The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 572: Boiled Muskrat, Freeze-Dried, and the Table Manners of Dirt Myth

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Steven Rinella talks with Janis Putelis, Ryan Callaghan, Mark Kenyon, Brody Henderson, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider.  Topics discussed: Jani and Cal's perfectly average results in Sig Sauer��s shooting competition; how Jani shot a target a mile away; subscribe to our new MeatEater Podcast Network Youtube Channel; a steelhead burned onto a tie dyed hoody; our gnome shirts are back in stock and where was the mermaid hooked?; another call for your outro music submissions; the noises Dirt makes while eating; how Steve’s the OG freeze dried expert and his face is on the new collar Peak Refuel freeze dried American buffalo meal pack; no to captive cervids, yes to bison ranchers; how many notches in Steve’s spoon?; join Mark Kenyon’s Working for Wildlife Tour in August; calling Doug Duren for acorn advice; saving horses by hunting ground squirrels; sharing vasectomy stories; “Steve reads books so you ain’t got to”; eating rats; and more. Outro song “Open Country” by Dirt Myth and Andrew Smith Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network 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-t-l-i-t-e.com so you guys just competed in a shooting tournament we did the sig arc archery rifle competition and you got like how are you how are you selling it to people look like i could see saying you got whooped or saying you did good and both would be true because if seven if you had seven things and drew a line in the middle it'd be four yes and that's what we ended i don't care

what end you come from perfectly average yep you count from the left you count you come from the left you come from the right and four yeah. Yeah, but you know my daughter. Meaning you came in fourth place out of seven people. Yes. You're proud or sad? Is my microphone not working? Perfectly plugged. That's what it kind of felt like right there.

No, I just wanted to really make, I wanted to be very clear. I wanted all people people all listeners to understand four out of seven right which it took clay and i a while uh to understand that it was right down the middle because when i say four out of seven somehow that just seems sounds like you're on the back end yeah if you had to just say sounds are you higher low at four and one out of seven i'd go low but no yeah because you always round up no when you put that way well i don't know it feels a little higher my daughter took the cal sent all the actual point breakout numbers one through seven and so then my daughter took the

numbers and did some math i wasn't following the math and she said that uh like just straight score-wise, we actually were way higher. We were more up into the top three as far as score goes than in the bottom three. Does that make sense? Yeah, it was real. If you're at four and you went way higher to three,

is that way higher? The numbers were a lot closer in the top four than they were in the bottom perhaps you should explain perhaps you should try to put your arms around the contest seven what were you doing seven teams each team consists of three people plus you have um i don't know like uh they call them team managers team managers which would be kind of like a range officer okay which is a ro is a common term you hear in these shooting competitions of which this is my second ever and they were uh representatives of sig employees of sig yep yep so um there were there seven stages every day?

Correct. So, um, plus a night shoot. Plus two stages at night. Yep. So, um, and it's all, you know, it's live ammunition, obviously. So it's, all these teams are spread out. You have to stick to a strict time calendar, time schedule, which allows for teams to travel through lines of fire, essentially. So it's really seriously orchestrated, logistically very impressive deal.

You had roughly 20 minutes to walk somewhere between a half mile and a mile between stages. Everybody had to walk, carrying their own gear, lunch, water. And then once you got to the stage, you had about 20 minutes to get the briefing and then the allotted time for the actual stage. So you'd have five or 10 minutes of like, hey, this is what's going on. Walk the course, look at it. Here's the guns, get familiar with them. And then, then okay we have 10 minutes to finish this the bell is going to start and then at 10 minutes we're done and we start walking to

the next stage and then there's a the scoring i still don't truly understand but there's a time component of how quickly you can complete the stage and then then there's, uh, an accuracy component that, you know, was mostly summed up as hits or misses versus like, like how good you hit. Yeah, exactly. And you were saying the way they had it rigged with the timing component on some of these timing was weighted so heavily.

Yeah. You could have just shot all your shots in the air and ran and won yes you could have hedged your bets because if you added up the penalties for misses they still wouldn't um hurt you you would be way better off just being like cool i'll take all the penalties and i'll see you at the next stage. Versus the added time on top of the penalties to try to shoot those targets. Was there any long distance shooting? There was a mile shot.

Yanni hit it on the first shot. What? In a mile? And you still took fourth place. Yeah, only two people out of all the teams hit that target. But listen, I mean. How big was the teams hit that target. But listen. How big was the target?

Yanni. Listen, I. Full size elk. They originally, Daniel Horner, who is contracted by SIG, does a lot of stuff with SIG, one of the better shooters in the world right now. He's been on the podcast. He set this. Yeah, he's been on the podcast.

He set the course up. Originally, he was going to put a lot of weight into that, of weight into those three shots at a mile you got to take. And all you got to do is get a piece of it. You just got to make it go ding. And it was a giant. I mean, I'm talking a piece of steel the size of the stable. Dang near. Like not one that one human can move.

It took two people to move. I was saying half a car. And I held left edge. I went up there. I was like, oh, yeah, I got a little bit of wind coming from the left. I'm going to hold left edge of the target and it dings. So I didn't even get to shoot two more shots. I got off the gun and someone else stepped in.

Well, then whatever it was, you or Clay holds left edge. Clay was next. And it hits like two body lengths, two target lengths to the right. Two vehicles to the right. Like that's how much it changed because of what the wind was doing. Right? Yep. And then, so he corrects, you know, two car lengths to the left.

And hits to the left. And hits way left. You know, and it was, in the end, they just said that it was windy enough and it was kind of this, you're shooting across this long valley that draws coming into it and um those people that were in there actually trying to game it and looking at mirage and stuff said that you could see mirage go in two different directions and it was just you know so i'm not going to take a lot of credit for making a great shot the elevation was pretty much set when you got there they're like do not touch the elevation turret it much set. When you got there, they were like, do not touch the elevation turret. It's set to hit that target. Yeah, so this was a.

You're basically just trying to dope the wind. Even though we were carrying our personal firearms for that particular stage. And this is how it's different than any of the other competitions I've heard of or, or been to is at this particular, you're carrying all of your stuff, including your personal firearm, which you're using on a bunch of different stages, but you could walk up to a stage and it's like, put all that stuff down. Here's a, um, uh, like a carbine, like we got to shoot like the new army issue carbine. We got to shoot the new army issue carbine. Okay.

And here's a 10mm pistol. And what you're going to do is you're not going to be able to see the targets, but each flag, there's a target. Run up to that flag, find the target, hit it twice, make sure your gun's

in a safe position, move to the next flag, do the same thing. Uh, there's 10 targets total, put the empty or safe weapon on a map that we have out there and then sprint back. And when you touch the table uh the next person on your team goes and does the same thing there's like that type of stage which i thought was super fun the relays um and then there's also like the obviously here's three targets and here's like the rough range for each of those targets or here's take a couple minutes to get your dope, shoot those targets with your range finder,

get your dope. And it's just impacts as many times you can hit that target. And you have 10, 10 minutes to do it type of thing. So what was the bow shooting part of it? Three, there were three stages. One was like a really rushed seven but cool uh position wise

seven full body foam targets um so three people have to shoot seven targets a piece in 15 minutes one arrow each so 21 arrows need to be shot. Was it 15 or 10 minutes? I thought it was 15. 15? And you're using bow of your choice? Yeah, but you have to sprint from each target to each target. You wouldn't have to, but if you didn't, you weren't going to get it done. You weren't going to finish it.

Did you have your recurve? Yeah. How far were the shots? Plenty, plenty good. I mean, I think the max on that was 60-something, right? Yeah, there might have been a 70. Because of that. You're the only guy with a recurve there?

You know, it's funny that you bring that up, Steve. I was not. Oh. But magically, all those other recurves just appeared after the competition was over. Yeah, when it was time to drink beer and just shoot bows, all of a sudden everybody's got a recurve. It's like, hey, this is fun. But they weren't shooting it for the tournament.

No. So you were the only purist. Yeah, yeah, which, man, like an uncomfortable amount of attention was paid. They're like, oh, look at that. Whoa, ugh, ugh. Terrible. But, yeah, I felt bad about that one because it was so rushed that i was just like my mindset was

like just throw an arrow and so i was that's what i was doing and i was consequently not hitting anything so terrible so had you had you been replaced by a compound shooter would you guys be on the winner's stand i don't That's what I keep thinking about fourth place. When you get fourth place, you're not up on those little tiered pedestals. Well, this was a, if you ain't first, you're last kind of a deal.

Because there was only room for one winner. Yeah. There was one check for $50,000, right? That the winning team got to choose which non-profit it would go to. And we had chosen the...

They've been listening to too much media trivia. Who'd they choose that it goes to? They chose the Defenders of Freedom Fund. What's that? Foundation? Yeah. Yeah. Veterans non-profit. Got it. Freedom Fund. What's that? Foundation. Yeah. Veterans

Nonprofit. Got it. That's cool. Yeah. And these guys are all veterans or maybe one's still active. I can't remember. And we were going to donate to Montana Block Management. Which would have been a good one.

Sorry. Sorry, gang. Did you go to the winner? Hey, you know what I'd do? Yeah. You know what I was planning on doing? Like 50,000 is a lot. Can we split that up?

Listen, we had one stage where you're basically standing on a cliff. Like you couldn't walk straight up to where you had to go and start. You had to go at an angle up this hill to get to there. And then literally right below you would it was line of sight was probably 50 yards but your range finder would read 27 there's a giant mule deer that's made out of steel and and his vitals there's a hole about yay big like the little arrow saver hole yeah the call it. Behind it is some foam. And then behind him, another 15 yards was a goat. And then another 15 yards farther was a moose with another hole about yay big.

