The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 524: BONUS DROP - A Buck-A-Day South of the Border

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Paul Neess, Jason Phelps, Matt Cook, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris. Topics discussed: The “whitetail industrial complex" and Jani cutting down trees to create a little wildlife nest; Dirt’s grandfather’s chapstick of choice: his very own earwax; Bible verses that reference hunting and trapping; playing it safe with God and the Old Testament; the correlation between reported Bigfoot sightings and bear populations; BLM land opened up to solar energy development; Steve’s plan to use imminent domain to seize urban areas and sports stadiums for solar development instead of on undeveloped landscapes; controversy around how the king salmon of the Gulf of Alaska are headed for an ESA listing; how orcas pull on America’s heart strings; upset around listing sturgeon; the “buck a day” mantra in Sonora, Mexico; DIY steps for how to make a turkey foot giving the middle finger; and more.  Outro song: "Flash in the Pan" by Lane Farrar  Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee 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 dot com. He's getting his vegetation management on his place. I said old, mature, closed

canopy, oak forest. He's giving you shit about you wanting everything to look like a park. No. If you can see more 15. Some things are more important. If someone told you you could kill your daughter and make a box be bigger, you're not going to kill your daughter.

No, of course not. Okay. But. Hold on. Is this on? Yeah. Trees aren't. Trees aren't.

Bill, start the mill. Started a minute ago where I said have it start right where I said that Yanni, he would kill his daughter to make a bigger buck. And then we'll pick up where we need to be. So now you're saying that my daughter is of equivalent value to a stand of oaks. No, the point I'm making is... We're an individual.

In your drive to make your wisconsin property a big buck heaven to make it part of the whitetail industrial complex you're willing you're already mischaracterizing you're willing to sacrifice you're willing to sacrifice these poor trees that have been there a long time. Would you say that you would be a happy hunter if everyone managed their oak stands to look like a hundred-year-old park? I don't understand the question. Put it in terms of me killing my children. That's not how my brain works. What I'm saying is hunting in America would be extremely different if everything looked how you want it to look.

I understand. I understand. What I'm trying to prevent him from doing is chopping them all down and not leaving some amount of them up. I already told you, I'm leaving some amount of them up. What percent? Less than 10. Low stem density. Slicker down, Yanni. That's

what I say. Just to bring people up to speed who are joining us today, Yanni's been trying to develop a... How many acres? 40. He's trying to develop a, how many acres? 40. He's trying to develop 40 acres of Wisconsin hardwood into, uh,

into a little deer nest. And in doing this, he's going to wildlife nest. And in doing this, he's going to kill all kinds of Oaks, which here's the thing that strikes me. Here's why this is upsetting to me. My dear mother, who still lives in the house i grew up in

um that yard our yard where i grew up was when i was a boy was just giant oaks bunch probably 10 i don't know giant oaks and then then over the years, they have, out of expediency, oftentimes as frivolous of a concern as leaf raking and stick picking up, they have pretty much eradicated the oaks, as has been a general movement all around that Lake. So where once from the air, it was just a Oak canopy and squirrel heaven has been, there's just this movement to like get rid of all these big,

beautiful trees, not for deer management. So when I hear people chopping down all the trees, I go to a kind of a Lorax place. Yeah, but you got to picture all the trees that are going to be there. After everyone's dead. After the harvest.

You have to look to the future. That's one thing that does excite me is when all humans are gone. You know, because we won't, right? Yep. Just how crazy the earth is going to get when it rebuilds in a few million years.

It'll be good deer hunting. Or some other kind of animal. No, because we'll be the only ones to chop all the big trees down. I get timber management. I'm going to move on from the subject. I just want you to just be delicate and be delicate. Nature, listen, if we all die tomorrow, all the humans are gone,

nature is going to come through with a big windstorm, knock all those damn oaks over anyway. And a fire is going to come through and burn that. It's just going to get back to its normal fire cycle. Yanni's just kind of mimicking that through a timber harvest. Yeah, it's interesting. I grew up in a place, and that's exactly what it is. There's been no management whatsoever, lots of old oaks,

but lots of big windstorms, and it's just a jungle now. But the deer love it. I mean, it's a deer magnet. Perfect bedding area. Paul, would you like to introduce? You've been on the show before. I have been on your show, Steve. When was the last time? Paul Neese from Vortex Optics is joining us today.

Yeah, glad to be here. Paul was probably one of the first. Way back. It would be way back. First guest on the show. I can't even remember what the topics would have been we were talking about. Oh, that was back in the day when we were like, let's discuss rifle sculpts and how they work. Probably.

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. I'm still interested in that. Paul, pull your mic up just a little bit higher on your. There you go. That sound better? I level with your mustache. Such as it is. It's this right here. Two fingers.

There you go. Jason Phelps is with us today. Pull your mic up too. Glad to be here. Coos Deer Hunting in the Rain. Joined as well by Starbucks apologist Matt Cook. We have to talk about that.

Glad to be here. I still got some things to say about that. I could get upset all over again. And Giannis and Seth. I could bore you guys. Well. Yeah. Do you ever want to do that?

No, I'm not going to bore you with that but here's something interesting someone wrote in about so we recently had the agriculturalist will agriculturist speaking of land management will harris were you there when will harris was on the show no sir um he runs a large regenerative regener, we discussed with him regenerative agriculture, what that means and some of the practices that go into it. And he talked about, they run a slaughter plant on their farm. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, what was it?

Last oak? No, white oak. White oak pastures. White oak pastures. Not like brush pastures. White oak pastures. But you know, you got to kill a lot of white oaks to have pasture underneath oaks um will harris white oak pastures was on and he was talking about their uh his this grand scale experiment of trying to create a farm where you minimize um you minimize what comes you try to have more

individual control of what comes in and what goes off of the place to the point where they are running their own inspected slaughter plant for the livestock that they sell they sell much of it direct to consumer and then they also are doing their own composting of the uh guts and guts and everything off their own livestock what's the word i'm looking for you don't say guts if you're a livestock man awful the viscera awful awful they're composting their own awful and so they have they use heavy equipment and they use wood chips and other things. And they're able to, after the slaughter, they'll take all of the non-usable animal remains and compost them on site and then use that compost on site. A gentleman wrote in, and this is fitting. Dirt, you were talking about doing a shot of the last

supper can you still pull that off dirt's back here oh dirt while you're doing that um i'm gonna share with listeners a thing that dirt shared with me uh who was not present when dirt discussed his grandfather's chapstick of choice. Oh, yeah. I was there. Not present? Not present. Not present. Okay. Now, I'm going to give you three guesses as to what Dirt's grandfather liked for chapstick. How wild do we have to go? As in flavor?

Just, it ain't chapstick. Beef tallow. And it ain't for sale at the store. Beef tallow? No. Oh, not for sale at the store. I think you? No. Oh, not for sale at the store. I think you can give him a farther hint. There's too many.

His body produces it. Oh, no. Yes. Dirk's grandfather. Oh, goodness. Dinky. Yeah, would dig his own earwax out of his ear and apply it as chapstick. I don't know.

