The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 657: MeatEater Radio Live! The Brothers of Oak Island, A Mexico Check-In, and Invasive Pike

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Hosts Steven Rinella, Brody Henderson, and Maggie Hudlow chat with Rick and Marty Lagina of The Curse of Oak Island, get a Mexico Coues deer update from Randall and Seth, learn about invasive pike in Alaska from Parker Bradley of ADF&G, and reminisce about their top 3 fishing trips. 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. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Connect with The MeatEater Podcast Network 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.

Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivia's Meat Eater podcast. Good Lord. It's media to radio live. Welcome here to the show. 11 a.m. Mountain time. Do I need to say all this, Phil? Do people tell people what time it is? Like, they don't know? I mean, that's in the script every week. I mean, they could look at the clock, but it's just kind of a way to mark place and time here. Yeah.

Here's where it gets tricky, Phil, is that they're looking at a clock because they're watching on a computer or the phone. Okay. So you just think it's redundant. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. This is a discussion we can have later. So you just think it's redundant. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. January 30th, Meteor headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host today, Stephen Ranallo. Today I'm joined by Brody Henderson and Maggie Hudlow. Are you, how are you not here? Exactly, I'm not here.

Corey is not, if someone thinks Corey Kalcans is here, he's not. He's kind of not here like Corinne is often not here. He's not here. Just tell my boss I'm here. He's not here. He's not in the room. On today's show, we got a couple things coming up. So on today's show, we're going to chat with Rick and Marty Lagina from History Channels, the Curse of Oak Island, for a couple reasons. One, they're fellow Michiganders, that's my home state. Two, they're fellow Michiganders, that's my home state.

Two, they're from the cool part of Michigan, which is the Upper Peninsula. And three, I'm riding on their shirt tails. You know you hear coat tails and shirt tails? I wonder which is the better supposed to do. Do shirts have tails? Coat tails, well sure they do. Yeah, they used to man. Dressed shirts hang down over your buck. Yeah, I always try to find those shirts to, man. Dress shirts. Hang down over your buck, man. Oh, I guess so. Yeah, I always try to find those shirts that don't have that exaggerated. I like the straight ones.

Straight off. Because then when you're wearing them. If it's too straight, it looks goofy though. Yeah. Yeah, be careful. We're gonna talk to those fellers because I'm riding on their shirt tails on the History Channel.

And so, you know, they get the, you know what it is? It's like the opposite. Like you think, like the other night I was at, I went to a standup show, right? So, and I, they get the, you know what it is? It's like the opposite. Like you think of it, like the other night I was at, I went to a standup show, right? So I went to see, me and my boy went to see Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart, like Kevin Hart don't come out first. Do you follow me?

They have all the dudes. The opening act. Yeah, all the dudes come out and they get everybody kind of fluffed up and then Kevin Hart comes out. So this is the opposite where like these guys get the audience. They're like the Kevin Hart. And then I'm like the follow-up dude. I'm like the dude, the support is terrible. So we're going to talk to them about that.

We're also going to get into this. Most Januaries, I missed out one time because of COVID. Every January we go down to hunt coosdeer in old Mexico. This year at the last second, I had to bail because my little boy had to get a knee surgery and he was gonna be laid up and is laid up. So I couldn't go. So we're gonna check in with the fellas that did make it down to Mexico chasing coosdeer

so I could find out what all happened. They were not feeding me any information, I think out of respect because I couldn't be there. So they wanted, they didn't want to make me jealous. So I'm kind of in the dark about how that all went. And we're going to talk to Parker Bradley from Alaska Fish and Game about some interesting pike behavior. We've touched on this a couple of times in the past, but like Northern pike being in, I mean, all over the damn country, Northern pike live in lakes and rivers that they're not native to. And they're, they're circumpolar, aren't they? Yeah. You're right. Yeah.