And everybody can make that shot because, I mean, it's a target this big. And the shot, the longest shot. It's like your typical backyard foam target. It just happens to have a ring of steel around it that will destroy your arrow and like oh i thought this was a pistol stage oh no that would have been a lot more fun no and uh man you know you're in a competition and then you got this thing of this this this iron that's gonna eat your arrow, and you just can't help but make your pin float onto the iron.

Like, it's just, and by the, I mean, there was only 21 shooters, and there was at least 40 busted arrows. Yeah. Well, what a great thing if you could, I thought about actually building an at-home setup like that, because what a great way to increase like the stakes of your behind the house

practice yeah yeah yeah you can buy one of those for like 500 bucks i've looked it up but i'd rather not and then you go companies love what you're saying right now the front cost is minimal compared to the long term consequences of busting all your arrows. Real legit archery folks up there. Folks that I know that shoot a lot of arrows. It was pretty funny. They were like, that thing just destroyed us. They're not hard shots. I don't know what

happened type of thing. You got to shoot two at each one. Six shots for each person total. Cal went three out of six at super steep angle, 27, 45, and 60. And it was pretty impressive. That's good.

All good arrows. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is like I didn't, yeah, I don't know. Stupid excuses. I should have been shooting a lot more. What was your favorite stage,

you think, out of the... So there were two running stages that were really fun okay and i thought you're gonna say the tacos that we served well i missed that we did eat some good tacos um so shout out to some bear meat man the bear meat crushed the pronghorn meat everybody said that that was elk there was no bear that was bear and elk. Oh, okay. Well, the bear meat crushed the elk. Yeah. Can't beat that grease, you know? So they happen to be in the same stage.

There was a bunch of fun stuff, but I liked the, there's one where you set your rifles down on these mats and there's like, there's a 200 yard gong, a 400 yard gong and a 600 yard gong. And they're all like the real tiny targets. I'd say they were six by eights, maybe eight by tens, somewhere in there. Yeah. Six inches by eight inches.

Not as big as a sheet of paper. Um, and they're like, uh, you got to get your ranges, the close ones worth fewer points, the mid ones worth mid points and the far ones worth the max points. But you, the way they started it is you can, you have one, one round in the chamber. You get your range, you shoot. And then to get your next bullet, you have to sprint a hundred yards. Get one bullet. I think it was 50. No, it was to sprint 100 yards, get one bullet.

I think it was 50. No, it was 100. Was it really? Yeah. How the hell do you know? You just had those long legs. I was there. Seth was there. So get one bullet out of the bucket and then sprint back to your gun, drop that round in,

shoot the target again. And as much running as you're willing to do. In 15 minutes. In 15 minutes. And that was super fun. That was super fun. We liked that stage because we won. We had the highest score.

You guys are quick little buggers. Well, it was surprising. We all just sat there and shot the 600 yarder just because it was high points. And, you know, you do the math and you're like, well, even if I miss one, even if I went one for two, I'm going to make more points there than if I hit every time at 200. Yep. And I think we probably shot at 80 or 90% on the 600. Yeah, we shot real well.

It was an easy decision. Yeah. The next day at the same stage, it was changed up. There was pistols, and there was 15? Yeah, there were a lot of targets. I don't know how many, but... 15, maybe even 20? I don't know.

A bunch of steel set up on the other side of a fence from 10 yards to 50 yards, kind of in this array, where you had to move along the fence to be looking straight at him right this is with a nine millimeter pistol yeah and you had two clips each holding 21 each holding 21 yep and uh this was timed and again a relay so one guy would pick up the gun we have it loaded kind of run along that fence until you can engage these targets and move through shooting at all these targets with a pistol as fast as you can. At the last one, the next target at the end was 200 yards away. It was worth like 300 seconds.

Again, this is where all the, I wish I could tell you exactly how the scoring was worth, but basically like that one target was worth more than all the other ones you had just hit. scoring was worth but basically like that one target was worth more than all the other ones you had just hit so you had to sprint down there shoot it and then sprint your butt all the way back and um but you could shoot from 200 yards too with your nine millimeter pistol with a red dot yeah the red dot so i cleaned them all and i go just to turn and everybody's like whoa whoa whoa i'm like i gotta give it a couple of tries here. And I mean, I was like 50 yards off. I mean, you could see the dust flying way before it.

So I started correcting, but it just, I took three or four shots. It wasn't going to happen. You maybe should have run over there. I still did. Oh. Because as long as, I mean, I figured I would burn up three or four seconds. If you get lucky and all of a sudden you hear a ping, then you only have three seconds to get back to the start line

and next person can go. But that was fun because it really, I mean, if you ran, which Cal and I both did, it was enough that I busted a couple blood vessels in my lungs and was hacking for the next 20 minutes. Yeah. Does that mean Clay didn't run? Clay did not run.

He had boots on. They don't have run issues down there. You guys have cleats? They're just running boots. He didn't go quite as fast. Corinne, tell everybody about the new podcast channel. Okay. There's a whole new channel?

There's a whole new channel. Listen to what Corinne has to tell you. There's a whole new channel. Corinne's doing this because she knows more about it than I do. So, you know, the YouTube channel that most folks have been a part of for years is the MeatEaterTV YouTube channel. And we've decided to create a new YouTube channel that's the home for all of our podcasts. So that's the only place where you our podcasts. That's the only place where you'll be able to watch and

listen to... You're not really selling it. Well, it's not our job. She's a producer. It's just kind of a real flat delivery here. That's the only place where you'll be able to watch and listen to our podcast. Go ahead and subscribe to the very new Meat Eater Podcast

Network YouTube channel. Wait, wait, wait. That's not the only place where you can listen to it. Watch it. It's the only place you can watch and listen. Listen, she's a producer, man. She's a producer, not a pitch man. Hit it one more time.

Okay, so everybody. Okay, look, you want to back? Well, here. Hey, Corinne, tell everybody about the new channel. We've got a great new exciting YouTube podcast channel launching. It's where you can catch all of the Meat Eater Network podcasts on video and audio. So please give us a subscribe. It's called the Meat Eater Podcast Network on YouTube.

She toured a new one on that one. Oh, big time. Big time. What do people get to see there? What's in it for me? They get to see, well, it's,

it's, we've, we're migrating away from the meat eater TV. So, uh, YouTube channel. So if you want to watch this here podcast, that's where you watch it.

If you want to watch trivia, that's where you watch it. If you want to watch Cal's interviews, Mark's, uh, Wired to Hunt, uh, Foundations, Found, oops. Wire to Hunt, Foundations,

oops. Yeah, Foundations. No, Foundations is there now. Foundations, Cutting the Distance. Will Foundations be there too? Well, it will. And all of our podcasts

that are not interview format, there might be a little visual treat. But that is a home for all of our podcasts. Like if I'm just FaceTiming Mark one day, we could put that up there.

That will be up there. That will be up there. Sign me up for that. Gnome shirts are back in stock. Without even knowing we were doing this, I have my original. You might want to specify G-N-O-M-E, not N-O-E-M,

as we've been discussing on the podcast. On Gnome, like the town? No, like the governor? Christy. Oh! That would be hilarious. Life and death on the farm. No.

I would wear a Christy gnome. Silent G gnome. I'd wear a Christy gnome t-shirt. Silent G gnome. Christy gnome packing out a bird dog shirt. I'd wear a Doug Burgum t-shirt. Cal, that was funny. Steve didn't hear that.

That was funny. Tell me again. Our Christy gnome packing out a bird dog shirt. That would be good. That would sell. That would really be good. Yeah, I'd wear a gnome shirt. Sorry.

I'm wearing a gnome shirt. I have the original one on. Look at the hole in that armpit. This is a gnome shirt. I have the original one on. Look at the hole in that armpit. Yeah. This is the gnome packing out a unit. Why is this one not back? Oh, I think it may be one of the ones. Oh, no, it is.

Yeah, it is. Oh. It is. See, our t-shirt program was constantly, they like burned through them. It's dynamic. Yeah, that's a good word for it. They burned through them. Oh, my kids want to try a t-shirt.

That is the proper way to... I don't know why that word is so stuck in my head about how people use it. Prone to change. Right, but it is constantly used improperly. Yeah, like a dynamic video. That video's not changing. Yeah, and when people are described dynamically

most of the time, they're not trying to say that that person changes all the time. Oh, can I tell you something about something? Oh, yes. Steve got the finger out. And he snagged the table. I mean, if everybody just didn't lean in on that. Listen, I forgot

to tell you something. You know what I did? He almost closed his computer. Clint, can you remind me? This is so important. Clint, when we do Steve Readservous energy. This is so important. I almost closed my computer. Clint, when we do Steve Reads a Book So You Ain't Got To, can you remind me to tell Yanni what I need to tell him? Yep.

Oh, so you're not telling us now? In a minute. All right. Stay tuned. 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 on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about uh 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. So my kids were visiting their grandma, their maternal grandmother. And there's a t-shirt shop that she took them to. This is the way to go on a t-shirt shop. All the designs are on the wall. Okay. Hundreds of designs on the wall.

Tons of blank t-shirts. You pick the color shirt you want. You pick the design you want. The dude at the counter goes, burns the design into the shirt, hands it to the kid. That's dangerous. That's how you run a t-shirt program. Dangerous for kids, though. I don't want that one.

No, if I remember right, I think they settled up. Oh, yeah, that's a good way to put it. They settled up before my kid had a steelhead burned onto a tie-dye hoodie. That's good taste. I would wear that hoodie. Are you kidding me? That's awesome. Yeah.

Maddie went with the steelhead burned onto a tie-dye hoodie. We should get a little corner of the store downtown to do that. Just burning shirts. That's a good idea. So we got the gnome

packing out a dead unicorn. We got the gnome roasting a jackrabbit. And we got the gnome spearfishing. Right, and there's the mermaid. No, no, no, fishing. It's a gnome jigging halibut, but he tied into a mermaid.