The fact that I guessed that. He must have had very productive ears. That is like. Listen, I tried itstick. I don't know. He must have had very productive ears. Listen, I tried it yesterday. It wasn't bad. He had shiny lips all day. That made a ton of sense. Did you get the shot of The Last Supper? I want to key that up. So,

this gentleman writes in. What's this guy's name? Doesn't really matter. Steven from Illinois. Stephen from Illinois. Stephen from Illinois writes in. As he was listening to our guest talk about composting animals on his own site, it reminded him of a Bible verse. He says an old Bible verse,

but all Bible verses are old. If someone shows you a new Bible verse, be skeptical. An old Bible verse. Any Israelite or any foreigner residing among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten

must drain out the blood and cover it with the earth. Leviticus 17, 13. And he thought about that as he's talking about Will Harris talking about spreading out the guts and covering them with earth. And he wants to know, is this a good practice? And he says, perhaps it's not lawful in some areas to dig dirt up and cover your gut pile but he's wondering

you know where that comes from biblically does it strike someone as a good thing when you get done cutting up an animal in the field that you would go out and cover it with dirt and is that legal I have never heard of any restrictions on covering up

your gut pile with dirt the only con i could think of is that usually um well you know what in some places you have to right probably i mean in condor don't you have to in condo recovery areas aren't you supposed to cover your no am i making this up because of the lead yeah potentially that's probably why that would have been am i making this up there's a place you're supposed to cover your gut pile bury your gut pile i haven't heard it don't know no i think there's somewhere where there was for a while maybe before the lead ban in the condo recovery area you were actually tasked with covering buryingying your gut pile. However, I've never heard any restrictions on it. Yanni will now in times,

I don't know if you still do this, he will drape the hide over just to leave it seeming tidy. Just to make the coyotes work for it. I would think a negative would be in doing this, a negative would be that, you know, raptors will dine on that. And if you're covering it with dirt, maybe make their job a little bit harder,

but it's definitely not going to go to waste. But then he gets into a lot of this other stuff that I've discussed before about why are there so many references in the Bible to trapping and talk about other, other biblical verses that reference hunting. So Proverbs, who can tell me what Proverbs 12, 27? Nobody. Okay. Lazy people, hear this.

Lazy people don't even cook the game they catch, but the diligent make use of everything they find. Hmm? Hmm? That's a good one. Yeah. Now he goes on to say this. I'll provide some insight on this in a minute.

Amos, I didn't even know that was part of the, Amos? Amos? Three, five? Does, it's a rhetorical question I gather. Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? Psalms 91.3. Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.

Proverbs 1.17, how useless to spread a net where every bird can see it. Proverbs 6.5, free yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. And then 1 Samuel 26, 20. Isaiah 51, 20. Your children have fainted. They lie at every street corner Like antelope caught in a net And lastly, Ecclesiastes 9 12

Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come As fish are caught in a cruel net Or birds are taken in a snare So people are trapped by evil times are caught in a cruel net or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Think all that, Seth? I know several times in Pennsylvania I've come back to a gut pile from a deer I've killed and it's been covered up by a bobcat. So maybe they're doing the Lord's work out there. There you go.

All this netting. I've mentioned this before about Revisit. I had occasion one time to go to a thing called... You remember the Chabad house, Matt? You're a worldly fella. I am. Yeah. You've spent time with the Israelites?

No, but they're in downtown fella. I am. Yeah. Yep. You've spent time with Israelites? No, but there's in downtown Chicago. Okay. Yep. So a friend of mine was Jewish, and we went to this thing called the Chabad House. And basically, it's where reformed, I'm going to say this's a it's like a jewish fundamentalist organization that tries to recruit reformed or laxed jews so they're not proselytizing to gentiles they're like proselytizing to jews who aren't practicing. So they had zero interest in me.

Like a Chabad dude would have zero interest in me as a Gentile. You don't bring anything to the table. It's like I'm not there. It's like I'm not there. But I'm with my friend who's a Reformed Jew. And you get to ask these people questions. And she was researching a book is why she was there. So I was just there hanging out.

And I was saying, because we're talking about dietary law from the Old Testament. So Old Testament dietary law gets into a lot of things like, that's where, you know, you'll say like, don't eat pork. Okay. And so everybody says, oh, yeah, of course, the Bible says don't eat pork because you could get trichinosis. But if you ask one of these scholars, why does the Bible say don't eat pork because you could get trichinosis but if you ask uh if you ask one of these scholars why does the Bible say don't eat pork is it because of trichinosis they would say you don't know we don't know why God said don't eat pork don't speak for God it's a mystery why he like he doesn't say why he doesn't want you to eat pork don't eat pork if he said it was

because of if it was because of trichinosis he would say that's what it is you don't know why so there's a dietary prohibition like if you if you follow the old testament if you follow it literally um you know like you don't gamble you definitely don't gamble um you don't eat shrimp so no shellfish no fish without scales, no animals that don't have a cloven hoof, which rules out hogs, it rules out horse meat, definitely rules out coyotes. An array of insects you're not supposed to eat. And he just lays out like, here's what my people eat, here's what my people don't eat. one of the things that when for you to eat an animal if you follow the bible literally um if you eat an animal that there's a ritualistic way that the animal needs to be killed with a cut to the throat with a certain type of blade so you'll see references often to netting

animals because you can net an animal you could catch a wild animal and still do ritualistic slaughter to make it kosher so i was asking him how could you have how could you eat wild game as an observant jew or as an observant christian who observes the old testament and he said you'd have to catch it in net and then you can catch it in that because because the slaughterer needs to be able to inspect the animal and not only that they need to be able to inspect the viscera so if you have a cash root kash root k-a-s-h-r-u-t if you do kash root slaughter when they have rabbis that they'll gut the animal and pull the lungs out and see if it has any lesions or anything, because they're playing it so safe with God that they're like,

God says don't eat carrion. So that's another descriptor. If you follow the Old Testament literally, and no one does, but if you did, if you follow the Old Testament literally literally you would not be able to eat roadkill because you wouldn't be able to ascertain the health of the animal no one inspected the health of the animal so some people who are super fundamentalists play it so safe uh play it so safe with god that they would be like not only do i not want to eat carrion i don't want to eat something that may have had a close brush with death and then lived so you'll take a perfectly

healthy looking animal and they'll still pull its lungs to see if it has any lesions from past ailments that might have made it that like it almost was dead. So you're like, you're, you're hedging your bets. I'm, I'm starting to really question eating elk with hoof rot and deer that survived CWD. And I don't know. You will be struck down. Probably should revisit them. Question for you. So is it anything that is, you know, you catch the animal live?