Escoffier in Escoffier's cookbook, they have pike recipes for the European pike, for the pike they catch over in France. Anyhow, they've always been a little bit magical and like, well, how in the hell did they get here? And we're going to talk about a freakish behavioral attribute that these Northern pike are exhibiting in Alaska that helps explain some of the mystery about how those sons of bitches are jumping from one drainage to the next. So we're going to do that. Then we're going to talk about three most memorable fishing trips with photo backup. Um, then I'm supposed to say, but before we get to all that, what have you guys been up to lately, but not you, Corey, you ain't here. Maggie, you go first. Well, first off, I didn't know it was your birthday birthday Steve. It's not it's not here's the thing

Our mutual friend Spencer Newhart told everyone who's watching the show to say happy birthday to you But I'm pretty sure your birthday is two is in two weeks two weeks away Yeah, I'll be halfway to 102 in two weeks So but you've got you've got a dozens of people wishing you happy birthday in the chat nice. Yeah Yeah, nice. Happy right now. Oh, that's nice, too. Yeah. Nice. Well, happy early birthday. Oh, thank you. They stopped, man. I don't know how old you are, but dude, at this point, birthdays...

They just don't mean anything. No. My favorite restaurant in Bozeman is Wasabi. You know, the dudes that come in and they juggle their spatulas and stuff. Oh, my kids love it there. Well, I was there the other night for my little boy's birthday, and I was like, man, I'm going to come here on my birthday. I'm going to call all my friends and invite 20 minutes later. I'm like, no, I'm not. That's my birthday.

I'm like, Oh, I'm going to get some oysters. I'm going to get some crabs. I'm going to have a party. And then I'm like, then I have to share all this delicious food. Like, I think it's going to be a feast for about four. There you go. So anyways, what's everybody up to? I just moved into a new house that my boyfriend and I have been building over the last nine months. It's awesome. This is your shattered kneecap hockey playing a sheet-guiding boyfriend. How long you guys been together? About three years, but we've known each other pretty much our whole lives. You think you'll want to get married or you like against marriage?

I'm not against it. People just keep asking me about it. I'm like, Hey, we just built a house. Like we don't got money for a big party right now. You guys got your cart head of your horse though too. That's a big move to like buy and build a house together when you're not hitched though. What's his last name? Olsen.

You can switch out? Hell no. I already told him that. Just switch out, man you're not hitched out. What's his last name? Olsen. You gonna switch out? Hell no. I already told him that. Just switch out, man. My wife never switched out. It kills me. Do you really want to not switch out? No. I told my daughter never switch out.

Look on the internet and see how many other Maggie Hudlows there are. Oh, they can... People can track you down. There's not other Maggie Hudlows. And if you become a Maggie what? I am Maggie Hudlows. There's a pile of Maggie Olsens out there. Yeah. No, I'll never switch. I sit both sides, like I said, I wish my wife would, but I told my daughter never do that. See? Yeah, you gotta hang on to your name. So it's like, it's very, you know, one day we'll probably have a big awesome party and get hitched, but now I'll never change my name.

It's something I gotta hang on to. Let's transition to Brody. Brody, you're married. Yeah, long time. Yeah, actually that plays into what I've been up to lately. This is like, this time of year is kind of hard for me. I get mild seasonal affective disorder, whatever it's called. My dog has that. And my wife says I get real crank affective disorder or whatever it's yeah, my dog has that and

My wife says I get real cranky. Yeah, there's no dragons to slay right now No, but we're like emerging from that. It's starting days are getting a little longer You know, so there'll be cool stuff to do soon So I haven't been up to too much other than like like plan I don't know if you do this But I feel like it's important when you got kids. Like you really got to kind of plan your year out, like hunt and fishing wise. Cause uh, you know, with those kids, there's always like conflicting things going on. So I've been mapping stuff out on the calendar, which is

always fun. That's good. Yeah. So I don't have kids to worry about planning about but you don't have a husband either My my sister explained it as happily financially entangled with three dogs. Oh, that's good. That's my situation But the house you guys fixed up was it a mess or was it no we built it Oh, I thought you meant you read it. No guys built one scratch. It's a that's cool It's basically a big, a big ass shop with the living quarters attached to it. So show Brody your poem. You guys, is it calloused? Oh no. A little bit. I, I've spent a lot of time. We did concrete floors and some concrete countertops and, you know, it was like a cheaper option. And man, I spent a lot of time sanding concrete

and staining it. That's good. A lot of time on the concrete, but it looks really nice. We got a nice big walnut butcher block in the center of the kitchen and the garage has five huge doors, two pull-throughs. Oh, really? Yeah. It's a giant garage. Oh, that's great. We got to have place to put the boats and and all the fun stuff and now we're just trying to organize our piles of garbage

Yeah, we got all congratulations. Thanks. You know the James gang when they used to rob. This is legend I love it's true when they used to rob trains. They check your hands if you had calluses, they let you slide Cuz they were dandies if you didn't have calluses, you were getting robbed. I get the most calluses in the summer from rolling the drift boat. Yeah. If I saw those boys coming, I'd be scratching. How's that Phil? That was some lovely banter. You guys, you knocked it out of the park. Okay.

