The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 607: MeatEater Radio Live! Whitetail Buck Beds, Deer Sex, and Mauled By a Black Bear

Episode Date: October 4, 2024

Welcome to our brand new MeatEater Radio Live! podcast. Join Steve Rinella and the rest of the crew as they go LIVE from MeatEater HQ every Thursday at 11am MT! They’ll have segments, call-in guests, and real-time interaction with the audience. You can watch the stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel, or catch the audio version of the show on Fridays. Today's episode is hosted by Spencer Neuharth, Ryan Callaghan, Randall Williams, and Phil Taylor.  Guests: Dr. Bronson Strickland from Mississippi State University, Janis Putelis with Rene Cross of Cypress Cove, Corinne Schneider, and Ryan Beierman of Wisconsin.  Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network 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 meat. Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia. Meat Eater Podcast. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on October 3rd.

And we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newarth, joined today by Ryan Callahan and birthday boy Randall Williams. Happy birthday, Randall. Thank you, thank you. Is it impolite to ask how old you are? Not at all. I'm 38 years old today. 38. Don't look a day over 63.

Well, you got big plans for your birthday today Besides me due to radio live Going out to dinner And I was surprised this morning With a very special gift from my wife Sydney It's an annual pass to the grizzly encounter Oh by the hill Yeah so on my way back and forth to work

I can stop in and visit with the Is that not kind of a sad place No it's a happy place I, it's a happy place. I think it's a happy place. Okay. You get real close to bears. Mm-hmm. And they get to eat a lot of stuff in front of you.

That's a good word to get. They're fed all sorts of tasty fruits. Mm-hmm. Yeah. A lot of fun. You doing anything to embrace creeping into real middle age, Randall? No. You know, I think it'll come as a

surprise that often we receive, uh, lots of emails here expressing shock that I am not an old man. Oh. So I feel like I'm perhaps I was unaware of this, but perhaps I'm only growing into the personality that I project. Okay.

I mean, you're seven years out from a recommended colonoscopy. That's something to think about. He has thought about it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you're seven years out from a recommended colonoscopy. That's something to think about. He has thought about it. Yeah, yeah. You got plans for a birthday lunch today? I don't. Can we take you out?

I'd love that. Okay, you think about where we're going. You figure that out by the end of the show. Fantastic, gang. It's 1102 Mountain Time, so we're going to be hungry after this. I'm starved. Now, on today's show,

we'll interview Dr. Bronson Strickland from Mississippi State University about the science of whitetail buck beds. Then we'll review the 2001 comedy Escanaba into Moonlight for Meat Eater Movie Club, followed by One Minute Fishing with Giannis Poutelis in Louisiana. Then Corinne will educate us about whitetail monogamy, or the lack thereof. And finally, we'll interview Ryan Bierman about a black bear attack that ended when his 12 year old shot the bear. But first, it's whitetail week and our best whitetail content and sales are happening right now

over at TheMeatEater.com and FirstLight.com. And in honor of whitetail week, we wanted to give away our favorite piece of gear from the First Light whitetail line, which is the Core Jacket. The Core Jacket is perfect to wear from mid-season to late season. It's quiet, windproof, and lightweight. Perfect for deer hunters across North America. So, here's how we're going to give this thing away. We are doing a caption contest for the live viewers and the live viewers only. Phil is going to pull up a photo right now,

and people are going to write their funniest captions in the chat. Then, at the end of the show, Phil will pick the best ones to read, and from that group, we'll select our favorite to receive that free First Light core jacket. There is the picture that Phil has now put up on the screen. Cal, you are in that photo. Tell us what's going on there. Oh, I was just so young, naive.

So young. This is like 2018. The whole world ahead of me. Uh-huh. Spencer. Was this your hiring ritual? This is a Sika deer out there in the, the Eastern shore of Maryland. So super, super awesome. Um, public land hunting.

Actually, we were on a nature conservancy chunk out there, but, um, super tasty deer, crazy tender, something about running through the marshes. Um, very, very awesome. And Steve, uh, as he does, he's like, I've just always wanted to hit somebody with a chunk of meat. He's like, cause, uh, you know, just think of the sound or something along those lines. Okay. That would be satisfying.

So this wasn't posed then. This was in fact, uh, a still from an action sequence. Right. And in typical Steve fashion, right? He does this stuff while everyone else is actually doing the work and he's like but hold on i want everybody to stop doing the work that i'm not participating in to run through this fantastical little mind voyage he has going on strike cow with the hind quarter yeah yeah and you can see my hands are still a little bloody.

Still got things to do. Was this a hind quarter or a front quarter here? That looks like a shoulder. Okay. Um, but they're just unbelievably tiny little creatures. They're really like, I took out a hind, a doe female, um, by literally putting a hoof in between my fingers. So like a little, yeah.

So the caption contest photo is from like 2018. It is Steve striking Cal across the face with the front quarter of a skinned Sika deer. So write in your best captions at the end of the show. Phil is going to read some of them. And then our favorite one is going to get that First Light core jacket. You guys are, yeah. We need to point out. They look like they're pouring in right now. You guys in the chat.

I'm going to do my best here, but you guys are doing incredible so far. Some of them are not safe for work. Okay. You can keep sending those ones in. I'm not going to pick them, but. And we're at work. So as a reminder. You can keep sending those ones in. I'm not going to pick them. And we're at work. That's true. As a reminder, submissions is overwhelming.

We need to point out the lack of defensive posture on my side, too. I think I can play into it. You look pretty resigned to your fate there. You get the first one. Join us for the caption contest. This is a little treat just for the live viewers. Now, in honor of Whitetail Week, State Farm just released their annual deer collision research. So I thought we should talk about it.

West Virginia is yet again the riskiest state for deer vehicle collisions. Drivers there have a 1 in 40 chance of hitting a whitetail with their car. The most deer vehicle collisions happen October to December. And on average,

Americans have a 1 in 128 chance of hitting a deer this year. Have you boys ever hit a, hit a deer or an elk or anything with your car? I, uh, yeah, I was, I'd been hunting down on the Madison. This is probably 10 or 12 years ago and shot a little forky on an extremely cold day. And I put it in the back of my Honda Pilot. Mm. And I was driving on I-90 past Whitehall and a real stud of a buck stepped out. So you floored it.

Well, I, I did my best to avoid it and, uh, kind of clipped the front quarter panel, knocked off my side mirror and then rolled down the side of the vehicle, knocking out all the glass all the way down. I spent a lot of time looking for that deer. Never found it. Really? Yep. Yep. How stud of a buck you think he was? I mean, not, you know, for me, it would have been the biggest deer I'd ever killed. Okay. Well, it probably still is the biggest deer I've ever killed, but didn't recover it. And certainly dead though, you think? He wandered off and

died somewhere. I was going really fast. Okay. And I didn't have time to apply the brakes. Yeah. But it came right out of the median, just looking for a doe. Yeah, smashed a, so yeah, three deer, three different vehicles.

