The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 512: The Texas Hog Hunt, Live

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Seth Morris, Ridge Pounder, Dirt Myth, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Hog hunting while podcasting; our gift chapter at the end of the episode from MeatEater's American History: The Long Hunters (1761-1775); lots of whispering; DSD's fight-postured buck decoy; rattling in 21 bucks in three days; turn and burn; hitting 'em with that grunt; a nice muzzle break to Steve's already impaired ear; the coveted pregnant sow; hunting position strategy; the tail tucked in like a G-string; the dog that gobbled up the tarsal glands; St. Anthony, the saint of lost items; that big 'ole bull; Steve's childhood cats, Maude and Fig; the link between cat ownership and developing schizophrenia; stats on wolves killing hunting dogs; naming subdivisions after the characteristics of the land they've replaced; getting into the illegal golden and bald eagle business; Reed's Piano News original outro song for the show; and more.  Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater Merch  See 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.

Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, everybody, we got something really special for you. One, we have a outdoor podcast, meaning our podcast, today's podcast was recorded outdoors. It's the only podcast you can get where someone gets a hog in the podcast. So stay tuned for that.

And then there's something even more special at the end of this very special podcast, because we're going to be releasing for free a chapter of Meat Eaters American History, The Long Hunters, which covers that little slice of American history that occurred between 1761 and 1775 when fellows like the famed Daniel Boone were making their living hunting for white-tailed deerskins in the first far west. So the chapter we're going to stick in is called Gearing Up. It's about the blade tools, firearms, and other implements employed by the famed long hunters.

So enjoy the show. And at the end, again, listen to chapter seven of meat eaters, American history, the long hunters. If you like it and you will, then you can head over to audible or Apple books or wherever you get your

books and pick it up. It's an audio original, not available in print, only available to listen to. Enjoy. Alright everybody, welcome to the show. It's a little different because we have to keep it at a very low volume, which is going to make it hard if I get fired up. You know, the comedian Mitch Hadberg observed that he didn't like camping

because when he got in a fight with his girlfriend, it was hard to express his anger because he couldn't slam the door. And he had to just try to zip the tent real hard. He's like, fuck you. It's kind of like hanging up a smartphone now yeah you can't slam it no i just can't throw it in the old days you'd be like well okay then mom i'm coming home right now you can't do that anymore no and so if i get fired up you won't know the listener won't know because here's the problem we're actually hunting right

now we've done shows ice fishing and you can talk all you want but this is a hunting episode we're we're hunting hogs in texas you could say whatever yeah it's like in texas everything's always open so you know when they say you could probably think of other examples chris gill um when bourdain's kitchen confidential came out they said a rare glimpse into kitchen culture and i'm trying to think of other documentaries or whatever books, is a rare glimpse. Yeah. You can't think of any examples? I mean, almost any documentary. A rare glimpse into, you know, a rare peek.

Behind the curtain. Yeah, this is a rare peek into a Texas hog hunt or deer hunt because we're in Texas. We're about as South Texas as you can get. We're on, what Texas as you can get. We're on. What'd you just do? Nothing. I'm just looking at levels.

Is that a deer? No, it's a fat pig. Oh, it is? Yeah. Oh. Oh, past the cow there. Where is it? How far up?

Way there. Way there. That's a boat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and Corinne remembered. Get a shot of that. You got it. Let's a boat. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and Corinne remembered. Get a shot of that. You got it. Let me see it.

This rare glimpse into a hog hunt involves a borrowed rifle that we've determined... You can't adjust the scope. No, it's maxed out. It's maxed out. So... God, that guy's fat you gotta look you gotta you gotta aim a little high a little left on close pigs now you gotta aim low and low and right oh sorry low and right on close pigs it hits high left uh we're about as south

texas as you can get um the nearest major town is brownsville which is a crossing there's a crossing into matamoros mexico we're closer to raymondville we're on a chunk of eturia which is a very old very large ranch that has been, you know, Eteria is portioned into different ownership. It says on this chair, 1858. Yeah. We're sitting in Eteria chairs from 1858. Just another ride in a cow.

And I'm buddies with a gentleman that whose family owns this part of this ranch that we're on and we've been down here this is a third time I've come down for the whitetail rut so it's a big big place um a lot of it's a big. A lot of Texas properties are managed for deer. Uh, this place, you wouldn't really say that. So there's no feed. They don't, they don't do any kind of feeding. They don't have any deer feeders out. They don't have any kind of deer blinds.

Um, it's not fenced but it gets hunted a bit but it's just real they run cattle on it it's a real chill relaxed very cool property and we've come down here a few times right before Christmas

which is when the peak rut down here is going on and we've come down here a few times right before Christmas, which is when the peak rut down here is going on. And we've had extraordinary success rattling bucks down here during this week. Great success rattling bucks the week before Christmas. This year we mixed it up a little bit because we brought down a DSD. Listeners will know Daveave smith decoys because dave smith was on the podcast we brought down a dsd deer decoy so it's like a fight

postured buck um and over the course of three days we rattled in over 30 bucks there's a little uh lizard eating some sort of caterpillar right here on this oh right there oh yeah oh yeah i was out in a no no yeah brown and all no he's not always different he just shot up i just watched him eat the some sort of caterpillar season's probably in on those it's texas um what was i saying sorry how many bucks you rattled oh rattled in a lot of bucks but this year we use this decoy we actually had two bucks come in and level the decoy come in and attack the decoy and all those bucks come in virtually probably every one of those bucks came in and bristled his hair up and like postured and whether or not they got nervous and left or whatever, but in some way or another acknowledged,

engaged with that decoy, which is pretty fascinating. And got to go pigs. And now we're recording the show. And so we came out to, we're out in a big pasture and we came out to a spot where we're in like a corner of brush. This is real brush country. We're in a brushy little corner

in some mesquite looking out over an open pasture. There's a bunch of cattle out there. There's some horses somewhere around here. I can't see them right now. And a lot of hogs. We picked this corner because a lot of hogs come through this corner, we've noticed. And we got our DSD buck decoy out there, even though we're not really actively buck hunting right now.

I think the pigs are wrapping around. They're about to round the corner. Oh, shit. So just to give you a flavor, Seth's going to go ahead, hit a little rattle. Seth's going to take a couple actual horns. Give me them rattling horns.

So we got a couple. What I'm holding here are two horns off a four-point buck. So two horns off a Michigan 8. And we bone sawed the eye guards, brow tines off it to make it more comfortable gripping. And Seth's going to do a quick little rattle session here just so you can get the flavor for what's going on. 1.5 kg Did you bring your grunt tube?

No, I didn't. You don't have the grunt tube? No. No. Okay, that was the rattle sesh. Now, Seth, give your formula, how you think about it. I just rattle for a bit like that. Every once in a while, I'll give a couple grunts.

But typically, like, if they're within earshot, they're in, like, shooting range within seconds yeah like so as long as you just heard him rattle we'll get to an area we'll creep into an area and get set up and like park creep into an area get set up and usually i would say half of the half of the bucks that show up show up before you've completed oh yeah your first rattle session yep and they they run in and then they like will pump the brakes maybe 40 yards anywhere from 10 to 50 yards from where the noise is you know to try to get a read on the situation it got to the point where like when bucks didn't show up we were like what's wrong yeah it was weird when we

had nothing show up so i do that um depending on the setup but typically three different times. I'll rattle, I'll have a break for about a minute, and I'll rattle again. And I would say, I don't know, 25% of the time, bucks would come in on the second one. And then I would take another break and then rattle for like a third sequence. And I don't think we ever had bucks coming on the third sequence. No. A typical sash, we probably don't sit 12 minutes. Yeah. Because it's like something still might happen,

but it's like I'd rather just go to a new spot. Yeah. That last session yesterday, the third rattle worked, I think. Oh, did it? That was the crazy. Yeah rattle worked, I think. Oh, that was the crazy. Yeah, but okay. It did. You're right. But what's funny is one also came in within seconds. Yeah.

That was just pure chaos. At Dusk last night, we had our best rattle session at Dusk last night and called in four bucks. Now, these are not big bucks. They're like nice bucks, but they're not huge bucks. We called in four bucks last night, and Seth got one with some stickers on them. So he was a 10-point turn 13. Yeah. Like a Michigan 10 that had three kickers.

A genuine 13-pointer. He's a cold deer. Yeah. Super cold deer. Then this morning we went out rattled again and I arrowed one. I arrowed the seventh buck that came in this morning. Yeah. I'm anywhere else.

That's like, it's insane. It's just crazy. How many sets do we have this morning? Was it all this morning? Oh, this morning? Yeah, was it four? I'll tell you. I'll pull up my stats.