Are we ready to switch over? Let's do it. Okay. Do we got Rick and Marty or Rick and Marty here? We're here. First off, man, tell me a little bit, give me a quick snapshot of growing up in the UP. Did you guys,

had you guys' family been up there a long time? Were they newcomers or how? How'd that come about? Well, first, wait, wait, I gotta wish you a happy birthday. Oh, thank you. Me and everybody else who's confused. Yeah. Go ahead, Rick. Well, it was, you know, kind of like, you know, what you do in your life.

You're outside a lot, you know, you've got your friends, you know, what you do in your life. You're outside a lot, you know, you've got your friends, you you engage in whatever activity you want to do. It was sports and in the woods and fishing and and a little bit of hunting and going out with our uncles. And yeah, it was just a magical time much simpler than today. And like I said, you spent most of your time outside playing ball and just having a good old time. It was the UP.

What's the first example you guys can think of when you go back to when you were little boys? What's the first example of you guys setting out to go try to find a lost something or another or like to like make a discovery. That's an easy one. We were looking for a treasure under what we called the maybe not politically acceptable anymore but under the Indian Rock which was this rock out in the woods that had a band around it and all the young boys in the neighborhood spent Rick, I don't know, two or

three summers trying to move this rock because we were sure there was treasure underneath. We still want to go back and move that thing. Do you guys have a do you have a checklist of like when your work if your work at Oak Island concludes do you have a do you have a what's next we always have a plan moving forward but you know it's pretty fluid up there you know you find something you you move off there's it's it's multifaceted search so you have the money pit work the excavations with

Billy you've got archaeological work going, you've got archeological work going on, you've got Gary Drayton, metal detecting. So, you know, when something's found, you kind of skew that direction and follow that lead. And then of course you've got the lab and the application of science. So it's a pretty active work site. Yeah, that's great and I appreciate it,

but what I meant was if you picture yourself, if you imagine 10 years down the road, 20 years down the road, whatever, do you have like the next place or the next quest that you guys get involved in? You know, I mean, do you have a list of like, okay, when we're done, when our work here is done, we need to move on to whatever.

Well, first of all, in 20 years, I'd like to make sure I'm still alive. That would be number one, as far as the goals go. But I don't think we've really addressed that very well, have we, Rick? The Oak Island has been all consuming, and it keeps throwing stuff at us. Right about the time we're ready to maybe say, boy, this is, this is it. It'll throw something, a curve ball in terms of an artifact or something. So I don't think we've planned very well past that. We're interested in other things and we've got involved in other quests that other people

are taking the lead on. But beyond that Oak Island is pretty all consuming. Yeah. Have you, what are some of the latest. Tell people about some of the latest things you guys have found out there that keeps you wanting to keep going. Big Brother? Well, for me, it's kind of a close association, Steve, to what you're doing with your new show, following history. I think the research component and the historical associations we have made to date through

the finds of the artifacts and the digging and the money pit and the application of science, but it's really the research that is coming to fore. There's a treasure hunting component and there's the historical research component, which you're all about and like just the other day I got coming to believe that there's we're on a real national treasure you know the national treasure movie we're on a real national treasure hunt there there are significant historical figures that we believe have played some sort of role in association with the Okanagan mystery so it's all, to me, it's

big component is the history, but certainly there's a fascinating treasure hunt too. Now I gotta ask as well, what, I know you guys, so you guys got some land there. What's the, what's the, what's your vibe on the hunting and fishing potential out there on Oak Island? Should I be out there hitting it or what? Yeah, offshore I think you could be hitting it. Yeah, there's all kinds of fishing offshore. On the island, not so much. So you know, there's not like a resident,

whatever, just not like a resident deer population or a lot. Oh yeah, no, no, no, there's a resident deer population. Yeah, I was thinking fishing. There aren't any streams or anything. Unless you're a big eel fisherman because there's lots of those in the swamp. No, I like the eels for sure. So you guys see some game when you're out there,