I mean, netting, not literally, but if there was a live trap. Yes, you could do it. You have to be the one that kills it. You could follow Old Testament dietary law and catch a deer in a net, which is going to get you in trouble with your state fish and game agency. You got to sort of go

like, what matters more, law of God or law of man? The bible will also advise you on on where the hierarchy of law falls um and it would say the law of god sits above the law of man so if you were trying to follow the bible you could catch a deer in a net and then do the the proper slaughter in the proper way and that meat would be fine it's not that there's a problem with the meat in and of itself it's the process of delivering it to the plate and then of course you couldn't mix it with milk like you can't eat meat and cheese together because the bible says don't boil a kid in its mother's milk. So to play it extra safe, you don't mix milk and meat. Even the milk is different than the animal that you're mixing it with,

meaning dairy milk or goat milk. You'd be like, I don't exactly know what God meant, but don't mix milk. Got it. Don't mix meat and milk in any circumstances. There's a bunch of other stuff. And there's also like, God says, don't shave the corners of your face.

And so people have trouble, have been puzzled by what that means. That's why you'll see observant Jews that have the payas that long, because they play it so safe.'re like not only am i not going to shave my sideburn i don't really know what he meant so i'm going to extend that up into my hairline to make sure i'm playing it safe we're gonna get a lot of letters of people who don't like how i'm describing this but it's fascinating it. It's a great approach. It'd be like, it's a really great approach to be an observant.

You'd be like, you take what they said and you extra don't do it. You know? Question for you. Extra don't do it. Is there any loophole or anyone you've ever seen where, you know, instead of hunting in the traditional way,

they're live trapping animals and, you know, preparing the meat in the way that you described. I've never heard of it. I've never heard of any. Interesting, but anyone writes it? I've never heard of game meat being advertised as kashrut. I think when you look at the food labels, I think it's a U, maybe it's a U with a circle around it,

would tell you that it's prepared in accordance with Old Testament dietary law. I just didn't know there's a loophole from a hunting perspective. No. Okay. I've never heard of anybody exploiting that loophole. Okay. Because then you get into this huge, there's a huge element of tradition. For instance, now like shark meat would be generally regarded as not kosher. But now researchers like, it's not the way that they think of a scale.

Really a shark is scaled, right? So when they look at shark skin, right? The anatomy of shark skin, they're like, arguably, it's just, it's, it's, you know, millions of scales that create that skin feel. It's just the scale in a different form. That doesn't mean that people that follow Old Testament dietary law rushed out to buy shark meat. And what would have forbidden shark meat? I missed that part of it. What was it?

No, no scaleless fish. Ah, gotcha. I wish that my kids would take the same approach to, uh, listening to my parenting. They're like, I don't want to upset dad. So I'm going to be extra safe. Not going to happen. that'd be great yeah it's like you know dad gets mad about the candy so in fact i'm cutting out some sugars that would traditionally have been okay i don't want to make my dad mad 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 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,points and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh we're always talking about on x here on the meat eater podcast now you um you guys in the great white north can 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 membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Speaking of kids of their day, I had a long time ago told my kids the story of how the teddy bear came to be.

Like why teddy bears are teddy bears. And it involves, of course, Teddy Roosevelt opting not to shoot a black bear that a former slave and hunting guide named Holt Collier had lassoed and tied to a tree. Teddy Roosevelt opts not to shoot the bear. A weird part of the story that never gets told is like they'd kill the bear anyways he didn't kill but they still killed the bear because it was all messed up they always leave that out of the telling anyways i was asking my kids i'm like hey remember when i told you the story of how the teddy bear got its name tell me that story back and my eight-year-old's telling me the story back and he says he doesn't remember the name

holt collier but he says and then the hunting guide called teddy roosevelt i'm like he called him place the phone call to teddy roosevelt uh here's a so so here's a study that just came out that's interesting the the the headline Study Finds Bigfoot Sightings Correlate with Black Bear Populations. Surprise, surprise. That's interesting. I got an email. I'll give you a little more

and then I'll tell you about a thing that they're looking at too. I'll prelude it by saying this. A journalist just wrote in. wanted to like quote an article that was at the mediator.com about gunfire and hearing loss and it's uh you know how i used to have all these ideas that turned out to be wrong like i thought left-wing people were far more likely to be gluten intolerant than right-wing people and I thought left wing people were far more likely to believe in ghosts than right wing people, both of which are not true.

Right wing people are far more likely to suffer hearing or more likely to suffer hearing loss. That makes sense. Has to be gunfire. Of course. Or just running heavy equipment, doing harder. Yeah. All the work.

Heavy equipment. Rural. And it was like, there's like a rural overlap within that. Yeah. Ag equipment, chainsaws, loud ass motorcycles with no mufflers. Dirt bag mufflers on them. TNMs souped up. Yeah.

So this guy wrote in and he was exploring the gunfire aspect of hearing loss among the right. So this article, I can't even tell where this came from ours technica what the hell is that ars technica i don't want to do these guys wrong what does that mean ars technica i've seen that before as a publication or a online online we're in mexico getting our asses kicked. Oh, yeah, Ars Technica. ARS Technica. I haven't heard of this news source. Anyways, that's the news source. The idea that North America is home to completely unknown primate species

just doesn't seem to go away. Lord, it does not. I'm reading. Years after everyone started walking around with high-quality cameras in their phones, there still haven't been any clear images of a Bigfoot. But that hasn't stopped a steady flow of reported sightings. As we've explored in the past, because I like to goof on Bigfoot people, which is easy pickings, low-hanging fruit,

they have come up with this explanation that Bigfoot resides in a dimension that can't, a different dimension, Not subject to film. Now, someone named Flo Foxen has followed up on an earlier analysis and checked for factors that could influence the frequency of Bigfoot sightings throughout North America. The results suggest that there's a strong correlation

between sightings in the local black bear population. For every 1,000 bears, I'm assuming the frequency of Bigfoot sightings goes up by about 4%. I'm assuming they mean by unit of space. So here's some good stuff. The most recent comprehensive peer-reviewed data on black bear populations dates from 2006. So they're using data from that year. Even so a number of States and provinces had to be excluded. Um,

Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota,

South Dakota had no known black bear populations in 2006. Um, there's some other States that, that just didn't have adequate numbers on black bears. So they went and looked ahead and they found that forested areas where you have a, okay, it's kind of complicated. They did a really good job of it. Overall, Foxen found that with forested areas and the human population taken into account, there's about one Bigfoot sighting for every 5,000 black bears.

Each additional 1,000 bears raises the probability of a sighting by about 4%. Then they go on to, she's trying to then make some sense out of it. It could be helpful for bear conservation. Oh my God. You know, they try to like, this is from the Journal of Zoology. You know, they always like, nowadays, if you want to publish anything, we've talked about this, if you want to publish anything in a newspaper

about wildlife, if you link it to climate change, it'll be in there. Anything. Polar bear attacks a person, climate change. I thought that was shot down after we brought that up. Didn't a bunch of people write in and say that wasn't it? No, that was talking about in journal entries,

but I'm saying that you could take any freak wildlife thing, any freak wildlife thing, and you'll, in the end, link it to climate change. So here this person is saying, this is nothing to do with climate change, the person is saying that this could be great for, quote, whatever this means, quote, bear conservation as the

frequency of Bigfoot sightings may provide a proxy measure for the number of black bears present and thus could provide an independent method of tracking population changes or you just wasted a ton of time. could provide an independent method of tracking population changes or

you just wasted a ton of time. They got done and they showed it they got done with their paper and they showed their friend and their friend said that's the stupidest thing I've read in years. And then they're like, shit, you're right. This could be helpful for bear.

