The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 613: MeatEater Radio Live! Alligator Gar, a Migration Report, and How to Brown Your Meat

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Welcome to MeatEater Radio Live! 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, Seth Morris, and Phil Taylor.  Guests: Fish Ecologist and Professor Solomon R. David of The GarLab at the University of Minnesota, Chester Floyd, and Danielle Prewett.  Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on October 17th, and we're live from Meade-Dieter HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Newharth, joined today by Ryan Callahan and Seth Morris. On today's show, we're talking to Dr. Solomon David about the evolution of gar. Then we've got a migration report from Matt McCormick, followed by one-minute fishing at the office pond with Hillary. Then we'll find out how much Cal and Seth know about their fellow hunters and anglers with a game of meat pole, followed by a cheticate about public land duck hunting.

And finally, we'll talk to Danielle Pruitt about the correct way to brown ground meat. First, I need an update from you boys about Louisiana. You just stepped off the plane, got home back to Montana from the meat eater experience at Cypress Cove. Yeah. All my fishing was inshore.

Cal got out for some offshore stuff, which I'm very jealous of. You should be. Yeah, it looked amazing. But no, the fishing inshore was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. So the one offshore day, The fishing in shore was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

So the one offshore day, like, uh, all the boats that went out had, you know, varying degrees of success, like all success across the board. Um, like one of the boats that caught smaller tuna also bumped into like a super bonus school of mahi-mahi. Um, the fish so nice, they named it twice, Spencer. to like a super bonus school of mahi mahi. Mm-hmm.

Um, the fish so nice, they named it twice, Spencer. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh. Former trivia question, also known as a dolphin fish. Strong, strong. Um, and then we, yeah, we got, we found, we got

one mark right out of the gate on the sonar. One, one little arch. Okay. And, you know, to to me that's not a school of tuna like okay that's like a billfish or something hanging down there and we threw out two baits and and uh ended up with two like probably like live weight 170 pound uh yellowfin tuna but i i heard that you haven't brought it up, but the most envious catch of the whole like three week experience was a gar that you caught, right? Yeah, the gar was awesome.

That was super awesome. Yeah. Very surprising. Extremely lucky. You weren't fishing for gar when you caught the gar? No, no, no, no, no, no. light redfish sea trout tackle. And that's what I was trying to catch with little like walleye size swim bait and just had the magical hook placement hook up on.

Yeah. I was going to say, I'm surprised you got to the boat because we had hooked a couple guard too, and they were off in no time. As you would expect, right? Like armored scales and big old teeth and everything. So, yeah, it was just very lucky.

Not just any gar, an alligator gar, and you can see a photo of Cal holding that gar, I believe on Steve's Instagram. Is that the first alligator gar you've ever caught? I would say so. I think I caught long nose gar in Texas. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I'm-nosed gar in Texas. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, because I'm, you know, a Montana kid. Traveled man. Yeah. You know, inundated with gar. Yep. Speaking of gar, joining us on the line first is Dr. Solomon David from the University of

Minnesota. Dr. David is an aquatic ecologist and one of the world's foremost authorities on guard. Dr. David, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Spencer, and the rest of you. Good to be here. Dr. Solomon David and I have known each other for probably over a decade. It goes back to my days of working at a federal fish hatchery. And there was one spring where we raised millions of paddlefish there. And there was one spring where I think we had about a dozen albino or technically leucistic paddlefish that were born. And once they got about 10 inches long, I tried to find some zoos and aquariums across the country who'd want to take them.

So I reached out to probably 20 zoos and aquariums. And one of the people who responded was Dr. David, who worked at Shedd Aquarium at the time. And so I shipped him. Was it was it one or two paddlefish that I sent you in the mail? I think it might have been two. I think I kind of just helped broker that, you know, that connection there because that went to the fish people, you know, on site at Shedd. But I think it might have been two. So I sent him a couple of leucistic paddlefish in the mail. They didn't survive more than like a year, I think. But that was how Dr. Solomon, David, and I got to know each other was back in my fish hatchery days. Was that part of the program where you're like, oh, if you want them to live, you're going to have to buy this other package?

No, they were totally free. I was just doing it out of the goodwill of our federal hatchery. There was a surprising lack of interest around the country from people not wanting to take leucistic paddlefish, but Dr. Solomon David, I knew him and I would like each other because he was stoked on it. Dr. David, it says in our notes that you're a gar evolution specialist, which strikes me as a really easy job. Be like, yeah, this happened. And then 200 million years later, same, same story. Yeah. It sounds like I don't really do much, right?

If you're studying Gar evolution, they don't actually evolve. Then, you know, what, what am I sitting here doing? You know, which allows me time to go on meat eater and chat with you all. But, but no, you know, I know, I'm an aquatic ecologist, so I study how fish interact with their environment and with other organisms. The gar evolution side is, you know, kind of, it's part of my work. And as you mentioned, because gars have these, what we found to be slow evolutionary rates, they haven't changed a whole lot in their appearance over time. And as you described, I think Spencer was asking, how did you not remember your first gar catch?

I mean, they got that long snout, lots of teeth, the armored scales. So they basically looked like that for the past 150 million years. So even if you don't all remember them, they've been doing that same thing. The next time you see them, they're going to look the same as they did previously. So they're really cool fish. They've been doing that same thing. The next time you see them, they're going to look the same as they did previously. So they're really cool fish. They've been doing the same thing for a long time. And we're just trying to catch up with the science because that's significantly lagged behind what we know about a lot of other fish. And what other fish would have a similar story that they've been unchanged for 150 million years? Yeah, you know, the next closest ones would be sturgeons.

And like our story goes, the paddlefish. So sturgeons and paddlefish also have very slow rates of evolution. But gars are still the slowest. There was recent research that we did that came out this past spring, led by researchers at Yale and University of Buffalo. That's Chase Brownstein and Dan McGuigan. I was a co-author on that study. And we found that gars have among the slowest rates of evolution of any vertebrate. And if you kick out hagfish and lampreys, basically you're talking about just vertebrates that have jaws. Gars are the slowest. So slowest rates of evolution compared to things like coelacanths and crocodilians and sharks and

longfish too. So they've been doing what they've been doing, you know, since before Tyrannosaurus rex, and they've kind of persisted long past the dinosaurs. Now, when I worked at the fish hatchery that we talked about, I used to give a lot of tours and we'd get to a gar in the aquarium. I'd get a lot of oohs and aahs when I'd tell people that pioneers would put the gar skin on the front of their plows to break through fields,

that gar scales were used as arrowheads, that some Native Americans would use them as breastplates, that they used as currency and jewelry. So those are some of the reasons I love gar. But what about you, Dr. Solomon? You've dedicated your career to these fish. Give us your elevator gar pitch. Why are they so cool? Yeah, you know, I feel like I gave away some of that already with that, you know, that body plan that, you know, hasn't changed. And they've been around since before the time of like some of our favorite dinosaurs. Like they date back to the late Jurassic period. So they're older than T-Rex and Triceratops.