when you're all done, like you're saying that I should be out there, I can go out there and hunt. I think so, right? Probably. I can tell you what you can do is, you know, come on up. You know, be a part of the treasure hunt and do a podcast from up there. But I can easily affirm to you that,

and you've probably been there in New Brunswick and in Newfoundland. You'd have a fantastic time. Yeah, no, I've hunted up there before. One time, the last time I hunted up in New Brunswick, I left, I kind of did a questionable move where my wife was like pretty pregnant. And I drove up there and we were hunting

and I got a call basically saying turn around and come back or or don't come back and so I had to cut my I had to cut my trip short but now that all that's behind me I'd like to come out there and check it out now definitely to come up to see the island and meet you guys for real and and talk about the home state so I appreciate you guys coming on, man. Everybody that's checking out, watch new episodes of The Curse of Oak Island on History Channel, Tuesday nights at 9 Eastern, 8 Central. And then, and then if you, if you got it in you, stay on because we're premiering a new show there as well that follows The Curse of Oak Island

called Hunting History. So come for The Curse of Oak Island called Hunting History so come for the curse of Oak Island and stay for hunting history on History Channel boys thanks for taking the time to come on the show man I appreciate it thank you that's great all right I just want to tell you that our nephews Peter David and Daniel Fernetti are big fans oh and your show tell him I said thanks and um shoot over an address and Burnetti are big fans. Oh, and your show. Tell him I said thanks and um shoot over an address and we'll send him up

some books and stuff if you if you got if you can pass along for somebody. I'd love to. Alright guys. Thanks so much man. Good luck with your good luck with your hunt. Good luck with your show. Good luck with yours. Alright, take it easy.

Take care. Bye bye. Alright, Mexico Cuse hunt. Check in with Randall and Seth. That's what we got. Randall and Seth, where the hell are they coming from? Why don't we ask them? Are you guys live? We're just like a trick thing. Oh, oh, so you are there. Aloha. Me amigos. May Yamo Rojo grande. All right. Was the K was, were they rotten hard? I don't even know where to begin. Were you seeing like hard rotten grab ass action? Uh, yes and no. I recognize that fireplace. How do you guys got such a good connection by that fireplace? Oh, there's a starlet now. Oh, I see it's just as warm in there as

normal. We had snow on the ground this morning. It snowed last night and was like 22 degrees or something. Seth and I were on a pretty frigid ridge all morning and stopped down to the house to hop on. So we're enjoying this fire and some fresh cafe. Got it. Uh, so, so hard ass grab ass run action or no? There's a lot of chasing. Uh, Yannis saw a buck, uh, he thinks unsuccessfully, uh, breed a doe. Um, but yeah, the bucks that we've seen have all been pretty active. It's been sporadic though. We're seeing like a ton of action on one hillside and then we go back the next day and zero

deer. So it's kind of been hide and seek a little bit. Yeah, we've been seeing does pretty frequently that don't have any bucks with them. Yeah, got it. And how many bucks you guys gotten down there? Uh, we got four so far. Yanni's today is our last day and Yanni is the only one that still needs to get one. So he's out there right now. He's looking for uh, mucho grande though.

Yeah, Yanni's Yanni's prepared to eat the tag if he doesn't see the right deer. So, uh, he and the rest of the crew are all hunting hard right now. Got it. While we sit by the fire. No, it's good to see you guys. I miss you guys. I've been dominating the question here. So I'm going to let Brody and Maggie ask you a bunch of questions. Did you get some good ones?

Yeah. So Peter Howe from SIG is down here, which is cool because we're getting to play with a bunch of new SIG products. Like that out. But he he shot a giant. Oh, no, you're not. It's definitely the biggest one I've seen come off of this ranch. Randall Randall is about to show you right here. So now Steve's real jealous. I know. And you folks watching from home, you need to understand that you're looking at like,

what's it's like a desert whitetail, like a mini whitetail. 90 pound deer. He's got a, he's got a split G2 on the one side. So he looks like a muley on that side. Yup. But that, that runs that way. Cause we've gotten a couple of them there like that with that same split. Yeah.