1983 Chevy Celebrity, and I didn't hit this deer, he hit me, but right next to Randall's old house, Van Buren Street exit, Missoula, uh, mule deer came smoking it out of nowhere. There used to be no fences between the neighborhoods and the interstate there. And, um, yeah, he like T-boned perfectly dead center T-boned my little brown grandma

car. Um, and then, uh, yeah, smash the front right, uh, panel on, uh, my, uh, 2000, what it was a 93, um, Toyota Tacoma. And then, um, in my Chevy, I whacked a doe in Idaho coming across the desert. Mule deer doe felt real bad. I've now hit two deer with pickups in both times. One time he was on my way to go hunting in the morning. The other time he was on my way home from hunting in the evening. So there's something very poetic.

Prime rut. There's science there. Moving on, joining us on the line first is Dr. Bronson Strickland from Mississippi State University. This winter, his team wrapped up a study on whitetail buck beds that busted a lot of myths about whitetail behavior. Dr. Strickland, welcome to the show. Hello, glad to be here. Thanks so much for the opportunity. First off, tell us how the study was conducted and what you were hoping to learn. Yeah, well, it really began, the overarching question from our state wildlife agency,

the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, was getting feedback from hunters wanting to know where the bucks are going during hunting season. And so we've seen a buck all summer. We've got photos of a buck. And then where does it go? And so that led us to work with the state agency and attach a bunch of GPS collars to about 60 different bucks over two years and that's where it began the the overall purpose of the study too was to look at what is the impact of hunting pressure throughout the year and how are bucks going to

change their behavior and might we find any solutions there so that was really the big picture question that we began with. And then that moved into a lot of other questions. And one of those was regarding buck bedding. So what did we learn about buck beds from that study? Well, I am going to share some information with you now to answer that question. Let's see. Dr. Strickland's got some slides he's gonna present for us right now. He's just gonna pull those up really quick. There we go. All right. Okay, So first of all, we wanted to, how do we define what a betting site is? So remember we've got all of these books have a GPS collar on them and we're getting a location

from them every 15 minutes. And so this data set is so large. Keep in mind this, you can't really do this by hand. You have to do it with computer code. And so we went in to the data set and every time we had four or more consecutive points that did not have more than a 20 yard radius with their span. And so remember, even with the GPS collar, the points are not exactly precise. There's some error in those locations, but we define that as 20 yards.

So every time we got four consecutive points or an hour's worth of points less than 20 yards, we concluded that that was a bed site. And of course, we excluded if deer were out in a food plot at night or an agricultural field at night. We excluded those. So we kept this in our forested cover. Next, we wanted to look at not just the bed site, but a general area that they may be. So this would be one or more bedding sites that are distinctly different. And so you could have several bedding sites within a hundred yard radius that would be a bedding area and then we calculated all of the bedding sites and all of the bedding areas throughout two different hunting seasons and then we wanted to get some insight on what are the impacts for strategies for hunting. What we found out is that contrary to a lot of beliefs is that there is a tremendous amount of diversity in the number of beds that they're using throughout the hunting season.

Now, if we just look at this on a daily scale, hunting season for us is October 1st to January 31st. On the average, a buck is going to bed four times a day. Two of those are going to be during daylight hours, two of those beds are going to be at night. But then when we get close to the hunting season and if we break the rut out into two week intervals, 14 day intervals, and we go from the pre-rut two week interval to the early rut, the peak of the rut, late rut and post rut, we see that these bedding sites number around 50, 50 different bedding sites per buck

during this two week period. So it's a very, very different from what we've always thought that a buck is just going to use one or two, three places on the landscape, which of course, from a hunting perspective is great. If we, if they only have a couple of places on the landscape, they're bedding, that gives us the advantage on setting up on them in the afternoon. So the takeaway then would be that hunters, you know, should think of bedding areas as a diverse, you know, group of sites instead of just one little bedroom where a buck beds. But what does this mean for land managers as well? If

somebody has a piece of property and they're thinking about how they can make this more whitetail friendly, did your study tell you anything about that? Well, it did. And the take home message for that, I would say would be proactive. Meaning that if you're in a landscape like we're at, where there is a lot of cover distributed all over the landscape, the landscape we're at here is about 50% agriculture, 50% forested. So if there is a way that you can go in as a hunter and manager and proactively manage the habitat to have a better bedding area for deer, we can potentially drive them to those areas. And so again, being proactive about habitat management, so where we can steer deer to bed more often than that could put the advantage in

for the hunter and for the land manager. Now, was the bedding behavior pretty consistent across the test group or were there some extreme outliers? There were some extreme outliers. Let me show you here what we call fidelity during the hunting season. So this is just a different way of looking at the same data. If we look at a bedding area and how often they were visited throughout the year, 50% of bedding areas were visited one time, one and done. The other end of the continuum is that we have very rarely some sites, and it's less than 3% of them, are visited more than 200 times throughout the hunting season. So it's not something you can rely on. You're going to have to use trail camera data, observations like that, to try to figure out what are these very, very few places where bucks are going to visit more often. If you want to see real world how this looks,

check out this video that's over a two-week period. This is a three-year-old buck. This is the two weeks prior to the peak of the rut. The area that you're looking there is roughly a square mile, about 600 acres. And so when you look at that, try to imagine, how am I going to determine where he's bedded? And how am I going to set up on him? And in my opinion, in this landscape for this particular deer, that's virtually impossible. And so when we look at that data again, those blue dots there are all the bedding sites over that two week period. All the red dots there are the bedding areas. And you can see that that is spread out over a 600 acre area over two weeks. So it's going to be very, very difficult to zero

in exactly where he's at. If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll get to see some real data on how these bucks use this landscape. Last question here. You were doing this study in a place that was 50% timber, 50% egg. How do you think this would apply to hunters if you're in the New England area and you hunt a place that's 95% timber? Or if you're in Iowa and you hunt a place that's 10% timber, how do you think this study applies to those hunters? Yeah, I think we're right in the middle. I think if you were in the New England area, you're going to see even more different bedding areas and bedding sites. And of course, if you're in a cover restricted environment like Iowa or the Midwest,

you would see greater fidelity to some of these sites because there's not as many options on the landscape. So I think you just have to look at what is available, do your homework with trail cameras and try to sort this stuff out. But again, the one thing you can do about being proactive is go out and manage the landscape to optimize cover where it's at. And that will give you a leg up on hunting.

Yeah. Dr. Strickland talked about this subject more in depth, as well as some other research that whitetail hunters will care about with Mark Kenyon on episode 823 of Wired to Hunt. Every deer hunter should go give that a listen. Dr. Strickland, thanks for joining us and come back next time you guys got some new whitetail research that you're excited about. Absolutely. Thanks so much. Thank you. Only thing I could think about there is a name like Bronson Strickland.

Yeah. Like he probably, in the peer review process, he just reviews his own paper. Right? Yeah. It's like nobody argues with Bronson Strickland. That's a Mississippi State University name. His folks got together and they were like, listen, there's cute names. Yep.

There's strong names. We're going strong. Yeah. Setting this kid up for success. We're going to your biologist name in the South. Mm-hmm. Bronson Strickland. Mm-hmm.