Oh, okay, okay. Because I knew it wasn't like a gnome spearing a mermaid. No, you're telling me he's doing battle. It's the gnome jigging halibut, but he hooked into a mermaid, and he's doing battle with a mermaid. I don't believe it that the mermaid took the same bait that the halibut. No, she's foul hooked. She's foul hooked?

She's trying to get the bait off the hook. I can't remember. We don't have her lip hooked. I hope not. How is she hooked in that? I don't think she's lip hooked. Can you see the jigs? Maybe.

Big twister tail? Can you pull that up, Phil? How is she hooked? I remember debating this and we didn't think we wanted to have her lip hooked. I think maybe her... If I remember right, no, no, no, I think we settled on... A little BDSM for that. I think we settled on her position

is such that... I think we settled on this. Because we didn't want to get into any kind of strange territory. I think we settled on that her position obfuscates how she's hooked. It's behind her body. You can't tell how she's hooked. Does it make sense that she's lip hooked? Like she was eating the bait.

I can't zoom in far enough. It's hard to tell. I can picture her trying to grab it. No, it disappears around the midsection of her tail and you can't tell in far enough It's hard to tell I can picture her trying to grab it It disappears around the midsection of her tail And you can't tell where it's hooked She's maybe foul hooked in the shoulder What about if she was saving the halibut Removing a hook from a halibut

And then got hung up Like all good art it's subjective What's not to say that the gnome was targeting mermaids That's what it's meant It's meant to be that Only the artist knows. Good job. When I conceptualized the idea,

he was jigging hell of it, but tied into a mermaid and was glad about it. Some of the women in the company pointed out he doesn't know is this is this sexual in nature or is this like close to cannibalism in nature that's why he hasn't caught it yet because if it was caught you'd have to wrestle you'd have to wrestle with that question. Yeah, the what comes next question. Yeah, so what is he going to do with the mermaid is to the wearer's imagination.

Yeah. Be it Halibut or, you know, mermaid, it's not caught until it's in the boat. Yeah. If we get that shot where you can burn your own design. Maybe we should have a painting contest to have that scene oh what happens renditions of that that scene when he catches her after the success of the after the

success of the essay contest watercolor and oil i think that if you can if you can look at the shirt design and then send in artwork showing what happened next. What's that? No mermaid hybrid? If it winds up being reproductive in nature, put a caution. I like that. Maybe we'll put it up on Steve's Instagram. He's by himself, so he's not yelling, get the gaff

to anyone. Corinne also needs more outro music submissions. For 2024, that's the one we're in we're doing all out well it's a little more complicated now for a while okay for a while we had outro i don't even know what the hell we were using for outro music for a long time we had outro music from shearwater it's a band that sheer water is a bird there's a band by an or there's an ornithologist who has a band called sheer water he used to study caracaras

but he had a song called wildlife in america and for a long time our outro music was sort of an excerpt from wildlife in america which is actually about soldiers returning from the war in iraq in afghan the wars in iraq and afghanistan that was the outro music you wouldn't know any of that from listening to it but that's what it was then one day we um talked about something too long and someone made a comment about not just one day like someone made a comment about. Not just one day. Someone made a comment about like you beat that horse to death. So then we switched the outro music to Christopher Denny's ride on in which he says we've done beat this damn horse to death. It's time to ride on. He'll be on the podcast soon, by the way.

People loved and hated. Loved and hated that song. Christopher Denny one day somehow oblivious to the fact that his song, that we licensed his song. Yep. That's a whole little scandal. It was a hard negotiation, hard to get a hold of anybody. We licensed his song and one day he writes in, hey, I see you're using my song. Like, that didn't happen easily.

He doesn't even know we used his song. He's going to come on the podcast. He's going to come on the podcast. He's going to come on the podcast and tell you everything that's wrong with the music industry. He will. When our license of that was running out, rather than renewing it, we did a thing where we're only using music that people send in. Because people always send in cool songs. And here we are halfway through the year. We need a refresh.

Right. But we need music that's not already floating around the internet. So if you guys want to take a little bit of time and write a podcast-specific song or an ode to Steve or the outdoors. A lot of people did that. We need originals. Yeah, because here's the deal. One of my favorites. Because you know how the podcast podcast you can watch the podcast

on youtube if your music even if you've licensed your music anywhere if your music is on spotify whatever they're gonna scrub it and and ding us for uh ding us for uh copyright infringement even if you're giving permission it's still gonna it's just gonna happen yeah it's a hassle it's a pain in crin's butt it is so you gotta give us music that you haven't published yet right and so like a couple of people still publish it later a couple of people just sat around and picked up a guitar i just started singing and it was like an impromptu there's one guy who uh who wrote a song called raccoon pecker or he didn't really write it he just it was funny it was great song we played that yeah where does doug duran's podcast blues go trivia trivia oh

we got one right now our very own dirt myth and every time i look at um dip aficionado with dirt on when dirt made the cover of dip aficficionado. I still laugh. Me too. That's the best piece in here. Dirt sent in a song. Lately, when we're goofing on Dirt, who's not here, lately the theme has been goofing on the noises Dirt makes while eating.

We love you, Dirt. We should have him test the... Oh, the peak refill with Steve's face on the back of the shoe. Oh, if we could have Dirt eat that and put a mic up to him. Yeah. Oh, this is next level. You can't buy this. We should have Dirt reviews, too.

You can't hear this, but he usually has two thumbs up. Yeah. And if there were these two bags here and they sat long enough, with his last bite of this bag, he'd be like, I'm going to hit another one. Is that cool? Oh, no. Elbow chicken winged out.

This is next level. Yum. Oh. He eats the way if you walked into like a medieval tavern and you saw someone eating from a rough bowl yes we already covered it but my favorite thing is dirt was talking about what his grandpa used for chapstick he says grandpa uses his own earwax he digs into his ear gets gets a gob of wax, and rubs it on his head. Frugal family.

Oh, yeah. Dirt said the only two things his dad's tried to make himself that he was never happy with is his dad was trying to make his own dip. Okay. He's trying to grow tobacco to make his own dip. Then his dad was trying to make his own pellets for a pellet grill. We love you, Dirt. That frugal. Trying to make his own pellets for a pellet grill.

We one time made a big dugout canoe out of a cottonwood log, and it was just killing Dirt's dad that we were going to leave it laying there, so he brought it home and turned it into a planter. There's just no way he was going to leave that thing. It's a perfectly good, cramped, hollow log.

Open country. Are you going to play a little bit, Phil? Just a little touch? Yeah, it's like, it's over five minutes long. No, I'll play the whole damn thing. Put the whole thing at the end of the show. Okay, so Dirt wants to point out, being a good guy that he is, Dirt, Dirt, this is in the notes, Dirt, colon. Not Dirt's colon.

I don't need to see that. Dirt, colon. Make sure when you guys play post about Open Country, that's Dirt's song. It's called Open Country. Oh, Dirt has a lot to say about the song. He also has this to say. This song you're about to hear, Open Country by Dirt, quote, has the core principles of why I do what I do. Amen to that shit, man.

Dirt then went on to say, make sure when you guys play posts about open country my cousin andrew smith whose handle is makeshift radio m-a-k shift radio mac basically mac shift underscore radio so at m-a-k-s-h-i-f-t underscore radio, gets mentioned for recording, mixing, and playing piano. Dirt continues. He's a great dude and has a Spotify. His stuff is very ethereal. And does cool sound mixing for a living. So, where credit is due,

play a quick lick there, Phil, and then at the end of the show we'll come back. Give me a little fear Something that inspires Put me, put me on the edge That's what lights my fire Excellent. We know we're not wrong The lovely and talented Dirtmiff. Can't wait to hear the rest. What a good dude, man. Excellent. The lovely and talented Dirt Myth. Can't wait to hear the rest. What a good dude, man. If I had to pick between Dirt being alive and all you being alive, I'd pick Dirt.

That's understandable. You know what I'm saying? Great way to do it. And I'd throw myself into that mix. I'd rather Dirt be alive way more than me be alive. Dirt would be the only person that would make you feel good somehow about everybody else being dead. You'd be like, but, you know. I can't think of a time, I can't think of a single time in my life dirt has ever gone negative.

No. Oh, that gnome that tried to molest him in Ireland. Oh, yeah, that guy that creeped him out big time Yeah he didn't like that Other than that dirt's never gone negative And he wasn't even entirely negative about the gnome Not a gnome A little leprechaun Yeah a leprechaun tried to molest him

Is the only logical conclusion That we could all come to Parentheses It's obvious Everybody's laughing about my face being on the bag of a of a listen my face being on the bag of a freeze-dried meal but let me tell you why i'm uniquely qualified to have my face on the bag of a freeze-dried meal please ken you're supposed to hold that right yeah i'll tell you why i'm unique i'm why i'm

uniquely qualified and why this matters before any any of you guys, while you guys were still, when you guys were still getting milk from your mama's teat, I was eating freeze dry. Not only that, not only that, I was writing about freeze dry back when like astronauts knew about it. Many, many years ago, I wrote a piece for Outside, an exhaustively reported piece on freeze-dried food. Like how it came into use, who the first users were. I got into the Lerps from Vietnam.

I got into space travel. I got into how space ice cream has gone to space, but no one ever chose to eat space ice cream in space. They just eat it at the Kennedy Space Center like I do. They didn't. They had it. They had it. And I got into how a favorite of the astronauts is shrimp cocktail.

I went to a freeze-dry research facility, and the guy says, we got everything in here. Try to think of something. And I just said, I don't know. And I thought for a minute, and I said, capers. Got it. Freeze-dry. As part of my article, I had a bunch of people from the food industry come over, and we did a tasting of all kind of freeze-dry. Okay?

I was like the original freeze dry journalist. Well, I only did that one piece. That's a cool beat. I only did that one piece, but you know what I'm saying. It was so encompassing. You defined the genre. I defined...