And they've outlasted them. If you look behind me, you can see some of the gars that we've got. If you looked at a fossil gar and you looked at a gar that's alive today, they look very similar to each other. And they've got those armored scales, which are basically made out of tooth enamel, which is the hardest substance that our bodies produce. So, you know, they've got that armored scaling on them, which works well for them. But if you're, let's say an angler, it makes them a little bit tougher to clean. You can't fillet them like you would a bluegill or a walleye or a trout, but they've got all these cool adaptations that have allowed them to survive relatively unchanged for such a long time. They can survive in freshwater and saltwater, as I think Cal and

the crew kind of found. You can find them alongside sharks in estuaries. They've got poisonous eggs. Their eggs are toxic to mammals, birds, and most arthropods. And they've got those long jaws with lots of teeth. You can see the picture when we were working with Kayla Kimmel out of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They get huge. The alligator gar can get, you know, right around eight feet long, 300 pounds. Nothing really messes with them except for humans once they get that big. And, you know, they've got this adaptation where they can breathe air too. So you can see us working on this alligator gar at a national wildlife refuge. And we can do that with gars because they breathe air. If that was a sturgeon or some other type of fish, it'd be

trickier because they can't stay out of the water that long. Whereas the gars kind of chill and we can take our measurements, tag them and get them back in the water. So really all these things have allowed them to be successful for a long time. All right. Now, besides just being like really cool and interesting to nerds, why should anglers and game agency specifically care about gar? Yeah. You know, I think that's a great question. You know, when you think about gars, they're great environmental indicators. There's seven species of gars, and all of them tend to migrate to an extent onto vegetation to spawn. So they do have some movement to them. Alligator gars will make big upstream and downstream movements. They move from rivers onto floodplains. So they can be

good indicators of aquatic connectivity. They can also be hosts to freshwater mussels, which are also good environmental indicators. And as predatory fish, they help maintain predator prey balances. So they help keep, you know, let's say panfish populations from stunting and overpopulating. They can help, you know, sort of help manage shad and other minnow type populations, forage fish. And so they can, you know, help sort of keep ecosystem balance there and be indicators of overall aquatic ecosystem health. I think most anglers probably have a pretty low opinion of gar. And so it would be similar to like a coyote. If I were to suggest that state agencies need a little more regulation of coyotes, I would be laughed at. But could you say that with gar? Do gar need slightly more regulation

than what they have today? Yeah, I would say the short answer is yes. And I think part of that is because we lack a lot of the data that we have on other game fish populations like largemouth bass and trout. I like to say that we're 100 years behind walleye with what we know about walleye, which is Minnesota state fish. So we got a lot of catching up to do. But because they are important apex predators, ecosystem environmental indicators, we don't know a lot about their population status and health. So we've got to catch up with that. And in order to do that, I think protections are needed because in a lot of states, we've done an analysis on this, they have unlimited harvests. So you can harvest as many gars as you want. And we know that fish like the alligator gar can live for over 100 years. The shortnose gar, which is the smallest species, can live for 49 years. So we've got these long lived fish and not enough data that we know about their populations. We don't know when we might pass a tipping point right to where we may not be able to recover that population and keep that as a natural resource. Now, a little treat for our YouTube audience is that we are seeing some photos from Solomon

with alligator gar. And one we just saw there, was it looked like, I couldn't tell if you were doing an autopsy or if you were cleaning one for it to be eaten. Have you ever cleaned and eaten these? I have helped clean them and I've definitely eaten plenty types of gars.

You're looking at a picture from an alligator gar rodeo that we work with down in Louisiana. And this has been extremely valuable to our lab because we're able to get samples and data off these fish that are being harvested. And the stakeholders, the anglers there have been really, you know, happy to work with us. And so we're able to share the data with them, help sort of contribute to the knowledge about these fish. And they clean these big alligator gars at one of the bars along the Amate River. And then people come to the bar and they eat fried gar balls, which are gar hush puppies. And so everybody kind of has a good time eating these fish and kind of taking part in the value of these native species. Describe the taste for me. I think a lot of gar that people harvest end up

in a ditch somewhere. They throw them in their garden and write it off as fertilizer. But what did it taste like? Yeah, you know, the tricky part is we need tin snips to get through that tough armored hide. And so once you get through those tin snips, you got some, you know, two nice, you know, back straps of meat there. And, you know, I would say it tastes somewhere in between fish and chicken. So it's not as, you know, sort of doesn't come apart as easily as a salmon does, maybe not as, as tough as chicken might be, but you can eat it a bunch of different ways. I've had gar smoked, I've had an empanadas, I've had it fried, a lot of different ways to eat gar. And I'd encourage people to try it if they do harvest a gar.

Gar, like they're visual, right? Like they're up rolling on the surface, even in that like froggy, you know, oxygen depleted zone that you try to like push through when you're rowing. You're like, ah, nothing really lives here. So they take up a really great space. They provide opportunity where there's a lack of opportunity and then from like a fly fishing side of things like they're really visual like you see them uh chances are if you get a bait close to them they're gonna at least move towards it uh they're a really exciting fish man i it always bums me out when um uh folks uh shoot them or catch them and and chuck them on the on the riverbank just just for no reason um are they selective though like the excuse that i always hear for removing that fish from a system is like,

oh, they eat the fish that I like to eat, right? Are they just like anything else? They have a preferred prey species or are they kind of generalists? Yeah, that's a great question, Cal. They tend to be generalists. They're predatory fish and they're opportunistic. So, you know, studies have been done on this and what gar eating. In fact, that's the most research that's been done on gars is what are they eating because people were concerned about

their game fish populations. And what they found is that gars are eating whatever is most abundant in a particular area. So sometimes it's going to be forage fish like minnows and shad. Sometimes it might be centrarchids like, you know, sunfish. But in preying on those fish, they help maintain balance in those populations. And gars are pretty gape limited, so they can only swallow their food whole. And so even a four foot long longnose gar isn't going to be able to take down, you know, a decent sized bass or bluegill. So they're really eating the smaller fish. And that tends to be the shad and the minnows.

And I think you bring up a good point about how you can fish for them. They are so adaptable that they can be in rivers and streams and in these backwaters and in water that's like chocolate milk. So you can fly fish for them. You can, you know, troll for them. I've fished for Florida gar on the Everglades. I've fished for them in Texas with drones. And so they're an exciting fish. And like you said, you can fish for them in places where maybe other fish aren't found as readily. So down South, you got bowfin and gars everywhere. You may not have, you know,

you definitely don't have trout. And so they kind of fill that niche there. Solomon, I've heard you refer to gar as a gateway fish. What does that exactly mean? Yeah, you know, I think if you look at shows like River Monsters that came out maybe almost 20 years ago now, that kind of opened the gate to these sort of bizarre, sort of charismatic megafauna out of rivers. And alligator gars are like that. If you look behind me, I've got an alligator gar skull here from a seven foot, 10 inch alligator gar that was about just over 200 pounds and 48 years old. So you got these giant fish that people think are cool.