All right. Our next segment is- Not data, it's gospel. Mm-hmm. Last thing I'm going to say. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes.

And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join. Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, of you know sucking high and titty there on x is now in canada the great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 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, you guys in the Great White North can be part of it,

be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites

are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit OnXMaps.com slash meet.

OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Our next segment is Meat Eater Movie Club. This week, we're reviewing the 2001 comedy, Escanaba into Moonlight. Escanaba into Moonlight, written, directed by, and starring Jeff Daniels, is a quirky 1991 comedy that delves into the peculiar world of deer hunting culture in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The film follows Ruben Soti, a 43-year-old man desperate to break his family's curse of being the oldest Soti never to bag a buck.

At its core, Escanaba is a tale about a man's struggle to find his place within family and community. Rubin's desperation to shoot a deer speaks to a larger anxiety about living up to societal expectations and maintaining relevance in a world where traditional markers of manhood are increasingly questioned. The film's setting in the remote wilderness of the Upper Peninsula serves as both a character in itself and a metaphor for the character's isolation from mainstream society. This backdrop amplifies the sense of a world onto itself where ancient rituals and modern anxieties collide in often absurd ways. Now, if you'll indulge me for a moment, it is my birthday. I'm going to humor myself. Take us out into left field here. Clifford Geertz's 1973 book, The Interpretation of Cultures, includes an essay

widely regarded as his seminal work, Deep Play, Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. In this piece, Geertz, who for several decades stood as the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States, provides a vivid description of his year-long 1958 stay in an Indonesian village. The practices of cockfighting and gambling on cockfighting, then illegal in Indonesia, Geertz identifies as a ritual that best explains Balinese society. Here I'll read an excerpt from Geertz with a few changes of my own to anchor his analysis within the framework of Escanaba in Da Moonlight. Oh, what a tree.

What sets deer hunting apart from the ordinary course of life lifts it from the realm of everyday practical affairs and surrounds it with an aura of enlarged importance is not as a functionalist society would have it, that it reinforces status, but that it provides a metasocial commentary upon the whole matter of assorting human beings into fixed hierarchical ranks and then organizing the major part of collective existence around that assortment. What the deer hunt says, it says in a vocabulary of sentiment, the thrill of risk, the despair of loss, the pleasure of triumph. Yet what it says is not merely that risk is exciting, loss depressing, or triumph gratifying, but it is of these emotions, thus example, that society is built and individuals are put together. If we go to see Macbeth to learn what a man feels

like after he has gained a kingdom and lost his soul, youpers go to deer camp to find out what a man, usually composed, aloof, and almost obsessively self-absorbed, feels like when he has totally triumphed or been brought totally low. Every people, the proverb has it, loves its own form of violence. The deer hunt is the youper's reflection on theirs, on its look, its uses, its force, its fascination. Drawing on almost every level of youper experience, alcohol consumption, euchre, spam-based cuisine, and most importantly, big old bucks, the deer camp binds them into a set of rules which at once contains them and allows them to play, and builds a symbolic structure in which over and over again the reality of their inner youper affiliation can be intelligibly felt. Now, to put a finer point on this, the parallels between the Balinese cockfight

and deer camp traditions highlight how both activities serve as windows into their respective cultures. They show how seemingly irrational or exaggerated behaviors can have profound meaning within their cultural context. Like the Balinese cockfight, the deer camp's hierarchies and traditions mirror the larger social order of the community. Like the cockfight, the stakes are so high in this pastime that participation in it seems irrational to outsiders. At the same time, like the Balinese cockfight,

the deer camp takes place in a liminal space on the margins of community where day-to-day norms are suspended and new identities can be forged, reinforced, or destroyed. The buckless youper. At deer camp, new social standings are both contested and affirmed. The potential loss for Rubin, continued shame and ostracism, far outweigh any practical gain, yet his participation remains essential for his own identity and social standing. Thus, the Soti family deer hunt is not just about killing an animal, but it in fact is a rich tapestry of meanings, masculinity, family legacies, connections to nature, and cultural identity. It has its own languages, rituals, and mythologies. In conclusion, viewing Escanaba in the moonlight through a Geertzian lens reveals it to be more than a 90-minute film with a 10-minute long scene involving an elaborate effort to get a sleeping man to fart directly on the face of

another. It becomes a rich text for understanding how ritual and cultural practice embody and reinforce social structures, and world views world views in a specific cultural context the film presents a humorous yet poignant commentary on the human need for belonging and achievement and the universal desire to prove one's worth and find meaning in seemingly arbitrary pursuits so wow that's my take that was very academic for a movie where there's a scene where a fart blows the windows off a cabin. For a long time, my trivia team went by the name Balinese Cockfight. Okay. I think it's just amazing to, you know, bring this into real world context that all of that can get boiled down to the outsider with the question of so did you get

a deer oh i think there's much more to it than that and for my factoid uh before i ask you for your impressions yep uh jeff daniels is a michigander he uh he's from chelsea michigan and the he wrote this play to be performed at the theater in Chelsea that he built. Chelsea, Michigan is home of Jiffy Mix, the cornbread mixture, which we all love. And among the various interesting facts I found about the creation of this film, Ted Nugent, a fellow Michigander, supplied props to be used in the hunting camp. So there's a real authenticity there. That's good.

So thoughts on the film? I think my takeaway is that if you whitetail hunt in the Northwoods, you'll like this movie. But if you're a bass angler from Georgia or like an elk hunter from Utah, I wouldn't say it's a must watch for you. Yeah. Or just like somebody who watches tv you're probably gonna be like oh didn't need that yeah did you watch did you watch this uh by yourself or did shelby screen it with you uh my wife was around yeah about five minutes in she's like oh this is kind of funny uh and i was like yeah it's like it's a comedy uh you know it's

it's jeff daniels who wrote it started it directed it's a comedy. You know, it's, it's Jeff Daniels who wrote it, started it, directed it. But I didn't know what to expect. I had never seen it before. I'd never seen it either. Sydney asked that I turn it off last night and we instead watched Love is Blind. And then I started watching it again this morning at home over a fresh pot of coffee. And she asked that we not have it on anymore. And so I finished it here this morning at about eight o'clock.

So very good. It does. Uh, I think it will find a mixed reception among diverse audiences. Yeah. I love Jeff Daniels. I think he's extremely talented. Um, and I, I, you know, hats off to him that he could slip a passion project through. Yeah.

This, this really did feel like a passion project, like a love letter to Michigan deer hunting culture. I'm curious, from your perspectives as outdoorsman, what about this movie rang true to you? You know, I love that it's a movie about the social pressure that comes with a deer camp. That's a real thing. And then this movie took it to, like, the millionth extreme.