Jim has a finger probably roll over dead if I just said that that runs that way down there. Yeah. Yeah. He's a pretty impressive buck and he's, he's got a little bit of Palmation and he's kind of some of the times are bladed. And so that was Cal shot a real nice one. He saw it the first night and killed it two days later. There you go.

That's Cal's buck. Now go back. See how bladed out that is? Yep. Go back to that big one. I'm going to come back to Cal's, but go back to that big one for a minute. Was that like, did you guys find him and then refine him

and then refine him? Or was it like a holy shit, there he is kind of moment. Well, we, Seth and Janice and I were on the same ridge, but maybe a mile down. And we would just listen to the whole thing on the radio but I think they glassed him up. He had a dough that he was trying to lock down and seemed to be right out in the open. So they, Pete and Cal made a big stock on him and wrapped around the face and ended

up getting a shot but that that's kind of the only big buck that's really made himself visible for a significant period of time I think cows buck is just sort of like you know appeared he was bedded the first night when you guys saw him yeah we saw we spotted cows buck on the evening. It wasn't even like our first hunt day. We just happened to get down here and have enough time to run up on the hill and do some glassing. And Cal almost killed him on the first evening. But he caught up with him, what, two days later and yeah a lot of the bucks most the bucks that were see like I saw 10 or 12 bucks yesterday all of them all of

them were chasing but just no big bucks and the big bucks that we've seen a lot of them are really broken and that seems to be we've heard like this year for whatever reason a lot of the big bucks are broken. It doesn't bother me, but some people. Me neither. Yeah. So then Seth and I both got deer on back to back days, I think Tuesday and Wednesday, maybe or something like that. And that was fantastic.

Yeah. Well, ours are not nearly as impressive, but we're both very happy. They're like, you know, mid eighties, low nineties deer. And yeah, I, my shot at like two, 250 yards, he was chasing a doe with another smaller buck and they were just kind of pinballing around and he popped up and got a shot at him.

And then Seth had a real search for his buck. Yeah, I spotted my buck and made a move on him, lost him like you typically do down here and popped up on this little bump to try to get a good bandage of this hillside where he was and He ended up bedding with a doe about 120 yards from where I was and I actually had to in order to shoot him I had to leave my bump that I was on and make a big loop around and shoot him at like 300 yards Where I could actually see him. Oh God, I'm so jealous right now. Can you tell how jealous I am?

The, uh, I mean the, the, the big story this week, I think has been the wind. Everybody's been telling me that it's usually rather calm here, but we've been getting gusts up to like 30 and pretty steady 15, 10 to 15 mile an hour winds all week. So, uh, there have been some long cold days and the SIG stabilized binoculars have really been a lifesaver. And I hadn't, I'd messed around with them like out

of the truck or out of the house, but I really hadn't had them out in these kinds of conditions. And you throw those things on the tripod. And even if it's blowing your tripod around, your image is like crystal clear. So I've, I've oftentimes like just had to take my regular binos down and throw up the stabilized ones just for the wind factor. Yeah. When it's blowing any, yeah.

Then the next thing you got to figure out is how to make your eyeballs, not water. Oh, my- What's blowing that? The corners of my eyes are chafed badly. A lot of tears, a lot of sunscreen, a lot of wind. It's not a good recipe for my optical health. Well, the stabilized spinos are cool. What other fun SIG stuff

have you guys been messing around with down there? Well, there's one there's one item that we're told not not to speak of Yeah, what what happens down in Mexico stays in Mexico? But pretty neat stuff we we also have used the the range-finding binos Yep, are those the the kilo tens maybe something? Yeah, I forget all the names. But yeah, those are pretty amazing for this because they have the wind calculation dialed in.

Oh really? Wow. Yeah, when we're sitting out there glassing stuff and ranging stuff, you can plug in like a 10 mile an hour value and it'll give you your correction in minutes of angle so or mils but we're shooting both the guns we have are shooting minutes of angle so that's been pretty fun to see and like check that against the dope on your phone and um yeah there's been a lot of chatter about wind calls yeah a lot of chatter about wind calls i was very grateful to shoot my deer at 225 yards

or whatever it was because I don't think I would have really wanted to stretch it out very far in those conditions. I got two more questions. When I go down there, you always find that the becaros, the becaros, buck arrows, buck's, no matter what deer you bring back, they tell you that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not him. Yeah. Has that been happening? Well, I haven't talked with them much.