They're very bizarre looking. Maybe they think they look scary. They're not dangerous to humans, but it serves as kind of this gateway to these non-game native species. So maybe people learning a little bit more about freshwater biodiversity or, you know, what's that fish? Where does it live?

How does it get that big? And that can maybe lead to people wanting to fish for different types of species besides maybe traditional game fish and maybe a gateway to other species like different types of buffalo or suckers or drum or bofin. So I think gar's work is a great sort of conservation gateway fish to learn more about freshwater biodiversity. Yeah, I love the idea of that because many fish that resemble a carp just end up being a carp to a lot of anglers when there's smallmouth buffalo and bigmouth buffalo and there's shorthead red horse and blue suckers and white suckers.

And everyone could benefit from learning a little bit more about those fish and the gateway fish. It's a great way to explain that. Now, the third annual Gar Week is coming up this fall. Tell us about what that is and your role in the whole thing. Yeah, you know, so Gar Week is coming. It's typically in early November, but we're gonna be pushing it back. So it'll either be late November or early December, but Gar Week 2024 will happen. It's kind of a celebration of gar and native speciesnosed gar. So really that's kind of celebrating these kind of weird ancient fish and kind of just sharing knowledge about gar, why they're important, you know, just some interesting facts, gar puns, people have fun with it. We worked with Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation for the past couple of years, and they do a great job with their social media about

conservation and hunting and fishing. And so we'll be partnering with a lot of different agencies this year. We look forward to Meat Eater maybe getting involved and just, you know, what I like to say, spreading the word of Gar and celebrating these ancient fish. One of the pictures you're seeing here is I was recently out in Maine talking to over 300 elementary school kids about Gar and showing pictures of, you know, their long jaws, lots of teeth, them swimming with sharks, how slimy they are. And I really think an important part of conservation and stewardship is reaching that next generation, because if we can get them involved and interested in stewardship of our natural resources, that will allow these hunting and fishing traditions to

continue successfully. You have my word, Solomon. We are going to help spread the gospel of Gar this fall. We'll participate in Gar Week. It's my third favorite holiday each fall after Christmas and Thanksgiving. So we're going to join you this week. Solomon, thank you for joining us. Fascinating stuff. You'll be back on the show again soon.

Thanks so much for having me, guys. Thanks so much. That was awesome. 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.

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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 on X maps dot com slash meet. Welcome to the to the on X club, y'all. All right, moving on each week through the end of the year, we'll be getting either a report from Mark Kenyon or a migration report from Matt McCormick. This week we have a migration

report. Take it away, Matt. Would you like to hear the drop first, Spencer? Oh yeah, yeah. Take it away, Phil. And then maybe Matt, we can play his video. When you can't find food and the temps are so low then you suffer.

Alright, alright. Duck migration is the way. God, Phil just tries to keep a stone. Does his poker face go under that? What a treat. I recently suggested to Phil we needed a new drop for something. I was like, here, I think this is an easy solution for this one, so you don't have to be in the studio singing. And he's like, no, I would like to do that. That's more

fun to me. So don't suggest to Phil how he should do his drops. Listen, I was trying to make it easier on him. Many people have fallen into that trap. Well done, Phil. Another great drop. Now let's hear this migration report from Matt. I'm Matt McCormick with Flying V and welcome to Mediator's migration report for October 17th, 2024. I'm coming to you live from the Kaiser Ranch here in Montana's Pacific Flyway and with a full moon overhead and the first cold front of the season, we're all feeling that migration fever. So let's jump in into the latest waterfowl action, weather updates, and what's ahead in the coming weeks. Starting here in the Pacific Flyway, that first cold front, it's arrived. It's right here on the

horizon. We picked up a few birds. Maybe you can see them behind us on the front end, and we're expecting more to follow. Although conditions are still dry east of the Cascades, this front should help everybody out. Duck production strong and here at flying v we are expecting a banner year this year over in the central flyway things are kind of shaping up over there this front will drive some birds down from saskatchewan into the dakotas and we're all about to see some really big migration days coming through the central flyway. Where they'll end up, I mean, who knows? But I think all hunters throughout the flyway should keep their eyes on the north winds. Things are looking pretty prime over the next few weeks. In the Mississippi flyway, brace your guys

yourselves for impact because you have new birds coming in. All your calendar birds are on the move. We have reports from Manitoba and Ontario that birds are moving south and it's shaping up to be a killer few weeks for anyone in the north country of the Mississippi Flyway. Central, southern regions, you guys will start seeing some fresh birds here soon so you got a little bit of time if you don't have your water dialed or your gear dialed yet, now's the time. Finally in the Atlantic Flyway, duck numbers are building. It's slow, but that kind of is always the case. Recent rains, cooler temperatures, those will be a big help for all you eastern shoremen, but things should start picking up here as the birds head south over the

next few weeks. That wraps up this week's migration report. Whether you're in the Pacific Flyway chasing cacklers or you're planning a road trip to north dakota these cold fronts and north winds are setting the stage for some epic hunts across the country stay tuned for more updates and good luck out there back to you spencer matt is feeling optimistic cal does that give you a great migration report excited we got to get that guy green screened behind him. Yeah, you don't like looking at the beautiful mountains of Montana and the prairies of the Gallatin Valley? Oh, I think that's great, but, you know, let's get serious.

Let's get him, like, the little arrows and stuff where he can point and be like, now this high-pressure system. Yeah, get him a live Doppler radar. Yeah. Yeah, we can really test phil then phil how do you feel about uh how do you feel about all that i'm willing to try anything okay at least once now our next segment is one minute fishing 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 the Senior Director of Post Production, Hillary Byrne, who's on the pond behind our office. And she's fishing for a donation to captains for clean water hillary welcome to the show hi everyone tell us about uh the the rod in your hands and what lure you're throwing today uh well i stole this from seth's office this morning so he can tell you about it uh the spinning rods are more successful out here, so I left the fly rod in the truck, and we're going to give Seth's setup a try. Okay, Seth, you tell us about what Hillary's using there to catch one of these office pond trout.

Oh, you know, it's the famous MEPS, I believe, on there. Number four, I think. Yeah. What color are you going with it's the it's like the yellow with the red dots oh yeah oh that's panther martin right oh yeah panther martin that's yeah my mistake and hillary's not kidding this office or this uh fishing rod just sits in the corner of seth's office every day now uh hillary is an experienced fly angler, but doesn't have as much experience with the fishing rod. So Seth was doing some coaching out there before.

How did that go, Seth? You feel good about this? Yeah. You know, at first things were kind of hung up in the brush a little bit. Took a little bit to kind of get the swing of things. But no, she's doing great now. And I'd imagine she's going to catch a fish here, right? Hillary.