I also like that it felt very michigan because it was filmed in michigan uh they were drinking lining kugel a beer that's brewed in wisconsin uh they they talked about the commemorative bucks of michigan which is a real thing that uh folks in that part of the world care about uh they're playing euchre which is a deer camp staple in the north woods and they're eating pasties, which is a very Michigan food. So I enjoyed all of those little nods to, uh, you know, people from that part of the world. And I think about like my favorite TV show ever is Deadwood and Deadwood was made for me. I'm not saying it's the best show ever, but it's my favorite show because it's like about, you know,

my favorite time in history and in one of my favorite places, uh, in the country. Um, and, and if you are someone who hunts deer in Michigan, you would probably have a similar response. I think to this movie, they're like, oh, this was made for me. Uh, I really what it is. Sure. And if you're in deer camp, it's okay if nobody's getting deer and it's okay if everybody's getting deer, but it's really not okay if a couple of people are getting deer and nobody else is. Right. Or if you're nobody else is. Right. Or if you're the only one.

Right. I really enjoyed in his fever dream, the scene where he sees he's at the football game and he sees the scoreboard and it's real men 95 and then him zero. Yeah. His dream, I thought, revealed a lot about the anxieties of a deer hunter yeah it was it was released in 2001 but I think it's supposed to be in like 1989 November 15th 1989 he wrote the play it was it was initially written as a play and he wrote that in 96 what what I thought was very strange and this is sort of off topic but it feels like it was made in 1983 like 2001 just just just you know to keep this in mind uh this film was released 646 days

after the matrix was released oh if you can if you think about the matrix as sort of a, a, a moment of rupture in modern filmmaking. Yeah. Uh, this, I mean, it's, it's almost incomprehensible that this was a 2001 release. Time pieces that are old, always, uh, like put my brain in a pretzel. I remember being a kid and seeing grease and like, not, not being able to grasp that it was released in like the late seventies, but it's about the early fifties and not really knowing like where that felt, you know, uh, where, where that fell in the world when it came out. And then there's sort of the same thing with this, like a 2001 movie

about the late eighties. But like you said, it felt like it was the early eighties. And it, it, I mean, I think all of the, the, the vehicles they're driving and all the guns they have, and then the references to like the Mackinac bridge and all these, like, uh, he had one point he calls, I think people from the lower peninsula fudge suckers, which is a reference to like Mackinac is very famous for its fudge.

Uh, I just, I don't think I've ever seen a film that is so deeply embedded and has all these specific cultural touch points that just like rang true throughout. A racial slur that was used, uh, you know, three or four times. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the sort of, uh, kitschy sort of parody of, of native American traditions was a little, uh, I don't know. I don't know what to say about that.

Yeah. Cause that's another deer camp thing right oh yeah multi-generational inside jokes yeah and that's what the movie is uh what what about it uh did not uh hit with you there's a surprising lack of deer hunting for a movie about deer hunting he doesn't even go deer hunting until like the 82nd minute of a 93-minute movie. And that deer hunting scene is just like him running after a glowing orb in the woods. And so I was expecting much more like sitting in deer blinds and being cold and crapping in the woods and oiling guns than just like, you know, sitting in the deer cabin the day before opener. Yeah. Although I, in some respects, my relationship with deer hunting or hunting in general is 96% leading up to it and then 4% actually doing it.

So maybe that's a larger commentary on our obsessive pursuits of these things. The other thing was that it was, it was written like a play. Like when you, when you know that, and I knew that ahead of time because we had a trivia question about this recently, it feels like a one act play. And I would like this script a whole lot better if I watched it like as a play in a theater in Michigan. And it felt very similar to a Rocky horror Picture Show, which also has like a weird cult following. And it's a very weird movie where things happen that you don't expect.

And it was written as a play that became a movie. And you sort of feel that too when you watch Rocky Horror Picture Show. I think the same thing went with Escanaba into Moonlight. I would enjoy this much more if Phil was on a on a stage playing uh ruben sody i i have to say i was thinking about that quite a bit if we could do our own little production in bozeman here but also didn't you kind of think about what spencer left out about his grease experience what's that like he kind of had probably like a little doo-wop phase do-op spencer i think about that. His love blossoming

for musical theater. Listen, I loved theater. I won a one-act play award in high school. Oh! State Outstanding Actor Award. Nicely done. So you're really looking

at this through a critical eye. I held season tickets to theater when I lived in Sioux Falls. I've been to probably like eight Broadway shows. I've probably been to 20 shows off of Broadway. I enjoy theater

and Phil thinks that I go there to support him when I go to, you know, a musical in Bozeman, but I'm just, I'm just there on my own. I should have covered those bonafides before you got into your review. I have seen here in the comments that someone made a note about the subtitles. I was

going to pull that out. I don't know if you watched it with the subtitles i did not oh it's fabulous because it's just unintelligible and and they can't get the name right sody so if you're watching it with the sound off you think that they're talking about the saudis the whole time it's just like it's like the saudis the saudis uh crap so big they have to climb off the pile or whatever it is. It's like, it's a very different movie with the subtitles. Yeah. All in all, uh, is this going to make your list of recommendations to fellow hunters? Uh, to me, it was like barely a movie about deer hunting.

It could have been about, you know, shooting pool or racing cars. Um, but if you're like a Northwoods deer hunter, if you, um, like grew up in that area, uh, I think you'll like it. I did say three stars. That's, that's my takeaway. I think the only, I really don't have a movie that I would be like, oh, you're interested in hunting. Here's a feature film you should watch.

Um, it'd be Jeremiah Johnson would be like the closest thing like oh here's some outdoor stuff so that's a zero from you yeah it's not okay yeah um i think it was just a bad question i will say oh so you just disagree with the premise of the segment i i love this segment personally i'll defend it to my death. I will say if we could somehow acquire the intellectual property, I'd love to remake this movie in the style of another adaptation of a stage play, which is Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, and just have that like. That's a fantastic.

It's also about men seeking. They're just desperate men trying to reach out and, and sort of avoid their own personal failures, you know, through, through getting the Glengarry leads. Yeah. No, like a dark, dark deer camp film would be fantastic. Yeah. 12 angry men right up there with it. With that, I think I've probably used up all the time for this segment. Yeah.

I love me. Did your movie club? Oh, it's the best. So fun. Especially when it's Randall's birthday. I think he've probably used up all the time for this segment. Yeah. I love me did your movie club. Oh, it's the best. It's my favorite. So fun. Especially when it's Randall's birthday. I think he's bringing a little extra heat. I did treat myself to a few extra words in my commentary.

So. All right, let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what does the chat have to say? Yeah, let's see here. Let's see. Cornelius has a comment more about Cal's mustache. Everyone should take mustache notes from Cal Rule one, don't touch, adjust, trim, or do anything

To said state, let it grow Step two, repeat step one Cal, do you have any mustache care Grooming tips or any routine Because some people were comparing your mustache To Spencer's and saying that you could actually Take tips from Spencer About mustache grooming and I thought you might take offense to that.

I kind of want to just stoke the flames. No, no, no offense to each their own. I'm just in a state like Montana where it's very dry. Your hair gets real brittle and it just chips off and falls off out. So why even trim it? It just does it on its own. But if you have a lot of extra time in your day, like Spencer does to do self-rooming,

you can go that route too. You're just better at time management, is what I'm saying. A time management compliment. What you don't know is I shaved about three minutes before walking out the door this morning. So it was almost a five o'clock shadow version of this. Yeah.

