kill a doe. No bucks, just looking for a doe for his first year. Guy says, no problem. Sends him to a blind, confirms, does only. Even says he can shoot a couple does. Just don't shoot the bucks.

Kid kills the biggest buck on the farm. What would you do? I would, I would definitely,, man, that's tough. I would let the kid know that he messed up and he can never hunt here again. I mean, it's. Well, the kid or the grandpa? I mean, both. How old is the kid?

The kid needs a lesson. He's 12 years old. I'd leave the kid out of it. Yep. Well. That's the grandpa's problem. I don, both. How old is the kid? The kid needs a lesson. He's 12 years old. I'd leave the kid out of it. Yep. Well. That's a grandpa's problem. I don't know. I mean, sure.

Could be. It's a grandpa's problem. I have a 12-year-old. I had one a year ago, and I'll have one in a year. It's a grandpa's problem. Yeah. They don't know. Little kids.

Yeah, but. It's a grandpa's problem. How old's your kid? He's way too young to hunt or talk well how old is he he's uh a year okay in 11 years you'll know exactly what i'm talking about yeah but what if the grandma's problem so i would have certainly had a conversation with my 12 year old daughter about what the parameters were about the hunt that we were getting into i'm not saying i'm gonna like be like damn it girl you fucked i know. I'm not saying I'm going to be like, damn it, girl, you fucked up. No, I'm not going to do that.

But I mean, obviously, beforehand, you had a conversation about what you were going to go there and do. Someone needs to talk to that kid. It's the grandpa's problem. It's not that kid's problem. Yeah, I 100% agree. You send your kid to school with some drugs, and then tell me who gets in trouble.

You or the kid kid i don't think that's a good analogy no i mean you that's true i think i think there needs it's a grandpa's problem and the kid's problem too like the kid pulled the trigger we don't know the story how much pressure was there from the grandfather to shoot that buck the kid could have really wanted to shoot a buck i remember when i was 12 years old like i wanted to shoot things man like a big buck holy cow yeah the context is not there i mean did he wake grandpa yeah did the grandpa not see that the gun was trained on it yeah? Yeah. You got one? Oh, my gosh. So I think there needs to be a swift talk into both of these fellas that they messed up. I wouldn't let them take the deer.

Really? No. Whoa. Because you gave them permission to hunt. That's hard etiquette right there, man. You can tell he didn't sleep all night. Dude, you're a nice guy. You're letting them hunt your property you can say

shoot as many does as you want but please don't shoot a big buck and then the guys come shoot a big buck they don't get to hunt the place again you take the buck and you let them know they messed up it's like oh it's fine you guys shot a the biggest buck on the property you know come back whenever shoot those come back at night yeah when i'm asleep okay there's one more it's about stream access law this is a good one as we are aware this is someone writing in as we are aware montana stream access law is below historic high water level. You're kind of right. Mean high water. And if you stay below that, you are free to wander.

He says free to wonder. He's free to wander. Meaning, in Montana, just for you listeners not in the state of Montana, which is the vast majority of you, if you're in Montana and you're on what's regarded as a navigable stream, so there's a history of navigation on that waterway you can walk below the average high water mark meaning if it's in a drought you might be walking across dry ground but you kind of stand down on the gravel bars and you

know below the bank yeah if anybody you anybody pays attention to it, you can see where that high water mark is. There's usually a brush line from high water. You stay below that. You stay on the rocks. Easy to tell. If you're walking on a, if you're walking on a,

if you're stepping on a cottonwood tree root, you're probably not, you're above it. If you're walking on a gravel bar, you're probably below it. Sometimes those cottonwood tree root you're probably not not you're you're above it walking on a gravel bar you're probably below it sometimes those cottonwood roots though however go underneath in yeah that wasn't a good one but you follow me yeah it's a bunch of i don't know you know but you're good if you're up in the grass if you're up in the grass you're probably out of it if you're down in the gravel barn little you little willow patches all full of sediment, and you can see where spring runoff has blown all kinds of brush and trees around,

and you're walking down in there, you're good. So this is a common thing. He climbs in the river channel at a public access. He climbs in the river channel at a bridge, walks through private ground using stream access to access public and he's scouting for deer find some good sign of deer and he says sweet i'm going to get to this public by walking the public access game warden says there's some legality. Can't do that. You have to be efficient. You can't use the stream access law to get to hunting ground. I've heard some gray area stuff with this. Different wardens interpret it different ways,

but let me tell you the fail safe way to do it. Make a couple casts. Make a couple casts on your way in make a couple casts on your way out yeah you have a fishing rod with you you have a yeah you have right of access and i i have done this uh a lot actually but it it's actually a fishing trip too. Like I'll fish my way into a spot, camp, hunt, and fish my way out the next day. I've talked to a game warden about this and he,

where he winds up having trouble with people is they'll do that and they'll get into a position where he's like, there is no way they're retrieving that game. Because they run onto private? He's just like, so you're telling me, and I want to make sure that we're talking about the same thing. You're going to get that in the water there and drag that deer back up this river. Oh, I'm floating. Why wouldn't you just quarter it and walk it out?

Well, that's what he expressed to me. He clarifies with someone, I just want to be clear, this is the plan. Yeah. When you get one, you're going to come in the way you got out of it. You're not going to trespass the whole way back to the truck. Yeah, and that's his deal. And he says, I now see someone, like they don't have any, they haven't thought through how they're going to do this.

And that's what I clarified. There's also the same deal with floating. Because some of these spots you can float in. And technically you have to be fishing too. Even when you're floating to access. The ground. The ground. Yeah.

Is what I've. Because your fishing trip turned into a hunting trip. Fish your way down and be like, oh wow, I i'm gonna go up there and hunt for a minute so there's no law you can't like is it you're not limited to archery equipment or something while you're nothing to do with that no you just gotta have a snoopy rod take a couple casts roger that i mean a lot a lot of areas some areas in in these things are like weapons restricted. So you have to be careful with that. But that's not. But that's a different thing.

That's totally unrelated. All right. Tales from the tour bus. Right here. Thanks, everybody, for joining. Brent, thanks for coming out. How are things going with your show? Oh, really good.

Really good. It's been such a joy. I get a lot of feedback from folks, and just everybody's enjoying it. Met a guy. Walked in the door up here, some guy that works here. He's originally from Mississippi, and he's up here working at the, is it the Folly Theater? The venue for tonight?

Mm-hmm. And he's a This Country Life fan? I always say he loves it. He never misses it. Congratulations. Good stuff. Thank you. Yeah, it is good to hear. Thank you for the platform. It's a lot of fun. Thank you, man. I loves it. He said he never misses it. Congratulations. Good stuff. Thank you.

Yeah, it is good to hear. Thank you for the platform. It's a lot of fun. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. All right, everybody. Have a good whatever. Get a tape measure.

Keep it in your trail cam bag. That would come in handy with that hog. Thank you.