Let's hope so. We have yet to have a successful angler at the meat eater pond for one minute fishing Hillary, we hope you are the first your one minute fishing starts. As soon as you take your first cast, go ahead. Here we go. What are you seeing there, Cal? I'm more into the music choice here. Very moody.

I'll tell you a little bit about that pond. There's a lot of leaf litter on the surface. A lot that showed up in the last few days. Yeah, which makes it tough to get your cats in one minute because you oftentimes got to clean off some leaves. Just waiting for another cast. Hillary, you are 25 seconds in. I want a big old Bassmaster Classic hook set.

That would be good. Good conditions today, right, Seth? Yeah, cloudy. Like Matt was saying on the dunk report, cold front moved in last night. Oh, we may have had a cast into the grass there. That's okay. Nobody noticed. Hillary, you have 15 seconds.

Don't think it's happening today. Sorry, Hillary. Thank you for joining us, though. I would blame Seth for you not catching one there. You know, I think after fishing this pond for about a year, I think when it gets hot, the fish stack in there because it's deeper, deeper water. But once things cool down a bit in the fall and in the spring,

they move up in the, the Creek. Okay. That's, you know, filling that pond up. It's a diverse body of water. You're still figuring it out.

Yeah. Hillary, you're going to keep fishing or are you going back to work? Yeah. I'm going to go try the spot. That's apparently actually good, but we had to be here because of the wifi. So that's why I didn't catch any fish.

There you go. Phil made an executive decision when we were testing out the signal. He said you guys were too far away from the billboard. I sabotage it. I mean, I'm sure the viewing audience can tell. We've got a little Wi-Fi and cell phone signal dead zone right where we like to shoot all of our one-minute fishing segments, so we should invest in an extender of some kind. Phil hates donating money to conservation the team over horizon all right hillary thank you for joining us uh good luck at the better spot thank you all right let's take a break for some listener feedback phil what's the chat have to say today you know what the chat's the chat's very active but not asking a lot of questions so in the next two minutes, ask if you have a specific question

for Seth, Cal, Spencer, or hey, Corinne's in here too. You wouldn't know that. Or Phil. You could ask Phil. Or me. Yeah, sure. But we got a couple.

Mogor, I think you told me how to pronounce your name a couple weeks ago phonetically and that actually made it more confusing. So I apologize. But he asked Cal in trivia, you mentioned that your dad could make two things.

Wong was his own recipe of shepherd's pie, but you didn't mention what the other dish was that he could make. Can I guess? He's just curious. Yep. Well, I feel like a classic dad recipe would be like either a hamburger or chili, maybe like a goulash, since that's like similar. I'm going to go with a chili. Spaghetti.

Spaghetti. I mean, it's the same thing. That's like top five. Yeah. So what was he better at Shepard's pie or spaghetti I mean both Both good I mean like I said you know Like both of those things are

Like Like coming home recipes right Like instant mashed potatoes Whatever frozen vegetables you got in there And some ground beef I'm in still I love I love shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie and spaghetti. Yeah. Alright. This is

a general question. Best hunt of the year so far for you folks. It's almost November. It's getting there, but I know a lot of you guys have gotten outside for some other things. I'll start by saying last weekend my wife and I both killed our biggest antelope to date. Oh, yes.

I saw that. Nice. Hell yeah. Yeah, that was fun. In Montana. In Montana, yeah. And we actually found a couple stone points, too, which was kind of cool. Very cool.

Darn right. Yeah. That's a good hunt. It was a good weekend. Where exactly were you at? Don't worry about it. Over there in Montana. Oh, yeah.

Nice. I ran out with Snort right before I left for Louisiana and we had a great little bird walk. We had, we were fitting it in between, I actually had to take two meetings in the field. Snort was not happy about that. Then we did a bird loop and picked up four Hungarian partridge. And yeah, Snort's just crushing it. At four years old, she's got a little bit more chill about certain things. You think she's entering her prime now?

Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, we missed the pheasant opener, so I'm going to try to make up for lost time here this weekend. Um, but, uh, yeah. And then hauled butt back here to the office for another meeting.

So it was a good one. I got to share some pins with you. Cause I saw so many sharpies and huns this past weekend. Oh, you did? Good. Yeah. I hear the, uh, the sharp tail report is, uh,

you know, they're down in the areas where when it's really good, you see sharp tails. So they're, they're kind of more in the core sharp tail zones, but still doing good in those areas. Oh yeah. Where I was, they were everywhere. Hungarian partridges are, are thick this year.

Yeah. My favorite hunt of the year was I bought a whitetail tag in Idaho this year, a state My favorite hunt of the year was I bought a whitetail tag in Idaho this year, a state I've never hunted. They're seasoned for this tag I had open on October 7th. I went over there, excuse me, on October 10th.

I arrived on October 7th so I could scout and I killed a buck on October 12th. It was a mountain mature whitetail that I was real stoked about. I saw that one. That was sweet. Yeah. Good looking.

Did you have a good scouting or no, I, I had, uh, the most productive scouting I had was just like seeing the country because again, I, I never like,

um, never hunted in Idaho. Um, I didn't see a lot of deer scouting. I did a lot of door now door knocking, um, which isn't how i killed my buck but it gave me options which was important and this was my first whitetail that i've killed in the

pacific time zone so now i want to start a new group that's called the whitetail time zone slam there you go kill one in pacific central uh eastern and mountain time and i've now done that and if i want to go for the whitetail time zone, super slam, then I need to kill one in the Atlantic time zone, which I could only accomplish in Canada. So sometime in the future, I'm going to do that, but I'm starting a new club.

If you want to join me, uh, shoot me a message on Instagram, the whitetail time zone slam. What about, I mean, you could accomplish two time zones in a day in certain areas. Pretty easy.

Yep. Well, uh, I've, I've now done Pacific. And if you wanted to like have a super duper slam, you could go to Arizona, who is still a part of, I think their mountain time zone, but they do weird with daylight savings time where they don't respect it. They do do weird in Arizona.

Yeah. They don't respect daylight savings time. So if you want to do a super duper slam, maybe go kill a coos deer down there. The super duper slam. Then you're covering all the time zone stuff. Alright, a couple more here. We've gotten this question multiple times, but Andrew's

asking, hey Spencer, have you ever caught a gar on the Jim River? Oh, yes. The Jim River flowed about 10 miles away from where I grew up. The first boat I ever bought was a $400 14 and a half foot tiller boat, and that miles away from where I grew up. The first boat I ever bought was a $400, uh, 14 and a half foot tiller boat.

Uh, and that was bought so I could fish on the gym river. So I caught many gar, I'd often be targeting catfish there and you'd get these little light bites. Uh, and that was a classic situation of where a gar was about to rob your bait. Oh, nice. Nice.