Uh, in honor of whitetail week, what is the crew's favorite piece of first light whitetail gear? That's from Nathan. I love, uh, the hand muff. I use that thing all year round. I use it when I'm whitetail hunting. I use it when I'm archery hunting, rifle

hunting, ice fishing, Turkey hunting. Uh, the hand muff is like incredibly versatile uh anybody could could use one of those and it's it's like pretty inexpensive you'll use it for a lot of your year when it's cold out the white tail hand muff everything you buy in the specter pattern which is the this pattern that we're rocking right here, uh, goes a percentage of that goes to national deer Alliance. Um, part of our camo for conservation, uh, program, which is super awesome. Not a lot of companies do that. And, uh, so, you know, buy something in Spectre and support NDA. Um, I haven't been able to come up with a favorite piece of Meteor

or First Light Whitetail gear because I'm wondering if Nathan here is a plant from our friends at First Light. Yeah. Randall was saying that this jacket might be his year-round jacket. I do like this jacket quite a bit. This is the FaZe jacket, and it's a nice fleece. Fits well. Got some good pockets.

I like the lining. It's very warm, which. Fits well. Got some good pockets. I like the lining. It's very warm, which is perfect for a podcast studio that already runs a little hot. So very comfortable in it. Whatever you do, start with good base layers. There you go. Buy merino wool. Just like with that hand muff, you'll use that on all your outdoor adventures. Exactly.

More bang for your buck. All right. Which is kind of a double entendre, Phil. Hey. Did you get that? That's right. Buck beers. Yeah.

Last one, we'll get to some housekeeping. Garrett's asking, how willing are you guys to eat fish from small ponds, lakes, in cities? Example, Glen Lakes, which is Bozeman Beach here in Bozeman. The main tributary is Bozeman Creek, which runs straight under the city. Seems a bit radioactive. Thoughts? I would consult your local fish and game agency

slash public health authority. I know that when we went to Ann Arbor, we considered perhaps eating, this was before we decided on a golf course pond, but we considered eating some fish and nothing from that county I think is recommended that it be eaten. this was before we decided on a golf course pond, but we considered eating some fish and, uh, nothing from that County I think is recommended that it,

that it be eaten. So. I think unless you're pregnant, uh, you're probably okay. Um, I, I probably am not eating anything from the Glen lakes in Bozeman.

Um, but if I didn't have a few walleye in my freezer right now, I'd probably think differently. Cal. Small, fast growing fish. You're, you're pretty much okay. Um, remember the solution to pollution is dilution.

So, um, yeah, high. So we eat a lot of it. High volume water, uh, and, uh, little lakes like that, you know, I don't think the nasty particulate is, um, in the water column. It's, it's settled. So you should be just fine. And one more time before we move on here, Phil, can you pull up the photo that we're using for the caption contest in case anybody joined us late? Um, we have a caption contest. Yeah, sure. Really quick. Uh, Shelby Huber says,

shut up, Spencer. You ate a goldfish. That that's a good point you can watch that on season two of pardon my plate uh we ate a gold fish that i caught from an hoa pond in bozeman uh she got me there yeah here's the uh here's the caption contest we've already i'm already having trouble uh filtering through them there are so many good ones i think i'm down to like seven right now. Wow. You know, there are some really good ones that are just not going to make the top five.

I apologize. Just how this stuff works, but thanks for writing them in. But here, here's the photo again for the caption. Phil's going to read the best comments that our live viewers write. And at the end of the show, we're going to pick our favorite one and give that person a first light

core jacket. And really quick Spencer, before we move on, this is an announcement for next week's episode of Meat Eater Live. Like, I don't know, 90% of the company slash crew is going to be in Venice, Louisiana for Meat Eater experiences next week. So Meat Eater Radio Live will not be live next week. It will be precorded. We're still going to try to live stream the prerecorded video.

So you guys can hang out in the live chat if you would like to. But that fully depends on the kind of upload speeds we get down there and our internet connection. If we cannot live stream, it will still be uploaded onto our YouTube channel at 11 a.m. Mountain Standard Time next Thursday. Okay. Thank you, Phil. Speaking of Venice, Louisiana, our next guest is joining us from there for One Minute Fishing. Oh, I was too busy trying to add Giannis.

I forgot to play the song. Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk? Go ahead. Make my cast. One Minute Fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing, and they have one minute to catch a fish. And if they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group.

This week, our angler is Giannis Putellis, who's on the Mississippi River near Venice, Louisiana. And he's fishing for a donation to Captains for Clean Water. Gianni, welcome to the show. Thanks to those captains for clean water. Yanni, welcome to the show. Thanks for those captains for clean water. Hey, what's up, Spencer? I was going to do the billfish foundation, but you go ahead and pick where my, uh, forget I said that Yanni is fishing.

Yanni's fishing for a donation to the billfish foundation. Yanni, is it raining there? What is the question? Is it raining there? It looks like you're in some bad weather. Yeah, it is raining. We're all suited up. It's been beautiful the last two days, but of course, for when our little beer experience is going to start, we're going to have rain for a couple of days, but that's not going to slow us down. The fish are already wet. They don't care. They're still going to eat. But yeah, I'm here with Rene Cross, who's the owner here of cypress cove marina and he's been a big part of setting up this whole experiences deal that we're

about to do and uh you know you've been asking me about if i'm going to be confident or can i do one minute fishing it wasn't until yesterday when i was here at the cleaning table or no two days ago and uh the guys are pitching the carcasses off the edge here and there's a literal feeding frenzy that happens right next to the fish cleaning table. It's not quite as easy as let's say a pond behind an office building in Bozeman, but it should be pretty good. Ray, you got anything to add? Well, I guarantee you the one thing about this pouring down rain,

those fish don't get up on platforms and they don't climb up on land So they still right there and they still got a okay Now Johnny you said that there is a feeding frenzy happening, but what fish is is doing this feeding frenzy? What type of fish it looks like it's mostly hardhead catfish We did see a guy actually just 20 minutes ago pull out some kind of a jack. It's Jack Gravel. A Jack Gravel. The saltwater is coming up into the river systems right now,

and with it comes all of the saltwater fish. Normally, this Mississippi River is freshwater, so at this time of year, the saltwater goes all the way up to the city of New Orleans, literally. And so with it comes the Jack Gravel, redfish, everything way up to the city of New Orleans literally and so with it comes the Jack Gravel, Redfish, everything is up in the river now. That's because the Mississippi River is low. Correct. So the tide or the ocean can actually push salt water back against the current. Absolutely and we're actually building a barrier about 20 miles north of here to slow down the saltwater intrusion into the city of New Orleans.

Because we get all our water systems from, all of our water supply comes from the Mississippi River and is treated. So we're trying to, they're trying to keep it out of the city of New Orleans, but we want it down here. All right, Yanni, you tell us, you tell us what your strategy is for being successful here, and then we'll get to fishing. Well, I'll show you, and this is what I got. This is a chunk of leftover tuna from the tuna that we caught yesterday offshore. We caught about eight big yellowfin.