Cal has been our primary liaison to the Buck Harrell's. His Spanish is actually remarkable. No, he does good. Although he doesn't do like the performative accent that a lot of people do when they speak a foreign language, it just sounds like cow. He speaks in the same cadence, uh, with just different words, but, um, we did have a couple of reports of bucks that the Cowboys had seen and, uh, you know, had the Hills that they'd seen them on.

And there was even a set of sheds from this year, uh, near the house that we were looking for that buck, but we have not been able to turn up any of the, uh, the famous Cowboy bucks. Yeah. Got it. Here's my other question. But, oh, go ahead. No, no, I was gonna say the cat. Uh, I think the Vaquero's cat is having a real field day

whenever we bring back a deer. It's like fighting us for little strips of hide and meat. And that's kind of also been our primary mode of entertainment is the cat's increasingly aggressive behavior around any sort of meat. Randall, I need to share with you two comments that have come in. I'm going to build you up and I'm going to bring you down. Sure.

There's a guy that says you look like Jim Harrison. Followed up by a guy that says you look homeless. So I take your pick. Did Jim Harrison ever spend time as a homeless person? If you're going to look like Harrison, you need to take a beer bottle and gouge one of your eyes so it doesn't work right. Which is what happened to him. Yeah, she said I looked like a Civil War reenactor in the photo and so I took that to mean I

need to cut my hair. I got another question for you. You know how I couldn't go because my boy had to have knee surgery? Well, thanks for asking how he's doing. Oh, I was communicating with Janice and we were getting updates. We were all sitting around the table the other night and we, Yanni, you were texting me, Steve. And then Yanni was like, we're asking for updates through our yeah we're we're all asking how how you Maddie was doing funny because none of those they were all unfulfilled I did I did text Katie I did text Katie to see how the surgery went well you went straight to my you went straight to my you went straight to my

woman you're busy man yeah all right that's cool that's cool anybody else now I've heard enough how long do you guys want to talk for I don't You're a busy man. Yeah. All right. That's cool. That's cool. Anybody else? Nah, I've heard enough. How long do you guys want to talk for? I don't know. We're getting bored. Oh, we did. We did want to mention that yesterday.

Yannis ate 11 or 12 burritos. I love that sounds about right. So we got baloney sandwiches the day before and he ate his at 11 and then spent the rest of the day talking about how he could have had more than one bologna sandwich. So the next day he took six burritos for lunch and he gave me one but he had two at breakfast and I think three at dinner. So that would probably make, maybe, yeah, that's like 10 or 11. So anyway, the tortillas have been thin. So Yana's consumed 20 some tortillas yesterday because we're doubling the

volume. Randall, we got another guy saying you just look like you're from Ohio. No, that's true. That I'll take that as a high compliment. Thank you, Chase. That's lovely. Hey, you know what about being from Ohio? I don't know if you ever read the right stuff, but, um, there's something

steely about Ohio dudes. It's like what you want when you're trying to man a spaceship. Yep. You, they, they want to lean in. They want to lean into Ohio. Tell people that there's something there's a rich soil. All right. Well, good luck. Tell Yanni. I's something, there's this rich soil. All right. Well, good luck.

Tell Yanni I said good luck. Um, wish I could be there in all seriousness. Miss you guys terrible. Uh, yeah, you know, all that kind of stuff. We'll see you very soon. All right. Thanks, buddy. See you guys.

Vaya con Dios. 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 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 beaver skin trade is available for pre-order now wherever audio books are sold. It's called Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806 to 1840 by me Stephen Rinella. Was that long enough? How are we doing on schedule? Steve you are you're doing incredible. We're on schedule? Right on schedule. Yes. Oh, so now we take time for listener feedback. That's right. Dude, I'm mostly excited. No, not to hack on the boys there, but I'm mostly excited about the Northern Pike deal. Oh, he's coming up. No, no. I don't want to I'm saying I want to jump to it. Let's do some. How you been handling this part? The listener feedback? Well, the idea is throughout the show, people can ask questions in the live chat.