The be all and end all. Yeah, it was like a mic drop. Yeah. But there's only so much you can say about freeze dry. I said it. I went and visited a sublimation chamber so when you're making freeze dry you make a you make a meal that's ready there's different ways of doing it the right way to do it is you cook something that's ready to eat you then spread it on trays and freeze it

and the temperature at which you freeze it the humidity at which you freeze it all matters a bunch you then take that put it in a sublimation chamber pull a vacuum on it and the water in there sublimates meaning it goes water goes from its solid state to its gaseous state never goes to a liquid state when you pull these sheets out you could break them like a pane of glass grind it all up throw it in a sack that's freeze dry production in a nutshell one thing i learned in the time I spent exploring freeze-dry is that certain things are good when you freeze-dry them, and certain things ain't good when you freeze-dry them.

When you go to these fancy pants, you know, everybody now has got some fancy pants freeze-dry, like seven wild mushroom risotto. Listen, I like good food as much as the next guy a lot of things aren't suitable to freeze dry meaning if you made a freeze dry hamburger what are you going to have when you rehydrate it the burger bun doesn't know when to stop sucking up water right like if you want to rehydrate a cheeseburger the bun is it doesn't work like you need stuff that everything wants the same amount of soak and that's the key to a good freeze-dried meal and

just because seven wild mushroom risotto is good at a restaurant doesn't mean it's good out of a sack like it doesn't everything doesn't translate it needs a consistent saturation point. And it's just certain efforts get wasted. Certain efforts get wasted. Certain flavors and textures and things that make things good, once you freeze dry it and grind it up and throw it in a sack, it goes away. There's just certain things that work as freeze dry. And I'll tell you what works as freeze drydried is American Buffalo BBQ Mac and Cheese. And then Yanni's more to

Yanni's to thank for this one. Should be Yanni's face on that. American Buffalo Goulash. Instead of this guy right here, if you put your finger right here, you can act like he's talking. Can you do that while I talk, Cal? Phil, can you zero in on that

so it's me talking? Sure, yeah. Okay, ready, Cal? You're not picking his nose? Is it zoomed right, Phil? It's not zoomed, but I'm on, Cal. Here's why I use that. I'm a big supporter of the animal. I'm a big supporter of American buffalo.

94% of the buffalo or bison in North America that exists today are privately owned. I don't like the captive servant industry. None. There's no way I would do like a, I'm not going to do, I would never like do an elk freeze dry, a venison freeze dry. Cause I don't like captive servants. But private owners saved the American buffalo from extinction. If it wasn't for private owners, we would not

have them at all or would barely have them. In terms of returning to the animals, to the landscape, it's largely fallen to private landowners to return the animals to the landscape. I like to support bison ranchers, bison farmers. That's why that's

the way it is. And goulash is one of those things that works. Keep going, Cal. You're going to wear it. Cal's going to wear a hole in that bag.

Goulash is one of those things that works is freeze dry. Do you know what I'm saying? I think it was Yanni's idea, wasn't it? That was a long time ago, I think, when we... Yannis, you're not looking at Steve in the eye.

When we did... My eyes were up here, Yannis. When we did submissions for flavors for freeze-dry. Yeah, so this is a meat that matters. If you've got to buy a meat, it's the coolest meat to buy outside of wild-caught salmon. But salmon, that's not a freeze dry food.

Someone does it. I don't think a salmon is a good freeze dry. Salmon jerky. Freeze dry would probably be... No, it's not freeze dry. I'll tell you what's good freeze dry. Red meat, ground up. Ground up

red meat. But chicken does well. I disagree. ground up ground up red meat but chicken does well i disagree and it doesn't belong in sausage and it doesn't belong on a pizza either red meat ground up i agree red meat ground up that's why right here when you want to go get a thinking man's freeze dry from a freeze dry expert former freeze dry journalist if you're a thinking man and you want to look another thinking man in the eyes while you eat your freeze dry now listen well we want to have a conversation with your bag while you're alone in the hills all you need is cal's finger i'm surprised that it's just you and maybe not the crew on here. Because one of our favorite activities.

That would have made a hell of a lot more sense. One of our favorite activities when we've eaten a lot of other freeze dries made by another company. There's multiple people sitting around a stove. And they have these expressions that don't necessarily let you know exactly what they're thinking or exactly what the joke is, and we have spent hours probably looking at these labels and deciding what is going on there in that scene. And I think, even though it's not quite the same, but this lends itself to the same thing. So if you want to have fun with your friends in the backcountry...

Cal pointed out that there's space there to do a dialogue bubble. But this lends itself to the same thing. So if you want to have fun with your friends in the backcountry. Cal pointed out that there's space there to do a dialogue bubble. Yeah. You can have me say whatever you want. You could say. Let's say your name's Bill. You could have my voice say, what are you thinking about, Bill? And then you could answer to the bag while you're alone in the mountains. And I'm there to hear what you have to say.

Oh, yeah. What's in that speech bubble? This is what I make for dinner next to my kids. I gotta do my art here. This is another good meat eater contest right here. Yeah. If you're wondering about, they're both good. If you're wondering about what my favorite,

like, what am I saying there? My spoon has three notches. Okay. I put two notches in my spoon. You have to do it in Steve's voice.

If Steve was going to say, tell you how many notches his spoon has, how would it be, Cal? Well, he'd be like, hey, who's got three notcher? Hey, folks. Exc 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. You're irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS

with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right, we're always talking about OnX here on the Meat Eater podcast. Now you guys in the great white north can be part of it, be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services handpicked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out

if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Okay, we're working down a list here. Okay, we talked about podcast channel. We talked about gnomes. we talked about why i'm qualified why i'm qualified to be on a mac and cheese box talked about music talk about dirt working for wildlife oh mark canyon right after mac and cheese

yeah i don't use it in alphabetical order That's alphabetical Hit it Mark What am I talking about Aren't you going to tell us about the Working for Wildlife Tour Yeah I can do that Are you not prepared I am I just didn't know if that was the thing So yeah the Working for Wildlife Tour is something I kicked off last year

Which was Kind of coming out of a Just a realization I had was kind of coming out of just a realization I had, just kind of looking out across the country and hearing about different volunteer events going on, being put on by BHA or the NDA or Trout Unlimited or whatever it is. You see a picture from one of these events, and there'd be like six people. And I thought to myself, man, these are such great events. There's such good work going on. I believe there's great things coming from them, but not enough folks hear about it. Not enough people are going out and doing these things. So I thought, what's some way we could

help bring more attention to that and kind of inspire more folks to get out there and do it? So I decided I'll start doing it myself. So this tour was, the idea is to go around the country collaborating with various non-profit organizations to help you know organize these events promote these events and then i go to them myself and volunteer all day with folks you know meet everyone talk to folks have a great time and document it all and then tell those stories afterwards so what kind of projects i can attest let me tell you i went to one last year down in Kentucky. We went down there and collected five-gallon bucket upon five-gallon bucket of white oak acorns. And those were collected to then be grown in a nursery, oak nursery.

If you live by Clay's house, he's talking about acorns. Acorns, that's right. And then to be planted back into the Daniel Boone National Forest. So where were you wandering around collecting acorns? Daniel Boone National Forest. And then they were going to propagate them. Yeah, some folks had scouted them, so they knew some spots to go to. It was very educational for me.

As a deer hunter, it was cool. And the community aspect of it was great. I mean, you're sitting around literally sitting because there's so many of them. It's so thick. You can just sit down and collect acorns and you're talking to people from the community. So instead of six people going out there collecting acorns, we had 60 or something like that. No kidding. And we collected between 700 and 800 pounds of these acorns.

Holy shit. Which were then propagated. I went and visited that nursery a couple weeks ago. We have 15,000 oak seedlings now growing. What was the success rate? Did you find out acorn, like what percentage actually? Yeah, like what percent were viable and took and all that? I don't know off the top of my head, no.

But you must have picked a hell of a lot more acorns than that. Yeah, so 15,000 trees are growing. Saw them, and then we're going to go back next spring and help reforest parts of the National Forest. So that's the example. How big do they got to get them before they put them back in the ground? Well, right now they're about six inches

tall. By next spring, I think it'll be more like a foot, give or take. Are they worried about just the deer going to annihilate them? That's definitely a thing. I don't know about what kind of protection they may or may not be using when we plant. But, yeah, so that's an example. Because Doug Dern will give you an earful about that. You know something I learned down there?

Did you know that when you find an acorn with the cap on it, it's an aborted acorn? No. Whoa. What? I was hoping he would. That's what we learned, right? They were like, if you can, pick up the ones that don't have their caps on them anymore. Like it didn't come to

maturity. I remember we were searching out ones that didn't have the weevil. I always preferred those ones. Big old white with no cap. We were also looking to make sure there weren't weevil holes in them and stuff like that. And that they hadn't sprouted yet either. I think that was something we looked for. Which when they went to the nursery

they probably put them all in water and you can find out if they're viable or not by floating them. I think the ones that aren't viable float, I think. I think that's right. It was very cool. But we did that. We went two weeks ago. We were in Pennsylvania.

And I just got an email this morning that quantified what we did. 1,700 feet of 10-foot tall fencing was removed. Oh, my God. 14 bluebird boxes were installed. Two wildlife planting fences were created. You're on the air. were installed. Two wildlife planting fences were created. Doug. You're on the air. Put your phone in front of the

microphone, Steve. The speaker. If an acorn, if you find an acorn laying on the ground. Not an acorn. Yeah. Me and Doug quit being friends over an acorn fight one time. Or an acorn argument. If. Or an acorn argument.

If you find an acorn laying on the ground and his cap is still on him, does that mean it was aborted and it's not viable? Complete conjecture, no. But he qualified. Conjecture. Yep. It means to me that it dropped early and that cap has to dry and fall off yet. But it could still be viable. Right.