I'm still full from all the sashimi I ate last night. But it's just real basic cooked with a big old chunk of meat on it and then I got it under a bobber my biggest hurdle right now is gonna be the fact that Rene gave me a bait caster limited experience on a bait caster anybody that's learned a bait caster knows there's a lot of a lot of of bird's nest that come from bait casting. I don't have to cast far. We pre-fished it, so we know there's something that's going to bite.

And then Rene is actually going to make a cast, too, with a much heavier rig, but just a jig head with a chunk of fish on it. But he's got it all like 40 pound test, just in case he hooks into one of those jacks that we can pull it in faster. Because the guy that was here earlier pulling that jack about, it took him 30 minutes

to land that fish. I was going to say you may hook something, but you're not going to land it. That doesn't work for the segment. So, that was a question I had. Do I have to have the fish landed within a minute? Just hook up. Hook up within a minute, and then we'll give you all the time you need to fight that thing and get it to shore.

Boy, I don't know if I agree with that, Spencer. If Rene hooks one of those jacks, you guys got to come back to us in 15 minutes. Okay, okay. So for the first time ever in one minute fishing history, we have two anglers. They are using cut bait near Venice, Louisiana. Okay, you're going to let Rene count too? Yeah, yeah, go for it.

The clock will start. The clock will start as soon as you take your first cast. What? It's going to fall off? Are you taking a fall off yanni is re-hooking his uh cut bait he was not ready for this i'm adding more oh he's adding more cut bait okay uh i would be real satisfied if he gives us a bird's nest on this first cast yes yes bold move bold Bold move, Spencer. Bold move here.

Yanni, how close are we to being ready? This is a one-minute segment. Are you guys ready? We're ready. Yes, we are. They are in the marina here, I think. We can see a lot of boats in the background. You gotta love fishing

at a fish-cleaning table. Oh, there it goes Okay, they have just made their first cast the one minute starts now. Do you hook up or I think no way? Yeah My timer got to 10 seconds, and they both caught fish. Oh, that's not bad. Can I get another one in a minute? How much time we got left? Go again. What else do you got there, Yanni?

Are these the hardhead catfish? Okay, they're scrambling. They're looking to make another cast. I don't know how much they can hear us right now, too. We've got a rough connection on top of rain. Hard-headed catfish. It's a saltwater catfish. A hard-headed catfish. And I had to educate

myself. Oh, he caught another one. They've caught three fish now. Man. This is phenomenal. I can't get the hook out of my catfish, so I'm done. This is phenomenal advertising for the meat-e eater experience in Venice, Louisiana. That's right.

And a redemption of the Petellus family name. That's right. That's true. Yanni catching three fish within a minute. Man, I like those grippers for the catfish there. Stay away from those spines, boys. Boy, that was exciting. Yeah.

I mean, that was incredibly exciting but also somehow incredibly anticlimactic yeah uh three catfish within 30 seconds well done yanni well done renee uh and those are hardhead catfish i had to learn about them a little bit they uh the world record is like four and a half pounds they do not grow very big oh wow they don't get big no so you got some standard fish there for a hardhead. Renee's still fishing. Renee's still fishing in the background. I don't care. We're going to make a $1,000 donation today, then, Yanni, to the Billfish Foundation.

How about that? I like it. I like it. Renee was telling me they're the ones that provide all the tagging that a lot of people are using offshore. Instead of killing fish, they're tagging these fish with satellite trackers. A lot of that research and the money and all that comes from the Billfish Foundation. Rene's got another one. He's pulling them in as fast as he can in the background. Someone stop that man.

Thanks, Yanni. We'll see you next week. I don't think they're listening anymore. See you guys. See you guys. Wow. Like five fish in our one-minute fishing segment. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

And, boy, my goodness do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated well if you're sick of you know sucking high and titty there OnX is now in Canada

the great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps 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., 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.

Alright, moving on. Our next segment is Let's Talk About Sex. Yeah, I want to talk about geese. I want to talk about mice. I want to talk about just as young. No, I want to talk about the Vulcan bice and the cloying of a black cat chickatee. I'd like to hear Steve say the word for cundity. Because occasionally, I want to talk about sex.

Unbelievable. Phil, you could have went with the obvious Salt-N-Pepa sing-along, but instead he went with Toby Keith, want to talk about me. Phil, that is why you're a pro. Phil's just, yeah, talk about using this as a platform to shine. All right. Really, I'm just taking advantage of it. It's great.

It's amazing. I love it. Let's Talk About Sex is where Corinne enlightens us on animal kingdom intercourse. Take it away, Corinne. Here we go. This segment in honor of Whitetail Week is about whitetails, everybody. What qualifies you to host this? I did research, Cal.

She did the research. Oh, there we go. We have some. Randall is fanning himself. It's got to be this face, too. If you're looking for forever love, you're out of luck with whitetail deer. As masters of non-monogamy, whitetail bucks are fully obsessed with sexy time during the rut or mating season. From October through December and extending through the end of January into the southern range,

whitetail bucks are singularly focused on hooking up with hot does. And by hot, I literally mean in heat, like in her estrus cycle. Eating and sleeping tend to fall by the wayside for bucks as they wander beyond their home range for greener pastures. The rut is all about the chase, and does will play hard to get. Bucks will run themselves ragged in pursuit of does and can lose roughly 25 percent of their body weight by the end of mating season. A doe will try her damnedest to flee the advance of a salivating buck, but when she determines she's ready, biologically speaking,

she will stop and stand for him. See folks, it's all about consent. The buck sticks around for a bit to breed the willing doe several times while she's in her estrus cycle, which typically lasts a day or two. Mmm. Good grunt out of Spencer there. Oh, yeah, he's feeling it. It truly is a case of he loves her, then he leaves her, since soon enough, he's frolicking off to find another hot doe.

There's actually a scientific term for this behavior. It's called scramble polygyny, whereby males partake in competitive searching for a maximum number of female mates. But it's not just the bucks that go wild and practice promiscuity. Whitetail does can breed with multiple mates as well. She might fancy the older gentleman buck and the younger pool boy buck all the same. A hungry young buck foolishly in and over its head may try to challenge a more mature buck and get its butt whooped. Or he might sneak sneakily swoop in on Lady Doe and she'll let him get lucky once the older male has done his deed. Describe for me a pool boy buck, Corrine. You know, in its earlier years.

With the doe being bred multiple times by multiple bucks during an estrous cycle, sperm gets all mixed up inside. Two separate ova may get fertilized, and she could end up with twin fawns fathered by two different baby daddies. How scandalous. The scientific term for multiple paternity in a single ungulate litter is called superfundication. Superfundication is also- Let's put the fun in superfundication. Superfundication is also... Let's put the fun in superfundication. There we go, Cal. Super...

Oh, no. Sorry. Superfecundation. Oops. There's no fun in that, but plenty of fun. What the feck? Superfecundation is also known to occur in dogs, cats, and cows, and it's been verified in other mammal species such as shrews,

deer mice, black bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, and feral hogs. And humans. I've seen Amori about this. Like Amori Povich? Yes, of course. Oh man, I missed that show.