Yeah. And then Cal, I threw this picture up when, uh, Solomon was on the line, but, um, here's your, here's your gar and fire on the bayou is asking how long did you fight it for? Yeah. I'll throw, I got, I did get a good video cause we actually had to rope that thing to with one of the bow lines to get it in. Um, classic, this happens to me all the time when fishing, we just don't have a net big enough for

the fish i can't um so you know we're pretty good at getting crafty out there uh is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes not as long as you as you'd think oh cal i'm sorry i think i think i messed up i think i accidentally cut your audio off there do you want to just restart that that question i i was trying to give the picture its own solo stage, and I removed our audio from the show. Apologies. So, yeah, you want to say that again? Phil is a 911 operator over there. Yes, he is.

He's juggling a thousand plates. Not as long as you'd think. I think about 20 minutes. We didn't have a net big enough for the fish, which is a common thing when I'm fishing, and we had to rope it with one of the bow lines on the boat so um super super super fun uh really cool seeing that thing i thought it was a big black drum so when it finally came up to the surface i was amazed right because yeah

there's no way nine times out of ten you're not going to keep that thing on the line because of the teeth and the how abrasive the scales are on that thing. So, just snap the line. Another treat for our YouTube audience. You'd get to see that gar that Cal was just talking about there.

Phil! I noticed that there was a Phil question there that you didn't want to answer like what's going on we'll get we've got another round at the end of the show okay yeah because we all want to know too all right edge your seat moving on our next segment is meat pole i'll say show me a meat boys and take my phone welcome to me eat Radio. I got a game to play. No, we should put all these on an album and sell it. There we go.

Yeah, I'll stand out in Times Square trying to say, hey, hey, check this out. You like trivia drops? No. He dresses Mario. I was thinking Elmo. I was thinking sad Elmo. Uncle Phil Cracker over there with another wonderful drop. Alright, Meat Poll

is a test of how much you know about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed 500 meat eater listeners about personal preferences and personal experiences in the outdoors. Your job is to predict their answers. Now there are three questions. Whoever is the closest to the correct answer between Cal and Seth gets a point.

The first person to two points will be the winner. In the chat, you should play along, too. If you get it within one point of the correct answer, Phil's going to shout you out at the end. He's going to watch who has the right answer. Well, Corinne is going to watch as well. They're all going to watch. So put your answers in the chat. But this is a game between Cal and Seth. So you can't look at the chat, Seth.

I'm not going to either. Well, I mean, it's not like the chat knows the answer, but they're just maybe informing you. Yeah. All right. Question one. You're the host. This question was for dog owners only. What percentage of meat eater listeners said their dog sleeps in bed with them at night?

What percentage? And go to a decimal place for us. What percentage of meat eater listeners said their dog sleeps in bed with them at night? Cal, dog owner, where does your dog sleep at night? In bed. Your bed? Yeah.

Seth, dog owner, where does your dog sleep at night? In bed. Your bed? Yeah. Seth, dog owner, where does your dog sleep at night? In bed. How about the cat? Oh, the cat's in a different room, buddy. Barely in the house. Not allowed in the room at night. Corinne, double dog owner, where do they sleep at night? Not in the bed.

Not in bed. On the floor, on their beds. Corinne, if Yupik wasn't so damn big, would he sleep in the bed? I mean, like sometimes Squid will get up on the couch. But yeah, my dog is like 125 pounds. And then the other dog weighs as much as that dog's leg. Yes. Phil, also a double dog owner.

Is that right? Yeah, that's true. Where do your dogs sleep at night? We've got Mango and Blueberry, the fruits. Mango sleeps with my oldest son in his room. She's a little Australian Kelpie, black, slick, full of piss and vinegar. And Blueberry sleeps in our room on the floor. He is a large.

Okay. God, this makes me want to change my answer. All right. So Seth and Cal, you have your answers for, again, what percentage of meat-eater listeners said their dog sleeps in bed with them at night? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying 33.6%. And we have Seth saying 67.8%.

And Corrine, who's playing along for fun, says 40%. Yeah, we had a last-minute entry just now that I think is the closest one from the chat. Okay. What was your answer again, Seth? 67.8. The correct answer is 48.6, meaning Cal gets that point. He was 15 points off. About half of the listeners said that their dog sleeps in bed with them at night.

But I beat you guys at 40. Unless I'm mistaken, Brian Bradford got the closest. There were dozens of answers. Brian Bradford, well done. 1.5 percentage points off of the correct answer. Now, a recent study from Total Vet showed that 76% of American dog owners allow their dog to sleep in bed with them at night. So outdoorsmen or meat eater listeners specifically are less than that. The number one reason people don't allow their dog to sleep in bed with them is because of

cleanliness, followed by concerns about fleas and because the dog moves too much. That same study found that 33% of married dog owners said they sleep better next to their dog than they do their spouse. If I gave my dog fleas she wouldn't matter she wouldn't mind i don't get it we oftentimes have like straight up mud in our bed yeah you just get over that real quick seth you sleep better uh next to wiley or next to kelsey uh probably kelsey because wiley likes to she likes to get real close oh kelsey when we go to bed we're like we're going to sleep okay the the dog owner he's got other and often oftentimes why likes to sneak up and like you'll

wake up and her head's like on your pillow with you oh or she's like at your she's just all over the place when i first started my labs were outside 100% of the year. Then you loved them. And they were, I do think like if you're interested in having like very cold weather resistant and water resistant Labradors, having them sleep. They can be inside with you and hanging out, but when it's time to go to bed, they go outside into the kennel. That's the way to do it. Not under the covers, though. Nope. Question two, and again, we have Cal with one point, Seth with

zero. We need Cal to get this right. This could be the game. To win, or Seth gets it right, we'll go to question three. What percentage of meat-eater listeners think they could beat a mountain lion in a bare-handed fight to the death? What percentage of meat-eater listeners think they could beat a mountain lion in a bare-handed fight to the death. What percentage of meat-eater listeners think they could beat a mountain lion in a bare-handed fight to the death?

Again, I polled 500 people from our audience to get this answer. I mean, your life is on the line. So you better think you can win. Uh-huh. Okay. Cal has yet to write down an answer though what percentage of meat eater listeners think they could beat a mountain lion in a bare-handed fight to the death if you'll recall we used to do this as a uh different show on meat eater trivia but when we talked about doing meat eater radio i thought i would peel that off from there and

make it a segment in meat eater radio I think it fits better over here. So you're not going to hear this on Meat Eater Trivia anymore. Meat Pole is going to be for Meat Eater Radio. Without revealing anything, someone in the chat got it right on the money, down to the decimal point. Okay. And I see Seth watching very closely. I was seeing some 70-some percents come up in there. I mean, oh, man, you guys have too much of an ego if you're in the 70s.

Oh yeah, unbelievable. Are you boys ready to reveal your answer? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying 54.4% of media listeners think they could beat a mountain lion in a barehanded fight to the death. And we have Seth

saying 26.3%. What's that game show, Phil? Show Me 54. That'd be Family Feud, which everyone from the crew strongly dislikes. Not me, Spencer. The correct answer is 21.5. Seth was just five percentage points away from the correct answer. The alternate universe Colin Farrell chimed in.