Instead of measuring, instead of having all these stupid biologists out measuring bear populations, what we could do instead is we'll set up a Bigfoot hotline and then we'll take incoming calls to the Bigfoot hotline and model them out to find out how many bears are on the landscape. And if we see a reduction in Bigfoot hotline calls, that wouldn't mean something to do

with education, drug use, the rise and fall of hippie shit. It would be that bear numbers are down. So when they set quotas, you'll be like, the bear manager will be like, you know what? We got Montana's region three had zero Bigfoot sightings this year. No tag allocation this year. It seems that the bears are gone. This is the dumbest thing I've ever read read I didn't know it was dumb until the end

have them add in to look at whether there's more sightings during a Democratic presidency or a Republican presidency that would be a good overlay and the other thing is what about areas that have high black bear density in different

color phases? Ah, yeah. That could mess it up. Here's one. We have a guest. We're working on getting a guest on to talk about We're getting a guest on to talk about the public land costs, the cost

to public land with industrial scale, utility costs, the costs of public land with industrial scale, utility scale wind and solar development. The guests we're working on is involved in offshore wind development. Not involved in it as a stakeholder, but involved in it as a person measuring environmental impact.

And by, I think it's by, is it 20? I can't remember what the projection is. Since I can't remember the projection, I don't want to say it. We don't have great internet where we're at in Mexico right now. Tens of thousands of offshore wind units along the Atlantic shoreline by 2050 or whatever the hell. 6,000 by 2030. So a couple of things.

What does that mean for all that increased disturbance around construction, but also what does it mean for fish habitat? And a great parallel is you'd go and look at what oil development in the Gulf of Mexico wound up doing for the fishery. I mean, it created a fishery right like department sort of the department of unforeseen consequences is um uh there was all that disturbance all that development no doubt all kinds of you know probably very negative impact on bivalves and all this other stuff but insert with certain reef fish it causes long-term explosion in reef fish populations so we're going to have a guest on to talk about offshore wind and what offshore wind looks like and what are you getting out of it um short-term impacts long-term impacts

what fish hate it what fish will love it and sort of what your future is going to look like as we develop offshore wind. But this is a plan, this is widely reported, but we're looking at Montana Free Press here about the BLM unveiling a plan for utility-scale solar developments in western states on your public lands. We're going to dive into that in greater detail later, but we're talking about massive amounts of land, massive amounts of land that you currently hunt could potentially be,

could potentially be developed. So if the BLM selects, there's this thing, different alternatives. One of these alternatives, 8 million acres of, so let's focus on Montana for a minute, just so we're looking at a Montana free press, but this is widespread across the West, but just an example in Montana. Out of 8 million acres of BLM managed land in Montana, 210,000 acres

could become available for solar developments. Most of that stuff deemed suitable for solar development sits north of what's called the High Line. So if you look at the High Line, generally it's like the string of towns. Highway 2. North Highway 2. So Highway 2.

The High Line used to be a railroad line, but two runs. So you had the, what's the main rail line? The I-90 rail, like the 90-94 rail line. What's it called? Northern Pacific. The Northern Pacific bisects the state east to west, and then you had the High Line, which is another rail line in the north, and eventually Highway 2 followed that.

So they're saying that of that, the BLM could develop 210,000 acres for putting solar developments on that land. There's a bunch of land that's out of the question because it's too far from high-voltage transmission lines. And then the 7.3 million acres have been deemed ill-suited this is just in one state mind you so the vast majority 7.3 million acres ill-suited for reasons ecological

reasons historical reasons cultural and reasons recreational my fear with all this Historical, reasons cultural, and reasons recreational. My fear with all this, my fear with all this is, and we're going to get into this with a specialized guest who, again, focuses on offshore. My fear with all this is that we do this, wind and solar development. And if you go look, have you ever seen that map?

If you're going to power Great Britain with current wind and solar technologies, what the hell was it? You'd have to cover 74% of it with wind and solar. I can't remember what. I might be a little bit off. But if you're going to do that, Great Britain, you'd have to cover, I think, I don't know what the hell it is, 74% of available, of non-developed

lands would need to be converted with current technology my fear is that we go through with this um kind of stuff but it's not a local problem it's a global issue we go through with this and then China India right uh China, India, right? These parts of the world, also Africa, where population is growing, right? In places it's growing exponentially over time. That we go through with this and we trash, we trash our remaining bits of undeveloped lands.

Globally, we don't see any kind of transition and then down the road you see that temperature gradually increases and we'd be like well shit if we hadn't done any of that um it made no difference and now as we try to create landscape wide room for species to develop and adapt and colonize new areas and change their habits in accordance with warmer weather that we've trashed those landscapes and globally this idea never caught on and it made it was a drop in the bucket made zero difference and all we've come out of it with is we've developed the areas that we're going to need for resiliency, no matter what the hell happens in the future. Meaning let's say the temperature is going to climb two degrees, three degrees, four degrees, wildlife still needs a place to be.

And if you're not going to prevent it from happening, you head, you need to hedge your bets by having big intact ecosystems right like create room for wildlife to find a way forward but if you destroy all your wildlife habitat trying to curb a thing that you can't curb because one it's more complicated than we think it is or two it would take a global effort that there's not enough willpower there in the developing world to follow through with that we just screw ourselves and nothing changes anyways i'll hand it over have you have you heard elon talk about what we would need for a solar grid to power the entire u.s like per per our current power usage no i haven't yeah he said 101 square

miles and your batteries would have to take up one square mile. So like I imagine, and not to put it off on the Mexico, Arizona, but you find like a 10 by 10, like dedicate that and then you just put your 100 square miles of solar panels out there and you're done with this whole mess. No more wind. 100 square miles would do what? Would power the entire US grid right now as is. And you would need batteries that hold a one square mile. So literally 10 miles. He's smarter at this battery stuff than me.

I remember him saying, I just looked it up. A 10 mile by 10 mile, oh, one continuous panel. Just, yeah, whatever current technology, you put whatever you need to on that 101 square miles, and then you feed all these batteries that need an entire square mile, and bam, you don't have any more of these windmills. You don't have any more of this offshore stuff. It's like not saying that we need to do it to New Mexico or Arizona,

but I'm like, man, there's a lot of unused ground. What Steve just said, though, is that from what he's reading, it's going to take 70% of the land mass to pull it off, not 100 square miles. That's why it's the power of Great Britain. I wish I could pull up. See, that's where I think we're so expansive. I don't know. Ask your expert that.