I missed that show. But yeah, so like when your beautiful golden retriever spits out a border collie amongst a bunch of other golden retrievers? That's super fecundation. Feckin' right it is. Almost done, folks. Gestation lasts for around seven months, so we wouldn't know until the following spring just how frisky mama doe had been during the previous fall. Paternity

testing in wildlife populations is no easy task, so identifying superfecundation hasn't even been attempted in too many species. That's it for your sex education lesson today, folks. Until next time. Well done corinne that was

great uh and as al as cal pointed out i love the pool boy buck reference uh the hunting community needed that i'm going to use that term in the future i'm glad you introduced us to that perfect glad to do a service folks uh well yeah we'll have more Let's talk about sex in the future I think that's now my favorite segment that we do That was a lot of fun Phil's sound that he plays And Corinne's great research Got a short lived reign for Meat Eater Movie Club

I think it was your favorite for about 21 minutes there Well we had never Yeah you're right When selecting for mature animals though right It's more than just antler size, right? You're looking at body type and I often throw in attitude. Pool boy buck might be like, you know, a term that we can carry on in the field pretty easily. I'm going to use it all fall.

Cocky little pool boy. All right, joining us on the line next is Ryan Bierman, who survived a black bear attack in Wisconsin thanks to some good shooting from his 12-year-old son. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. All right, Ryan, first off, tell us what you were doing in the woods on that fateful day.

September 7th, me and my son were bear hunting. My son had a bear tag for the area of Wisconsin we were hunting, Desire in Wisconsin. We were hunting over bait. So in Wisconsin, bait hunters, it alternates every year. So this year, bait hunters went first. So next year now, hound hunters will go first, but we're sitting over bait in a deer stand or bear stand I guess you could call it. But in my about 6 PM I tapped my son on the shoulder and said oh and there's one straight West of us and watched it

and it never came through and kept watching and ended up coming in from the north side of the bait and he ended up putting a shot on it and everything I seen when the bear was biting it looked like it was a fatal shot. High fives and waited 20 minutes, half hour. We got down. Neighbors called. Neighbors came over. Started looking for blood.

We didn't find blood right away. Ended up getting one of the neighbors to bring their chocolate lab over, and we started trailing. I was carrying a 10-millimeter pistol. My son was carrying a 10 millimeter pistol and my son was carrying a 350 legend and it got dark on us and kept going with flashlights and headlamps and going into the I mean it was super thick where we were at. I actually when the dog ended up getting hit by the bear which I didn't realize he got hit by the bear I thought he got

probably got into buckthorn or something and he helped and ran behind me and I you know kind of stepped into the clearing and I was like oh man right there's a bear five feet away and best stance I can give you or tell you for the bear at that time he was sitting next to an oak tree looking like a cat ready to pounce wow so for a recap so far uh ryan and his son owen uh were bear hunting owen shot the bear uh wounded it they tracked it and while they were tracking it the bear maybe made a swipe at the dog the dog ran out and then the bear came after Ryan and it got on top of you right yep so initially it came at me on his hind legs you know claws I actually got a scratch on there pretty decent cut on my

right her left hand from I believe it was initially swiped at me and it ended up knocking me over at that point he grabbed me by my right leg and it was shaking me profusely I mean it was shaking me the best way I can describe it as a Labrador shaking a rope bone and at that time I was pistol whipping the bear for better terms. I mean, a 10 millimeter pistol I shot at it as it was coming. I was shooting from the, pretty much from my hip because I pulled it from the side of the holster and I was shooting at it as it was coming. So I was pistol whipping it with the empty pistol. And I remember thinking I got to change something up here. And I remember turning the pistol to change something up here and I remember turning

the pistol on the side and actually hitting the bear. I think I was trying to aim for its ear with the magwell and I twisted it hit it with the magwell and released for a split second and I was like oh it's over you know I thought the bear was gone you know I thought it was going to run off at that point. I looked over and checked on Owen. Owen was fine. And I looked down, and I just remember seeing claws and teeth coming straight from my face. At that point, instinctively, I stuck my right arm up in front of my face, and I remember the first bite.

The first bite, I was like, oh, man, I just broke my arm because I heard the crunch of, I'm guessing it was canine teeth going through my clothes and into my flesh and into my arm. And I just remember thinking, how am I going to fight this bear with a broken arm? And the fight continued and it was like everything was in slow motion. I remember hearing the report of the rifle, and I seen the muzzle flash, and I just remember the bear's weight because he was standing on top of me pretty much at this point. I just remember his weight shifting to my left side, which was away from the shot, and I just pushed him off to the left and he died right there you know when i rolled over trying to put distance in between me and the bear at that time and that that shot that uh ryan is

describing came from his 12 year old son owen who was witnessing the attack and Ryan, I had read that you said you could feel the bullet pass through the bear. Is that correct? Yeah, it was, it was like nothing I ever felt. I mean, it was, you know,

I could just feel the whole at that shot. I could feel the whole weight of the bear going to my left side. And when, when the attack was happening at any point, did you think to yourself, like, I hope Owen shoots this thing? Or had that not crossed your mind?

I was, I think I was screaming, trying to scream. I don't know. Shoot it, shoot it. Are you at work right now, Ryan? Yep, I'm hiding out. Yeah. them hiding out yeah so i just want like the general reaction that you're getting right now when somebody's like uh boy you can have a rough weekend you got a couple of scars on your face that weren't there before and you say i got attacked by a bear what do they say they're like

what they don't you know most people don't even believe it happened you know they're like let me hear the story wow we are we are looking at ryan's fresh wounds right now if you're watching this on youtube you can see those as well uh tell us about the wounds that you had and how those are healing they're healing up pretty good i mean you can see it on my Face That I had it caught here Ripped open on my Left side of my cheek Pretty much flayed open Everything's healing up good

Back to walking just fine Great well we are glad that you're around To tell the story And tell Owen that he's a hero for us What an incredible encounter. Yeah. All right. Thank you for joining us, Ryan.

Thank you. Crazy stuff. A 12 year old to like have the, the thought to shoot that bear and then successfully do it. Um, it's like putting him in an insane situation. Yeah, absolutely. It's one of the situations you always wonder if you'd be able

to pull that totally yeah oh yeah how anybody would versus just a 12 year old yeah yep all right we have come to the end of the show uh phil should we do some listener feedback and questions first before we wrap up the caption contest yeah sure what do you got here uh zachary wants a uh mediator movie club stylestyle Randall breakdown about Love is Blind. I'd be happy to do that. Yeah. If there are any seasons in particular you'd like us to review, please send that to radio at themeateater.com. I got to tell you, if you're new to the dating genre, if you watch, what's the one that I enjoyed?

The Love on the spectrum and then your girlfriend's like, let's watch love is blind. Love is blind is such a letdown. There's not a single blind person on that show. Um, love on the spectrum. Wonderful. Well, yeah, I'm a big fan of love is Blind and Love Island and all of these shows. So the only problem is they keep getting longer and longer.