Oh, not the meat eater. He's also a handsome chap, but he guessed 21.5. Colin Farrell, well done, right on the nose. Now, I asked this same question at the Boise live show in April, and 34% of that audience said they believed they could beat a mountain lion in a barehanded fight fight to the death so people from idaho are more likely to think they could win that battle than just our general meat eater audience you believe that cows that seem right based on what you know about folks from idaho i mean there's a lot of cat hunters in idaho so yeah maybe yeah now according to the mountain lion foundation 15 percent of mountain lion attacks are fatal, but

I doubt the other, you know, 85% end with the mountain lion dying. So I guess we'll never know. I was going to say fatal for who? All right. Here is question three. Whoever's closest between Seth and Cal will be the winner. What percentage of meat eater listeners think Seth is a better angler than Chester? 500 people from our audience answered this question.

What percentage of meat-eater listeners think Seth is a better angler than Chester? I mean, hey, this is a company who's had turkey calling contests online. So I think it's fair game to ask this question. Seth, who do you think? I think most people think Chester's better. You think so? Well, he's just kind of talking about it more. Okay. Talking about being better than you?

Yeah. Who do you think is better? That's an unfair question. We could go species specific. How about walleye? Who's a better walleye? Oh, God angle walleye oh god you have to go with that why couldn't you ask just like musky or something who's better at musky chester who's better at trout chester who's better at bass seth catfish oh man i don't know okay we're both we both have our strengths and weaknesses Okay, alright, so again the question is

What percentage of meat eater listeners Think Seth is a better angler Than Chester Seth are you ready? Yeah Cal are you ready? Yep Reveal your answers

We have Cal saying 42.1% And Seth saying 40.1% Wow You guys are both in the ballpark I'll tell you that 1% and Seth saying 40.1%. Wow. You guys are both in the ballpark, I'll tell you that. One of you is one percentage point off of the correct answer. The correct answer is 43.1%

making Cal our winner. Don Saltz says 42.2. Well done, Don. So 43% of people think Seth is a better angler than Chester. I got 100% radio live game win streak going here.

Oh, you won the field trivia and now meatball. You found a home field. Now, as we learned from a previous episode of Meat Eater Trivia, my polling of our audience found that 42% of anglers think they're a better angler than the average angler, which is kind of off, because I think it's like 60% of Americans think they're smarter than the average American, but only 40% of anglers think they're a better angler than the average angler. I think that.

I think I'm better than the average angler. Hell yeah. Chester's the average angler. I think that. I think I'm better than the average angler. Hell yeah. Chester's the average angler. I think that's the way it should be. I mean. Yeah, humbling. Well, I mean, no. I mean, you want to have confidence in whatever you do. Yeah. Well done, Cal, as the winner there of our

first meat poll in meaty to radio. I got a lot of people to thank, so. 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. Whew. 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 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. Now our next segment is from Chester Floyd. This is Chetiket. C-H-E-T-I-Q-U-E-T-T-E. Find out what it means to me. C-H-E-T-I-Q-U-E-T-T-E. Take care of C-H-E-T.

Sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy, sock-a-tooy. This week, Chester is answering a listener's question about duck hunting on public land. Hello, everybody. My name's Chester Floyd Floyd and I'm coming at you from yet another beautiful campfire in Wisconsin. We got a real ripper going tonight and anyways this week's Chetakit question comes to us from Ben. Ben writes, Dear Meat-Eater crew, opening morning of southern zone duck season in Wisconsin my buddy and I ran into a situation that got us thinking about public hunting etiquette.

We arrived at a pond around 3 a.m. where another hunter was waiting in the parking lot for his buddies, but hadn't set up yet. We politely discussed where we'd be hunting, but he claimed we'd be too close, even though we'd be 300 to 400 yards apart. To avoid conflict, we moved to a different spot. His buddies didn't arrive until much later, and we started wondering, does sitting in the parking lot reserve your spot? Or should we have just gone to our original location since we were all ready to set up we'd love to hear your thoughts well ben i do have some thoughts for you sitting in the parking lot trying to claim a spot. On opening morning trying to shoot a duck. Waiting on your buddies from the night before.

They're late, hungover, and feeling sore. It ain't right. It ain't right. If you're going to claim your spot, you can't do it from the parking lot. And be nice. I love it that was great you like that little song i think you did the right thing of talking to that guy in the parking lot and i think you did the right thing on moving to another spot however the fella i think you might have called it in the email the parking lot cowboy or something like that just waiting there for his buddies not set up i don't think that's the right

way to do it to hold your spot i think you need to be where you're going to be hunting and that's that's my opinion you need to be set, and then you can claim your spot. A phenomenal Chet-a-kit. That was great. Phenomenal Chet-a-kit. Chet does the actual musicianship work around the office. I'm a joker. I'm a jester.

It got weird out a lot of places. It's true. I told Chet he made a mistake by started doing these, like singing with his guitar. Because now he's got to do them all that way. He's a rock star. He has to. It's too good to do a Chetty kit with anything but music. Yeah.

You boys have any input on how that situation should have been handled? I think the dude in the parking lot, I would hope, ripped his buddies a new one when they showed up. Like being late like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I'm the guy in the parking lot, I'd be like,

gang, you, thanks for telling me where you're going to set up. I'll adjust around you. Yep. Yeah. I mean, he's not there.

I agree. I think you and you and Chester had the right take Seth. Anything to add? No, I, I agree. I think you and Chester had the right take. Seth, anything to add? No, I agree 100%. You can't hold a spot like that by just sitting in the parking lot. Right, because it's like, okay, well, is being on the road to the location good enough to hold it? I mean, come on, dude. Yeah.

Chester's going to write a song about you if you try to pull that move again, parking lot cowboy. All right. Joining us on the line next is Danielle Pruitt, who has a new cookbook out right now called Wild and Whole. Beautiful cookbook. It is beautiful. Danielle is going to talk to us about the proper way to brown ground meat, a simple step that many at-home chefs mess up. Danielle, welcome to the show. Hello.

How are you all? Doing good. Danielle, welcome to the show. Hello. How are you all? Doing good. Danielle is standing in her kitchen right now. Now, Danielle, browning meat is a skill that every person should have. With that said, when someone is told to brown ground meat, what do you normally see happen? Oh, they gray it. Okay, they gray it. What does that mean exactly? Well, browning meat, I mean, is like the term is coined because you're looking for a brown color in the meat.

But the whole purpose is to infuse flavor in the meat. So pretty much every recipe, especially like a braised dish or a stew, you start by browning the meat first. It's not really there because you're trying to cook the meat through. You're just taking that step to make the meat as flavorful, meaty, savory as possible. So when you kind of like glance over that step, that's when your recipe comes out tasting like really dull or just like lackluster. The kids say mid these days, Danielle. Brown, whenever you're.