Thanks, Doug. Okay. Okay, so go on. Hit me with the stats. Start with the stats from the top. We got to sidetrack there. So on this particular day, two weeks ago in Pennsylvania, we removed 1,700 feet of 10-foot tall fencing

that was originally put up decades ago back when... How tall? About 10 foot. For what the hell purpose was that? So, this is pretty interesting. Was this on state land? This is National Forest. Pennsylvania, back 20, 30 years ago, deer populations were so

high that if you wanted any kind of regrowth at all, they had to fence them. They still do it. Well, in this case, though, they don't want... So they did an exclosure and it just decayed. Yep. And now it's keeping deer and other wildlife out of an area they want them they don't want. So they did an exclosure and it just decayed. Yep. And now it's keeping deer and other wildlife out of an area they want them in.

Got it. So we removed almost 2000 feet of that, which was a job. Planted 50 trees and shrubs, installed 14 bluebird boxes, planted 25 button bush, button bushes um and then installed a new set of 240 feet of fencing around some of these new plantings to protect them in those early growth stages so we've done things like that we were in massachusetts outside of boston we did collected literally a ton two thousand pounds of trash on a wma we worked on aspen stand restorations in northern Idaho. We created, I think, 18 brush piles for small game habitat and improved 16 acres of openings in a state forest in northern Michigan. We did a great project in Mississippi on the, can't remember the name of the national forest down there,

but planted something like 250 apple trees, worked on gopher tortoise habitat. There was all these different kinds of very cool projects. You learn a lot. You meet an incredible number of like-minded people and you come away from these events just full. Like your cup is full, all this new energy. It's great. And really, really cool stories.

Like I've heard so many stories from people that went to an event like this, having never participated in something like that before, never really thought they'd want to, but heard about it. Like, oh, sure. I'll go give it a shot.

And it leads to the snowball effect with more and more things happening. So I just met a guy at, didn't meet him, saw him again at the BHA rendezvous. He comes up to me and said, Hey, I don't know if you remember me. We met at the event outside of boston i'd never participated never volunteered before but i did it came out there came away from that feeling so charged up and wanted to do more i

decided to get involved with that local chapter of bha asked if there's any more events well there were some more things started going to those i enjoyed that so much more when i found out there was an opening on the state board. I joined and became a state board member. I did that for the rest of the year. I have become so charged up with what this has led to that now I'm retiring from the Navy. He's being discharged.

It's the end there. Honorably. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. He is... They said you're private? You're too into conservation. Well, so much so that he is now pursuing a full-time career in conservation. That would not have happened if it hadn't been that. That's great, Mark.

So there's been multiple things like that that are very exciting and we're hoping to keep them going. So we've done eight events in the last 13 months so far. Another one, the next one coming up is this August in northern Minnesota. What's that one? That is going to be doing two big projects just outside the Boundary Waters. One, we will be creating a access point for hunters and anglers and campers entering this part. It's on Vermilion Lake, I believe.

So helping create a access point for recreators and then creating whitetail and other wildlife wintering habitat by planting conifer trees in a WMA I believe up there as well. And Mark if people want to get involved where do they go on our website or on wire to hunt. Yeah.

So probably the simplest way is just to Google working for wildlife tour or go to the meat eater website and search that too. There's an article there that links to the details for every one of the events so far this year.

Um, but yeah, we'd love to see more folks at that Northern Minnesota one and hopefully we'll do more next year. It's awesome, Mark. Thank you. Heck yeah.

And everybody go give Mark a listen or a watch on the new podcast network channel on YouTube. YouTube. Yeah. Uh, he's host of the wire to hunt podcast. Got any target bucks going on? We need to hear YouTube. YouTube, yeah. He's host of the Wired to Hunt podcast. Got any target bucks going on we need to hear about? Well, I do have to say real quick,

for those paying attention to Mark, I had people write in to the Ask Cal email making sure Mark's okay. What's wrong with him? Mark's in training running mode, so he's looking slim and trim, and then he shaved his mustache off. To get better aerodynamics. training running mode. He's looking slim and trim. I know he's been running. He shaved his mustache off.

To get better aerodynamics. People went around him and came to me and said, I hope he's doing okay. He looks too skinny. You've been running so much, you got skinny. I guess so. The mustache takes 10 pounds. Not the running club, the skinny club.

10 pounds and 10 years off, I guess, with a mustache. Not as fast as Yanni, but I'm getting there. You don't know that. Dude, not as fast as the gals I was watching at the barbershop yesterday in the track and field tournament. Definitely not. My goodness. I'm more slow, but long distance.

Like a turtle. Okay, back to the bucks. Where are you at on target bucks? How deep are you in the list of names that you have to choose from? How good are you to, I got another question. Before you answer that, I got a question for you.

How good are you, you know when you start seeing bucks coming into Velvet? Yeah. Like the other day, my neighbor sends me a picture looks promising yeah you know and you just look it looks like two beer cans coming out of his head all velvety yeah at what point do you feel uh at what point do you feel like you can look by what date say in the midwest by what date can you look at a velvety buck and go like that's looking good well i was able to do that before i left michigan um last week of may first week of june already yeah like you say like by what i'm seeing this is looking promising like i saw a buck i got

pictures of and saw him probably june 1st ish and i i not only knew that buck's gonna be a buck but i knew the buck what are you looking at you're looking at really what you're seeing is you develop like a reference point for how much a deer has grown by a typical point and you'll start to see like man if a deer like i know from 2018 that this certain buck was a five-year-old buck and he ended up being like X big. Yeah. And I know he ended up like this. I'll look back at his pictures on May 31st or June 1st and I'll see what he looked like back then.

Oh, and see what he had going on then. If you do that enough times, you start to be able to identify. see right now on you know end of may beginning of june well past the ears very substantial brow tines a lot of mass starting to branch out into you know three four points at the ends and you can usually if you you know if you if you hunt a small area you see the same deer over and over and over again that's a good point so you think i know i know in the past what he looked like on may 31st and i know where he landed yeah So if I can look at him now on May 31st. It's like if you, you know, people

are always wondering, how do you know it's that buck? How can you tell that this buck's different from that one? It's just like if you have two... The ear tags. Like if you see my... Yeah, that would do it. Like my two boys. One of you saw my two sons. How do you know that's James?

They both look the same to any random person, but to me it's so obvious. Well, when I see like the brow tines of a deer, like I knew this buck, I saw like instantly, he's only got the beginning of his antlers, but I saw instantly recognize the brow tine structure and width. I was like, oh, that's this deer. He's back.

And so that deer. And it probably helps that he's like, he like lives where he lives. Why are you not using his first name? What is his name? Bulldozer. And God, Mark, it never ends. Hear me out. Why not Kaiser Wilhelm?

Hear me out. Ryan asked how the names come up. I don't name my deer anymore. Who named that? Your kids name them? The kids do it. So the kids get excited. They see a picture. We go out there and actually glass up the deer and watch deer.

And then the kids just like, ah, let's call them that. It's fun for the kids. The kids feel like they're part of it. Do they ever argue about it? Just between themselves. They'll argue who gets to have the rights to a given deer's name. You want to see some fighting kids. I took my kids out bow fishing the other day, but only brought one bow.

Good Lord. Yeah, I can see that. Mark and I have been. In my head, I was like, how many carp do I really want to deal with? I wanted to take them out. I was like, we're going to catch carp. We're going to flam. We'll use them for bait.

We'll make some fish cakes, whatever. So I was like, we'll just bring one bow. My God. Just fighting. Yeah. Mark and I were talking the other week about getting together and doing some angling. But off of this conversation, I have a

ulterior motive, but I want to get your kids aside and be like, listen, yeah, here's a couple of good names. So Mark has to come back on this show and be like, yeah, Queen Elizabeth is dead. Yeah. What did bulldozer do to pick up the name bulldozer? Literally nothing.

I think my son just probably was watching a TV show or saw a picture of a bulldozer. Yeah. 20 minutes beforehand. And then that deer was bulldozed. Free association. Yes. My other, like the other,

I think I told you guys this a few months ago. Oh, you tried to kill that buck this year? Yeah. He the number one cool my youngest son didn't really find it i found the sheds but left them there and then went back later when he was around trick him into finding them helped him find it and so he's very excited that he found bulldozers handler that's just fun stuff with your kids great man and uh yeah it's it's very cool now like my kids are hunting with me i can actually share these experiences with them in the wild we the first deer i shot with my son everett happened uh this past winter and so he got to be there for

the whole thing did amazing and helped gut it helped drag it whole nine yards but that buck bulldozer actually came out that same night so we got to see that buck encounter that deer together waited till he left then took a doe um so very fun great how old are your boys now six and four you squirrel hunting yet with them uh mark's not i would say not like officially a squirrel hunting he carries around a bb gun a lot and uh he's done a little damage and then he's also been on groundhog duty with a 17 which he has which he's done very well with we had a problem you got plans for squirrel hunting i'm sure we will yeah cool you know good deal yeah he should come out and ground hunt my boy's got a real hot groundhog not groundhog, ground squirrel permission right now.

He would love it. And they kind of turned it into like the he's, the people that have him doing this have turned it into the he's single-handedly saving their horses through a rather convoluted process. You'll appreciate this, Randall, because it involves a badger. their take is that they got too many ground squirrels which lures in badgers which dig holes which are going to kill the horses therefore one thing is saving horses which is all he needed to hear what he needed to hear was he gets to hunt ground squirrels. Right. But he needed a way to sell it to the old man. And upon hearing this heart-rendering story about saving the family's horses, how could I say no? Great logic.

And it got him out of needing to eat those squirrels. Listen, Dad, this is eradication, okay? It's a job. So my kids have now, I've kind of wrestled with that question like you know i want them to get experience doing this things doing these things but at the same time you know you can't just wantonly shoot a bunch of stuff um so one part of the process now like if we shoot a groundhog we have to dissect it learn all about it and then a fun new thing we're doing is seeing what happens afterwards. So we go and we'll leave like a part of the groundhog carcass out in the woods and then set up trail cameras on it.