I bookmarked the ones I think are good or could open up some interesting conversations. So far, we haven't gotten a lot of questions. Guys, this might be Steve's last time here, and who knows? You should feel lucky. So if you have questions for Steve, get him in here right now, because I don't know

when he's going to be back. No, I'm going to start coming down here all the time. Might be your last time. It's like you're dying or something. Why do you think I'm not gonna come anymore? Well, you're just a, you're a busy guy. No, I'm gonna start coming here all the time. We would love that.

Yeah, people wanna see it. Let's see, we gotta start with a lighter one. Moghor is asking, question for Steve, hi, when you're not participating in trivia or radio live, how closely do you follow the events during your travels? Do you keep up with the shows by watching or listening to them? I have a feeling I know the answer to this question, but I just thought you know people the people would like to know Uh, I listened to a lot of stuff. I watch bits of a lot of stuff, but I mostly talked everybody

That's all I like dudes talk to everybody Probably a better use of your time. No Question for Steve from John did the stolen cooler of frozen fish ever get resolved? No. Is it still it's just gone, dude. OK, someone's licking their lips on that fish or they were, but no, no. It's going on a couple of years now, isn't it? Do you know what's hilarious?

Remember we were talking about so I shouldn't I shouldn't say this about my kid, but my older kid, my older boy, when we were talking about, so I shouldn't, I shouldn't say this about my kid, but my older kid, my older boy, when we were talking about, remember we were talking about getting that lie detector test down here. So he kind of got in a bunch, he got a bunch of trouble. Okay. He was telling, I shouldn't air in his laundry like this, but he was telling his mom and dad to fib. Okay.

So his mom fibs to get the truth. She says, I'm taking you down to the office. Cause your dad got that lie detector. So you tell me right now what happened. And he's just like, he just lets it all out. And just the other night we like, finally it came up. We finally said, you know, there is no lie detector. He's like, you sons of bitches. That you know, there is no lie detected.

That's good parenting there. I like it. So my wife's like lies to get him to tell the truth, which is smart, you know? Oh yeah. Get on you Katie. Oh, let's see here. You said you're given softballs. What's an example of a hardball? Well, this isn't a hardball, but this one actually could could open up to some discussion from Kyle

What do y'all do about cleaning brain matter from a skull in the field to transport to or from CWD areas across? Home in County stir it up with a screwdriver stir it up super good with a screwdriver then put a high-pressure hose in there Give it a few good shakes. No. Yeah, you give it a couple shakes. Yep. There you go. It's like, if you stick with it, you can get that brain pan pretty clean. Right on. This could... What's a real hard question? We haven't gotten a really hard one yet, but if you guys want to speak to this,

because I don't think you ever really have, and I think you guys could talk thoughtfully about it. Question for Steven Brody. Y'all post a lot of pictures of hunting, fishing with your kids, which is great. Have you ever thought about making videos featuring your kids? My kids love watching other kids hunting videos. Man, I think about it all the time.

I'd love to do it, but me and my wife made a decision. Like if you notice, if you ever see pictures of my kids, we just had to find, we had to find like, we had to make a rule for ourselves so that it wasn't a question all the time about how much exposure to give to our kids. And we eventually made a rule. It seems arbitrary, but it works for us. Like, we don't show our kids' faces on stuff. It seems goofy, but like wound up making it simple. Do you know what I mean?

And the other day I even asked my, I had a picture of my kids when they were babies. And I said to my wife, like, hey, do you mind if I post this thing when the kids are babies? I mean, they don't look like that anymore. And she said, well, no, because we have an agreement. Yeah, you've done a good job of sticking to it. Yeah, I have, but it hurts because I'd love to be able to make videos with them.

But I don't want to drag them into something, like it's just hard for me. I need them to get old enough to make the decision. There's also the, like, there's one thing, like making a TV show or whatever is one thing, but then like just making like videos for yourself, like we do that all the time. But like making a show is hard and it gets in the way.

Like it would, not that you couldn't do it, but. There's a great episode of Tony hunting bear with his daughter, Austin, if you want to check that out. Yeah. Hey, listen, I don't have any, like I have, I'm all for it. And a big thing that informed us on it is years ago, we had to have like the FBI got involved. Like years ago, we had something happen that alarmed us

and they had to go after a dude and like really went after a guy hard about saying a comment, you know, about our kids. And then from then on, that changed our whole attitude, man. It was like someone like an animal rights dude. And so it just, it just spooked us, you know? I bet. Yeah.