They're like 28 episodes now and the episodes are themselves, you know, 70 minutes. It's really overwhelming. I get secondhand exposure. So much on your plate. Yeah. I get secondhand exposure to these shows, but I have yet to, you know, take it in for myself. But I'm glad you like them, Randall. We can address that. We can address that. Yeah, uh, you know, take it in for myself, but I'm glad, glad you like them Randall. We can address that.

We can address that. Yeah. What else you got Phil? Uh, Ryan is asking about any traditions or superstition, uh, during your hunting camp or at your hunting camp as you prepare for a trip. Hmm. Tradition or superstition?

I would say as a, I mean, I think my traditions have gone by the wayside since I moved to Montana because every hunt is kind of its own different experience. But when I was deer hunting Kentucky, my buddy and I would always buy, uh, we'd go down each weekend in November and we'd always go to the grocery store, buy two rotisserie chickens, would buy a thing of instant mashed potatoes, would buy a box of stovetop stuffing, buy a jar of cranberry sauce and would make Thanksgiving dinners. There you go. All weekend and then Thanksgiving sandwiches for lunch.

I have a feeling that it likely figured into our success. That's good. That's awesome. My tradition, I think I thought of one. I have some of the last ham special lights in the world. It's my favorite beer and they discontinued them a few years ago so now i take one with me on hunts and if i'm successful i get to have one uh you know with that critter while i'm gutting it or cleaning it or whatever so i get to have the last ham special light you know with a deer that i killed in montana or uh you know an antelope i shot in wyoming so the ham special light tradition will

continue for a little while that's nice that's very very nice. I, uh, unfortunately have, uh, like, you know, bonded with, uh, certain clothing items. So like I have a, uh, orange hat that I really like to wear. Um, but the problem with that is it orange fades and there's no way it's legal at this point. And, and so that's a real, real bummer. Yeah. Blaze orange. It's just like subjective.

I think it really is. I think it is. And then we'll do a last sort of comment here before we choose the winner of the caption contest. Ethan says that he knows that I have a good tabletop game and I'm DMing right now. DMing for the layperson means Dungeon Master. I've only ever dm'd for my

family but i have tried to start kind of a whisper campaign around the office to see if anyone would be down to play some dungeons and dragons um like you're at coffee and you're like sorry cast a what spell phil you texted spencer and me many many months ago asking whether we'd be interested in joining your group. And I responded in the affirmative, and I believe Spencer did too. No, that's not true. Spencer offered up his house as a place to hang out. That's right. He was a firm no, but he would be excited to just kind of be there.

Shelby of the Shelby Index was very excited to participate. But I just recall that text exchange ending with me saying, yeah, I'd gladly participate. And then there's been silence ever since. So this is a revelation to me that you have an active. Well, I've asked others around the office in person, such as Maggie, Hot Carl, formerly of the Veneeter Corporation.

Both of them were kind of like lukewarm on it. I just haven't gotten a lot of positive, a big positive reaction i'm still gonna try to make it happen okay maybe we'll do like a little one shot two or three hour am i not enough for you as long as more than the time of year is right there's food and beer oh man i've offered to host and cater and step in when phil needs the voice of an ogre or something um so i'm like you know put it pitching my support behind phil and i just want to point out just because i enjoy being hyper critical of certain things i don't have to be that way all the time you're you're one of my favorite people to see around the office

and some people are baffled by that let's uh let's wrap up this caption contest now uh can we see the photo one more time to see let's bring that out folks are captioning okay it is steve there's the photo striking cal across the face with a hunk of meat okay so i i narrowed it down to fives a lot of you didn't make the cut. They were still very good. There was a great one that said, Hey, here's a five,

five. That one made me chuckle. But unfortunately, so, okay, here we go. First one is from Joe S. This is the caption.

He's quoting Steve. It's pronounced Roosevelt. You know what? This is kind of, you know, for those of you who know, Steve was very adamant about pronouncing Roosevelt, Roosevelt. He's actually since done a 180 on that. Yes.

He has. When presented with new information, he changed his mind. But I still think this caption captures the spirit of Steve. Which is why I selected it. Especially in 2018. It hits close to home. There was another one that said, here's your compliment sandwich, which is also good. I thought this one was just edged it out a little bit. This is a classic, but I had to include it. I hear

by night you sirloin. Oh, that's good. Come on, be sure. This one makes me laugh just reading it. Tim Miller says, snort this. Shout out to the best dog.

Leland says, after this, it'll be cal's week in review okay yeah that one's solid yeah and then last one waffle says i'd make a caption but i'm afraid i'll butcher it oh getting a little meta there that's true true Phil what's your favorite from that list I mean my favorite is snort this But I don't think that'll be the consensus Okay I'd throw my vote behind It's pronounced Roosevelt How about the others in the room I like the simplicity of thigh five Okay

I'll have to go back and find that user If we choose it We have a split vote so far here, Randall. Are you going to pick another one off the board or go with Phil's, mine, or Cal's? It is your birthday, so I think you should decide who gets the core jacket from First Light. Oh, God, that's a lot of pressure. That is a lot of pressure. You're making me profoundly uncomfortable.

This is my birthday, as we all know. King for a day. I'm going to go rogue here. Okay, wow. comfortable on my, this is my birthday as we all know. King for a day. I'm going to go rogue here. Okay. Wow. I'm going to say thigh five. I love it. I love it.

Thigh five. These are all great submissions, but man, thigh five is just out there. I need to find the thigh five so we can shout that person out. Thigh five show yourself. They are the winner. Uh, and to claim their prize, they're going to write an email to radio at themedeater.com and we will get you that cord jacket.

Do it right now. Do it as soon as this show ends. That way I know it's you and we don't have a thousand people claiming to be the Thigh Five jokester. Again, that's radio at themedeater.com. You could have given me a few days and I never would have gotten the five.

You know, I can't search. I'm so, I'm so sad that I, I, I unstart it so I can't find it easily. So I got, I got some more filler fill while you do that on next week's meat eater radio

will not be live because Steve and crew are recording it from Cypress Cove in Louisiana at the first meat eater experience. The video will still drop on Thursday and the podcast on Friday, but again, we will not be live for that one. Meat Eater Radio will return to its regular schedule on October 17th. And don't forget it's Whitetail Week right now. So head over to TheMeatEater.com for our best whitetail content and deals. All week we have discounted First Light whitetail. And the more you spend, the more you save head over to our website because there are

only a few days of white tail week left. Here it is. We should all weigh in. Alexis Thomas. Alexis Thomas. Congratulations, Alexis. Caption contest. Thigh five.

Alexis, you write us at radio at the mediator.com. We're going to get you that first light jacket. Brilliant. Brilliant. That's right. Yeah. And we're going to get you that first light grill jacket. Brilliant. Brilliant. That's right. Yeah.

I was thinking, uh, we could have people take bets on how much we weigh, uh, before the before and after weights of Cypress Cove. You're going to eat good down there.

Yeah. Louisiana. Like they only do things two ways. Yeah. It's cooked in butter or as deep fat fried and then served with butter. Okay. It's going to be a good time.

Sounds lovely. All right. We will see everyone back here on October 17th for more meat eater radio live. Let's get lunch. 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 3 months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet