The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 649: Muzzleloader Blues

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Seth Morris and Austin "Chilly" Chelaborad.  Topics discussed: Failing to get it done with a muzzleloader, again; why Steve thinks today’s children are tomorrow’s enemies; Seth’s reporting on bear spray; reciprocity and spouses; and more.   Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up, we're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition titled The Mountain Men, 1806-1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith, and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory, but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the Mountain Man era and what ended it.

We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade which is titled The Long Hunters 1761 to 1775. So again, this new mountain man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by me, Stephen Rinella.

["The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840"] This is the Meat Eaters podcast coming at you. Shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We're hunting. The Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk,

First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L- it out at firstlight.com. F I R S T L I T E.com. This episode is going to be called muzzleloader blues. I have, well, yeah, unless Seth's trying to launch a new show called Taint Talk, but because he's been listening to a lot of health and wellness podcasts, but, um, muzzleloader blues. Cause once again, I have, uh,

failed to, uh, get it done as they say with my muzzleloader. Yeah. I still have the skills man. Like you know, might be the tool. I'm a rifleman. Let me the kind of center fire. Yeah. It's got to be similar to like archery. Like you're not getting any further away than you would in archery. You got it. You got it close. But archery you get this you get to hunt before the gun hunter archery get first cracks and it's the right muzzleloader you get last cracks yeah meaning people been terrorizing these poor animals and then you got to you try

to further antagonize them you know when they're kind of tuned into the what's up yeah yeah archery all your arrows work too. And yeah, I put my bow back. It's going on. Yeah. You know that the bow's going off. When I let her go, she's going. She's going. Yeah, a lot of stuff. A guy wrote in with a business idea from a podcast and II get a lot of these but this one I wanted to. His name is Brian. I just wanted to get you guys feeling on it because I'm having a hard time understanding it. I have, I didn't invent this, but if you have a bill cap on, I'm going to put my bill cap on and demonstrate.

I wish I had my binos too. They're just in your truck. And we got a set of binos? Sam, can you, you want to grab those? Yeah, can you got a set of knocking by no knocking binocular strategy. What I was talking about is that you can use your bill. Again, I didn't, I didn't invent this. It's always been around, but these are stabilizing binoculars.

So it's less relevant, but here I'm holding a pair of binoculars. Let's say these aren't stabilized binoculars. You, for you people watching at home, not listening. When you hold them up, have you, do you know this trick? Everybody knows this trick. You clamp, you clamp your fingers, you ratchet your binos, where's that camera? You ratchet your binos to the bill of your hat and if you want to get mega stable, you pull slightly. So I'm pinching them.

I like to get the hands, I like to I like to get the hands a little more on the side like this. That way it's like putting blinders up. That's not the right way to do it. No that is. Then you can get all, you basically grab it with the binos with your palms. Yeah. And then you put all four fingers on your bill. So you're like a dude from college in the 90s? I don't understand. You know when you used to wrap your hat around a beer can. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Yeah but if you do that then, especially when the sun's out. Yeah, that work. Put your blinders up. Yeah. Because I run backstreet boys when it's sunny out. You did that. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? So the sun's over here. I run it like this. Right. But if you apply to our method, you wouldn't have to do that. And then I'm boned on this. So then your suits are saying they're stable and you're not getting any leak or light leaking in the sides yeah I don't know

yeah I could see it a little bit either way the what I haven't been I didn't invent that but what I did invent was this I invented the hole just saying no one no one had done that there's not a soul in the world that has ever done that not not when you put a slight pull, huh? Yeah. Locks in. What if you have, I feel like a push would lock in better. No, it's hitting your eyes. You know what? Well, yeah, then you're stable against your face. I can explain it better later. This guy writes

in, Brian, if you switch the letters in his name around, you get brain. He says, I just had an idea. Well, first he says, Hey Steve, and he says, I just had an idea. I heard your podcast regarding the trick. Now listen carefully, cause I get confused for this. I heard your podcast regarding the trick to hang on to binoculars using the bill of your bill cap. Bill of your cap. And uppercase is bill. Comma. I thought why not come up with a strap system. Now here's where you got to start paying attention. A strap system that goes around the binoculars, comma, so forget the, I thought why not come up with a strap system that goes around the binoculars, comma, hold him into the exact place you want. And a

strap then runs over the top of your head and attaches underneath your shoulders Wow binoculars stay glued to your eyes Make it hard to peel them away so I'm failing to see yeah What I don't want you boys to get uncomfortable by removing my belt I don't want you boys to get uncomfortable by removing my belt. You've been bad, you've been bad, Chilly. Watch out now. You're thinking you either did something bad or I'm gonna do something bad, but neither is true. He's saying...

Man, there's so many straps. You hold these up for a minute? Yeah. He's saying something to this effect. And then under the... Under under back under my armpits. At that point, I think that's it. You're like, he just essentially, this is a business idea. Well, essentially, what he piggybacked off of was uh Kevlar helmet. No, he's right.

Look. Yeah. It's almost like a set of nods on what he's not thinking of is that you can't go about your day. You gotta be able to flip them up. Yeah. Because you can't find like, uh, you'd be tripping over stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You can't drive to your spot. You can't be running around all day on 12th hour. So any feedback would be

wonderful. Um, keep, keep plugging away at it. Yeah. I think it's gotta be, uh, you know, like your fancy Coon hunting hat. that's got the inner liner. Yeah. I think it's gotta be something on there that you can flip them up and pop them down. I'd pay good money to see Steve roll around the planes in a Kevlar with just some nods on it. Yeah. And then if you fall you protect it. Yeah. I was making a I was making an argument the other day. My boy is, my older boy is tangled up at school in, um, speech and debate class. I remember being, yeah, speech and debate is what it's called.

I went down to the, to the orientation with my wife and when they asked for questions, I was dying to ask the question, but I didn't. And then I told my wife, I said, I'm going to tell you something and you're not going to like take it seriously. You're just going to, you're going to like be mildly offended. You're not going to really listen to what I'm saying. Okay. And I was saying, it doesn't, without knowing the ethics of a child, I don't think it makes sense to train them in speech and debate. And I said to her, I had, I came up with this slogan.

Um, today's children are tomorrow's enemies. Whoa. It's great. So picture. Yeah, this is a mildly indefensible position, but think about it. What I was saying is like, here you got a whole class from your kids. I don't know what their belief systems are, but, but here about it. What I was saying is like, here you got a whole class from your kids. I don't know what their belief systems are, but here we are, like you donate your time or money to train them to be persuasive without knowing what their belief system is. How do you know

you're not training someone who would be adversarial to your position, true training them and making them more convincing, thereby creating a future enemy. I think that happens. I think you would first vet you, you'd vet them to find the ones that you kind of agree with and then train them one speech and debate. How would you vet them?

And who's vetting them? Questionnaire. I would do the questionnaire. But that would be very subjective to you and your beliefs. Yes, and you'd have to try out for speech and debate and I would come in and volunteer to come in and be like, yep, no, no. So speech and debate according to Stephen and Ella. You're right, your wife probably didn't take that seriously.

No, I told her it and I've yet to have her come back to me with any kind of a reply. You'd have to have a board of people who'd like a... Then I'd have to be able to vet the board. Like a... I'd have to pick the board then you know I'm saying well I'm just saying if you wanted to keep it fair or or you don't want to keep it fair you just want people to believe what you believe. Can I give you a piece of can I give you some

listener feedback about this yeah this is all teeing up listener feedback it's a great subject line it starts out my three favorite, four favorite words. Steve is 100% correct. That's how it starts out. Steve is 100% correct about debate class. And here's a real life example why. Dying to know? Yep. Steve is spot on when he says that teaching debate separate from ethics is dangerous. That's not really what I said, but sure. My daughter dates a state champ debate guy who is a class AA hole. When their relationship sours, he is expert at convincing her that the reason things have gone bad is

because of her. He never takes responsibility for his actions and makes her feel like shit. His ability to win either side of a debate has given him the notion that he is never wrong because he can always justify his position in his mind and convinces her that she is in the wrong because he is able to twist the situation and deflect blame back on her. One need to only be convincing in a debate, not ethical, moral or right, and therein lies the issue. issue signed a pissed off dad hmm did you write that letter in no that wasn't what I was getting at I

was more getting at I don't want to train up but my like these other you know I've worried about like that whole classroom of kids like some of them are gonna have viewpoints different than mine and then there Come convincing and what if they come convince me is something that I don't want to be convinced So you're just you're ultimately scared to change Mm-hmm That's right Seth, can you can you share your reporting about bear spray? Oh, yeah, this is probably your first piece of original reporting

bear spray. Oh yeah. This is probably your first piece of original reporting. Probably. Mm-hmm. It ain't it's not gonna be I mean it's not crazy but. Well let me tee it up. Tee it up. Okay the other day on a podcast we had a podcast with a guest who spent their career much of their career working with grizzly bears and catching problem bears and, and dealing with catching bears and trying to get people to not have problems with bears and stuff like that. And then there we got into a conversation about bear spray and this guy's long time hunter worked as a hunting guide and I laid out to him, okay, the perennial

debate pistol bear spray, What do you like? He said bear spray. And he went on to say, you know, very few people are actually proficient with a pistol despite how much they might think they're proficient with a pistol. But with bear spray, you're creating a cloud of spray. I see you chili did a little face. I just, I mean, I would agree with the fact that a lot of people aren't proficient with a pistol.

But like, I think a lot of things, like one, what if the wind's blowing in your face? And like you blind the bear, but you also blind yourself or if you don't get the bear. Because then the bear, that's fine. But like, I just think there are a lot more things can go wrong with bear spray. And personally, I just feel more comfortable with a things can go wrong with bear spray and personally I just feel more comfortable with a gun because I mean I've never had to shoot at a bear But I've seen videos and I've like read reports like a lot of the Bears just bugger off at the sound of a gun. I've had them go toward the sound of a gun

Well, I've shot in front of them and then had them go look at where I shot. Because they saw something move. I think it depends on the person. Either way. I've shot my pistol thousands more times than I have my bear spray. Okay. You ready for your reporting now? Yup. Um, well, didn't someone, didn't someone write in about, uh, assault bear spray for assault Greg fonts who's been on the podcast.

Oh yeah. It's Greg fonts. Yeah. Well, Greg fonts, he's a, he's a firefighter in Sacramento. And he said his experiences with bear spray are not from people carrying them around for bears, but it's kind of a thing commonly used for assault and robbery. He says, I bet more people get sprayed by bear spray than bears get sprayed by bear

spray. Absolutely true. Yup. I've, I've had two incidents of getting sprayed by bear spray. Not bears. I've yet to see a bear get shot with bear spray. I've seen bears get fired at with guns, but not fired at by bear spray. And I've, I've a couple of times had occasion to shoot in

front of them to try to deter them. So yeah, by Greg writing in about that, that brought up this story that I was telling these guys of the, I live in three forks, Montana, and there was, um, a bar that back in the summer got robbed during like the evening when it was full of people. And the guy came in and just sprayed everyone with bear spray, took the money and ran out. Genius criminal. So while everyone's like blinded and coughing and whatnot, he's pulling money out of the

cash register. They're still out large. Still at large as far as I know. They never caught him. I don't think they did. He's pulling money out of the, you know, still at large, still at large. As far as I know, I don't think they did. You know that, the, how they made that oceans 11 movie, you could make a really short. Like oceans one, like a really short, one of those heist movies where that guy just comes in, cuts loose with that bear spray and grabs the stuff and runs out.

It'd be a short. It'd be like a YouTube short called Oceans One. Hopefully you got it. Or you could turn it into a full length movie and that happens in the beginning and then the rest of the movie is- Oh, just make a part of a movie. Trying to figure out who did it.

Did he recoup the cost of a bear spray? Cause those are kind of expensive. 40 bucks a can. Yeah. I don't know how much money was stolen. So he stole like did they get the bar cleaned out and back in business I yes they did but I still hear every once a while like someone would be like I was in the plaza and my skin got irritated when I was playing the gambling machines or whatever really because they're still like yeah Never I can't believe they never caught him. I didn't hear that they caught him. Maybe they did, but I don't think so. When I was a little kid, my dad was, my mom and dad were out to dinner with some of their friends.

And the other woman besides my mom, right? She had a little thing, a mace, and my dad was curious about her, some kind of spray and a key chain. And he was curious about its range and shot it in the restaurant into a vent. Oh! Not realizing it's like,

It's real strong. It's strength. And the whole place got evacuated. Wow. Did they know it was him? Yeah. It became an often told story in my family. Yeah, that's probably not a good thing. This guy says this bear spray accidents.

Listen to episode three 65 and the part of bear spray going off randomly reminded me of being on a caribou hunt in Alaska. My friend Lewis and I come out of the tent and there's caribou on top of the hill outside camp. We grab our guns and packs and head off. That sounds like caribou hunting. Lewis is supposed to shoot first. He drops his bag on a tussock. It lands on his bear spray, causing it to go off. It shoots a stream of spray across Lewis's chest, causing him to drop like a rock. Between gasses of air, he was yelling for me to shoot the bull, which I happily did. Hmm. Nice. At least they got the bull. Another time I left a can of spray in my 83 GMC pickup

after a day hiking in July, come back out the next morning and the canister had exploded in my truck. That's common. Yeah, I've heard that. He eventually got him clean by stripping all the interior parts out and pressure washing them. I've heard a car's getting totaled from it. You know, I have bear spray in my bag right now because we're in a berry area. What are you going to do? Get it out of your bag when he comes for you? Well no I just listen to my story. Okay. It's in my just my duffel bag I was gonna if I don't know if I thought I needed I was gonna put it in my little harness thing. But I have I think at Walmart I got you know like Pub Mix stuff. Yeah comes in like a plastic

Cylinder. Yeah, I had I have it in that thing Kind of wrapped up so it's not just bouncing around in there with the lid on and that's how I transport it I keep mine in a mini ammo can because you can put two or three of them in the mini ammo can yeah And it's got a little foam in there to keep it from rattling around but that way it can cut loose and yeah it's coming out of there. So if you're gonna have it in your car put it in something like that. There are a couple instances where pepper sprays have taken down aircraft, small aircraft. I believe that. Alaska. Well I'm sure probably I'm sure it's having a cannon as well but yeah one will cut loose in the cockpit. So generally when you fly with

bush planes they take your spray and they tape it. They duct tape it to the struts on the wings but there's been cases like that and there was an air wreck not long ago where they weren't able to determine the cause. Inside the cockpit everything was orange but they could never determine it was inconclusive whether the can erupted upon impact. Oh, the can erupted and caused the plane to crash. Yeah. We've been flying in Alaska before where you look out the window and that you start shaking it like shit that's like that movie gods must be crazy remember that movie the cold bottle lands oh yeah all sudden here you are and

then here's a spray comes down we've been having some discussions this is more listener feedback we've been having some discussions about well there's nothing I was gonna top up it's so talked about now. Everyone I know has sent it to me. A tragedy where in Virginia a bear hunter, everybody's seen this, everybody's seen this, never mind. A bear hunter was killed, they shot a bear, the bear fell out of a tree and landed on a guy and killed him, but it's so heavily commented on and reported on and misconstrued. We've been discussing lately when states use a thing called reciprocity for management

purposes around hunting and fishing regulations. An example of what we're talking about would be this. In North Dakota, you can spear pike through the ice only if a North Dakotan would be allowed to spear pike through the ice in your state or province. You tracking? Go ahead, say that one more time. Yep. Let me give you this one. Let me give you another example.

Yeah. This just changed, but let me give you another example yeah this just changed but let me give you an example Montana oh yeah I know we're going with this one prohibits non-residents from trapping fur-bearing animals yeah and we're not non-game unless their state allows unless no no they just forbid non-residents oh they do yeah they're the ones that started it Montana they just changed it but Montana will not sell a fur harvester license to a non-resident oh well before that wasn't hear me out you tell everybody no I thought at one point in time it was a non-resident could trap in

Montana if their state allows non-residents to trap there. No, because Montana is the one that said you can't. Gotcha. They, they, they're them Minnesota. Okay. There's certain states that do not let non-residents trap. Fur bearing animals. Gotcha.

Now you could come to Montana, trap Fox. You come to Montana, trap coyote cause they're non game, but you couldn't trap. You can trap Beaver, odd or muskrat. Gotcha. Fur bearing animals. So a case of reciprocity would be like Wyoming, for instance, Wyoming says, okay, you, we will sell a non-resident a fur harvester license if that, if our residents can buy in their state. Gotcha. And so it would be that if you lived in Montana, you could not trap in Wyoming. Why? Because Montana had banned Wyoming people from trapping. Minnesota has another situation like that.

That's a case of reciprocity. There's reciprocity. Like I said, with Pike spearing, if you don't allow, if your state doesn't allow Pike spearing, Wisconsin, you can't come spear Northeast in North Dakota. Gotcha. I was a while ago, I was musing about whether you would start to use reciprocity against states that are doing bands on certain hunting activities. cat hunting, bobcat trapping, mountain lion hunting. Should a Californian be allowed to go, like should a Californian be allowed to go to another state and participate in those activities when their state has banned the right, I was musing about asking this question just to like you know get intellectual, you

know, the intellectual juices uh, you know, the intellectual juices flowing. How do you feel? That was the case. I hope they banned deer hunting in Washington. Well, that's where it becomes interesting. Cause if you have like when, cause you have a lot of states that are becoming increasingly adversarial.

You have, you have like states that are coming adversarial to hunters and hunters, trappers, fishermen, right? And then, you know, like Washington, when they, during the pandemic, they banned fishing by yourself. Like if you had a pond in your yard, you could go out there and shoot golf balls into that pond during COVID, but there's a period of time when you couldn't go there and cast into that pond. Yeah. Just, you know, keeping everyone safe. Yeah. So as you have states, Colorado, what, well, Colorado just beat one of these

things, but Colorado, Washington, California, um, other states in the East, as you have these states that are becoming like super restrictive, you create kind of like a hunting and fishing refugees that then carry on all their activities elsewhere, meaning Washington state, they're very stingy, they don't wanna manage predators, they're very stingy with big game tags.

And so you create a lot of hunting refugees who move into neighboring states. Into Montana. Right. So should you like, would a state ever say like, listen, if you're going to, if, like, let's say Colorado would pass the mountain land, but no, let's stay with California, California bans trapping. They ban hunting cats, hunting lions. Would Montana ever be like, okay, if that's how you guys are about this, then your people

cannot come here and do that here. They won't do that because it drives too much revenue. Well, Yanni says you're punishing the wrong people. Yeah. Yanni says like if Colorado had passed their mountain lion ban, so then you want to further punish those people in Colorado and saying they can't go elsewhere to do it. It'll fire people who agree with the mountain lion ban in Colorado just can't even come to Montana at all. They just have to stay there, but we'll take the

hunters. That'd be fine with me. I feel like gloating all over again about that, not being able to stay there. But we'll take the hunters. That'd be fine with me. That'd be fine with me. I feel like gloatin' all over again about that not passin'. You can if you want. You know what I came up with that I haven't had a chance to use yet is a hyno. You know what a rhino is?

Yes. A hyno. What's a hyno. What's a hyno? Hunter name only. That'd be like the hunters that were for the mountain lion ban in Colorado. Oh. The hynos were like, I'm a hunter.

I hunt pheasants once a decade and I support the ban on mountain lions. That was a thing. That was a hyno. Yeah. That was a thing. That's crazy. Hey, American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up. We're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series. In this edition titled The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840, we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver

trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of back woodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times violent conditions. We explain what started the Mountain Man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the Mountain Men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they

performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade, which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806-1840 by me, Steven Ronella. Anyways this guy writes in about reciprocity. You ready for this?

The state of Ohio does not require resident landowners to purchase a hunting license or deer tag to hunt their property Wow, really a minimum of five acres I Had no idea is that true The state of Ohio does not require a resident landowner to purchase a hunting license or deer tag to hunt their own Property if they have a minimum of five acres. Yeah I think that's true in multiple states. I think it was like that in New Jersey. This privilege extends to the landowner's spouse and children. Resident landowners still have to tag their deer,

report them, and are subject to bag limits and all the other wrecks. I had no idea. I want to say, I could be wrong on this, but I want to say New Jersey was like that. And you just go pick up your tags. But if you're hunting your own place, and it's above a certain acreage, you just go get your tags. I can't say I have a problem with that. I don't know. I didn't know that. Surprises me. That's fine. Whatever well, it's like You know that in Wisconsin if you're on your own land, you're exempt from small game regulations or something like that I think you can hunt squirrels year-round really. Yeah, I think so Doug's probably having a heart attack

skid steer right now Take a seat, Doug breathe, Doug. Breathe, Doug. He goes on. Are you ready for this? Okay. So we've established this resident landowner, Ohio. Okay. All that. A non-resident tracking, a non-resident Ohio landowner and spouse and children may hunt their property without a license or deer chags if the non-resident state of residence... My God. I feel like we need to draw this down. Yeah, okay. I get it, but I'm just okay. We've established that more than eight

times we've established. If you're in Ohio, you're a resident, you're hunting your own pad, you got more than five acres. You still got to abide by the hunting laws. We don't need to tag now. The state of Ohio does not require resident landowners to purchase a hunting license or deer tag to hunt their property. Okay. Oh, I already read that.

Screwing itself so bad. The non-resident part. Screwing it up bad. I keep thinking about running for political office, but I'd have a bad time in the debate. You'd be like, you'd be like, I lost myself. When they give me 30 seconds, I'd be like, ugh, that's not gonna work for me.

Okay, ready? Okay, we've established that. Now, going on. A non-resident Ohio landowner and spouse and children may hunt their property without a license or deer tags. If the non-resident state of residence allows non-resident landowners to hunt their land without a license or deer tags. Okay. So if I lived in Pennsylvania and they allow that same thing, which they don't, but they'd have to allow a dude in Ohio.

And, but I, I own property in Ohio. I would be allowed to do the same thing in Ohio because Ohio has that same rule. Does Pennsylvania charge a non-resident a deer license if the non-resident owns land in Pennsylvania? That's what he's saying. I mean, Pennsylvania doesn't do that anyway. Okay. So then they're out.

Okay. Yeah. God, that's confusing. Well, he goes on. Oh, geez. To the best of my knowledge. Oh, no backup. As a Michigan resident, he's going to

write, is everybody tracking? Oh, yeah. Michigan residents is like a tongue. This is intellectual. He's a Michigan resident who owns property in Ohio. I don't know that yet. Yeah. Yes, he is.

Okay. Everybody tracking. Yep. Yep. Everybody's tracking. Yep. Listen, this kind of stuff keeps you from getting dementia later in life Or other things, but yeah, no just a little brain twister. Yeah. Okay as a Michigan resident where residents

he's go he goes on as a Michigan resident where residents non residents landowners and non landowners must have a hunting license and deer tag and an Ohio landowner... Let me cut the parenthetical out. You read that too fast. As a Michigan resident and an Ohio landowner, my family and I do not benefit from this reciprocity. Because Michigan doesn't allow it. Because Michigan doesn't let non-residents who happen to own a place in Michigan hunt in Michigan without their Michigan deer license. This is chapped this guy's ass enough that he's done some research. To the best of my knowledge, the only state's residents that benefit from this reciprocity arrangement are Ohio and no other state.

They've created a reciprocity rule that doesn't apply to anyone. If you can prove this man wrong, that's my kind of reciprocity law. Makes you seem super lenient. But in fact, when you get into the details, no one applies. Yeah. It's not catered to anyone? Yeah. Huh.

Maybe it was. Well, I'd also be curious to know as this Michigan resident, how hard is it for him as a landowner in Ohio to get a tag in Ohio? Like if it's still like over the counter? Probably every year. Yeah, he's got to pay a couple hundred bucks. Well, yeah, but like, why is he complaining? Because he watched your pennies and dollars take care of themselves. Fair. Fine. Yeah. He goes on. Oh boy. No, it's just he totally totally changed the subject, but it's not a non-sequitur

because he put down PS which sort of announces it as, you know, you're announcing it's a non-sequitur PS not related. And he also says not related to the above. Not related to the above, but another Ohio reciprocal agreement. This is different. This is interesting management. We'll get, we'll talk about this because I like this, but another Ohio reciprocal agreement. This is different. This is interesting management. We'll get, we'll talk about this because I like this, but it's different. Ohio and West Virginia allow residents of either state to hunt waterfowl and fish on the Ohio River without having a license from the

other state. That's common. Yeah. That's common where, for instance, New York and Pennsylvania and the Delaware River, they make a, instead of creating, let's say you have one situation where Pennsylvania says you're allowed six small miles a day and New York says you're allowed four small miles a day. And you got this river that you know, shoot a bow across. You create all kinds of problems. So what states will often do in those situations is they'll come and make a,

the states will agree. They'll make a river bag limit, a river set of regulations and allow anyone from the bordering states to fish the river. An interesting spot where this little bit of reciprocity does not exist is the St. Mary's River, which divides Michigan, there's probably many other places, the St. Mary's, which divides Michigan with Canada, with Ontario. You need to pay attention where are because there's a magical line running out in the middle of that stuff. And you got to know what side of that line you're on, even in your boat. How did they enforce that?

I want to say that's the thing on the Mississippi too. Then what? Oh, you know what? There are some spots in the Mississippi like that. Cause remember bass professional bass guy got disqualified from a tournament because he had strayed across some invisible line and was actually fishing a different states waters. Yep. And they had a different bag limit in those states or something like that. Yep. Yeah, I think it was Paul and I.

But I like it when they come together and do those little deals. Right. What about like people fishing Lake Michigan from the Michigan side, but make a big run. Is there, is there, say it again, like if you're fishing Lake Michigan and you launch in Michigan, but make a big run and you're like closer to Wisconsin. I don't know how the, I don't know how Michigan and Wisconsin do it. That's a great question. We never fished that far out. That's a lot. That's a ways. Yeah. I got buddies that do, I don't know what they, I don't know how Michigan Wisconsin do it that's a great question we never fish that far out that's a lot that's a ways yeah I got buddies that do I don't know what they I don't know if you got I'm guessing there on that lake

of that size I'm guessing you need to get a license when you cross the state line and the state line runs out in the water mm-hmm here's a guy on the same subject. Ready for this? Yep. He says he was listening to the podcast this morning in his tree stand and killed a doe. He says, take that for what it's worth. Then he goes on to say, towards the end, they, meaning we, mentioned a write-in where a guy complained about being a landowner and

having to pay non-resident fees. I remember this guy. He's like, how in the hell can I have, he's griping because he's like, I live in whatever, I don't know, Michigan, and I own a place in Ohio, I shouldn't have to pay non-resident fees in Ohio, I shouldn't have to pay non-resident fees in Ohio. But think about the can of worms you're opening up there, right? Like, okay, do you want to file taxes in both states? Do you want to, you know, I mean, there's like, there's a thousand things, right, that you would probably not like if that was

true. Yeah. Well, he, you'm, I'm not giving him full credit. He does pay taxes. He pays land taxes there, but, um, the way the whole country set up, you gotta be a resident of a state. It's just how it was just, it's hard to get around that. Um, he goes on to say this, uh, towards the end, they mentioned the writing where a guy complained about being a landowner and having to pay non-resident fees. I do the same thing. However, I live in Tennessee and hunt in Alabama. I wish the roles were reversed, but if you're born in Tennessee, you can apply

every year for non-resident native to Tennessee licenses. Damn. Idaho has that thing. The lifetime. Yeah. Idaho had it for it's no longer the way, but you could get grandfathered in on it at once upon a time. And a lot of dudes took advantage of this. They knew they weren't going to stay in Idaho.

I could name names and one of them likes to complain about anyone getting any kind of benefit. Like anytime someone drops a bill, they're like, I'm going to They knew they weren't gonna stay in Idaho. I could name names. And one of them likes to complain about anyone getting any kind of benefit. Like anytime someone draws a tag, he's like down on them. But this individual who you guys know and love ran out and bought his lifetime Idaho license before moving away from Idaho so that he could continue to dodge fees and hunt as a resident in Ohio I

Thought you can still do that. He cries foul at any Advantage that anybody gets when it comes to getting a tag he wishes he got I Thought you can still do that night. Oh, I think they got rid. I don't think it works that way anymore I think they got rid of, I don't think it works that way anymore. But if you said, Oh, I drew a bighorn tag in Idaho, he's going to give you a big old eye roll. Must be nice. Is this, is this the same fellow that's also not very lucky when it comes to drawing?

It's way, it's taken this gradually taking a toll on him. Gotcha. Yep. It's taking this, it's taking a a toll on them. Gotcha. Yep. It's taking a psychological toll on them. But they did that. They did that. Montana has a coming home to hunt.

I can't remember who I was talking to about that. Yep. It's like if you, like, it's meant to be that like, let's say you have a family and you have kids and your kids go away. It gives advantage to your kids to get tags so you can come home to hunt, the coming home to hunt hunt. Is that still like an application process or is it like kind of like an OTC?

I think it's in a different, I don't know. I think that's just different price. Different price. I think so. price different got different price yeah I think so this gentleman says attached to this emails application it would be cool to see more states do this also y'all joked about voting in two different states oddly enough my former police chief wasn't indicted for doing that and several other charges earlier this year. Was or wasn't?

Was not. I think he must have meant was. Probably. When that came up on, when we did the episode, yeah, remember we interviewed, were you there when we interviewed the women that got mauled by the Otter? No. I was telling a story on that one where I was, um, in a restaurant overhearing people next to me. There's a huge table full of people and they were actually from an animal rights organization.

They're having a dinner of Bozeman based animal rights organization. And I'm over here and I'm, and there's a guy plotting. But I got caught by my wife because I wasn't paying attention to what she was telling me, because I was so gross by what they were talking about. And, uh, he was plotting. He lived in Illinois, but he wanted to build a vote in a swing state. So was switching all of his stuff around to be able to go vote in Michigan. Wow.

Cause he wanted to vote in a swing state. Um, cause he wanted to vote against Trump. So then I said, when Trump says the election was rigged, I was like, well, there's one. It ain't zero. Man, this guy, he, even though we said we're no longer going to talk about pre chewed food, he's like asking if there can be one last little thing. No. Well, that's an in-depth deal. Man, he's got a lot in here.

He's got bullet points. It's a lot in here. It's got bullet points. Okay. There's a guy, there's a guy that wrote in, um, and he had some things to say about making babies eat solid food and the advantages of breastfeeding. Then another guy wrote in and said, what does he know? He's a DDS. Okay. What's DDS? Dentist. And he laid out all these credentials and talked about how this guy doesn't know what he's

talking about. Now he's got a rebuttal. When people say, what do they know? He's just a dentist. How do you know that guy is, isn't a hobbyist just like research is to shit at a, some other topic when he goes home. Sorry. Credibility. Yeah.

When people's like, what did he know? He's a dentist. What if people don't know that like maybe his hobby is going home and research and that kind of thing. Here's what he came out swinging. I don't have a degree in hunting white tail bucks, but you know, but it's like, it's sort of like a little bit generally be like generally accepted. Like if we're having an argument about George Washington, okay.

And you're like, Oh, he chopped down that cherry tree, you know, and lied about it. George Washington. Okay. And you're like, Oh, he chopped down that cherry tree, you know, and lied about it. And then a guy's like, well, I have a PhD in American history. And I did my dissertation on the, you know, my thesis was on the veracity of the claim that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and lied about it. Now, if I'm hearing this conversation, I'm probably going to be looking to the PhD cherry chopper guy to maybe have a little more intel about that occurrence. I understand that. But I think sometimes people get a little carried away with it. Sometimes, yes. But in some areas, this guy was saying, Hey man, it's better to breastfeed babies and it's better to preach you food and give them meat and give them tough stuff to chew on chewy steaks and whatnot. And that we're creating muscular problems by giving babies all this soft food and those little squeeze bottles. Yeah.

This other guy writes in being like, you know, here's the deal. I'm the real expert. And that's all BS is what he says. Hmm. Okay. The dentist said that. No, it's other dentists. Gotcha.

Now this first dentist comes back swinging. Cause this other guy said his kid wants to fight that guy's kid. Alright, let's hear it. Dang. I'll tell you what Dennis that thinks, right? It's so it's so complicated. Do we really do? Do I really want to get into this? I probably agree with the dentist who's all about eating deer meat and drinking milk. He starts out with a little dig because this guy was saying in the end of it he made a joke like hey my kid will fight your kid anytime. Okay now that so the first dentist now writes in and he

dresses his letter to the guy so it's Max on one side and Matthew on the other side. Max wrote in saying you should give your babies tough deer meat to help their jaws develop. And when their jaws develop and their musculature develops, it helps them in all kinds of ways throughout life. Yeah. This other guy's saying that's horseshit. That guy's name is Matthew. The first guy's Max.

So now Max, now Matthew writes dear honorable, honorable and distinguished colleague, Matthew, it's no shock that your baby wants to fight mine. Kids are wild, but here's the kicker. There's a connection between sleep-disordered breathing and ADHD in children. ADHD's hallmarks, hyperactivity and emotional chaos can make kiddos more prone to throw hands in the playpen. A little slight.

Sticks the knife right in the ribs before he even gets started. He goes on, now you might be asking, what does sleep breathing have to do with my kid's weak jaw? Excellent question. Research shows a high prevalence of malo-clusion underdeveloped jaws in children with obstructive sleep apnea compared to the control group. Simply put, your kid's jaw might be slacking in their sleep and mood might be paying the

price. And he goes, next I imagine you saying you still haven't proven that my baby's diet of squeeze bag peas and rubber nipples is ruining their jaw. And you're right, every kid responds differently. But here's what research tells us. Breastfeeding is a positive factor that seems to reduce the incidence of posterior cross bite, skeletal class II, and distal occlusion in primary and mixed dentition. I knew that. I didn't know that. Animals raised on soft foods show more rotated and displaced teeth, crowded

premolars, and absolutely and relatively narrower dental arches. Get this, middle-aged adults in rural Kentucky had better occlusion than younger folks. The younger generation grew up eating commercially processed foods, while their elders chomped on coarse, homemade fare. Then he goes on with a bunch of disclaimers. Breastfeeding is not as easy, feeding kids coarser foods

feels like a battle, we're all doing the best we can. But he ends with this, here's my advice, chew up some venison, spit it into your baby's bowl and let the kid take a nap. That sounds like great advice. Yeah. And then he has all the citations dirt if you want me to forward them to you.

Yeah that'd be nice. Is this is this a side of stirring the pot? Is this an intro into that? That series? Yeah stirring the pot. That's my next show. TV show stirring the pot. You know what this thing I said?

Yeah I'll be like yeah you know I'll be like, yeah, you know, I'll Call Dirt's girlfriend, you know No, but hey, it's checking in this is stirring the pot It's kind of weird thing there and Scott just can't stop thinking about the same dirt said Anyways, I'll let you go. Have a nice day. Want to say hi? Tell them hi. Hope all's well. Have a great night.

Has Derpman feel okay? He just said something kind of strange about you there, right? Everything good? No, no, no. I wouldn't worry about it. No, no, if everything's fine, I don't know. I don't want to betray his trust. Got to go.

Another call coming. Do me a favor. Don't tell. I don't want to betray his trust. Gotta go another call coming. Do me a favor, don't tell him I called. Stephen Rinella signing off for Stir in the Pop. You know, I don't know. I mean, I want to talk about the muzzleloader, but muzzleloader hunt, but I don't have.

Talk about muzzleloader hunt, Seth. You're an expert. How many do you kill with the muzzleloader but muzzleloader hunting but I don't have talk about muzzleloader hunting Seth You're an expert. How many do you kill the muzzleloader Seth? Well one point in time I killed more white tails with the muzzleloader than a rifle all the flintlock. Yeah but I surpassed that now I don't know Six six seven eight nine ten. I don't know. A handful. A handful, yeah. All bucks.

Nope, not all bucks. Some bucks. Some bucks, mostly those. Yeah, how many times have you dropped the hammer on a buck and the gun didn't go off or you messed up something? Several, yeah. How often?

No, go ahead. Well, how often was it a drive versus a like steel hunter? Most drives, yeah. Most drives. I wanna say maybe all drives. No, go ahead. Well, how often was it a drive versus a like steel hunter? Most drives. Yeah. Most drives. I want to say maybe all drives.

Yeah, I think all the deer I've ever killed with a flintlock has been from a deer drive. And a lot of times it's me doing the driving. With the rifle. Rather than watching. And you double bump them. You just, well, a lot of times you, yeah, yeah. So you, you jump them up and they go down, get shot at and come back. So they're on the move by that point.

Yeah. Well, sometimes, yeah. You know, I don't think I've even, now I have one time, haven't tracked much with a round ball. What do you mean? Like blood track? By having blood track stuff that has hit with a round ball. What do you mean, like blood track? By having blood track stuff that has been hit by a round ball. Oh. When we say a round ball, like, we're talking about,

there's muzzle loaders and there's flintlocks. And flintlocks, it's a whole different ball game. You know, cause muzzle loaders now, they're pretty sophisticated. You got inline muzzle loaders with special primers and everything's kind of sealed and doesn't get wet. But a flintlock's hard to hunt, hard to learn, you know? Yeah.

And one thing about when you, when you're loading the Flintlock, you're taking them like a lead sphere, you know, like a musket ball and putting it down there. It's not conical shaped. Nope. It's just a ball of lead. So when you're hitting a deer at that thing, um, when you recover that ball, what's that end up looking like? I think if I recovered one. I don't remember ever recovering one. Is it mushroom out? Or does it just punch a hole?

I remember one time I shot a deer like right behind the shoulder, you know, double lunged. And it was like, it was the biggest blood trail I've ever seen with that round, with the round ball. Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to see, I've never seen one like shot in the ballistic jail or anything. So I honestly don't know what it does in there, but yeah, I don't think I've ever recovered one. There's punch out and go and go about their business.

Yeah. It'd be interesting to check out. The ballistic gel. Yeah, see what it does in ballistic gel. We should do that. We should shoot a bunch of flintlocks and shoot flintlocks in the... I mean the ballistic gel doesn't know that it was a flintlock, but you know what I'm saying. Shoot a bunch of black powder flintlocks in the ballistic gel. Yeah. See what actually is going does. I was surprised how soft

what's the non round ball one we were using. It's just a conical or prelude maxi ball. Yeah the conical how soft it was when you guys were ramrodding it. It would. That's lead for you man. Yeah that's true. Yeah. It gets misshapen. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, there's not a hell of a lot to say. It's kind of got my ass handed to me on the muzzleloader huntin'. Lot of close calls.

Yeah, it's tough. If I hadn't, like, I announced a family moratorium on killing mule deer does, I had a lot of opportunities to shoot a mule deer doe. Oh yeah, you could've killed a lot of those. But, what an at man, just tough. Hunting a spot I haven't hunted deer on hard before, I kind of would go about it different now, now that I kind of understand how they do what they do and what their tolerances are. Yeah. The thing about muzzler, like flintlock muzzler hunting is there's a set of challenges to get close to a deer with get to get within range.

And then once you get in range and it comes time to shoot, there's like a, another you open up the door and there's another set of challenges there. Yeah. We, the, the hammer cocking on those things, we, the RDA crept up on one, uh, crept up on one, uh, crept up on a mule deer and couldn't really determine, but it seems like the hammer cocking spooked it. It's loud. What I started doing now is I'll cock it ahead of time,

but pulling the set triggers loud. Yeah. Yeah. The cocks, the pulling the hammer backs loud, the set triggers loud, and then just like these evenings, the few evenings we've been sitting out here, it's just so quiet. Like the wind dies down. And you could hear a pin drop. Would muzzle loaders hunt with the set trigger or if everything's just like down to the hair trigger? I don't know.

I've never in all the reading I've done about hunting with flintlocks. I have no idea what you must have, because even when you're like bushwhacking another person, there's no way you were cocking that thing back. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what they did back in the day. I kept thinking of that last Mohegan scene, this whole trip. Oh, the Moss-Lawrence scene? Yeah whole trip. Oh, the Mos Lawerson?

Yeah, he's running, he cuts off the elk. And a couple. There's a thing about those flintlocks, like to give you a sense of how stealthy people were, there's a thing, we talked about this in the, we talked about this in our Long Hunters audio book, that they would, you would more be looking when you're trying to find someone or check for people

going through the woods you'd be more looking for the barrel what do you mean looking for that big long straight barrel oh that would be more likely to see the barrel than the dude holding it yeah and you look for that straight straight lines you'd look for the straight line try to in order to try to find somebody. Dang. So there's no way someone's taking stealth that seriously and then it's going click. He's probably laying there at that set trigger engaged. Yeah, yeah. Just breathe on that. You know, and just protecting it so it doesn't breathe on it. I've two times muffed up messing with the set trigger.

Yeah. Once hunting with you and once here, muffed up like hitting the set trigger and then getting your finger around. Cause once that, once you do the set trigger, that thing is on, I don't know what it is, ounces. Yeah, it's hair trigger. So getting your finger,

you definitely can't be doing with a glove. Getting the set trigger and then bringing your finger up and it's a weird little space and just you just and also two times into the air. Yeah. Before I even got the thing down. Cause you're just trying to find the trigger, you know, and it's got that little, that little teeny,

cause there's a trigger guard and it's got two triggers in it. So picture your trigger guard has two triggers, one big, one little. And you do the one, and there's not a lot and it's got two triggers in it. So picture your trigger guard has two triggers, one big, one little. You do the one, there's not a lot of room in there for, there's not a lot of room in front of the regular trigger. Yeah. So even just trying to get your finger up in the right neighborhood shoots a damn gun off for me,

because I don't do it enough. Well, we need to get you as like, I forget what the Thompson Center used to make one, called the Pennsylvania Hunter, and it was just one trigger. Well here's what I'm getting. I'm broadcasting this out into the world because and I'm willing to pay for it. Let me know if you're my man. If you're a gun maker. I'm getting a here's what I want because because the rules where I'm at I need an exposed hammer percussion cap not in line exposed hammer percussion cap single

trigger muzzleloader yeah there's some good I want to shoot I want to shoot pirate X or or triple seven and I would I'd like to shoot conicals out of it. Just one less thing. Normally when you load, in the oldie days when you load a flintlock, you pour your powder charge down the barrel and then you've got to take a piece of what's called a patch. So the ball doesn't grab the lands in the barrel that well. So what you do is you wrap the ball in a greased patch and that greased patch is kind of like you're wadding. And that is what helps throw a spiral on it when it comes out, that patch. So they make these bullets that you don't need the patch.

I want a gun and I don't want any bullshit someone saying like oh it's you know sub MOA whatever like you know peep sight, single trigger, shoots conicals, the barrels spiraled for kind of twisted for conicals, percussion cap. There you go. That's what I want. How far are they shooting? I remember you mentioned it. How far are they shooting modern muzzle loaders that would be under regulation in Montana? Like the bee's knees? Well, the way they got the regs spelled here, you know, a hundred yards because you can't

use an optic. Yeah. You can't use like the fancy inlines here. So that's the limit or state to state. Also an optic is real helpful. An optic helps you out a lot. When we did in our Long Hunters audio book about the Daniel Boone and the Hyde hunters,

like I'd always had this question about how good were guys, like how good really were guys with flintlocks? Cause in the mythology, there's like, old tick licker, like it could shoot a tick off a deer shooting balls and hitting a hatchet blade and splitting the ball and killing two guys, you know, like whatever, all these accounts last in Mohicans, these like 300 yard running shots through the woods, you know, hitting guys, like how good they were.

So when we were working on that, me and Randall got into the question of like trying to find accounts of like what really could be done with the Flintlock. Yeah. You know and similarly now that we're coming out with our Mountain Man one, we're kind of like how really were they catching Beaver? Like what were the sets? Like how did they catch Beaver? Beyond the lore kind of. Yeah like Beyond the like oh they did this that and the other thing and you're reading like I don't think that's what they did. You know it doesn't make sense and I don't think they were splitting shots against

hatchets and killing two guys like waiting for like the Indian to hold his hatchet up and then he hit his blade and killed. Yeah. So there's these shooting contests that we talk about in that Long Hunter piece. You can just go buy it in the, you know, it's a audio book. You can purchase it. There's these guys called, there's these real bad, bad dudes, Brady's Rangers.

And like these are bad dudes. Like bad, like badass or bad like they're doing bad. No, outlaw. There were some bad dudes. Like bad, like bad ass or bad. Like they're both doing outlaw. They were some bad, they were like, he had some, so they were like along the Ohio river in the mid 1700s when tribes had crawled, like the Shawnee and people would come from the North across the river and raid settlements in West Virginia, raid settlements in West Virginia. Raid settlements in Kentucky. These, he had this collection of, he had this collection of woodsmen and hunters

that he formed into this like, kind of almost like this little bit of a, it was almost like a paramilitary special forces unit and they would get on their trail and track them and they'd track them back across the Ohio or they'd ambush them. Like they'd find canoes part hidden. Like the Shawnee would sink canoes now and then. Like they'd cross the Ohio and sink their canoes and then go raid. So these Rangers would wait at river crossings and stuff. And they raised some hell. But they oftentimes like, they oftentimes like got their man, but then they got some other guys too. They were, they had a reputation for being somewhat indiscriminate in their pursuits. And if they were tracking someone who ran into somebody else, anyways, there's some bad dudes and they

were considered like crack shooters. And there's some accounts of them competing against regular soldiers in shooting contests and they would clean their clock, but they would make a mark on a tree. They would make a mark on a tree the size of a dollar bill, which was, we have the, we have the dimensions on it. size of a dollar bill, which was, we have the, we have the dimensions on it. It's not quite like our dollar bill today, but you're basically making a hatchet slash in a tree, like a bill. And then at 60 paces and they could put most, but not all of those balls into that mark, regular soldiers could not. So that gives you an idea of like what really was what they were really

doing. Yeah. And that's the same there, the soldiers and the, the bad boys are using the same. No, the soldiers have way better just way because they're hunting with the hunting rifles. Yeah. There was at that time people weren't the, the, the back woodsman, it's kind of funny. The back woodsmen were getting into rifle barrels and they were getting into lighter calibers, smaller balls and rifling. And soldiers were oftentimes given these smoothbores.

And like the rifling kind of came from a different direction of how guys caught on it. So these guys were shooting like pretty sophisticated but oftentimes home like handmade guns. Yeah custom. I custom them out Wow Where you're actually taking a bar and Rolling that bar to make the barrel Today like hammering it out rolling it

Smoothing it out cutting the lands and grooves, cutting the grooves into it. Whole thing all made by hand. Yeah, understanding their tool. But like how good could you be? Because like they were, think of how inconsistent gunpowder is. Yeah. Your porn shot by hand, right? It's, you know, it's just a lot of inconsistencies. But there's the mythology is how good these guys with these flintlocks. But, and it's still impressive, but they weren't like, you know, in our research, it's like for someone to hit, to hit a deer at 200 yards was really something that was really something. Will a flintlock, but shooting at, shooting at 60 paces was like pretty

what you're after, which is very similar. Like it's like not too terribly far off from what you're looking for now. Yeah. And that's putting them into a, you know, and that's putting them into a something about the size of a, of a bill. They would shoot further distances at, at the head of that shooting at the head, the top of a keg, which is so it's about an eight inch circle they would set up and you would, they would set up and go a little farther and try to put it into an eight inch

circle. So they weren't miracle workers with those things. Just knew the tool, knew the rifle very well. I could definitely see like, I was telling myself I'm going to do this, but now, but recognizing I'm probably lying to myself I was like man. I should just do it where for like a bunch of years going forward I only hunt with that frickin flintlock. That's all I touch That'd be tough. There's guys do it. Just be like yeah Jim Bechtel. Yep Just be like I'm gonna hump if I like I'm only like art like same way like certain dudes like cam Hanes

He just hunts with a bow He don't have a gun doesn't do it and be like I only hunt with a flintlock until I get that thing mastered. Yeah You'd always have to be in that 120 hundred yards. Oh, no sure. I don't give a shit. Yeah Just get where I'm like Joe flintlock man Or Steve flintlock. I'm not gonna actually do that. But if I was cooler than I am, that's what I would do. You had more time. That's what I would do. See this book?

Old Grizzly. This book is phenomenal. I'm only pointing this book out because this guy just put it together. It was like, it's like a journal that he put together it's self published I like journals yep old grizzly to a better understanding of life on the frontier is that him that's old grizzly so this guy's later and he was hunting grizzlies in the Selkirks. Oh, nice. It's phenomenal, man.

You know we do Steve Reed's books so you ain't got to. We even have a little, I don't have it with me, but there's a thing that goes, it's time. Oh, you have it? You play it into my, into Seth's headphones? It's time for Steve Lee's books. So you ain't got to. See what I'm saying?

Ooh, Moody. So it's a series we do where I read a book and I just find the good parts. Tell you about them. Yeah. And then you ain't got to read it. You ain't got to. Because I already read it and I told you all the good parts. Got more time to shoot your flintlock. You know, you ready for a couple of these? Yep. In the winter we often hunted muskrats with a long spear we had made from a quarter-inch round iron rod. It had a sharp barb on the spear end and a round wood handle fastened on the other end.

When the ice would bear our weight, we would go out to their houses and shove the spear through the center of each house. The houses were made of grass and mud from the edge of the lake and were easily penetrated. We seldom missed getting at least one from each place we tried. The spear was sharp and it made a clean cut in the pelt which did not depreciate its value." Dang, that's cool. What year was this? That'll get you arrested. Is there a year? Yeah, don't do that now.

So I'm trying, so he was running around in Old Grizzly here, one second. Old Grizzly killed 56 grizzly bears in western Canada on the Selkirk's between 1895 and 1924. Then he went back in 1935 and killed another one. So most of this action is occurring in the mid, well, most of the action is occurring in the early 1900s. the early 1900s okay you can't do that now you can't go can't gig muskrats anymore through the roof of their house ready for this yes directly he's talking about spear and pike spear and fish If no, okay directly he's talking about they go out they'd go out to spear northerns, okay

For for commercial For commercial sale But here's an interesting bit. The highest price we got for our fish was around four cents a pound and that was for black bass. Largemouths. So in those days they were spearing largemouths through the ice and selling them for four cents a pound on the commercial market. So you would go into a fish market in those years and you could buy large mouth bass, you could buy speared large mouth bass and bring it home to eat at

the table. In the fall of the year, we would make a few dollars by what we called pulling trees. Settlers living on the prairie would come to town and hire boys to pull up small cottonwood seedlings which grew on the sandbars along the river. The settlers planted the seedlings around their homes to start a windbreak. Some settlers had extra land given to them by the government, provided they planted it with trees, and we also supplied seedling trees for such planting.

The seedlings were usually about 10 inches long and grew in clean sand from seeds washed there from the previous season. It was easy for even a small boy to pull up a dozen or more at a time. We tied them in bunches of a thousand for which we received 20 cents. We considered this an easy way to make money. of a thousand for which we received 20 cents.

We considered this an easy way to make money. Wonder what's inflate, like what would the math be on that? Like what's 20 cents nowadays and from 1920, like a hundred bucks. You want to know what else he would do for money? Yep. Sometimes a settler wanted maple seeds to plant. We supplied them. Now he did all this hunting in western Canada but grew up in the Midwest. Okay.

Sometimes a settler wanted maple seeds to plant. We supplied them but it was hard work to get them. We first had to chop down a tree and then strip the seeds from the limbs and they usually were so firmly attached that it was a case of pulling off one seed at a time. The settlers paid us one dollar for a gunny sack full of these maple seeds. We noticed that some of the sacks were larger than others but soon got over that difficulty by filling up the bottom of the big sacks with leaves. That's called cheating dirt. Or just opportunistic. You get seven seven dollars fifty cents? Oh is that what you got? Under ten bucks for a thousand cottonwoods.

My kid went to a turkey shoot at the bow range and I was trying to explain to him that when I was a kid, a turkey shoot, like now you'll shoot targets to win a frozen turkey. Yeah, I used to do that. Well, when I was a boy, you could go down to our gun range and there was an actual turkey shoot behind a sand they put a turkey behind a sandbar well you just shoot it there you have 22 and hit it hit its head whoever's got it got the turn is dodging around back there with just his head sticking up up out of a sandbar I was so little I didn't do it, but it was the thing. He said, um, he's talking about this, these guys going to a turkey shoot.

It was always an interesting site to watch these old timers load their rifles at the turkey shoot, which was an annual affair at home. They were all good shots to a never, never failed to get a turkey. The men would line up along the river bank and shoot at a turkey place with its feet tied together on the shore some distance away. The shots were ten cents and the bird was yours if you hit it anywhere. Sounds like a good deal. Trying to think if I'm going to tell you about any more of these. You know what he gets into?

He winds up having exposure. This is the last thing I'm going to tell you. I'm going to end the show. He winds up having exposure to, you know the guy that killed Jesse James? Oh, kind of backstabby? Robert Ford. He has some details about when the killing of Robert Ford. Mr. Ford was standing at the bar talking to a man about contributing some money to a fund he was raising

to bury one of the dance hall girls who had just died. As Ford turned from the bar, he called a greeting to O'Kelly. That's who killed Robert Ford. He called a greeting to O'Kelly who was only about five feet away. Without saying a word, O'Kelly pulled up the gun and fired a blast of buckshot from both barrels, which blew away half of Bob Bord's head. What's called a green mean? Just slide in? Listen, I'm only on page 27. I've read the whole thing.

It's heavy hit in the whole way. Yeah, look at these. Look at all these highlights I got, Mark. Wow. I don't got to read any more, though. You don't need read anymore though. No, you don't need to read it because now you know the main good parts. What's called a greeting mean? Well, he wanted to make, so Jesse James

gets killed by Robert Ford, he's kind of a traitor. And then this guy around town, this kind of local bad guy around town wants to make a name for himself, he wants to kill Robert Ford to make a name for himself. He wants to kill Robert Ford to make a name for himself. He doesn't get any trouble for it. Yeah, Robert Ford has a bar and I've heard other accounts that he took a bunch of he took a bunch of pipe,

iron pipe and cut it into little rings and then chiseled those rings into little slivers and actually funneled that down the barrel of a double barrel and shot Robert Ford with that. This much shrapnel. Wow. Some accounts have him cutting Robert Ford in half down at the waist and some accounts his account has him cutting Robert Ford in half along the head. He wound up dying a violent death. Yeah. Oh, the other guy. He died a violent death. Yikes. It's all for today. Keep your powder dry. Do you still think this was

the worst trip you've ever been on? Yeah, absolutely. this is a little point of my life that's what I think of other bad ones we've had 50 years is the lowest point of my life nothing to do with that only up from here March yeah do with that Maggie's lowest point my life there's it's just like yeah it's like I don't know what to do I don't know how I can go home and be a father to my children anymore. No, I feel like you'll be like, you know, they'll be like, I was raised by though. They'll grow up later in life. They'll, they'll go to therapists and they'll say I was raised by a broken man.

I'd be like, he was fine until like December 24th. After that he was fine until like December 24 Shell of a man will be like what broke your old man like the flintlock muzzle. Oh, yeah You got he went down. He got knowing my mom didn't want to do it, but he got that damn flintlock First time damn they're broke them second time definitely definitely broken and he was never the same he just took to the bottle you know Coca-Cola took to the bottle got diabetes got diabetes and with that see y'all next Flintlock season when I'm Flintlock Joe dude know, I'm not hunting next year's Flintlock season

because I'll have already killed a buck during regular season with my Flintlock. Oh, because that's all you have. Well, you don't need no Flintlock season. But with that said, I am in the market for that gun, that single trigger percussion cap, long barrel, straight shooting, maxi ball gun. Any gun makers out there.

Um, alright, thanks y'all. Thank you. Hey American history buffs, hunting history buffs, listen up, we're back at it with another volume of our Meat Eaters American History series in this edition titled The Mountain Men 1806 to 1840 we tackle the Rocky Mountain beaver trade and dive into the lives and legends of fellows like Jim Bridger, Jed Smith and John Coulter. This small but legendary fraternity of backwoodsmen helped define an era when the West represented not just unmapped territory but untapped opportunity for those willing to endure some heinous and at times

violent conditions. We explain what started the mountain man era and what ended it. We tell you everything you'd ever want to know about what the mountain men ate, how they hunted and trapped, what gear they carried, what clothes they wore, how they interacted with Native Americans, how 10% of them died violent deaths, and even detailed descriptions of how they performed amputations on the fly. It's as dark and bloody and good as our previous volume about the white-tailed deer skin trade, which is titled The Long Hunters, 1761-1775. So again, this new Mountain Man edition about the beaver skin trade is available for pre-order

now wherever audiobooks are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806-1840 by me, Stephen Ronella.