Okay, I think our connection dropped there for a second. Danielle, walk us through step by step the process leading up to putting that meat in a pan. Yeah. So as you can see, I got this plate that looks like it's just meat is just flattened out on a plate. This is actually ground by North Bridger bison. But I chose this because it came in like one of those plastic bags, you know, and when you defrost it, juice is everywhere. All that liquid makes it difficult to brown meat so the first thing I do after defrosting is put it on a plate and I Pat it really really dry first so that's like the first step is

don't just like dump a wet bag of meat into the pan or else gonna steam it and that's when you get kind of that grayish looking. So really the way I like to think about this is to imagine like you're making a giant smash burger is kind of the easiest way to put it. Okay. So I got, I'm making a soup. This is from, I'm letting my pan get hot here.

This is my cookbook and this is the recipe I'm doing. It's just like a really simple, like, weeknight meal soup with ground venison in it. So I'm making it in this Dutch oven. It's a stove. It's an enameled cast iron, so it retains its heat really well. So you want to get your pan really hot, and then you're going to add some sort of fat or oil. Use something that has a high smoke point because you want the pan really hot and then you're going to add some sort of fat or oil. Use something that has a high smoke point because you want the pan really hot. I'm using beef tallow. I think tallow is a great great for cooking venison. But you can use like avocado oil, grapeseed oil, or canola oil. Those are all high smoke points.

And the reason why I like tallow is also because it has like a meatier flavor that I think just tastes good. We can hear that pan getting hot right now. Danielle, are we at medium-high heat, medium heat? What are we doing on the stove? This is pretty good. This is like on high heat. Okay, high heat.

I'm by myself at home so i'll have to i'm on a tripod so once i get this in i'll show you what's going on in the pan but the pan is like and then i take or whatever and i literally just like lay it in there like i'm making a big smash burger that that is exactly what that looks like she's now adding the ground meat to the pan all right Danielle is showing us the inside of the skillet now are you just going to be doing this in batches here yeah you don't want to put it all in at once. You could make it a little thicker. But I like to work with that.

There's like space. That space in the steam allows moisture to evaporate. So you don't want all that steam in there to be gray. Yeah, really quick, guys. The steam, the hissing from the pan is doing a number on Danielle's microphone, like her auto-algorithm settings. So it's not her fault. It's just the microphone's having trouble processing it.

But we can see what you're doing, Danielle. Yeah, to interpret for Danielle here, what she's saying is she's leaving enough room in the pan, including like a little donut hole in the middle so the the steam even though she pre-dried pre-patted dry her meat that uh steam is going to come out and you're not going to steam the meat you're going to get that nice kind of brown crust evenly and she's working in batches not putting everything in there at once or else you're just going to inevitably build up moisture in there and you're not going to get a good browning on

your meat all right danielle is working on this first pet or this first batch in the pan danielle what point do we season the meat when we're browning it? I'm walking away. Is that better on the mic? We'll find out. So I season it after I flip with salt, pepper, and then whatever else is in the recipe. I like to season it a little bit later because salt will draw moisture out. So I let it get kind of a nice crust,

and then I'll flip it season it and then season with like everything else that goes in the recipe so a lot of times you'll see a recipe that'll be like at ground meat then add ABC ingredient and then add your spices like rosemary or whatever but that just kind of gets the liquid flavorful but not the meat so i feel like he's teasing the meat you get the meat gets those flavors and then the liquid will kind of like blend it at the end that makes sense all right when when do we flip those uh patties now that we're turning into brown meat she's about to check them out danielle's cookbook again is available right now uh you can get it at

themeateater.com. You can get it at Amazon. A lot of places books are sold. I have it sitting in my kitchen right now. I've already made a few recipes out of there. One thing I really love about the cookbook and it seems unique to me is that it is separated by the seasons, which for folks who go out and get their own food or forage it or catch it or kill it whatever that is uh that's a convenient way to think about your cooking danielle give us an update there on the pan can you see it we can see it looks brown that looks like brown meat it's like a hamburger that's right that is not that is not grade meat like you described earlier that is brown meat that we're seeing.

Yeah. And so now I'm going to chop it up into little pieces. OK, she's flipped the burger. Now she's chopping. Danielle, I feel like when I'm at like some fine dining place, I get ground burger in my meal. That is like bigger chunks. But my instinct at home is to like break it up into the minced the most minced meat possible what what what should I be doing is it like recipe dependent is there a right way to do it a wrong way so and it has a lot to do

with the way that it's being ground and what's in the ground how much that's in the ground so like you know like a sausage has a lot of fat and then you're sort of mixing it to like sort of emulsify the fat in the cold water in there. So you're getting kind of like a solid form. With ground meat, especially like a recipe like this, that's gonna be all loose, I personally like to grind it really fine in a way that keeps the strands as separate as

possible and then when you go to grind it it gets into it like it's all these tiny little bit of crispy bits that's really good the problem with like grinding it that way is it doesn't make the best burger because it doesn't stick together as well. It makes the best loose ground meat, if that makes sense. Danielle has now taught us the proper way to brown ground meat, which is a great

foundation for a lot of recipes in your cookbook. Tell folks about the cookbook, what they should expect to find in there if they pick one up. A little connection lag there. There we go. You're good. Sorry, Danielle. Oh, so the cookbook, you can buy it wherever

books are sold. It's organized by the seasons because I wanted people to get really excited about what's growing, what you can hunt, what you can fish outdoors to get outside in nature and be inspired by the outdoors and um be able to cook through the seasons and so you'll find all sorts of recipes not just for wild game um but like a lot of really vegetable centered recipes there's even desserts in there. Like for winter, I've got a duck fat chocolate

chip cookie recipe. All right, Danielle, let's say that someone just picked up the cookbook and they kill their, they kill a deer here in the coming month. Then they bring that venison home. What's the first thing that you think they should make from your cookbook? Give us your best recommendation. Well, if you were asking my husband, his birthday is the first week of October and usually likes to go archery elk hunting. And if he's successful, the first thing he wants for his birthday is venison tartare.

He just likes to eat it raw. He gets really excited about that. But I think it depends on the kind of person you are and what you like to eat. I think there's a recipe for tenderloins with brown butter and sage that's very good. It's literally just those two things. It's super simple, but really, really savory. And those are kind of like the good like celebratory dishes. Yeah, for the tartar recipe you were talking about, I made that at home last week. And I loved the Parmesan horseradish spread. I'm going to use that now like once a month.

That's going to be one of my go-to condiments. Yeah, that's really good on like if if you're gonna make a sandwich so there's another recipe for like a venison sirloin tip that's like roasted kind of like you would roast a prime rib so it's like that rosy red big hunk of meat slice that really thin and put that on a sandwich with that parmesan horseradish sauce, and it's pretty money. All right, Danielle. Well, thank you for the lesson on browning ground meat. Congrats on the cookbook, and thanks for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Danielle. Thanks, Danielle. Good variety. Won't get bored with it. It's awesome. Cal, have you broke into the cookbook yet? Have you experimented with any of the recipes?

I just got it, and I've been out of town, but flipped through it. And yeah, there's all sorts of fun stuff in there. And there's some like non-meat things in there, which I definitely could get a shot in the arm over. I get obsessed over turning over the freezer. Sure. So I'm more of the protein oriented cook. So there's like some bruschetta and stuff in there. There you go I'm more of the, the protein oriented cook. Uh, so there's like some bruschetta

and stuff in there. There you go. Yeah, it's good for you. You're going to explore beyond the fall section when you, when you get into it.

Yeah, exactly. The, uh, squash blossoms, stuff like that. Yeah. That sounds good.

Yep. All right. That brings us to the end of the show. Phil, let's get some listener feedback. Yeah. Another big,

big meaty question here. Uh, it'll work. There we are. Uh, at Morton big meaty question here. It'll work. There we are. At Morton94 says, I'm looking for your career change. My passion is the outdoors. Any suggestions for a career to look into?

We had a trivia question about this at one point, and Seth can speak to this more, but there was some polling done of thousands of Americans asking them about their careers and their stress level and their happiness and their pay grade and time off and stuff like that.

And that polling found that the happiest people, the happiest Americans are working in the forestry industry. So I guess that would be one of my recommendations. If you work in a place that you're looking to just be happy in general. Those people seem to have less stress. They were stoked on their pay and really loved what they did. Seth, does that seem right to you? Yeah, I would say for the most part.

But I guess to play devil's advocate a little bit on that is you often look at a forest in a different way that a normal person would. Sure. Like a normal person might go into a stand of trees and be like, oh, this is like beautiful. Whereas like a forester or something is like, ah, there's an invasive, you know, these trees are like all, I don't know, overgrown and like not healthy. And, you know, you just kind of look at things differently. Yep. But as a hunter, you also kind of look at things differently. Yep. But as a hunter, you also look at it differently because you're like, oh,

the, like this tree is going to be producing food here in like a month or, um, you know, so. And I imagine in forestry, it's, it's a wide range of education levels that you can have and experience levels. Totally. Again, happiest career field among Americans. It is a great career field. Cal, anything to add? Yeah.

I think on our connectivity problem is really messing up the happiness of that job because it used to be out of cell phone service for the most part. And as long as you were out of your truck and outside of the truck radio, you couldn't be bothered. Sure. Which I'm sure is what made those people so happy. Now, it's like, there's cell phone service damn near everywhere. So, yeah.

I mean, come on. As we talked about with Solomon David, I was a fish biologist in my former life and I loved it. That was very fun going to work every day. It's oftentimes rewarding work. Yes. That's for sure.

Yep. John asks, is there a release date for the new Meat Eater American History audiobook? And then Randall piped in in the chat, hey, John, Meat Eater American History Volume 2 comes out in February. We're actually recording it next week. The podcast studio is booked all week. It's a bee in my bonnet, Spencer. Yeah. But we're going to it next week. The podcast studio is booked all week.

It's a bee in my bonnet, Spencer, but we're going to make it work. And Randall's not stressed at all. No, he's doing great. Completely put together. So Meat Eater American History Volume 2 coming out in February. That's right. Favorite thing to make with a bear shoulder. Micah got his first black bear this year.

You guys have any shoulder tips? Green chili. It's a great one. Lots of connective tissue in the shoulders. The bummer is if you part out that shoulder, there's actually really tender meat in front shoulders, which a lot of people don't think about. But you can cook that shoulder whole on the smoker and then, um, part it out, drop it into, uh, like a green chili or a red chili, chili Colorado, something like that. And it's, it's a absolute winner. Killer stuff. Yeah. I like, I like just like blade roast, you know?

Yes. Like drop that thing in a crock pot and like being able to just pull a full scapula out of a slow cooked piece of meat is pretty satisfying. Yeah. Get the old Betty Crocker cookbook and the Italian pot roast recipe for bear is great. Yeah. I've only been served bear. I haven't cooked to myself, but in part of my

plate, we cooked some coyote, um, which you have to handle similar to bear because it's a predator and predator. And you're worried about trichinosis, uh, that we just put in a crock pot and I could have told you it was any sort of red meat in the world and you wouldn't have known the difference. So, uh,

as, as Seth suggested in Cal, uh, crock pot might be the way to go. Uh, do you guys have bucket list States that you have not hunted yet? It's from Enzo, uh, Iowa. We, we talked guys have bucket list states that you have not hunted yet? It's from Enzo.

Uh, Iowa. We, we talked about on a previous show, we ranked the states we'd love to have a hunting property and I'm building points in that state. It's going to happen soon, but I'd put Iowa on the bucket list. And then, uh, you know, my new silly goal with the white tail time zone slam, I got to go to Quebec or New Brunswick or something over there.

How about you boys? Um, I want to do the Kansas thing. Hmm. Like on public or walking. Uh, probably East. Okay. And then, um, more so bucket list animal rather than state, uh, is moose.

But I mean, I'd love to hunt one in Alaska. So. Cal. Mm-hmm. I, you know, give me an excuse. I'll, I'll hunt any state and be real excited about it. Okay. And the question that they were referring to earlier that was directed at me from Colin, any plays or shows coming up, Phil, the answer is yes. I'm not doing a, the Christmas show this year, but I I am there aren't a lot of adult male parts

in Annie unfortunately but I am doing a show in February that I'm excited about it's like it's outside of the big historic theater in Bozeman it's sort of like an off I don't want to say off Broadway but it's a smaller play called The Minute sort of like a 12 Angry Man

like a bunch of people deliberating in a room it takes place in real time so like that kind of stuff is a blast like i'm really i'm excited to dig into it so if you're in the bozeman area in february check that out i will be i'm gonna go see it could we call it off off broadway uh maybe a few more ops actually several anything else spelled from the chat this week? I don't know if you guys saw anything that popped up that you guys want to tackle. Oh, I saw, is there a chance of Phil going out on

a hunt that's going to be... Oh, yeah. I did start that one. Boop. It would be a hunt that you would go on, Phil. I've actually been on a few hunts, multiple with Ryan Callahan here he got my got me my first pheasants um but nothing I do will ever be filmed I can guarantee that don't look forward to that but um yeah I don't really have the fire in my belly for it but every

time I get out there I just love being outside and learning a ton of stuff that I don't know much about and Cal's a great great host yeah, hopefully we can get out there soon. All right. That brings us to the end of the show. And we're starting a new tradition this week. We're going to end each show with a video. It might be funny or educational or gross. And this week's is a little bit of all three.

Here is Steve cleaning a stingray. We'll see everyone back here at the same time and place next week for more meat eater radio. All right. We're going to demonstrate the low yield. Big old stingray. Yeah. Lots of times you're doing these and you get the treat and a lot of little babies come out of it. Is there like viviparous, I think is what they call it?

Oh, really? Like a live bird? And what do you call that? Skate wings you said? No, this would be a ray-ray wing. There's one. So, we gotta skin him, yeah. There's the two planes, right? No, they're skaters. This side's real scary. Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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