Three or four? So here's my stats. On day one, we did nine sets. On day one, we did nine sets. We did nine rattle sessions oh yeah there are two pigs right there and rattled in seven bucks on day two we did 14 we were being turned and burned turn and burn baby turn and burn we did 14 setups and rattled in 21 bucks do way better we were cranking that day everything from four keys

four keys to little basket tens yeah and and and changed the strategy as far as separation got it figured out oh yeah i'll talk about that in one second then today we killed a buck on the seventh setup which was seven setups and killed the seventh buck on the seventh setup seven seven nice today today yeah um we tried a bunch of different ways of going about this uh this little strategy talk if you want to try this um we would set up together okay so the rattle guy and the bow guy next to each other the problem you'd have is is you know animals like you know when people say with turkeys that when you're calling to a turkey that turkey knows what tree you're under yeah and he knows when he hears it from 200 yards away he knows what tree it is and what side of that tree you're on

i read a good line in little big man where a guy was talking about how good someone is at tracking and he said when he looks at the, he can tell what birds flew overhead. So they know where that noise is coming from. So when you rattle and the buck comes busting in he knows exactly where to look he knows exactly where he's looking and he might see the decoy but he's looking from the decoy toward the noises from the decoy to where his noise is he sees the buck the decoy buck but he also is like well where's the thing that was fighting so then we started trying to spread out by a bit what happened i was just a big fat black hawk far out or close no like right there how right there at the tree edge that's right yeah i don't

know can you get a shot of him i don't know oh you know you mean the other side of the thing or our side our side how yards? He's walking out. I'm bad at estimating. He's like at the tree line over there. Here, let me give you a range finder. Just poke out and range him. This place is crawling with pigs right now like you wouldn't believe.

Hit measure twice. Corinne's going to go get a range on him I flipped it turned the other way there you go so what we eventually hit on was if there's any appreciable wind like we would want to go when we first started doing this we would

always think okay you're going to approach the area with the wind in your face of course and then you're going to rattle like like just like setting up with a predator call you set with the predator call you want the wind in your face and you're looking into the wind or crossways knowing that that coyote is going to come and want to get downwind of you but you're looking up when because when he gets down windy it's gonna be too late you're trying to catch him working his way to get downwind that's pretty far I mean for for our iron it's pretty far so So, get a shot of the shooting iron. So, uh... Ah, but that... So what you eventually hit on was,

when those bucks come into that... What's wrong? Oh, right here. Oh, shit, Crenn. How do I plug my ears? My headphones on. Easy, easy. No, no, get a rest.

He's keyed up. Get a rest underneath. He's keyed up. He's keyed up. Chamber the round. Chamber the round. She did. He's definitely keyed up, but he's not going anywhere.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. That's the first time. Corinne just ran off. Pretty sure that might be the first time there's ever been a pig hunter in a podcast. That might be. That just might be. Holy cow. She might have to go.

Might have to do a little. Did you see what kind of hit she got? I couldn't tell. He didn't go down. It to do a little. Did you see what kind of hit she got on it? I couldn't tell. He didn't go down. It was a boar. Oh, yeah. It might have to do a little intermission. All right, we're going to have to pause for a second.

Can they pause? Don't ask me. I got no idea what they can and can't do. That's why this shoot has been fun, because we've just been seeing so many bucks doing buck stuff. Yeah, doing buck stuff.

Doing stuff that you rarely get to see. Ooh! Second shot. Wasn't ready for that. I'll shat my knickers. Yeah, don't. Yeah, that was the second shot.

Assuming that's the same pig. Potentially a different pig. I'd say it's dead now. Yeah, I think we're probably pretty. Probably should send an email to Phil. Yeah. Letting him know. Hey hey phil um gotta chop about hopefully not much longer here we're gonna come back folks i tell you

just chunk of that podcast phil that's probably not usable you know like what does al michaels do you know if they can't go to commercial and there's like a player down or something and they got to just talk. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. Like during a game. They like start talking about stats and stuff and whatnot. Yeah.

You got any stats on hand? Well, the impressive stats. Oh, here's Steve. Steve's come back. Steve said already. How many bucks? Oh, Steve here. Steve just picked up a nice bullet casing.

Here they come. I'm sure they have a story. So do we have a dead pig or what? Corinne's going to tell your hunting story, Corinne. Nice, Corinne. Yeah, well, we'll get to it. I'm curious about that second shot because me and Seth were not ready for it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, we know. That makes three of us. Sorry, Steve. Every day I vow to start getting real serious about hearing protection and i'm like i'm in the middle of being like okay you know get a good that's the experience that i had the other day i'm giving her like a motivational speech where's the experience that I had with Corinne. She did that the other day. I'm giving her like a motivational speech. Where's the pig? It's there. She, it's, it's, we just left land for now.

Yeah. We'll go get it in a minute. Okay. Tell your hunting story, Corinne. Well, we got the first part. Move your mic closer. As anyone who's observing on YouTube could tell that I just abandoned my seat. If you're not watching on YouTube, you should pause this.

Yeah, you should hit a computer real quick. Wait until you get home and watch on YouTube. No, don't say that. Finish this and then re-watch. There you go. There it is. As I was ranging two or three different different pigs one just was like way too close and then i just kind of couldn't help it no and i drew a bead i didn't i didn't make the best shot

even though it was really really close it would have died i mean it's i guess part of yeah she's hit a little far back we found it standing back in there we went in there Dirt found a little blood and we went back in there and it was standing there and then I was trying to explain to Crenn where the head was and she apparently already knew I hadn't put my hearing protection in yet

and that second gave me a nice muzzle break to the to my mostly impaired ear. Oh, I'm so sorry.

Whoops. I was a bit impulsive. I knew it wasn't. You'll notice the head off to the side. Yeah, I feel like if you're at the point where you're telling Corinne like what she needs to be doing she already knows she's already good she's already doing it yeah I think yeah I'm gonna graduate her in my mind up to that position yeah and not like I'm not like I'm talking to my son. I learned that real quick the other day

when I was like, all right, when he steps out. All right, he stepped out enough for her. This is like a pig funnel. It's so much nicer than the other one. I think every time we come through here there's pigs. Do you think they could more could come through now after post?

Guarantee it. Nice. So that even though I said I'm not like a great judge of pigs. You know I said it looked like a little boar. It's not big old sow. But it's like a little boar yeah it's not big old sow but it's like yesterday the one i got uh i got the coveted uh pregnant sow which is when they get body fat what you don't want one is nursing because they you know and that and that's a stop that's that feels

like the of the three we've butchered that feels like the best one oh really this one here that feels to me like really better than yours oh yeah i like and feeling it's this is some lean country here like i said there's no there's no feeders here or anything it's just lean country and uh the pigs here are just bones, you know. My boy got a couple one time. Man, they were just hard to like really get

anything off. Should we get the shooting iron handy? If we go, if you're trying to get a second pig? I'm good on pigs. Do you need,

do you want? I'm good. You good on pigs, Corinne? Yeah. Yeah, we're good on pigs. Okay.

Pig hunt's over. Okay. It's a success. Yeah. Now we can do the podcast. 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 a high-end 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 hand-picked 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. Oh yeah, where was I? where was i talking about oh our setups so this is our finding so far on rattling which we've put in a fair bit of attention to at this point so

let me recap i got a little rattled yeah Yeah. Sorry, you still hear that ringing in your ears? No, not that kind of rattle. I was explaining that we would, at a time, set up together, but they were too keyed in. So then we would try to get a little distance between the rattle and get a little distance between the rattling and the spot and our thinking was our thinking was we were kind of wanting to look into the wind because you were looking at areas that you hadn't already put order to thinking that you know when if the ones that are behind that are downwind aren't coming so you'd look up you know and we're approaching into the wind too so we're approaching into the wind imagine we've disturbed what what's behind us we're now calling to things that we haven't walked through

and to things that haven't gotten our odor and so we would set up like that what we kept finding is um it's thick enough country that they're they're playing that wind from a little ways out and they're showing up consistently downwind making their kind of like almost like running in to a downwind position and then they stop often they stop when they see that decoy they pump the brakes on which is good because if you don't have the decoy sometimes you find they just run through and never stop so we eventually hit on this idea where the rattler sets up downwind from the rattler um the rattler sets up upwind from the decoy so the rattler is 40 30 40 would you say 30 yards 20 yards depending on the setup but yeah anywhere from i would say 15 yards to 30 yards the rattler is 15 to 30 yards from the decoy and the rattler is the decoy is downwind

of the rattler and then the archer wants to set up 15 to 30 down from the decoy, which when that buck comes in and he's, and he's staring at that, when that buck comes in and he's staring at that location where that rattling is or registers the decoy, he's in your zone, you know, and it's thick. So you can't, you know, you can't see everything. You kind of got to pick your lanes, but he's likely to come in and stop 10 yards, 15 yards from where you're at. What's funny is you'd think, well, what happens when the buck stops between the archer and the rattler, which is exactly what we did today. I actually had to take my shot before I wanted to

because if he took another step or two, I would have shot Seth with my bow. Yeah. It would already be a bloody arrow. I'm glad you didn't do that. Yeah. It would have gone through the deer and into Seth. Whatever.

No big deal. Probably not a second pass through. Probably just would have went through the guts. He'd be all right yeah so but it worked beautifully oh yeah i think that that is the system for rattling and thick country running running and gunning rattling and thick country um and it you know what it winds up being it's you know it's so similar to? It's so similar to Jason Phelps elk hunting strategy. The way he likes to hunt bulls is he'll, if he finds a bull bedded or finds a midday bull, he likes to sneak into like where that thing is not, where that thing can't ignore it, where it can't ignore a bugle.

He's not going to go 300 yards to check out a bugle. He's just not. He might bugle in return, but he's not going to get up and go. He's not going to get out of his bed necessarily and walk. But when you rip a bugle 50 yards, he's going to get up. You're in his face. And for running and gunning rattling, um, all you're really trying, like what, what you're doing is you're standing those bucks up and they're bounding in.

I don't know what they're coming from a hundred yards. It's an interesting strategy in any situation where if you knew you had deer, uh, you knew you had a buck bedded anywhere illinois michigan whatever yep if you knew you had a buck bedded that you might approach like that get in there with a buddy get in there and be like when i rattle get ready yeah because we're in his zone yeah and he might be like what in the world's going on you know it'd be fun to try that in other places than here like then it's not gonna be as good it's not gonna be as good as here because no there's so many deer and the buck to doe this seems like there's

more bucks than does yeah there's not it's probably equal but we've definitely seen more bucks yeah it was 100 and it's like prime time all that but it could it would be it would be something that i would try in other situations in other situations yeah you know it's something i would try in other situations is running gun running gun rattling i'm gonna trademark that turn and burn rattling turn and burn. Turn and burn. Yeah. Well, it's also cool being on the ground that close to them. You know, like it's different than being up in a tree.

Being up in a tree is cool too, but there's just something about being on eye level with them when they come in. It's pretty, it's pretty cool. Getting to see every hair that's standing up. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the most surprising things is if you look at the Dave Smith decoy, deer decoy, it's meant to look like bristled. And he, it's got a really interesting texture to it. But when those deer come in and they see that decoy, it's just like, you picture a turkey coming in and seeing a strutter decoy.

What's he going to do? He's going to puff up. He comes in, he's like, right? He comes in at first, like picture Tom coming in where he's like, sure hope no one tries to kill me. Sure hope no one tries to kill me. And then all of a sudden

he sees a decoy and he's like, oh. Yeah. You know, forgets everything. Yeah. Feathers pop out.

Like these bucks come in, they see that decoy and they go into full strut. Yeah. Oh, it's wild. And they have such a strange, they cock their ears back and they they go into full strut yeah oh it's wild and they have such a strange they cock their ears back they start tipping their head two of them started kicking

dirt yeah two of them works two of them work scrapes or made a scrape yeah they're like drooling yeah a lot of drooling and licking their lips man a lot of their lips a lot of it and then they like they look like my kids going into a McDonald's. They go from like a normal deer like walking in to like stop, see the decoy. And then it's like slow motion. Yeah. All the way in. All of his hair standing out and they shiver it.

Yeah. Tail jammed down between their legs like a G string. Second time I used that. Second time I used G string in an hour. Recently, yeah. Not every day. No, I go months without talking about a G string

and I've had two occasions in the last hour. Was it related? Guitar, one of them. One, just the joke. The joke, not my joke, but a joke I heard. I was trying to, I was messing with a guitar and remembered a person, a former podcast guest who I'll not identify, saying the only instrument

I ever learned how to play was a, and I was telling that, sharing that, and then use it again now. His tail tucked in like a G-string. Hair puffed out, shaking, head cocked, and a lot of lip licking. Yeah. And coming at it from all angles. And here's another thing that surprised me.

You picture two bucks fighting. That they're going to hit heads. Well, if you have a decoy that's stationary, you see what the buck would prefer to do. Because the decoy can't turn to face it. So the buck kind of gets like, are you really honestly going to let me do this? And the buck pulls up alongside.

Both bucks had attacked the decoy because it's not turning to meet them right in the ribs. Yeah. Like he's trying to stab it. Yeah. He's like, if you're really going to let me do this, I'm going to give you all eight of my tines

into your rib cage. Is what both those bucks did it's like that it's like the buck knows where it needs to hit the other buck to kill it yeah yeah it's like if you just let the deer do its thing it's like they're like just trying to kill each other yeah but no buck on his right mind in his right mind is gonna actually let another buck do it so you think they always meet head to head but he pulls up alongside and um and they pull up alongside and they stare and one got his head really close but then they when they charge there's no announcement like when they snap and go for it it's out of the blue i feel like that first one kind of pulled up

and almost looked the decoy in the eye for that kind of turn and like eye to eye with him and then went for it i think our decoy eventually started to smell too much like Seth. Yeah. From carry. Yeah. Cause he had to carry. Hauling that thing all over. And they started to get suspicious.

And then we took a guy that uses the DSD deer decoys is telling me when you kill a buck, take the tarsal glands off that buck and rub it into your decoy and then just throw the tarsal glands under the decoy so we got some buck glands but then a dog stole them yeah that would have been cool to see yeah that reaction like pre-rubbing it and post-rubbing it yeah see what what how many more sure yeah there was one buck today that would look like it was going to mix it up with that decoy and uh my take on his body language is he was not buying that smell yeah oh yeah i agree he got close and put his nose out and got his nose maybe three feet

from that thing and his hair just flattened out yeah and. And then he walked off. Yeah. Like he lost all of his. Yeah, it's tough to get that thing odorless just because you have, it's like. You really got to bear hug it to move it around. Yeah, it's not that easy to carry around just because it's like a full-size deer decoy. And I would most of the time just like throw it over my shoulder because I was also carrying other stuff rattling antlers and whatnot um but yeah I think it

if maybe if we had like some sort of spray to like spray it down real good yep and then rub it down with the with the tarsal glands yeah i think if you took a bottle of rubbing alcohol and gave it a little rub down and then tarsal glanted it it'd be badass do they bottle that tarsal gland scent they make do they make sense yeah but i kind of it's just much more badass to rub it with your own deer's tarsal yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a good if you're in a spot where you can get a doe or like an urnibuck stayed or something, you know, like get the, well, the does don't have the tarsal glands though, huh?

No. Yeah. Not stinky ones. And those bucks, oh, we should clarify because you don't come on the show enough. Chris Gill's here. Hi, everybody. And Dirt's here. Hey, dude.

And Corinne. And of course, Seth. Did you notice how many of those bucks stank? Yeah. Like when a buck comes through and then he leaves, it lingers. Yeah. It lingers in the air, man. Yeah.

And that buck that I had kind of to scare, because I thought it was going to hit us. It smelled the whole time. Oh, he got close. I was like, bud, you got you gotta take a bath just a stinky buck yeah i smelled the the drop tine buck that we were after today i smelled him real good he was stanky a lot of different personalities though yeah a lot of different a lot of different responses um it felt we didn't have enough, a huge sample size, but it felt like bigger bucks were less likely to commit suicide. Yep. You know?

Makes sense. More likely to check stuff out. Yeah. More likely to check stuff out. Seth, you remember, you're familiar with St. Anthony to find something, right? Mm-hmm. Okay. Check this story out. So when we just did the live tour,

a guy told me the story that I met at the live show, and then he emailed the story. I said, email me that story because it's a great story. We're talking about, explain St. Anthony. I had never heard of this. I honestly don't know what St. Anthony. He's the saint of lost items. That's what it is?

Growing up, if I lost something, my grandmother would always say, you gotta say, St. Anthony, St. Anthony, please come around. Something's been lost and cannot be found. And if you say that, it's like a little prayer type thing. And if you say that,

you'll find whatever you're looking for. Well, let me back you up on that. This guy, long, it's kind of a convoluted story, but the quick of it is they were out checking trail camps a couple hours from home. Lose the truck keys. Oh. So this guy and his buddy lose their truck keys. And they look and look and look and look for the truck keys.

Trying to call someone and you're proposing to their buddies that like, how about you make a four hour drive? Oh, it's a tough sell. Anyways, they go all the way back to where the trail cam was and the tree stand was. He says real thick grass and vegetation, back and forth. Can't find it. And he does the Anthony prayer. The guy that

didn't lose, the guy accompanying the guy that lost his keys. That's who's telling me the story. He's accompanying his buddy. His buddy's lost his keys. He does his St. Anthony prayer. They're looking and all of a sudden, the guy's phone rings. The guy that lost his keys' phone rings.

So he stops to converse on the phone. And while he's conversing on the phone, realizes that there's his keys. Now, who do you think it was that called the man? His buddy, Anthony. Exactly. Oh, man.

My God. That is good, man. Exactly. Oh, man. He's like, I heard you. Exactly. I'd hold on to that, buddy. Yeah.

I lose shit all the time. There's something about that. Oh, yeah. Something about that. At the end of this episode, you are going to hear chapter seven for free. You're going to hear chapter seven of Meat Eaters American History, The Long Hunters. I'm very excited about this. Oh, you should be.

Oh, I'm like, from what I've heard, very excited. It's perhaps one of the things I used to tell people, the thing I'm most proud of that I made my best work was, uh, my Buffalo book because I was at the height of my powers as a writer. Cause I didn't have any other thing going on in my life. Um, that's all I was doing. It's just for two years. I just worked on that book. My life was really simple. No kids, wasn't married. Was just different back then. Coyotes.

Coyotes. That big old bull. Go out and grab hold that big old bull. That's a big old bull. I actually thought that those big old bull that's a big old bull i actually thought that those were the udders that's just one she's like he's only got one udder oh my god so uh so oh yeah he does got yeah he's got two. Yeah, he's got two. You know? Damn. He's posing for us. God.

Yeah. So, God, it's a stout-looking critter. Man, in this thorn country? Where was I? So, Longhunters is really good. It's really good. I believe it. It's narrated. It's audio only. So, people should understand, it's not a print book. It's an good. It's really good. I believe it. It's narrated.

It's audio only. So people should understand, it's not a print book. It's an audio original narrated by myself and Clay Newcomb, exhaustively researched by Dr. Randall. I'm also excited that you and Clay are narrating it, because when you hear like audio books or whatever, and somebody else is reading it, you talked about that before. It's like it just kind of, it can be a real good or bad thing for the story

here's what we found in working on it is that's not close i feel like we should get the predator call out and bring him in here so oh that's a good point I wouldn't worry about that yet what the hell is that saying oh you know books a book that's meant to

that's written to be read is best read it's best that you read it something that you're listening to is just different so when we made the long hunters like Meteor's American History is meant to be presented something that you're listening to is just different. So when we made the Longhunters, like Meteor's American history is meant to be presented. It's meant to be read.

It's meant to be listened to. It was like built specifically to be listened to, which kind of makes it special. And we do all the narration on it. It's really good. So we're going to put chapter seven, which is called Gearing Up. It's about the equipment used by the long hunters at the end of this episode to further titillate you and prompt you to go and wherever you buy your books and pick your copy up. Download your copy for listening.

Cats and schizophrenia. This is not a book. Real big pivot. Wasn't ready for that. That was kind of like that gunshot, man. An academic study just came out. I felt when I saw this article, I really thought it was meant for Steve's eyeballs. Cat, are you ready for this? You cat man? No, very far from a cat man. You cat man? Dog man. No cat man you cat man dog man no cat man i have well my wife has a cat you're a cat man i'm certainly not a cat man he's a cat you come around yeah he's a cat man i don't touch the cat well seth you might be curious to hear this or not not curious you might be alarmed to hear this as a cat what happens as a cat. I had a cat named Fig the cat. We had a cat named Maud

when I was a kid and Maud had its babies in my dad's boot and ate them all. Oh. We had a cat named Fig and I always like to tell the story that my dad we tamed a stray cat. My dad tamed it by leaving fish heads out for it.

Cleaning fish and leave the heads out. And he loved this cat. I don't know why.'d leave the heads out. And he loved this cat. I don't know why. He's the only cat. Well, he liked that cat Maude too. But he brought Fig over to his buddy who was a hog farmer. And this hog farmer has castrated thousands of hogs. He bought Fig over so that that guy could castrate Fig.

And they cut a little hole in a gunny sack, put fig in that gunny sack, and snaked his little berries out of the hole in that gunny sack. Well, the cat fought him off. He's castrated hundreds of hogs. Couldn't castrate that cat. That cat got out of there with just a little nick and a scrotum and never got fixed.

Because there's no way my dad was going to spend money on that. If his buddy couldn't do it, it wasn't. So that cat just won the battle. And procreated it. And that cat would leave for sometimes. He'd go on like a 10-day hiatus. Oh, yeah. And then he'd come

right down the stairs, come back home. I had a old barn cat named Wild Bill and he would do the same thing. He'd go on like two week walkabouts. He'd be gone. He'd be gone. He'd come back. One time I caught him in a foothold by accident

in a fox set. Oh, I caught my own cat one time. I let him out. Didn't phase him. He'd still go on walkabouts with a little limp. We caught our own cat. We caught our own cat trapping. Was that in a possum set? No, in a foot trap. Possum set. Caught our own cat in a possum set.

Let him out and he just followed us around. He's like, I was wondering where you guys were going to show up. Let him out of there and he just tagged along with us. Oh, anyways. Listen to this thing. Cat ownership and

schizophrenia-related disorders and psychotic-like experiences. Correlate? Correlate to cat ownership. Why? It doesn't surprise me. Why, you ask? Because of something that you may have learned about

listening to this very podcast, the Meat Eater podcast. We did an episode on cat scratch fever. Yeah. Because we had a guy on, Danny Bolton came on. What was that shit called again? Toxoplasmosis.

Toxoplasmosis. That's why pregnant ladies shouldn't clean litter boxes, right? Don't they say that? If you're pregnant, don't. If you have a cat. Danny Bolton got toxoplasmosis from eating raw, I can't remember if it was goat or lamb. It was goat. Raw goat. And so

there's a ton of feral cats in Hawaii. So that cat shit had somehow gotten on whatever and he ate it and toxoplasmosis has been linked to um jackals no what is it jackals oh or is it what's that other wild ass looking dog in africa hyena hyenas right hyenas that have toxoplasmosis are more likely to be killed by lions. They're just risky. Yeah.

People that you're more likely to die in an automobile accident if you've had toxoplasmosis. It removes your fear. Yep. fear. But it also apparently removes your ability to not, can impact your psychological state and toxoplasmosis can link to schizophrenia related outcomes. So when you hear it, when New Jersey cat ladies come to mess with you. Oh, there's a reason why they're, by the crazy cat ladies. Reason why. No fear. So this is after

you ready for the conclusions? This is after they recover from it. Our findings support an association between cat exposure and an increased risk of broadly defined schizophrenia related disorders. However, the findings related to

PLE as an outcome are mixed. There is need for more high quality just never mind all that i like to stick with the narrative i don't want to read all the disclaimers because i want to uh paint a damning portrait of cat ownership it's like mainstream media but in all fairness they say there is a need for more high quality studies in this field because there's some uncertainty, but still. Do you know how cats get, like, because not every cat has toxoplasmosis or you can get. So like, what is it? Outdoor cats or more?

I would imagine that cats that have more of a chance to interact with cats. Yeah. Can get it if you nabbed a cat out of a you know right out of the womb and never let it see another cat it's probably a low likelihood of getting toxoplasmosis yeah i'm a big fan of the book you want to see another hard change yeah i'm a big fan of the book life and death at the mouth of the muscle shell oh me too i love that book and an area that now Death at the Mouth of the Muscle Shell Oh me too, I love that book An area that now sits underneath the water because of an impoundment

But it was a journal of a guy Who spent time at the mouth of the Where the muscle shell flows into the Missouri Like I said, now it's flooded, lays at the bottom of Fort Peck Reservoir And I had talked on the podcast before About the amount of just bloodshed in that book. Well, a guy read it and he made a guy, an audience member read it and built a spreadsheet where he could track all the killings.

This is going to be interesting. You want to hear some totals? Yeah. When you read Life and Death of the Mouse of the mussel shell you will read about 1 474 dead wolves whoa because in that book they're always going out and lacing buffalo carcasses with strychnine yeah wolfing and they'll be like we went to bob's bait and had 24 one day i can't remember what tribe it was, one day one of the Plains tribes comes into the fort and they are mighty pissed because their dogs all got killed. Oh yeah, yeah. And they're like, stop

putting that poison out. Killed all their dogs. 1,474 wolves. 468 antelope. 128 buffalo, 121 Indians, 34 whites, among many other things that are the deaths of

which are described in Life and Death of the Mouth and the Muscle Shell. So that's the number of deaths that occur in his time in his journal. He didn't tell the bears. They did a fair amount of bear killing. Yeah, and they'd be like, we got on to three, and everybody shot a bunch and couldn't find any of them. Yeah, they kill a lot of grizzlies.

Pound six got two. What years does that take place during that journal? He's there in the early 1870s. Something on the muscle shell is hunting this fall up there. And it's that kind of like more north of Great Falls. It's like kind of, you know, sagebrushy gumbo type landscape. Big old grizz print in the bottom of this dried out dry. Really? Yeah. I'll show you the picture. It of this dried out dry. Really?

Grizz track. Yeah. I'll show you the picture. It's kind of freaky. Really? Yeah. They're known to be there. He notices too that you can tell some stuff about migrations back then.

So a real spike in antelope. There's a November 1871, so 103 years before I was born. They killed 223 antelope out of that fort in November. Wow. I remember that part of the book, and it was a big deal. Everybody's going up and killing all the antelope. Thousands of antelope hanging out by the fort. Thank you, Craig, for sending that in.

Yeah, that's cool. 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.

We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater 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 hand-picked by the on x hunt team some of our favorites are first light schne 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. Now, here's another little stats thing. A lot of stats today. We got our buck rattling stats, those stats. This kind of blew my mind. So in Wisconsin, they have a DNR website that tracks dogs killed by wolves.

Okay. This is pretty crazy. So it starts, it must be when they start being able to have the running season. Starting in July 8th. So for instance, July 8th, 2023. Burnett County. One hunting dog killed. Seven-year-old female blue tick trailing hound.

Okay. That's July 8th. July 20th, Clark County, one hunting dog killed and one hunting dog injured. Walker trailing hounds. That was July 20th. July 21st, Lincoln County, one hunting dog killed. Six-year-old female red-boned trailing hound.

The next day, July 22, Bayfield County, two hunting dogs killed, a four-year-old male walker trailing hound and an eight-year-old female red-boned trailing hound. Seven days later, Burnett County, one hunting dog killed, five-year-old male, blue tick, trailing hound. Four days later, August 3rd, one hunting dog killed, three-year-old plot trailing hound. Why are they getting killed in the summer? Because it's wolves killing dogs, running bears. Oh, okay. That's the bear season? Now, I don't know if this is true, but someone's pointing out cutting the hazard

of cutting your hounds loose near bait piles. That wolves are hinting and frequenting those bait piles. And you're cutting your hounds loose near bait piles. And you're cutting your hounds loose in your bait piles. And the minute that thing starts cutting out, baying, or trailing, those wolves are pounding it. So this thing I'm looking at tracks up till December. Now, the running tally.

So in Wisconsin, in these counties in Wisconsin, 25 bear hounds killed and seven bear hounds injured between July and October 2023 in northern Wisconsin. Wow. Jeez. Isn't that something? Yeah, that's a number, man. That's a big number. That's just surprising. Every couple days, all, and it peaks like in that September, October,

and then trails off, obviously, in December. Pounding on them trailing dogs. Dang. I don't even know what I think about that. Yeah, I don't even know what I think about that yeah I don't know trying to think of what I think about that I can see people saying if you like your dogs a lot I wouldn't turn them out on them bears

and I can see someone saying a lot of wolves I don't even know if I want to get And I could see someone saying, a lot of wolves. Yeah. I don't even know if I want to get back into this thing about the bird naming. We can skip that for now. Oh, God, I can throw a quick tidbit in. Well, I'm curious about it now that you mentioned it. What do you mean?

Now that you mentioned this bird naming thing. Did you listen to the show? Not this one. Missed it. Not this one. Which episode is it we recently recently you and cal and yanni have a fight about it and i was i was on your side the ornithological society in the u.s has moved to rename 70 bird species now they will periodically rename a bird. For instance, as I pointed out,

everyone knows there is a blue grouse, but the Ornithological Society determined that blue grouse was capturing actually two distinct species of grouse. So there became out of blue, became dusky and sooty. Yeah. Makes sense.

Everyone knows that the old squaw duck, that's a derogatory term, and many people find that term offensive. So the Ornithological Society came in and surgically took that duck and renamed it the long-tailed duck. Now, they can't tell you what the hell to call the duck, but it's just their take on it. They're not like the god of birds, but the Ornithological Society moved to try to formally rename

the old squaw to the long-tail, therefore moving it away. Just like, I don't know, seven or eight squaw peaks, seven or eight, I don't know, is that probably more? Squaw creeks, seven or eight, I don't know if it was that, probably more. Squaw Creeks, right? Got new names. And I used to live in Missoula, Montana. One of the primary peaks that you'd see looking mostly west would be Squaw Peak. And I remember maybe it was in the late 90s, early 2000s, it became Sacagawea Peak. There's a Squaw Creek near where I live now

that became Storm Castle which seems like something from the Simpsons. Storm Castle. Remember he had Storm King was his snow plow? Oh, that was Plow King. Oh, Plow King.

I like where I'm sitting. Yeah, Plow King. Oh no, that was Mr. He was Mr. Plow and then Barney got into it and he was the Plow King. He was the competitor to Homer. Yeah, like Storm Castle it seems like if you got one of those really bad realtors,

you know those realtors that does when they do a subdivision and then name it for what it replaced? Yeah. So if there used to be like a bunch of elk meadows, you'd mow that shit down, pave it over, build a bunch of houses and be like, I'm going to call this subdivision elk meadows. I'm going to call this subdivision Oak Meadows. I'm going to call this subdivision Cattle Country. Storm Castle, which seems like

a make-believe. It reminds me of White Castle, like little cheeseburgers. A place that has a name. We used to hunt an area called Froze to Death. I'm like, that's a legit name. You can tell that some dude froze to death and that area is Frozadeath. Hanging Woman Creek.

Let me guess. Let me guess. Storm Castle? I mean, there's no castles you're storming. I got friends that just can't, I got friends that can't stomach it and they just, and they can't call it that. Yeah. Uh,

where was I? I felt that this, oh, so they now have done the big play and they're like, no more surgical renaming of things. We're going to just rename 70 birds, any bird named after. Any bird named after a white European,

regardless of what that person stood for or did, gets a new name. And I felt and still feel that one, it's a publicity grab. Two, it's a lot. It's not surgical. It's just blunt. It's like, it just reeks to me of a PR stunt. Someone pointed out, an ornithologist pointed out that where this movement is getting some resistance

is the international ornithology community who feels that this is a distinctly American idea. Yeah. Do you have an example of a bird? Mm-hmm. No. No Um Just go listen to the episode Chris I will and the listeners should too

If they haven't heard it already You like that pitch I'm sure there's birds out there named After The Stellar's Jay will no longer be According to these guys The Stellar's Jay will cease longer be, according to these guys, the Stellar's J will cease to be the Stellar's J.

They'll probably be like the iridescent purple J. Which is great. I wish they would have named that from the start. Yeah. But at this point, it's there. They probably named it Stellar's J because some dude named Stellar, his last name. Because these dudes used to run around naming everything after themselves. Stellar did a J.

He did a sea lion. He did an eagle. He around naming everything after themselves. Steller did a J. He did a sea lion. He did an eagle. He just named everything after himself. Was he a bad dude? I don't know. It's just fallen out of favor now. Like, no one names a new bird their own name, but it was the practice in the 1800s that was a common practice

that you would name. If you scientifically described a species, you would name it. Now the rationale, I said I wasn't going to revisit this whole thing, and here I am. The rationale is they feel that new birders, new birders who aren't of, who are not of European descent, who aren't a male of Western European descent, that new aspiring birders would be turned off to birding

when they saw this crazy, beautiful purple bird feeding on whitebark pine cones, whitebark pine nuts in the Rocky Mountains. And they might be like, good gracious, what a gorgeous bird. I'm so happy to learn about that bird. And they look and be like, Stellar's jail, Jay. I'm getting out of this birding. I'm done birding. I think the people that.

And I don't buy that. Are behind this and using all this energy to go through and change the names of 70 some birds just because they're named after dudes or people if they took that energy and put that into preserving habitat for these birds to live in we we would all be living in a better world. That's my two cents on it. Yep. Yeah, I just... I was with them, and now I just think it's... I'm not with them.

No, no, no. I understood the surgical occasional renaming. I just think that the 70 thing, I just felt like a publicity stunt. Yeah, if it's named after something that's offensive to someone, obviously. I think that was the premise that there are certain people who might or do find offended just by the fact of offended by the ethnicity of someone that named a bird that's that's very possible because i don't know for myself the full you know 70 that have

been that have been listed. That's what they're saying. They're saying that not that you're offended by a specific thing, that you'd look and be like, it's offensive to me that that individual's distant relatives hailed from Western Europe. If that's that, that's kind of the definition of reverse racism, in my opinion. Yeah.

You want to know more something about birds? Sure. Now, every boy dreams of being a, Megan is not every boy. Many boys dream of one day growing up

and being like a trapper commercial you know hunter commercial fisherman like you make your living out hunting yep well these fellas in montana got in that business all the wrong way oh they got into the golden and bald eagle oh I read about this mmm business oh yeah Roro these dudes did some it was an orchestrated thing yeah they were big time mm-hmm over a number of years right yeah so they were selling on the black market pretty good prices. Surprisingly good prices, speaking of birds. Two guys, I don't want to give their name.

You can find their name. They're in Montana, but I don't want to give their name. 3,600. Is the number they... They're indicted on killing for the commercial market 3,600 golden and bald eagles now social media i remember one time we were in missouri no we were in kentucky and i met a game warden in the game we were talking about being out in the field. And I remember he was one of the first people that ever expressed to me

any unease about suppressors. And he was talking about, man, that. You know, I was actually talking to a handful of game wardens. I can't remember which one said what. But one of these game wardens was saying, I really rely on that crack of a rifle. And he said, I'll be out in my tree stand. And pew! Off in the distance. And he'd be like, something about that ain't right.

And he said, I'll be down out of my tree heading over there and catching poachers. And so he's like, with suppressors, I worry about losing that tool. And a game warden said, I don't need to go into the field anymore. I have Facebook so he gains more time in his tree stand oh yeah he can Facebook in his tree so this guy had made this guy had tech so this is not social media but

he had text messaged people he had text messages to the guy, you know, like, basically, what are you doing? I'm out here committing felonies. Oh, yeah, yeah, they texted him. They knew it, man. And another message, he said he was out on a killing spree. They illegally sold on the black market.

The United States and elsewhere. They ran their scheme from January 2015 through March 2021. They sold wings and tails. Does it say how they got busted? Was it like a sting? I can't remember now. What are people doing with the wings and tails?

Just 350 bucks a pop. They were making up to $350 a pop. They were making up to $350. Oh, my God. That doesn't sound... Per bird. That sounds low. A little low. No.

Knowing that you're committing a felony and you're selling it for $350? With inflation? Yeah, but you could probably... With inflation. Yeah, but they're probably... I mean, I'd have to spend more time on it, but I mean, if you got on the right deer carcass or two,

you sit down and shoot a thousand bucks for the eagles. Yeah. And all you're doing is, like, for processing, you're taking the tail and the wings off. Dude, that strikes me as real easy money. you're doing is like for processing you're taking the tail on the wings off it's dude uh that strikes me as real easy money well yeah he could probably go set a bunch of leg holds around the carcass and have a thousand bucks worth the eagle sitting there when he goes to check it you know i mean and i i don't want to say i don't want people to take this the wrong

way but if that guy set up shop southeast Southeast Alaska, he'd buy a private plane. Yep. On a dumpster in Southeast Alaska. He doesn't even have to sit down somewhere. Yeah. So from April 30, 2020 through March 13th, 21. That's a long time. Okay. They sold or offered to sell

the parts of whole birds, the parts or whole birds from two bald eagles and 11 golden eagles. One of these guys would travel from the state of washington out to an indian reservation in montana to shoot in and around a reservation area for whatever reason i think one of the guys lived on the reservation. He did. In one instance, on March 13th, 2021, the two men

quote, returned to a previously killed deer to lure in eagles. Alright, so they'd killed a deer to lure in eagles. Facing up to 18 years behind bars. One of them 18 years and one of them facing up to 15 years behind bars. I'm surprised that's it.

Yeah, but you know what? I bet it would be a lot worse if they hadn't been delisted. Oh, yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? If they had done it in the 70s, if they had done it in the 70s, it'd be... So it's not a federal offense.

It's probably multiple felonies, right? It's probably felony to kill it and then felony to sell it. And then there's probably, you know, if you're going international there's probably... Yeah, and there's thousands. That's a good question. Are they in federal or not federal? How many felonies? Seems like there's a lot of felonies. A lot of felonies. When I think

of a felony, I think of a lot more jail time than that where are they indicted? depends on the felony couple of them deer coming in felt like they were coming into a sting it seemed like no it's federal. So they're in federal. It's a federal deal. You know why it's

federal? Because it'd be Lacey Act. Right. It'd be federal anyways because they're crossing state lines to commit a crime. Because it's a symbol of the nation. Well, because of... Seems like it should be federal. Yeah, well, it would be picked up as federal because

when you commit a state wildlife crime when you cross state lines to break a state's wildlife law it becomes federal yeah like if you kidnap someone and drive them across if you were to kidnap someone in in texas and drive into oklahoma you you're now that's a federal charge ceases to be state and goes federal so because of the Lacey Act they're moving wildlife parts across state lines and it became a federal

U.S. District Court one of them was a shooter and one of them was a shipper one of them was from the yeah one of them lived a shipper. One of them was from the, yeah, one of them lived on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Hmm.

I wonder if they thought they'd get around it somehow by being on the reservation. I'd have to read more. If he's a tribal member, they might have thought they were covered by something and I don't really know why they're not. We'll do a better job

reporting on this next time we're out. Next time we're out hog hunting. I haven't seen any other pigs come in. Sorry about your ears everyone. There's some way out. And then they're all out left over there a couple hundred yards.

Recent news story about the schizophrenia, cat ownership and schizophrenia. We recently covered a, we found out, I've been real interested in people dropping stuff into toilet vaults and then going in there and getting stuck in there. Oh, at like National Forest spots? Fishing access.

So it seemed to be a real magnet. Oh, that's where the most of them happened? So I'm going to say this. I'm going to say to you, Chris, I'm going to say, did you listen to the episode where we had the guys on who rescued someone from a vault toilet? And you're going to say, well, no, not that one. I had not listened to that one.

I don't do a lot of podcasting so i got a fresh baby that might have preceded her though no it did so again uh there's a there's a high pro a case of international significance where someone got stuck in a vault toilet and got rescued then later a woman got stuck in a vault toilet trying to fetch her watch out of there and they couldn't figure out how to get her out because they were trying to take her up through the toilet seat oh but one of the responding officers had listened to the podcast so he knew he's like hey i listened to a podcast about this you can actually remove the pedestal and fish the person right out

of the hole beneath the pedestal save the day we've saved I don't know how many lives tourniquet stuff I keep expecting like you know when you get that presidential commendation dude medal of freedom someday

I'm going to be down there i'm gonna be down there at the state of the union address and like trump's gonna be like tonight we're honoring and it's gonna be it's gonna be us about tourniquets and how to get people out of vault toilets um so there's then there's like a rash of these vault toilet tragedies near tragedies uh so we're gonna close because oh back to this so we realized some i don't know who found this guy there's a guy that sings the news he's so. He takes news stories and writes songs so you don't have to read the news. You can just listen to his songs where he covers the news with piano accompaniment. Oh, that sounds great.

Reads piano news. Reads piano news. So he writes a song about the news story, puts the news story up on social media on one screen, and then the other half is him performing his song about the news story up on social media on one screen and the other half is him performing his song about the news so he did the news on this vault toilet issue um and he says uh it starts with him saying if i dropped my watch into some public excretion i say that's it for me dog and he has done one we're going to close with it uh our license on the very controversial ride on by christopher Denny has expired.

And Corinne, rather than renewing our, rather than forking over our few thousand bucks that it costs us to have Chris Denny's Ride On for a year, we're going to switch to only using music that our listeners write and perform. We've gotten a ton of submissions already. Oh, that's a cool idea, man. So, Chester the Midwester, we used some Doug Durant. Dirt, send one over. All right.

Oh, yeah, you got to here. Dude, Dirt, send one over, man. I will. Yeah, I will. And if you're not all musical, you could do like spoken word poetry too. Yeah. The music is nice.

I do like, I started listening to that dude. Like Henry Rollins? I take that back, everybody. We need the music. So for 2024, we're only using listener-sourced music to close the show. And we're not going to tell you who's doing it every time, but every time you'll find it in the show liner notes.

And we're only telling you who's doing it now because we're kicking the whole thing off. So this is the first one off. And we commissioned this. We commissioned it. We sent him, hey, you like singing about the news? Why don't you sing about cats and schizophrenia?

So he composed original music. If you don't like to read, even though you already heard the story because we just talked about it, let's just say you hadn't or you skipped that part.

Here now, you can hear the news saying to you. Oh, but he riffs off it. And part, here now, you can hear the news saying to you. Oh, but he riffs off it. And it, you know, Siamese cats are involved in this. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Schizophrenia, Siamese cats. You see where this is going. Oh, yeah. So, dig in. We're going to go gut Corinne's hog. And stick around for the chapter of the song. And after the song yeah oh shoot man

how many people are we gonna lose because they're gonna hear the end music and turn it off and not already told them about it guys just stick around you gotta stick around that long hunters thing is gonna be good man do reads piano music and then stay tuned for chapter seven of meat eaters, American history, the long hunters, 1761 to 1775. And remind you what comes after 1775? The revolution. 1776. Yeah.

So if you're wondering like why those age brackets, you will find out when you listen that why, what did Daniel Boone and the boys who hunted deer, why did their era end with the revolution? You don't know. I have no, I'm going to listen. I'm sure don't know what I found out about him today,

but I'm not going to tell him. because I don't know if his mom listens. Does she listen more than you? She might. Because if not, she's not going to hear it. I don't know if she knows what a podcast is, man. She'll be like, I didn't listen to that episode. All right. Stay tuned for Reed's.

What's it called? Reed's Piano News. Reed's, what's it called? Reed's Piano News. Reed's Piano News, Chapter 7 of Longhunters. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. I think there's two of him And now I'm hearing voices Is this cat safe to breathe? And who's that other guy in my house watching me? Maybe I've got catnip on the brain Last night I think I fought Edward Norton Am I going insane?

Is this real? Or is this a fantasy? How come I bought that cat and now there's two of me? I hear cat owners say, I think I've lost my mind Based upon these studies, I think they're probably right Sign me as if I do or if I don't please I'm gonna need some padded walls and some therapy Before you buy a cat, keep one thing in mind Are you okay with straight cat cats only coming white? Chapter 7

Gearing Up Becoming a successful longhunter required more than steely nerves, a hunger for adventure, and an intimate knowledge of the landscape and wildlife of the first far west. Without the right tools, you were not going gonna last long. In 1769, a large party of long hunters, some 20 or more, assembled in the frontier settlements along the New River in western Virginia. The men had plans to hunt the Cumberland River drainage on the far side of the Cumberland Gap. You'll recognize some of their names. Casper Mansker, the Bledsoe brothers, and John Baker. Two years

earlier, Baker had been on that ill-fated trip to New Orleans where his party boated their hides down the Mississippi, sold them off, and got robbed of their cash on the way home. Despite the obvious risks, the call of opportunity prevailed. Setting out in June, this newly assembled party took the Warriors' path across the headwaters of the Tennessee River. Moving through the Cumberland Gap to the Cumberland River, they then traveled downstream to where Meadow Creek flowed in. That's where they'd set up their station camp, in a spot known as Price's Meadow. If you're looking for that place today, it's on the south side of the Cumberland River.

You can just look for a historical marker near Rubbin' Butts Barbecue. The party broke up into groups of three or four hunters and they got after it. Every five weeks, the groups planned to return to their station camp with their harvests of hides loaded on their horses. The hunt was successful. Within a few months, the party had amassed some 500 whitetail deerskins. But one day, a group of 25 Cherokees discovered their camp while the men were out hunting. The Cherokees stole the long hunters' cash and some of their gunpowder. They also took off with some clothing, pots, and kettles.

With what little gunpowder the long hunters had left, continuing to hunt would have been futile. So Isaac Bledsoe rode back to the settlements with some of the men to resupply. Upon their return, the hunt resumed. The men hunted until April of 1770, when half the party hauled a packed train of deer skins and furs back east. Casper Mansker and the remainder of the long hunters stayed behind. They decided to build two boats and two trapping canoes, which would have been made from bark sewn over a frame of lashed saplings. They also made use of a third boat that had been abandoned on site, perhaps by French hunters or traders. The hunters loaded up their hides and meat and gear and started to head downriver to the colonial settlement of Natchez on the Mississippi. This was an incredible journey

of hundreds of river miles. The men would have canoed down the Cumberland River to the Ohio, down the Ohio to the Mississippi, and down the Mississippi to Natchez. At French Lick, the present-day site of Nashville, Tennessee, they saw what was by all accounts the largest number of buffalo and wild game they had ever encountered in any one place. After killing a few of the animals and using their hides to cover their open boats, they continued downriver until they reached the mouth of the Cumberland. At this point, the men were dealing with some spoilage in the bear meat that they'd harvested back in the Cumberland River country. Not surprising, given the length of their journey and this being the warmer months of the year. So they decided to convert some of the bear meat

into bear grease. To do this, they would have discarded the lean red meat and retained just the fat. They'd then simmer the fat in kettles to separate the oil or grease from the solids. The valuable grease would have likely been sewn into sacks made of deer, elk, or buffalo hide. During this process of rendering bear grease, they get robbed again. A war party of Chickasaws makes off with their guns and ammunition. At this point, you'd be justified in assuming that this long hunting party would come to an end. I mean, enough bad luck is enough, right? But it does not come to an end.

The Chickasaws didn't take the white men's oils or furs so the hunters continue downstream and they eventually are able to sell their skins and bear grease in natchez after the sale some of the men commence their journey homeward but casper mansker stays a while in natchez likely because he seems to have gotten sick. Upon recovering, he too sets out for home, traveling upriver in a boat with John Baker. The two men eventually join up with a party of horse traders who are heading overland to Georgia. Mansker and Baker then break off from the horse traders and cut north through East Tennessee and then finally onto the New River likely arriving in late summer or early autumn after

more than a year away from home now that is what you would call a long hunt there's a lot to take in about that story one of the main things that might have surprised you was the way the Native American hunters took some supplies from the hunting party that they saw as trespassers, but they didn't take everything from them. In the following chapter, we'll be talking about why something like that might happen. But what we're going to dive into here is the critical nature of those supplies and equipment used by the long hunters. From guns and ammunition to knives and hatchets, we're going to cover the gear that allowed them to do what they did.

We'll begin with one of the most iconic pieces of the long hunter's kit, the Kentucky rifle, also known as the Kentucky longle. Not only is it central to their adventures, it remains one of the most legendary guns in American history. The rifles weren't just renowned for their function and aesthetic. These were the first uniquely American firearms. We're going to get into some finer details about these guns but let's first cover the very basics the long hunters hunted with flintlock muzzle loading rifles we'll get to the flintlock part in a few minutes but let's first look at what specifically a muzzle loader is by talking about what it is not if you look at your standard rifle or shotgun

that you're going to use for this year's deer or duck season, you'll see that the shell is loaded into the breech of the gun, meaning it's loaded into the end of the barrel that you're standing at, not the end where the bullet comes out. Well, that's the defining feature of a muzzleloader. A muzzleloader is loaded from the muzzle end or the front opening of the barrel. And these guns weren't loaded with complete cartridges that combined primer, gunpowder, and a lead projectile in a brass casing. Instead, the load, or shell as we call it, was assembled by the hunter inside the barrel.

First, a hunter would pour a charge of loose gunpowder down the barrel. They could measure it out or just take a good guess and free pour it. Then they'd take the bullet, which was a simple lead ball, and wrap it in a patch, a greased piece of fabric or thin leather that cradled the ball, like how a Hershey's Kiss is cradled in its wrapping of aluminum foil. That package of ball and patch would be shoved down the barrel with a ramrod. It was a pretty tight fit. Now, it's important to keep in mind that all Kentucky long rifles were muzzleloaders, but not all muzzleloaders were Kentucky long rifles. And it's also important to note that the long hunters journeying into Kentucky wouldn't have said they were carrying Kentucky long rifles.

That name didn't take hold until later, in the 1780s, and in fact, it was something of a misnomer then, as the rifles would be more accurately associated with Pennsylvania, where they took on their defining characteristics. You'll actually see them referred to as Pennsylvania rifles here and there in the historical record. So this can all be a bit confusing. Whether you call them Kentucky rifles or Pennsylvania rifles, these iconic weapons derived from a predecessor weapon that arrived in North America with distinctly European roots. That early gun, the Jaeger, was shaped by a combination of two key design features. One was German and it's called rifling.

Now we mentioned this word a minute ago and it's important as rifling is where the word rifle comes from. Rifling refers to the spiral grooves that are cut into the inside or bore of a rifle's barrel. Historians disagree on how this innovation came to be, but regardless, rifling is what gives a slug or projectile its spin. Just like a good spiral pass with a football, a spinning projectile is stable in flight and thus much more accurate. We just explained how a muzzleloading rifle is loaded with the fully assembled load of powder, patch, and ball crammed down the end of the barrel. Well, the only thing left to do in order to make that gun go boom is somehow ignite the gunpowder. That's where the term flintlock comes into play.

The flintlock ignition system was a design tradition that came from the French, or rather, it exploded out of Paris with much enthusiasm. This ignition system replaced earlier, cruder mechanisms designed for the same purpose. The flintlock system featured a spring-loaded hammer that was fitted with a small chunk of flint held in place by a clamp. Pull the rifle's trigger and the hammer crashed down on a hinged piece of steel that flung open to reveal a small pan of gunpowder. In a synchronized bit of wonderment, the flint hitting the steel created a flash of sparks that landed right into the now exposed pan of powder, igniting it. The flames from this ignition would jump through a touch hole in the side of the

barrel and ignite the much bigger load of gunpowder within. Bang, or rather, boom, out comes the lead ball, spinning smooth and fast thanks to the rifling. As an aside, when you hear somebody say a flash in the pan to describe something short-lived or less than promised, that's where the saying comes from. A little blast of powder that failed to ignite the main charge. When German gunsmiths, the pioneers of rifling, adopted the French flintlock, the result was this rifle known as a Jäger. Now, for you connoisseurs of Jägermeister, that's German for hunter. So how did we get a uniquely American gun from this European lineage? Well, Jägers came to North America in the 1700s with the German immigrants who would settle in the Lancaster Valley of Pennsylvania. Lancaster became the largest western town in colonial America,

and as it grew, and as folks migrated from there down through the Shenandoah Valley, those gunsmithing traditions spread. Now, keep in mind, these guns back then, these muzzleloaders, were entirely handmade. Every spring and screw and piece of metal no matter how small was built by the hands of an individual gunsmith there are an infinite number of little details we could get into about this process but here's just one the barrel started out as flat pieces of metal basically long flat bars that were actually hammered into cylinders. The hole in the middle of one of these cylinders would be smoothed, polished, and rifled. We'll

explain that in a minute too, with nothing but crude hand tools. The making of these rifles was an intricate expression of the finest craftsmanship. And these designs evolved not in a boardroom or in the R&D lab of some company, but in the hands of individual gunsmiths working on individual guns informed by the feedback of individual customers. Two further innovations took place that would turn the Jaeger into the Kentucky rifle, and they both happened in the new world. One was a lengthening of the barrel, which would typically be 40 to 48 inches long. The iconic long barrel gave the charge of powder more time to fully ignite, increasing the shot's velocity, and the longer trajectory out of the barrel also increased

accuracy by stabilizing the projectile's path. The second innovation that defined the Kentucky rifle was a shrinking of the bore size which meant the gun fired a smaller projectile. European guns at the time traditionally shot larger projectiles, up to 75 caliber or more, meaning a sphere of lead about three quarters of an inch wide. For a long hunter in particular, there was an obvious advantage to the smaller boar. It helped reduce the amount of powder and lead they needed to carry with them into the backcountry. Back in those days, they weren't talking in the same caliber nomenclatures used today. Their common unit of measurement for bore diameter was how many balls for a particular rifle could be produced from a single pound of lead, which would translate roughly to how many deer could be killed with a single pound of lead. Think of a modern day conversation about fuel economy in cars. Someone might say,

my car gets 25 miles to the gallon of gas. Well, a long hunter might note that his gun got 48 shots to the pound of lead. One source described Pennsylvania rifles in general as firing, quote, a ball no larger than 36 to the pound, which would be a 53 caliber, meaning a bore diameter of 0.53 inches, so just barely over a half inch wide. For comparison's sake, a roughly.45 caliber rifle, which was preferred by most long hunters, would get about 40 to 48 balls per pound of lead. I'll point out that this balls per pound of lead measurement is actually where our contemporary shotgun gauge system that we use today comes from. When you hear a shotgun described as a 12 gauge or 20 gauge, that's a reference to how many lead balls of a particular diameter you can make out of a pound of lead. Meaning, if you cast 12 spherical lead balls with the diameter matching the diameter of the barrel of your 12-gauge shotgun, they would add up to one pound. Likewise,

if you divide a single pound of lead into 20 equal spheres, those spheres would be the bore diameter of your 20-gauge shotgun. The long hunters and their contemporaries thought of rifles and ammunition in this way, balls per pound, because they weren't carrying a set quantity of round balls or bullets into the backcountry. They were casting these projectiles themselves out of bars of lead. This was the most efficient means of transporting all of the ammunition they need in the first far west. They hauled their lead in bars that weighed several pounds each. Then to form bullets, they would cast that lead into round projectiles over a campfire

by pouring molten lead into a cast. Achieving some level of consistency was important. Bullets needed to be smooth and relatively clean of creases, seams, and pitting. We can only imagine that casting bullets must have been a frequent activity at the station camps where the long hunters deposited their skins and stored their supplies. Stores of lead and melting ladles, which they'd use to melt and pour their lead, were communal gear that was left at camp, but each individual hunter would have had a bullet cast that matched his own rifle. Keep in mind, these weapons were all handmade by individual gunsmiths, and each had their own unique irregularities and specifications. Another chore required to keep their guns running would have been napping or shaping flint from fist-sized pieces of suitable rock, like chert or obsidian, the same types of rock that Native Americans used to make arrowheads.

This flint, when struck against steel, was what produced the spark. Although we don't have any sort of detailed insight on this point through Lyman Draper or our other sources, we can only imagine that the long hunters would keep in camp a store of chert or other tool stone that they could shape into flints. If they did run out, this was one supply that would have been relatively easy for them to source out in the field. Gunpowder was something else long hunters might have known how to produce on their own in a pinch. It could be made from a concoction of bat guano, sulfur, wood ash, and a dousing of their own urine. But all available evidence suggests they simply purchased powder back in the settlements outside of the most dire circumstances. High

quality gunpowder imported from Great Britain and her other colonies was readily available, and it was cheap, so cheap that domestic manufacture of gunpowder in the colonies that became the United States was not economically viable. There were exceptions in periods when trade was interrupted or when Great Britain was in a state of war and restricted the supply of gunpowder going outside of its borders. But generally, gunpowder in the colonies came from overseas and it was abundant. Accounts frequently mention that the long hunters set out with large supplies of lead and powder. They'd transport this powder and store it in their station camps in larger containers, probably small kegs, but individual hunters would carry their powder in the field in a powder horn, another essential piece of gear. Made from the horn of

a cow or buffalo, it would be fitted with a stopper at the pointy end and used to pour a charge of powder down the muzzle of the gun. As we saw at the top of this chapter, those supplies, along with the rifles themselves, were sometimes seized by Native Americans when they ran into parties of white men hunting on their land. The long hunters' rifles made an attractive prize because they were way better than the type of guns, the so-called trade guns, that were in wide circulation among Native people. These trade guns were smoothbore guns or muskets that were produced relatively cheaply in Europe and were frequently traded with the Native Americans by the colonial deerskin traders in exchange for deer hides.

Smoothbore guns had smoothbores, so none of the rifling or spiraling grooves that gave the Kentucky rifle its accuracy by forcing bullets to spin as they exited the barrel. But smoothbore guns could be loaded more quickly and, again, could be produced more cheaply. You could outfit an army with smoothbore guns for less money. So they were around. But when Native Americans ran into parties of long hunters on their traditional hunting grounds,

they would often take the opportunity to, let's say, exchange those smoothbore guns for the Long Hunters' Kentucky rifles. We'll be hearing more about this interesting dynamic of theft and trade in the following chapter. There's a lot more to say. To get back to the elements that comprise the Long Hunters' kit, other than their rifles and necessary paraphernalia, the cutting tools carried by long hunters were the most essential pieces of gear they had. Many would have carried what was then called a clasp or folder knife, what we would today just call a pocket knife or a jack knife. They also carried

larger fixed blade knives commonly described in the historic record as butcher knives or sometimes scalping knives. Six to ten inches long, they were used for all manner of purposes, eating, skinning, fighting, whittling, carving, and yes, at times, removing human scalps. Most blades were imported from Europe, typically without handles. The owner would fashion and attach their own some surviving examples from this period have handles made from deer antlers these would have been in ready supply given the occupation of the long hunters and if you hear of a stag handle knife that's what they were talking about the antler handle modern blade steels are much stronger than what they had around then, and our knives hold a sharper edge than could be expected of the blades carried by long hunters.

This meant they would frequently need to sharpen their knives, quite likely with stones found nearby. A smooth and wet river cobble would have been an adequate tool to sharpen the soft steel that was in use back then. As ubiquitous as these knives were, a small axe was just as critical to the longhunter's kit. Some folks might use the words hatchets, belt axes, and tomahawks interchangeably today, but to the longhunters, there were key distinctions. Longhunters like Boone would have carried a belt axe. These were hung from the belt or carried on a shoulder strap and secured beneath the belt. They were smaller than what you might be picturing, maybe 12 inches or so overall and weighing less than a pound. The head of the axe had a squarish appearance. The pole, the end opposite the bit or cutting surface was flat and rectangular and could be used as a hammer for any number of tasks the eye or the opening in which the handle was seated

was a tapered oblong shape as they would with a knife the owner of a belt axe would commonly need to haft it or put a handle on it themselves. These belt axes were different from a round-pulled, round-eyed trade axe, that sleek, distinctive profile we would most commonly call a tomahawk, and from the long axes these men would have carried on their horses for use in shelter building or other big projects. We can certainly imagine that when Casper Mansker and his contingent decided to build canoes for that long ride down river to Natchez, they would have

used belt axes to peel away the sheaves of elm bark used for the holes of the boats. For butchering bison and elk, setting traps, shaping and pounding stakes for shelter, and any number of other tasks in which long hunters had to reshape some part of their environment to better suit their needs the belt axe was indispensable when it came to equipment long hunters needed practical utilitarian items that served multiple purposes and that they could repair themselves they had had to shoe horses, do leather work, and build all manner of items necessary to the hunt, such as canoes, shelters, and fur and hide handling equipment like fleshing beams and stretching boards. Steel traps cost six to eight dollars

a piece back then, making them one of the most significant costs of a long hunt. Tuning and repairing traps required the skill set of a blacksmith, as they often needed to fabricate trap parts, including pans and triggers. Gunsmithing skills were essential. Boone and likely other long hunters could skillfully restock a rifle, repair and replace parts, nap flints for the ignition system, and generally troubleshoot any issues that arose with a rifle while on the hunt. Among the tools they would bring were files, bellows to heat up the fire for metalworking purposes, and what they called a hand vise. Also known as a gunsmith's vise or a clock's vice, a hand vice was used to hold small objects being worked on.

Picture a large pair of tweezers with wider jaws or the type of pliers you'd use for putting seams in sheet metal. The jaws were spring-loaded and tightened with a wing nut and screw. Longhunters also traveled with what's called a screw plate, a plate of iron with different size thread holes cut into it, forcing a piece of metal through the holes that would impart an external thread to a screw's surface. If you've done some basic machining, you're probably familiar with what it looks like to tap a hole using a cutting implement to create or clean up internal threads. This is a bit like the inverse of that process, and they would have used it to fashion replacement hardware for their rifles or traps. It's remarkable to consider that the long hunters and other travelers in the

backcountry were actually fabricating metal parts. Today, you might bring along a multi-tool on a long backcountry hunt. These guys were bringing along complete miniature workshops. Auls, which were tools used to punch holes in leather, were another vital piece of equipment often mentioned in the sources. These would sometimes fold out from the backside of a clasp knife. The reason the awl was so indispensable is quite simple. In addition to being metal workers, occasional gunsmiths, and woodworkers, the long hunters were also cobblers. And that's because one item that would have been in constant need of repair or replacement was their footwear, the moccasins they fashioned from elk and buffalo hides.

You'll recall that these elk and buffalo hides were thicker and heavier than the deer skins that were the long hunter's primary target. These thicker skins made for more durable footwear, but they still required constant maintenance. A pair of moccasins might only take a long hunter a few hours to make, but repairing them was probably a task that required near daily attention. We do know that anyone spending time outdoors in this time was very much aware of the risks of getting cold. One source describes hunters in the late 1700s as apprehensive of rheumatism, a term then used to describe rheumatoid arthritis. They blamed rheumatism on cold feet and slept in their half-faced shelters with their feet to the fire in hopes of warming them and drying out their

moccasins. It's probably safe to assume that many of them had circulation issues and numbness from wearing wet moccasins year round. But every mile in wet moccasins and every cold night was endured with a single objective in mind. Henry Skaggs, Daniel Boone, Casper Mansker, and their companions weren't simply equipping themselves to survive the first far west, although that in and of itself was not an easy task. Their tools were all a means to an end. They had a very specific labor-intensive purpose to their travels, producing deers skins in large volume for the commercial market.

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