There you go. To then watch and see what comes up next. Who's going to use this next? And how does that change over two weeks versus six weeks? It's a good idea. And that's been fun. That's cool. That's real cool.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. If Mark was everybody's dad, the world wouldn't be such a mess. Yeah, Mark should be a science teacher. I'd like that. You should have more kids, Mark. We're done, Steve. Officially.

Oh, really? You got the... Did I ever tell you about when I had that done? Yeah. Did I ever tell you about when I had it done? Did it go well? No. This is...

I'm telling way too many people Is this why you're so skinny? How long ago did you have it done? Two years ago Well, which one? Oh, Mark The right one I had to have it done twice

Really? Yeah When they were telling me that I'm like, how in the world is that possible? I don't know how it does I'm like, how in the world is that possible? I'm surprised you don't have a third kid. I've got super stuff. They couldn't kill it. They couldn't seal it up.

I'm insatiable. So you're trying to stop the Columbia. Wait a minute. They did. You have to get stuff tested. My test never came back negative. Really? Twice. Same doctor? gave to get stuff tested you know and my test never came back negative really and i yeah twice same doctor do you be like well i did seriously wonder like should i go to somebody else

that to me was the worst part about the whole process it wasn't getting it done and then like the couple days afterwards where you're stuck on the couch but like every whatever it is three days where you gotta walk in there and be like turn your sample in yeah yeah five six times and then they're like i keep crying i remember they finally called me i remember they said the guy that called me he was military and he thought i was military because i called him sir and i had to clear that up eventually But uh He calls Congratulations What happened? Test came back negative

So you kept throwing samples And they were positive So you had like a bifurcated canal I don't know how it works But Didn't work right And then it became a situation where I didn't want to get it done again because I just didn't enjoy the first time, but I kept on being like,

I know. You didn't enjoy it. Yeah. You didn't enjoy someone cutting into your scroll and strangely enough. Tying little knots in. Were you able to work in like a two-for-one type of pricing? I should have, but no. Did they charge you for the redo?

Yeah. No way. Yeah. No, they did not. They did too they did too oh god i'm in insurance did he find a second tube i apparently should have asked a lot more questions but no i just showed up kind of with a sullen look on my face said all right here i am doc let's do it again and he said like yeah this should definitely do it this time and it did but what happened i procrastinate i'd be like what's that we're really gonna we're really gonna get that thing

i don't like going down there with those samples man yeah no look if kevin wilkerson's thumb can grow back from nothing to a full thumb with a nail and everything. What? Then I don't see. I was going to say, no wonder you're so confident to shave your mustache. You know it's going to grow back.

It's going to grow back. Trust me. It'll grow back. Oh, yeah. So no more little Mark Kenyans on the horizon. No more. Man, I miss those little babies now, man.

Do you? Oh, yeah. I don't miss that early on in stage. I kind of want to adopt a little baby, maybe. Give me a two years old. Not six months. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. Boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a

raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a 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 on x 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. You see how bad I'm dying to talk about this book? Talk about the book. We got a new segment. Hold on before you start or say the name. We got to play The Drop.

Do you got The Drop ready, Phil? The Drop's ready. Can you play it for everybody? Yeah, sure. It's time for Steve Reads Books. So you ain't got to. That's right. It's time for Steve Reads Books, so you ain't got to. That's right. It's time for Steve reads books, so you ain't got to.

Nice. I'm surprised you let her use ain't. She didn't want to. Oh, you wanted her to use it. I said, you need to say this. You need to say in a real sexy voice, it's time for Steve reads books, so you ain't got to. And she said, it's time for Steve reads books, so you don't got to. And she said, it's time for Steve reads books so you don't have to.

And I said, no, no, no, no. Good try. Because it's not appealing to the right audience. The kind of person that doesn't want to read books doesn't want to read books because they ain't got to. So you're trying to sell it to the right audience. This only came up because i read a book when we're on a live show the live tour a guy gave me a book uh vaquero of the brush country and i realized how could the world's greatest book i had never heard of and i like that book and i and i told people the best parts and so i came up with this idea that, that what I could do from now on, like as a future business line,

when I retire or whatever is read books. So you ain't got to this doozy. Listen above the Arctic circle. Oh, can I talk about something different? First, a friend of mine wrote this, look at this book.

I'm not going to read this. So you ain't got you. Cause it's a guidebook. Uh, Bill Carmen, who's Carman who was with Rocky Mountain Elder Foundation check this out talk about a novel idea fishing with Daniel Boone fly fishing the streams of an American hero

so if you're into Daniel Boone lore about like oh you know one day he killed 17 bears on the big sandy or was raised on the upper yadkin whatever he lays out how you can go fish those places so you can fish there and then read all about what happened there so-and-so got killed right over yonder try a pheasant tear shoot at him that's a great idea for the book if you live live around, if you live around Kentucky, Tennessee, uh, Kentucky in particular, and you'd like to fish, this will infuse all your fishing with all kinds of history.

It's almost like a roadside geology type of take, right? Yeah. I call him Bill Carmen, William F. Carmen. Fly fishing the streams of an American hero. And then you're kind of ripping off like Cliff's notes for your idea, right? Well, no, because I don't actually, when I do this segment, Steve reads books that you ain't got to. I don't, I'm just telling you the parts that really grabbed me. It's not like a summation of what goes on.

But I'll tell you, this is a guy, James A. Carroll, the Alaska journals of James A. Carroll 1911-1922. He's a cook. He cooks at logging camps in Minnesota. And eventually winds up up in Alaska. So he winds up in Alaska. I need to put my spectacles on. He winds up up in Alaska in 1911. Seeking work as a cook

but becomes a fur trapper. And has a lot of amazing adventures and what i like about the book in particular is uh he looks at everything through the a food lens he's very astute about food he uh gets into gets into at one point, one of his cooking techniques. He's bragging up how good he is at cooking. I could bake anything with the reflector. Pies, biscuits, etc.

I used to cook our beans in a bean hole. Ready for this? I used to cook our beans in a bean hole. This bean hole was made by digging a hole in the ground three feet by two feet. I would fill this hole full of small cut wood. When all the wood burned down to hot coals, I would rake a hole in these hot coals and set the bean pot into the center and rake the hot coals back over the pot. Then I would cover it all over with six or eight inches of dirt. You know why this turns out so good?

He says he buries it so deep, quote, none of the flavors could escape. Okay, ready for this? This is when he's up in Alaska. He's got a guy he hangs out with named riger who raises hogs okay in the early evening hours riger this is all on the yukon in the early evening hours riger invited me down to the riverbank he wanted to show me how he fed his hogs right from the river. Birch Creek teemed with fish of all kinds, predominantly pike. As soon as Riger reached for his fishing pole, it would alert all the pigs, and they would come running from all directions.

Sometimes they would run between his legs and nearly trip Riger. It seemed almost as soon as Riger's spoon hit the water, a pike would grab it. Riger had a club to kill the fish as soon as he dragged it to shore. In the meantime, the pigs were all squealing up and down the bank waiting for their supper of fish. The hogs would fight over the pike. It would take him about an hour. Now I'm skipping ahead.

It would take him about an hour to feed his herd of hogs. Now he dubs this Operation Riger's Ranch. I wonder if those hogs were fishy tasting. Well, funny you should ask. Listen to this tidbit. Okay, so hold that in mind for a minute. Because there's another food tidbit. No, I'll get to your question.

Okay. They got a guy in their camp that doesn't want to eat bear meat. Says he can't eat bear meat. So James Carroll, the author, kills a bear and he's going to serve it. But there's this guy that doesn't want to eat bear meat. So James Carroll cooks a bunch of bear meat. He had a camp hunter. Bill Hogshead was the camp hunter.

Brings a small black bear into camp. He's going to make a pot roast out of the bear. Okay. So he cuts the bear's ribs into short ribs. Puts them in a pot. The guy that comes in that doesn't like bear meat asks what's in a pot. He tells him it's short ribs from Riger's Ranch. He says, no, it's not.

Don't smell like fish. On the night we camped with Mr. Stead He fried us up a lot of caribou steak For our supper Being a cook myself I observed how he went about preparing it While Stead stood over the cook stove Watching the steaks of caribou cook He would comb his beard

With the same fork He turned the steaks with He did this unconsciously I learned a new wrinkle he would comb his beard with the same fork he turned the steaks with. He did this unconsciously. I learned a new wrinkle about bread baking from Stead. He had a large batch of bread raising in a big tin dish pan with a yellow tomcat sleeping on top of the dough. I thought the cat was sleeping where it shouldn't, so I told Stead the cat was sleeping on his bread.

Oh, that's nothing. There is always a dishcloth between the doe and the cat to keep the doe clean. The narrator complains to another guy about it. The guy says, that's where the cat always sleeps. Ready for this there's a guy that splits wood in town

in Fort Yukon splits and sells wood to people in town but someone keeps horking the wood off his pile he drills he takes his auger bit and drills out a bunch of wood and packs it full of gunpowder and sets it on top of the pile

quickly finds the thief bunch of wood and packs it full of gunpowder and sets it on top of the pile. Quickly finds the thief. Blows the, burns the thief's house down. What else? Here's something I wasn't going to talk about, then scratched it out, which makes me wonder what it was. Ready for this?

He would get as drunk as a boiled owl. I've only seen Mark as drunk as a boiled owl one time. The other day, I said, in the Vaquero of the brush country oh crin you forgot to remind me i was just gonna remind you okay there's two things from vaquero of a brush country that i didn't tell people about you know when you call a buck old mossy horns you've made this for michigan yeah i used to think that when you call the buck old mossy horns, people were losing track of the fact that bucks shed their antlers. And we would say that's where old mossy horns lives. Like what, when you hear old mossy horns being from Michigan, what do you think you're saying about that buck?

Big old swamp buck. Yep. Old is the biggest thing. And so old and big that he had moss grown his antlers you know what it means well i learned this in vaquero of the brush country when a longhorn gets old the sheen on that horn starts to break apart like he's got smooth horn but growing from the base outward eventually it gets like that sheen breaks and it gets kind of crumbly over time from exposure to the sun and weather

and he becomes old mossy horns he's so old that it becomes like a like a brittly kind of hairy coating on that horn that's what old mossy horns is. That is interesting. He also says, um, he says there, there was more of something than fiddlers in hell. Drunk is a boiled owl. Here he's trapping. He traps,

you know what you hear about caribou herds, the porcupine herd. He's trapping he traps you know you hear about caribou herds the porcupine herd he's trapping the porcupine river i remember one time i had three poor and damaged cross fox one had no tail one had no head the third one had badly rubbed hips i told jack that i was going to try to make a whole cross fox from these three damaged ones. Jack didn't think much of the idea. One of the foxes had a good head and shoulders, one had good hips, and the third one had a good tail and hips. I trimmed off all the ragged edges and rugged, rubbed pieces. I was good at sewing, considering the short experience I had had the past winter.

I simply sewed the head and shoulders together, and then I fastened on the good hips and tail, and pulled it loosely over a stretcher. The whole fox pellet was probably a little shorter than average length. When we were showing our collection of furs to a fur buyer, he picked up this tailor-made cross fox first, shook it out and said, now that's what I call a nice little cross. You ready for this? After we arrived in town, I stayed at Jim Haley's Roadhouse for a month. Old Jim was a great soup maker he had a large don't laugh he had a large seven gallon soup kettle that he always kept full of

soup it's not funny i often wondered afterwards how he kept so much soup on hand without it souring on him. He must have kept adding soda to it. He used to put all kinds of small game in his soup, such as squirrels, ducks, ground squirrels, rabbits, and sometimes a piece of moot or caribou meat that the Indians happened to bring in. They were all good to Jim in this respect. Jim always had soup to serve any time of the day or night. One time, Jim had his soup pot and slop bucket sitting side by side.

Uh-oh. By mistake, a fellow by the name of White emptied his wash basin in Jim's soup pot instead of the slot bucket. His soup was still as popular as ever. Ready for this? I remember Curly Well and I stopped at Schumann's overnight. We told him we would like to get an early start in the morning. Schumann set his alarm clock to ring at 4 o'clock. When the alarm went off, it woke me up too.

So I lay awake in bed until breakfast was ready. Schumann got right up and made a hot fire in a big cast iron flat top heater he had. I watched Schumann all the time. He didn't know it. First thing he did toward cooking our breakfast was to spit a mouthful of tobacco juice on top of his cast iron heater. After this burned out dry, he made our toast on the same stove. As soon as Curly got up, I told him of the incident.

Schumann wanted to know why we were not hungry that morning. We told him we had drunk some bad whiskey the evening before and that we would settle for a cup of coffee. Ready for this? That's not that interesting oh no it is interesting

in august 1912 and 19 it's just it's a historical tidbit in august 1912 and 1913, I decided to pull out for the trap line. The outfit of grub bean cook advanced me. The outfit of grub, the outfit of food, bean cook advanced me amounted to $130. I never took any bacon or lard with me. I figured on using bear for bacon and lard. Of some old guys, now this guy's the toughest guy on the planet, but he's talking about the guys that are really tough.

He says this of them, the old timers. So this is the old timers at that time. They lived tough, ate tough, and died hard. That's what I would like written on my tombstone when I'm buried in the Twin Lakes Cemetery. Ready for another one?

This guy, he's moose hunting, and he's talking about how he'll rake in moose pre-rut. Still a practice, still used today. You take a scapula or an antler or whatever, right, rake brush. He believes this. He believes that moose, this is an interesting belief. Brown bears, he says, hunt moose the same way. Sometimes a brown bear will fool a moose by clawing at a dry, hollow tree. A moose generally on the run runs in the direction of such a sound.

The bear charges the moose that has run right to him. Wow. I don't believe that. Remind me to tell you a hot tip when we're done here about Moose. I can't remember if I told you. He's, he's, uh, he's checking,

uh, they're scouting for trapping sign and his buddy, uh, Deagle. Every time they find a mink track, he gets down and smells that track. He says he can smell whether it's fresh. He's got sled dogs

when he's trapping. And he feeds them mostly fish. After I got home, I did some fishing with a gaff hook. And I hooked out 500 dog salmon. One day he hooks out 800 dog salmon with a gaff.

And he refers to it as some fishing. Mm-hmm. Did some fishing. I didn't dedicate a day to it. There was no law in Fort Yukon. He's talking about the winter of 1912, 1913. And they bring in a U.S. commissioner who now is supposed to assume control of Fort Yukon. He comes into town, and he's got a number of people that he's got for land injunctions. Basically, he's got a couple people he's going to prosecute for living on land they don't own,

and he decides to prosecute some other people for illegal cohabitation living with their girlfriend does two indictments subpoenas all 50 residents of fort yukon in the winter makes all 50 residents of fort yukon travel to Fairbanks for these trials. The jury in Fairbanks acquits everyone, and they send the whole town back home. Jeez. Got nothing out of it.

When he left, he had some links he hadn't skinned yet, and he put them in his bed wrapped up in his blanket, but he says he got back and they were still frozen stiff. Remember this? I, okay. Talking about the winter in 1910, 1911. He's trapping. I got home early that evening.

Before I left the cabin that morning, I had left a partly frozen lynx wrapped up in my bed. This was to prevent it from freezing harder. I wanted to get the lynx thawed out so I could skin it out for its pelt. Lynx have thousands of fleas on them even when the flesh is partly frozen.

As soon as the cabin warms up, the fleas leave the cat and get all over one's blankets and clothes. The marshal, this is the marshal there to serve him a subpoena, the marshal got quite a jolt when I unwrapped the dead frozen link from my bedding. David nearly laughed his head off.

They both stayed with me that night. They told me in the morning that the fleas nearly ate them up alive and that they hadn't slept a wink all night from scratching. Well, I said, they kept me awake all night too. What's this here he's drinking with a guy named doc and they got a bottle of whiskey in little glasses and he says doc

had a method i don't need to drink this i can explain it doc had a method that he had a small shot glass and huge fingers and he could wrap his fingers so tight around the shot glass that he said they acted as sideboards and he could fit more whiskey in his cup by creating extra volume around his cup just with his fingers and then would walk away from the bottle. Not funny. I like how the flea deal just implies that this is just the way it is. Yep. I got bit up too.

I got to deal with the fleas? There's no changing this method. Now he's married and he traps with his wife Fanny. They go out for a whole season. Our catch for the season consisted of 46 lynx, 23 mink, 70 martin.

He later goes on to say what he got at the fur buyer. They go out for the winter and I did one of those little inflation adjusters, which are kind of inaccurate. But he and his wife go out and trap. They catch, again, 46 links, 23 minks, 70 Martin. With an inflation adjuster, they made 44,000 bucks that winter trapping. Here's a little bit of the ingenuity of these guys.

It's the 12th of April. Okay, they've gone up to trap. It's the 12th of April and it's time to come home. Luckily, we had a large size toboggan. It was 16 inches wide, 9 feet long, and made of hickory boards, 12 feet long and four inches wide. The stores those days sold this hickory and also maple boards to the trappers to make their toboggans with. I used to make my own. I had a form to bend the boards on after they had been steamed. For a steamer, I used a five-gallon oil can and two stoveipes. I fitted the pipe in one end of the can,

filled the can full of water, and set it on a campfire to boil. I shoved the four boards down the stovepipe to the bottom of the can. I stuffed some gunny sacks in the cracks around the top of the stovepipe to keep the steam in. In about three hours, one could bend the steamed ends like rubber. After the boards dried on the form, I fastened them with cross pieces. I made a basket from a partly tanned big moose hide, the full length of the toboggan. I had lash loops all around the top of the basket to lash the load down. We loaded the links in the toboggan first. They were the most bulky. The Martin and Mink one could get in a big gunny sack.

We had a top heavy load. The next year, check this out. The next year, guess how many lynx he catches. The whole country came alive with lynx and rabbits. Next year, he catches 225 lynx with his wife in one season. So that was the amount of jingle he was making at that time. There's one other couple

things. Should I keep going or is this too... I love it. Oh, Randall likes it. I'm enthralled. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Whew. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season.

The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints, and tracking. That's right. We're always talking about OnX here on the 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 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, to the on X club. Y'all right now.

Muskrats are worth a couple bucks, $2, $3, 19, 19, 19, 20. Guess what?

Muskrats are bringing $4 a piece. Wow. He and his wife spend a month traveling through the winter to trap the Crow River flats. They spend the whole spring there trapping and shooting. They trap and shoot 1,600 muskrats with three babies with them. Jeez. That's some serious cash. Jeez. That's some serious cash.

Yep. Last thing I'm going to tell you is this. This guy he traps with. Curtis. Curtis had his own tent and stove. In the grub line, Curtis traveled light he lived off the country mostly when he arrived at the flats this is when they go they go they actually travel in here's what's funny they're traveling by dog sled they cross into canada that they have to stop and go

through customs there's a camp that has two mounties there and they got to pay duties on all their stuff. And you pay duties on your sled dogs, but you get the money back if they come back alive. And there's guys that live there just to monitor trappers coming over the pass from the Yukon to go into the Crow River flats to trap muskrats. Curtis had his own tent and stove and the grub line Curtis traveled light. He lived off the country mostly. When he arrived at the flats, he had 15 pounds of flour, 5 pounds of sugar, 1 can of lard, 1 pound of coffee, 2 pounds of butter, 6 cans of milk, 1 half pound of tea, and 1 pound of salt.

He gave us his butter, coffee, and milk. We didn't want to take this from him, but he insisted we take it and said rats and flour were all he wanted to eat. He wouldn't accept anything for it. We used to have him eat with us quite often. It didn't take much to satisfy Curtis. I used to visit Curtis often to hear him talk. Our tents were close together. One day I was in his tent when he cooked a batch of rats. He dressed out 10 rats and stuck them in a five gallon coal oil can. This coal oil can and a couple of lard cans were all the cooking dishes he had. He put the rats in this five gallon canallon can heads down, with their tails hanging over the sides of the can about four inches. We should try that.

He added water and let them boil for one hour. Then he reversed them, tails down, heads up. This gave the tails a chance to cook. The tails of the rats are very good eating when boiled or cooked over a campfire. Eight tails with a small piece of bannock makes feed for a person. After cooking them another half hour, he would thicken the juice with a cup of flour, making a thick white gravy. This concoction would last Curtis for three days. Whenever he wanted to eat a meal,

he would fork out of the can a whole rat together with some white gravy. This didn't allow much variety, but Curtis seemed to relish it. Rats for breakfast, dinner, and supper. When a person is hungry and a long way from a store, anything tastes good, no matter how many times one eats the same thing

behind curtis sheet iron stove in his tent he had a pile of rat bones as big as a large rat house these were the bones from all the rats he had eaten recently the last thing i'll tell you about curtis yeah when they get done with trapping season they go back to fort yukon curtis brings two large gunny sacks full of dried rats that he can eat during the summer i think um we should adopt a recipe like this in the next meat eater outdoor cookbook or cookbook and then when we do like a podcast like we did this year Randall can be the rep cooker. Oh, we should just bring him in and cook him right here and get dirt in on it.

Dirt would love the dirt. This is special. Steve, when you read a book just for yourself, not for the podcast, do you... I wasn't reading it for the podcast. Okay, so my question is,

I kind of see over your shoulder, though. You've notated it. You've got lines on the sides. You've got stars. You've got some things underlined. Do you do that in any book you read, or just did you come back to this book and say, oh, I want to talk about this piece,

this piece? Well, if I don't have my pen handy, I just fold all the pages. Then I come back and mark it, but I generally like to read with my pen. Interesting. And I mark all the parts that tit But I generally like to read with my pen. Interesting. And I mark all the parts that titillate me. That's a great word.

And then remember, everybody, that was a segment called... Oh, Corinne, I'm so sorry. Oh, sorry. It's time for Steve Reads Books. So you ain't got to. That'll be a recurring segment. Part of why I'm reading this book is we were working on meet,

you know, our meters American history. So we did the long hunters. The next we're going to do the mountain men after the mountain. Then we're going to do the Buffalo hide hunters. At some point. Um, we have four or five of them to go we have five to go five including the mountain men

holy cow at some point i want to do the last frontier and like they have their bracketed so the long hunters is 1766 to 1775 yeah 60 61 or 63 to 75 I don't remember what we called it. The Mountain Men will probably be 1805 to 1832. And when we do The Last Frontier, I'm thinking Gold Rush to statehood. So a bigger chunk of time. So I was kind of thinking about that that reading that book what happens to these books after you've read them i mean do you keep every book that you get your hands on and read i'm keeping that son of a bitch that's right i'm just thinking they could be good for the auction house especially with your oh annotations yeah no no uh yeah it's a great book, man.

Oh, Dirk Durham from Phelps Game Calls. The Bugler. The Bugler. Did you see this thing he sent in? No. Some guys goofing on their buddy near Lewistown. Idaho took out a billboard with their buddy's face on it. He says, here's the deal.

Need archery lessons? Call literally anyone but Bob. That's a huge billboard. That's a huge picture of him. They put it on his route to work. What does Bob do for work? Well, he does not have very successful hunters is the problem.

So they're just dogging on him. They put his face, they left off his last name. Need archery lessons? Call literally anyone but Bob. And you know, you've got to think about how many people have joked about doing that to one of their buddies.

But these guys carried it out. Saw it to fruition. They actually put money where their mouth is. Yeah. Put money where their mouth is. I like these guys. I'd like to know what that cost them. Well, Seth, before we go, can you update us on the A-frame?

Oh, yeah. Things are happening with the A-frame. Oh, yeah. Things are happening with the A-frame. Talk about what happened. Back in early December, I think it was, a tree fell on my shitty old shack in Alaska. Cut a big old groove

out of it. Big old hole. Yeah, it messed a lot. It's kind of a blessing in disguise because there was... It is? Well, there was a lot of rot issues that I didn't know about that had been covered up by certain things. Like the roof? Yeah. When the tree hit it, it just broke everything loose. But we have a real good buddy of ours, Dustin Olson, who's going up here in a couple weeks to basically fix everything that needs fixed. By the time we get up there in the summer, it should have a front and a back porch.

Oh, so he's going up just to work. Yeah, he's going up for two weeks, him and some buddies. Oh, that's nice. He's a really good contractor, does great work. We met him through – he used to go up there and still does and work for the fishing lodge in the summer. Mm-hmm. Doing, well, not, he'd go up in the spring just to do contracting work. Mm-hmm.

Yep. And, yeah, kind of met him. He reached out to Kelsey one time and said, hey, like, if you guys need any help with anything up there, let me know. That's great. He's going to root out all the rot. Yeah, he's basically replacing the front and the back wall of the A-frame, fixing the roof, and putting a front and back porch on it. So you only have two more walls to go after this. I was going to say, an A-frame only has two walls.

There's the front rotten one and the back rotten one. more walls to go after this. I was going to say, there's only two walls. There's the front rotten one and the back rotten one. Right, and then the rest is roof. The broken roof finishes it up. Which the roof wasn't rotten. Well, their spot had skylights in it, which is a terrible, if you're ever

building a place in Southeast Alaska, don't put skylights in your roof. So the beams around those were rotten. He's pulling those out. I was like, I wonder if that's going to start leaking. Yeah. Well, my dad will recommend to you never in any home put a skylight in. Especially in a place that gets 13 feet of rain.

Yeah. So, yeah. It's going to be a different looking place when we get up there have you hit a point where you were you did well regret it yeah no so but even after the tree fell on it did you think yourself i wish i would have never bought a a cabin no i i told myself from day one as long as the you know as long as we own the land, I'm happy. Because it might take a while, but when the tree hit, I was like, this sucks, but we still own the land. And it's not the end of our time there.

No matter how long it takes,'ll eventually like rebuild something just because that i mean that's like my favorite place on earth and that place is always work and so you know that going into it yeah tree or no tree you go up there and do a bunch of work and it's a lifestyle yeah you like it yeah and people might be like how like we spend three like this year we're gonna spend three weeks up there like how can you justify doing like how like we spend three like this year we're gonna spend three weeks up there like how can you justify doing all that just to spend three weeks at a place yeah but you learn something you don't know until you actually experience it you'll never understand it yeah but you know if you're you know you gotta you gotta keep up your mental

acuity as you get older yeah like the way you know you got to stay engaged now if you grow up not in that marine environment um the amount of stuff you have to learn i think it's like yeah way better reading books i mean i like reading books you saw me just reading a whole damn book but to go like well i don't know you know you could grow up not there and you go there and you have to learn all about everything that it takes to be there yep that's good for your head totally i think you have to learn a lot oh yeah you have to learn basically stretches your brain back out again yeah yeah and you learn how to build stuff in ways that last a long time you you learn how to schedule your day out because you live and die by the tide up. You learn how to schedule your day out

because you live and die by the tide up there. You got to learn how to make do with that you can't run to the store. Yep. You got to make something out of nothing. You wind up looking around for rusty nails and stuff. I think I did see a rusty bent up nail over there. This probably doesn't need as many screws in it

as it currently has. Yep. Yeah, you learn to dig through your neighbor's place for stuff. Try to remember where you saw garbage that you don't now wish you hadn't, or where you put garbage that you wish you hadn't have thrown out because you want it back now. Yeah, you second guess throwing out everything or burning anything. It's like, should I burn that half rotten two by four?

I might be able to use it somewhere. You know my Jimmy Carter, my USS Jimmy Carter hat. Yeah. I found it beach common, a USS Jimmy Carter hat. Kept it. It got real moldy. And I always looked at it and it's always like,

kind of like, do you get rid of stuff? Do you not get rid of stuff when it gets moldy or whatever? One day I put that Jimmy Carter hat on top of a burn pile soaked with gas this is the truth i i was like okay i'm gonna burn that hat which i decision i did not take lightly um had a pile of garbage soaked with gas put the hat on top put a lighter to that pile. You know how it explodes? You know? Yeah. I'm not shitting you. Shot that hat off the pile and it landed over yonder.

It's a sign from above. I wear that hat every time I'm there now. It was something. It was like God. Maybe that, maybe Jimmy Carter's soul was trapped in that hat

and that's how he's living so long. It was God saying, don't burn that hat. That's interesting, because I guess that must have happened since the last time I've been there. Because I was going to say, well, I've never seen you wear that hat. I wear it now, after that happened. I know a sign when I ever see one. You wear that, and then when you get to burn and stuff, you put on that. I have a flame-proof helicopter suit.

What do they call that stuff? Nomads? Yeah. Yeah, we burn so much stuff. We bought that place. Me and Danny both have flame-proof suits. Every day we just zip up our flame-proof suits and burn stuff. I had an uncle die burning leaves.

Not really my uncle, but we called him our uncle. I have a pile of stuff to burn this summer. Well, we'll get some updates from up there because you guys are going to be recording some two podcasts. So maybe you'll do one from that A-frame. We're just doing burning stuff. What are we burning now, Seth?

I wouldn't burn that. Sorry, Yanni, go ahead. You should wear your hat. I will wear my hat. USS Jimmy Carter. It's a nuclear sub. All right, thanks, everybody. Bye.

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