Matt, pull up that stat. You're probably good at searching up stuff on the internet, aren't you? Let me take a look. I'm one of the best. I still have a good signal. My concern is the idea of putting solar in these public spaces is kind of more lubricated than putting drilling or oil like i mean and it could have as bad of an effect on migration you get public buying you know there's goodwill around people feel like they're doing a good thing 60 minutes

had a couple weeks ago had a a feature on it and it was a goodwill story and it showed standing up looking at a public land where this massive solar field would go and in my mind you know uh people are very concerned about you know natural gas and oil drilling for migration why would they not be concerned about the same thing because it puts them at odds it puts them it makes it it puts you at odds with yourself that's exactly because on one hand's what concerned me. Because on one hand, you're a habitat. You believe in habitat conservation. And many people who are very concerned about habitat conservation, there's a crossover, are very concerned about energy.

And so you kind of go like, okay, buddy, I get it. You're a big environmentalist. You think we should be moving away from fossil fuels. How about we go over to your little spot your little honey hole and develop that for alternative energy and then you got to be like yeah i better stay consistent and say that it's okay this story you know was meant to create like we found an exciting alternative but it's putting solar fields in places that everyone has been very concerned about, you know, from an energy perspective, you know, disrupting migration corridors, et cetera, that kind of thing.

I would argue that we use eminent domain and eminent domain, large tracks of urban area, sees large tracks of currently developed urban area and sports stadiums, for starters, and convert those into places. I'd advocate... No more sports stadiums. You know what I'd say?

Put them on top of industrial warehouses. That's become a new energy. There's massive spaces on top of Amazon warehouses. Yeah, why are we not capping cities? And why are we talking about doing it on undeveloped landscapes? There has to be a way.

And I'll tell you what I really think we ought to be doing. I'm a big nuclear advocate. People are like, it's risky. It's all risky. Developing undeveloped lands is risky. It's all risky. Just remember, if you take away all those sports stadiums, all those people that love sports and pay attention to that

and are not hunting and fishing, they're going to start. I was just joking about sports.'ll get more calls about that that's why that's why I'm like with ski hills with ski Hills I'm like I'm down you know I don't like I hate don't I hate more than me trying to turn left and I can't because everybody's going to the ski Hill makes me want to just kill them all my my neighbor my good buddy you know Pottery pat potter pat he doesn't like he's on the board of the ski hill now and then if i'm trying to turn left on a good powder day i'll call him i'm like man i got a real problem pat i know you're on the board of the ski hill i can't go left out of my driveway you need to figure this out here's another

sticky one man so the king salmon is headed toward a this is going to get litigated like holy hell the king salmon

of the gulf of alaska is headed for an esa listing so the wild fish conservancy is doubling down on its attempts this is uh this is a a press release from Salmon State.

This is a press release from Salmon State out of Alaska. The Wild Fish Conservancy is doubling down on its attempts to shut down fishing in Alaska without consulting with or speaking to the people they're sledgehammering. You can tell this comes from the perspective of salmon states, trying to protect salmon fisheries. Basically, in the big fight over, you know, which turns into a never-ending blame game about who's the blame for salmon.

Um, they're, they're looking now to shut down even, um, there's been some shut, some shutting down already occurred, even of troll fishing, troll fishing for Sam, which is like a highly selective salmon fishing deal.

Um, a hook selective salmon fishing deal. A hook and line fishery. So this organization, Salmon State, is trying to not only protect wild salmon, protect people whose lives are interconnected with them, and they are

fighting some of these salmon closures. But things just do not look... It's one of those deals. It's like looking at quail in the southeast. I'm trying to think of other things. Quail in the southeast. Deer on this place we're in right now.

King salmon. And you look and go, what happened? You can't say what happened. It's too you can't say what happened it's too many things to say what happened but just king salmon are just hurting um they're hurting the weird of course they're hurting in the columbia watershed where you have all these dams okay so you're looking like well obviously it's all the dams. But why are King Salmon numbers down in non-damed areas?

Microplastics. Same reason. Yeah, but why aren't Coho down then? Why aren't Pinks down? It's really complicated. It's really complicated. You can't, there's anything that you bring up.

We've had someone on who knows this world really well it's been a couple years anything you bring up you're like yeah well must be this and like okay but but then what about this sure like it must be this okay why are pink numbers good why are we seeing great returns on other salmon species like what is it with kings it's a different fish they spend more time in the oceans a lot of this movement now about a lot

of this a way that people are trying to get these fish that they're trying to get fisheries shut down is when you pull on America's heartstrings there's one animal that's definitely going to do the job that's a willy They're trying to get fisheries shut down. When you want to pull on America's heartstrings, there's one animal that's definitely going to do the job. That's Willie. The orca.

Yep. Which I still call killer whale. Does your brother Danny have anything to say about that? He's got a lot to say about it. That's one of the primary things he works on. Yeah. What does he think think death by a thousand cuts gotcha that's a thousand cuts uh warming water definitely does not help um just depletion of fisheries does not help um you know low herring numbers in areas doesn't help dams certainly you know certainly

don't help even areas outside of dams though just death by a thousand cuts some some level of mystery we should have someone back on to talk about it in greater detail are you saying that the orca you know if they're start being affected by a you know, less food source. Yeah. You know, that happened with, obviously, whale watching in the east with Menhaden. Yeah. You know, all of a sudden, that got elevated because the whale watching crowd, you know, was having a different experience. Sure. With less. People are like, I was fine to watch King Salmon blink out, but to hear that that orca is hungry that's just i put that's

where i draw a line that's exactly what happened that's what happened in the east people that's where i draw a line in the sand no one cares about small bait fish until the whales aren't rolling and you're seeing them yeah and then people like this is this is this cannot this will not stand this will not stand you know and so you got to do that yep but uh i don't know and we'll have to get someone back on and i know people to get back on and talk about salmon but um when you look at like the overall population and the mortality that comes from the troll fishery it's just such a drop it's like a symbolic gesture it's a symbolic gesture that you're going to end the troll fishery in southeast alaska in the gulf of alaska you're going to end the troll fishery and i'll simply

like they're back you know i mean it's just not gonna it ain't gonna be the thing that does it hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking.

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

onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Here's another one that really hits me and Yanni right in the nuts. You ready for this, Yanni? I hope so. A listing for Wisconsin Sturgeon. Oh. Our old friends at the Center for Biological Diversity.

This is one of those organizations that's like, you know, a humane society. People think when they think of HSUS, when people think of the Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, they think they're helping puppies that don't have a home. They don't realize that it's an anti-hunting animal rights organization and they confuse Humane Society, local Humane Society shelters with HSUS activities.

HSUS is an anti-hunting organization that masquerades as like rescue puppies uh center for biological diversity is in large measure and then i i mean they're just reflexively anti-hunting and fishing so the center for biological Diversity is petitioning to have lake sturgeon federally listed and subsequently remove the right to fish and spear lake sturgeon. Now, the problem with this is people say that people would go and even sturgeon managers in Wisconsin are saying you're taking a sledgehammer approach to something that needs to be more surgical. The Lake Winnebago sturgeon population should be used as an example of proper conservation. This is coming from a listener named Taylor. Taylor and Aaron wrote in.

The Lake Winnebago sturgeon population should be taken as an example of proper conservation. While it is understandable that certain sturgeon populations across the nation are low, the decision on regulations, hunting season, and protection should be left up to state and local entities to protect state and local resources. The Lake Winnebago sturgeon is thriving. This is backed up by countless annual surveys tracking exact harvest of individuals,

safe harvest caps generated using population models, and enormous amounts of research data collection. The Winnebago system lake sturgeon population is the most well-studied lake sturgeon population in the U.S. It was near extinction in the early 1900s from overharvest, at a time when conservation was non-existent. Through diligent management and legislative action that enabled money raised through spearing license sales and donations

to be directed only to sturgeon research and habitat improvement, the population grew to what it is today. It is spearing and angling that directly resulted in the recovery of the Lake Winnebago sturgeon. They go on to say that Yanni's even been there. Sounds like that whole North American model is working. It does. Yeah.

I've had limited experience with that. I follow the, you know, you'll see postings of these big sturgeon that guys will take. And I think that probably generates a lot of, you know, activity within that crowd that Steve was talking about. You know, these sort of big dramatic fish dead. But it seems like that's a very – Oh, yeah, especially when you stick a big old seven-pronged spear through them. Yeah, but my impression has always been that's a very – you know, much in agreement with the letter that you got there.

That's a very tightly managed fishery there. Yeah, another guy wrote in about the same. So another individual, Ryan, wrote in, worked up about the same issue and he lays out the history too um a history that goes back to 1931 he said wisconsin was the first state to put protections in for lake sturgeon and he didn't say this but I'm saying also in plan with limited harvest. Okay. And Wisconsin also is the birthplace of sturgeon for tomorrow. He goes on to say, our state, Wisconsin, has led the way to the restoration of the sturgeon, not only in our own waters, but in other states through sharing of spring spawning egg collections and our hatcheries being first to successfully raise sturgeon.

Our Winnebago system has a dedicated lake sturgeon biologist who oversees the estimated population of 40,000 fish and sets the highly managed harvest caps for each February's 16-day season. He goes on to say losing our limited harvest. So they have an estimated 40,000 fish. They issue for the short season, about 13,000 tags. They don't kill nearly that many fish because it's on a quota. He says,

goes into the obvious effects of you're locking out public input, you're locking out public enthusiasm for a resource, public enthusiasm about how these anglers came together to restore this resource and folks aren't happy.

Geez, another guy wrote in. Nathan Kaiser. Same points. Wanting to hear us talk about it. I think we just talked about it. It doesn't sound like it's in danger. In a lot of places it is. Okay, but in that particular instance, it's not.

I think they got a case. I think they got like a case of, you know, I think they're not looking at it. Not giving Wisconsin credit where credit's due. Right. On restoring a fishery in a way that brings a lot of goodwill. Yanni can speak to it. Anyways, me and Yanni keep applying for these.

I don't know how much money you and me put into that pile of money, but we've sweetened that pot up over the years. You guys wanting to go sit in one of the shacks? Well, we want to go to the upper lake. Yeah, I don't think that that application has cost that much money. We might be in for a hundred bucks each, maybe.

We want to fish the upper lake and we're collecting bonus points yeah we got another three four years to go it's a draw is the upper lake a more desirable place to fish when you draw the upper lake you're gonna be in it you're gonna get a big and we shouldn't even be talking about it i know because now well that's why i got a real axe to grind here because at the end of the day, I think I can tell you guys, when I was in eighth grade, I took civics class, eighth or ninth grade,

with a guy named Al DeYoung. You didn't tell me that. I never told you this story? I don't. The teacher was Al DeYoung and he taught civics and he taught it from the angle of, he would talk about,

one, he would say like, I would never take you kids down to register to vote. Any kids. Because why would I dilute my vote? he would say like i would never take you kids down to register to vote any kids because why would i dilute my vote he would say i don't want you people to vote because i don't get people wanting other people to vote i wish i was the only voter and he would also say i like that logic well he was he was playing i think he's looking back i think he's being a little bit of devil's advocate but his slogan was remember when he's trying to explain government, he'd be like, remember,

and he'd put his thumbs toward himself. He'd go, remember, I am concerned only with what affects Al DeYoung. And he would play like the singer. Everybody hated him, but looking back at it, I think he was demonstrating a point as a teacher. I'm concerned only with what affects Al Young.

And this Wisconsin deal, just to lay it all out there, I want people to know my biases. I have been steadfastly trying to draw a Sturgeon permit in Wisconsin. So years ago, I'll move on from this subject, but years ago I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying it's time to delist the grizzly.

And I laid out all the reasons that for 20 years when they originally put protections in place for grizzly bears, everybody sat at the table, they said, what does recovery look like? I wrote this op-ed six seven eight years ago i don't know at that point in time those recovery objectives had been met for 20 years so there had been 20 years of recovery still no movement on delisting um they wisconsin or at that time wyoming was spending um more on each grizzly bear in wyoming

than idaho spends on kids in public school right like just it was time to delist the bear which never got delisted uh and in the when i wrote the op-ed they had turned up that I had hunted, that I had held grizzly bear tags for British Columbian Alaska. So they're like, you have to admit in your op-ed that you have a vested interest because you have hunted for grizzly bears. They made me like point that out. So I'm here pointing out out and i wasn't trying

to hide it just didn't seem germane to the subject so i had to say like as a guy who you know has in the past hunted grizzlies i think they should delist grizzlies which the problem is then people read your op-ed and all they want to do is write you mean letters because you hunted grizzlies um they want you to say this that's for steve but I'm just only with one effect Steve so in pointing out that me and Yanni are deeply invested in our sturgeon tags but I would feel the same way but I would feel the same way

I should also point out that my kid caught a king salmon last year Yanni's not being a good podcast guest because he's very anxious to get back out hunting you want to explain what's going on yeah according to my clock here we have about 16 minutes until this thing needs to end and we need to go go hit the coos deer woods we're getting it's our last day yeah dedicated podcast listeners will know that every year we do a podcast we do

an episode from mexico it's a tradition and we come down and talk about what a great time we had all the bucks we shot all the bucks we saw how awesome it is it's like traveling back in time today's the good old days it's like someday people look back on Sonora Coos deer hunting in the 2020s, and they'll talk about it like it'll be like mule deer hunting in Utah in 1960. It'll never be this good again. It'll be what you look back on, right? It'll be Eagle County, Colorado in the 70s. I don't know, right?

Today. But not anymore. It's over. It ended. It was a good run. 2023 was the last good year. It's i don't know what happened it's over we have been pouring the coals to it when we come down we're in sonora we're further south than we've ever been before i believe we come down and the mantra is a buck a day. And we gang hunt.

We got a lot of people. And the goal is every day we find a shooter buck and get it. And if you do a buck a day, that's the formula for success. Day one, Paul, bam, buck a day. On schedule.

It's sitting right there. Today we need to kill four. This afternoon. And it is raining. It's not right now, but there's another cell that's probably an hour or two out. Oh, no. It's raining right now. Is it?

It hasn't stopped raining since we hit record. Is it raining out there, Garrett? It is raining. Haunt Dirt can't hear you because he's digging Earwax off his ears to fix his lips He's got a finger in each ear He's got to dig deeper and deeper You know when your chapstick

Runs out And you got to dig your fingernail down in there To like get the remnant That sits around that little prong in there That's like digging into your ear the same motion you just because you do it with your pinky nail you get down there he's gonna have to start working with tools pretty soon i'm quite doing the ear digging ever since uh grace sturdivant was on the podcast told us how bad it is to jam anything in there

i just let the earwax go now see you run around the big old thing of q-tips what have you been doing with those i didn't know it was harming my ears worst thing you could possibly do got it it's right up there with uh seed oils and low t three big changes for Matt Koch in 2024. He didn't know he was low T. Testosterone. I'm definitely low T. I've learned a lot of things this trip.

He didn't know he was low T. He didn't know that furries are taking over public schools. People have kitty litter boxes in the classroom. And he didn't know that you're not supposed to be digging around in your ear on youtube i'm going back with an agenda making some changes yeah i need to do a quick wrap up on the mexico hunt i've been talking a bunch about it's it's been a tough week uh tough conditions i think our uh our buddy j Jay wants nothing more than to see us be successful. We can agree on that, right? Correct.

Jay has always treated us exceptionally well. I'm 100% sure, and I'm sorry for all of Jay's other clients, but I'm 100% sure that we get a teeny tiny little bit of preference. Well, because we've been in it from the get-go. I know. Yeah, you're repeating clients yeah you're right you're right we're 10 we're 10 years in i'm just saying we get a little bit of preference we used to work for the guy all true all true things i'm just setting it up okay i feel like you're jumping to the end and

i'm trying to explain i feel like we're in we're at a prime kuzdir hunting ranch they guided here for a few years before they uh went to letting diy guys come here and i think we're like the third or fourth diy group here and uh yeah we've caught a terrible week where it sounds like the rut is not happening anywhere in Sonora this week. The weather has been terrible for coos deer hunting. Coos deer hate wind. We've had tremendous winds. At times, the optics are shaking so bad on the tripod. Looking back on it, I think day one was really

the only full, perfect day that we had. And we saw tons of deer. No wind, no rain. Big drought, right? Yeah. All the locals say. Drought-stricken landscape. only full perfect day that we had and we saw tons of deer no wind no rain big drought right yeah all the locals drought stricken landscape not today that broke today the drought ended today i think it's interesting that we're hunting like in a valley that has a massive food source at the bottom which is different than what we've done in the past i've never been around any kind of food source that you know creates it, with that, with the drought.

We hunted a place once that had those wheat fields in the bottom, remember that? Yeah, but they weren't irrigated, were they? They might have done some flood irrigation out there. Yeah, probably. Yanni had a great point about why the rut, it's obvious that if you're having rut activity, it's just going to be better. But here's the very particular thing that makes it better would be the, they're so hard

to find. Even when you know, like, let's say, you know, two deer are, you're looking at a hillside, you're looking at a mountainside and you know, there's two deer on the mountainside. Because you saw them. You saw them. So you're looking at them. You the mountainside because you saw them you saw them so you're looking at them you see them most of the time you don't you can't see them right right like if you watch two feeding deer for an hour i don't know you never figured out but i would say like on average for 40 minutes of that hour you can't you don't you can't see them yeah maybe more

in the brush whatever if they're in the brush, right? They just, they vanish. They're the gray ghost. And then sometimes you see them and even where you find one and then you lose it and never, we had it happen yesterday. I watched a deer go up onto an open hillside and took my eyes off it to look at a buck that I saw below it,

went back to it, could never locate it. So in that little bit of time, it did something, bedded down, went out of my view, I don't know. They vanished. The saving grace is you're able to detect movement. And if you watch a group of two or three does or four or five does, whatever, and they got a buck or two, that buck's chasing them.

The buck gets close to them, the does run. The buck gets close to them, the does run. The buck gets close to them, the does run. So when close to them the does run the buck that flows through those run so when you're glass in the hillside there's something to like there's something happening to to make a movement and the movement is what you see then you find a doe you're like oh shit a doe and you watch and you realize not just that oh i just saw an ear move up behind it i just saw this happen little things you would never known if you hadn't gotten a focal point of activity. Case in point is yesterday, we knew about dirt, spotted two does, a doe bedded.

He spotted a doe feeding and a doe bedded next to it. A doe got up and fed, laid down. That doe vanished for an hour. And we knew right where it laid down, you would never have known it's there. The other deer got up, shuffled, and laid back down in the same spot. When it laid back in the same spot, you couldn't find it. Eventually, those deer get up. And I even say to dirt, this is our only thing.

I'm going to follow that deer, that lead doe with my binoculars. And following that lead doe with my binoculars, I see a mountain lion come and set up out ahead of it to try to kill it. that deer that lead doe with my binoculars and following that lead doe with my binoculars i see a mountain lion come and set up out ahead of it to try to kill it when that mountain lion finally jumps it jumps and there's a deer i never knew about a forky buck came squirting out of this bush that we never knew about until it came out because a mountain lion tried to grab it. That's like how much you miss or see. It's hard. Last year, we found Phelps' buck when a smaller

buck was chasing does and then a bigger buck stepped out and, you know, fought him, ran him off and took the does. I mean, you never would have known the bigger buck was there unless the rut activity, it was 1500 yards away, you know, up on the side of the mountain. We had no idea the profile of all those deer. It lured them out. And it brought out even multiple other bucks that are attracted to that activity. And what was nice is that that activity going on allowed Phelps to be able to

sneak up there. They were busy. Yeah. You could make plays. And in the absence of that, they're all just laid under a tree. Yeah. And you see zero. I mean, last night, this morning, we seen what,

between our group, 25 does last night, 20 plus does today, not a horn in the group. So it's like, man, at some point, mature does everywhere. They have to be watching. You just can't see them. Yeah. They're just pushed back up in there somewhere. told corinne this morning i said we're not gonna make a show we're not gonna record a show today or i that's not how i put it i said what happens if we don't make a show today and she said you'll be fine just focus on hunting

and and then it started raining so bad we can't make the show so you people should be pretty happy with yourselves having the show. Comes at great, tremendous sacrifice. It was cool seeing that lion, though. I don't, there's not, I've only glassed it. That was probably the closest lion I've ever glassed up. I think it was around 1,000, 1,200 yards to me. What was cool is when I first saw it is that I was just glassed up. I think it was around a thousand, 1200 yards to me. What was cool is when I first saw it is that I was just glass. I just moved and I could see kind of lower towards the

river than I had earlier. So I'm looking at this specific zone and all of a sudden it walks into my field of view and I'm panning along with it. And all of a sudden it stops and literally 10 yards above it, maybe 15, there's a coos deer standing there that I had not seen up to that point. So again, it took me like focusing on something else to all of a sudden see this deer standing there. They're unaware of each other. The lion's looking like across the hill. The doe is looking straight up the hill. But she somehow senses the presence before the lion senses the deer's presence.

She turns around, looks at it and goes, Oh shit. And then takes bounding off. And what was funny is, I don't know if it was like an optical illusion of being so far away or what, but there was like this delay where you would think as soon as she made two bounds, the cat would be like,

Oh, I heard something right there. I should go after it. But instead she gets 50, 60 yards away. And then the cat's all But instead, she gets 50, 60 yards away, and then the cat's all of a sudden like, oh, what was that? And starts going uphill kind of in that direction.

Yeah. Do you believe me when I tell you that there was two? Sure, why not? I don't know. I saw two. You know what you saw. There's just no way that the one could have gotten around. Dirt, do you back me up on this? Yeah.

There was a top cat on this? Really? You just saw it? What are you eating, Dirt? Where was the bobcat? It's getting wet. It is wild here. Huh. Big old bobcat.

Yeah, seeing the mountain lions is a lot of fun. And seeing them try to strike a deer is a lot of fun. Yeah, you sure don't get to do that every day. I think in 20 years of guiding, I maybe saw five lions that were not treed with dogs, just incidental to hunting. I had an experience one time very similar to you guys. I saw a couple of cow elk in a meadow and I could all of a sudden sense they were very alert looking below and I was

archery bull hunting at the time for elk. And of course, then as soon as I saw the cows were focused on something below, I thought, well, there's a good chance maybe there's a bull coming. And just moments later, a big tom line came sprinting straight uphill across this meadow after him, but they'd, they were already onto him and they were uphill. So the minute he cleared the brush, they were gone and they beat him out. And then I got to watch this line. Just great. I had a spotting scope on him, just beautiful. And he jumped up and he got on a flat spot and he was sitting there and his ears were down and his tails just flicking.

And you can tell he was a mad cat. You know, dinner was gone and he wasn't going to catch him. But the bad part of that, I had a little solo tent and I was about 200 yards camp below where that Tom was. And then I had to go back and think now there's a hungry lion wandering around here and I've got to go sleep at night down there. But no, I never saw him again. It was interesting to watch this one work that doe is, uh, and now once that little fork, he came out, maybe my interpretation of what was

going on, but he was above her and she was angling up the hill and he moved and got in the line of travel and laid down. Huh? And when he was moving, he's like very obvious, you know, just this orange blur going across. And then he travel and laid down. And when he was moving, he was very obvious. Just this orange blur going across. It's interesting how orange those cats look.

They look real orange. And did you notice the black feet too? Those black feet were very noticeable. They look huge. His feet look huge. Alright, we better get back out there. The last push. I was i had mingus with me oh you'd had a hot track buddy you'd had nowhere to tree it no no we would have ended up in a

bait up situation unless it less that thing new to head toward the sycamores well sycamores were you know what even that oak that we were huddled under. It could have gotten in that. It could have gotten in that and gotten high enough away that the dog couldn't get to it. Yeah. All right. Thanks for joining everybody. We're going to get back out and try one last little try. What's the forecast, Seth?

Rain. Two hours. It's 100. Two more. I thought it was supposed to get better. I thought it was supposed to get. No. Is it actually raining right now? It's 100%. It just quit was supposed to get better. I thought it was supposed to get. No. Is it actually raining right now?

It's 100%. It's 100%, but now it's saying at least that the accumulation is only like 0.01. Well, the other thing is the ceiling lifted. Yeah, it lightened up. Yeah, deer are going to be on their feet right now. Phelps says it's time to go. Phelps, before we go, though, give us a quick update. Phelps Game calls. What to look forward to.ps, before we go, though, give us a quick update. Phelps game calls.

What to look forward to. How's my moose tube coming? It's working. Are you liking it? Yeah. We had to make a little change. We were trying to do it like handmade. It just wasn't going to be.

We could make one a day, and it's just not scalable. So I don't want that job. We did some glass-filled nylon. We're going to make some changes to that. And then we got some new updates to the deer call lines coming. And yeah. You're not too worked up about the moose call it's pretty it's like well just not a lot of not a lot of customers like is my good buddy matt who's better at business than me would say like not a lot of profit and a lot of not a lot of you're

down on moose calls no just just the scalability i told him you gotta pick something where you're gonna sell a lot of yeah a lot of business making one making one for steve doesn't pay the bills no because i didn't buy it either so we're making some changes there i got some deer call i'm really excited for 25 which is we're planning you know years and years out 24 will be cool though but like 25 is like a lot of new stuff coming which is a long ways out. Excellent. We're working on, I want Phelps to do a turkey call. He's going to do me a pot call where on the artwork is a turkey giving you the finger with a turkey hand. It's called the bird.

The artwork turned out awesome. You claim that copyright right now. Yeah, because it's not like it's hard to run it in laser engraver. The artwork turned out awesome. You claim that copyright right now. Yeah. Yeah, because it's not like it's hard to run it in laser engraver. No, but you got to, I mean, that's hard to come up with an idea like a turkey giving you the finger. Actually not, because it's a quite common bit of taxidermy. My daughter has one.

We do them like that. If you want to do it, you take your turkey, next time you kill a turkey or your kid kills a turkey take a rubber band and bend its two fingers down so its middle finger sticking out um rubber band the two fingers down as it dries just make sure you straighten that middle finger up a little bit and cock its wrist so from you listeners that you people watch on youtube here's his arm. You cock him up, go like this, put a rubber band here and just dunk it in a, uh,

in some Borax for a few days or not. It depends on how patient you are. And then eventually you get yourself a little wooden circle, um, a little plaque and you drill a hole in it and you run a screw up through the bottom into the leg and you set it on your desk. And then you run a screw up through the bottom into the leg and you set it on your desk and then it's a turkey giving you the finger. Or you hang it up out there.

When you sit on your desk, is the bird then going straight up in the air? Yeah, you got to look down on it for the full effect. My mother-in-law sent all my kids the finger emoji, you know, at Thanksgiving. It said, Happy Thanksgiving. But she couldn't tell that it was a finger. She thought it was a turkey. And sent it to my mother. My kids are like, you know, Grandma's gears are slipping a little bit.

She thought it was a turkey. Happy Thanksgiving. Maybe she's a meat-eater listener. She's a meat-eater listener. She knows about the Michigan halal. She absolutely is. Rock home from that means what's up? All right.

Thanks, everybody. We're going to go out. Hunting time. Riding my horse in the town. Don't get in a hurry since you ain't around The creek's high as it's ever been Hear a blue quail

a-callin' to warn all his friends that my shot hooves are stomping his ground riding my horse to town searching the garden for life An absence of love makes it harder to find But I'd pick it all through today A fresh set of eyes finds more being so you'd say

An imaginary you by my side Searching the garden for life Your affection for me Like a flash in the pan Lasting only as long as our flame for me like a flash in the pan lasted only as long as our flame darling we all know

how that story ends so I'll ride till my blues go away I'll ride till the end of the day spend all night picking guitar fresh smell of leather makes me think

you ain't far but your mindset on things much too fine than a country boy like me can design I cast wishes on every star Spend all night picking guitar You're a fraction for me Like a flash in the pan

lasting only as long as our flame and darling we all know how that story ends alright till the end of the day alright till the end of the day Alright, till the end of the day Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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