Well, yeah, I mean, I'd love to see us make a show with some kids hunting in it. It'd be great if we could do that at some point. Yeah, I just didn't like, the thought of some, like some animal rights freak or whoever targeting my kids because of something that they know about me is just like upsetting. And at times I'm just like a little,

I feel a little like maybe overexposed in that way. That's totally reasonable. We'll do one more here and save some more for the end of the show. Sam's asking is there any animal you were excited to hunt and eat but were let down when you finally tried it or any animal that you thought that wasn't really worth it after you tried it? What's your maiden name? tried it. To me, the name. Yeah, you know. Remember you guys shot those?

You guys shot a bunch of those big old caribou several years ago, Kenyan and Dern were there. Yeah, I was a little disappointed in the shanks with the because you think about how many miles are in those shanks and holy shit, they take a long time to break down.

Oh, multi-day braids and just the meat in general. It's not that it's bad. It's just, you stack it up against like elk or it's just not, no, I'd rather, I'd way rather eat mule deer than carapace. I'll tell you one of the ones that was most disappointing to me is, um, a while back we flayed, I really wish we hadn't, we flayed a bunch of shovel-nosed sturgeon. I remember you talking about that.

Ugh! Yeah. Cause one, the yield is so low. So you kind of get this cool looking fish, you clean them and you don't have shit. And then what you do have doesn't taste that good. I've never laid a finger on it. Now it would just pop them off. Yeah.

You know, just a real disappointment because the, the, the, the low yield was already enough to turn me off. But then the taste was another one for me was a Jack rabbits. They're tough. No, no, no. Yeah. You can have dumb opinions, free country. Cool. If you want to get to the, the pike, we've got Parker waiting in the, in the green room. Oh yeah. Brody, you want to handle this interview?

Sure. Yeah. Brody's an invasive pike expert. He's to live at an invasive pike pond. Oh yeah. Love those things. Um, are we jumping? Yep.

There's Parker. Hey Parker, how's it going? Hey, good. How y'all doing? Great. Is it cold up there? You know, it's the coldest day we've had this winter so far, about minus 15. Where are you at right now? I'm in Palmer. So about an hour north of Anchorage. Yep. Yep.

Cool. So we'll get to Pike in a second, but you want to give us a rundown of what you do for fish and game? Like what your job is? Yeah, sure. So I'm a fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and my job is primarily focused on invasive species. In this region, that's primarily invasive northern pike, but that could be, you know, we've dealt with the host of other several species that have turned up here that shouldn't be here

and we handle that. Cool. So- Hey Brody, while you're interviewing him, can you ask if he knows my brother Danny? So there's this guy, Danny Bolton in Anchorage. No, not you. Danny Bolton. There's this guy, Danny Bolton in Anchorage. No, not- Or, Danny Bolton.

There's this guy, Danny Rinella. You know him down in Anchorage? I do. Did you know these guys knew each other? Maybe I knew they knew each other, but I'm not positive they knew each other. Yeah. My brother's a fisheries biologist.

I thought maybe you guys ran into each other. Continue your interview. Yeah, we got- There's a small world in the fisheries biology realm up here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this study came out.

Some people may have seen it in the news. That's where I found it. And we had talked about it like in the past recently here at Media. Can you kind of give like the basic rundown of what this study found and how they were able to come to the conclusion that they came to? Yeah, yeah, you bet. So quick background for your listeners.

Pike are actually native to a majority of Alaska, more than northern and western regions. But they were introduced here to the south central region, waters that flow into Cook Inlet, Gulf of Alaska. They were introduced by a person in the 1950s and they've spread to over a hundred water bodies in this region since then. But, so we're trying to keep tabs on where these pike are spreading in the region.

And we've been doing eradication projects on the Kenai Peninsula. What does that entail? Like, how are you trying to get rid of them? Cause like, I used to live in an area in Colorado where they were doing that. They're trying to get rid of them on the Yampa River and they'd knock them back, then they'd come back.

They'd knock them back, then they'd come back. It's like, it's just an ongoing, they can never seem to like eradicate them. Right. So it's kind of tough to get over that hump, but a lot of what we do is aggressive netting and that's called suppression projects where we just try to kill as many as we can. But if we actually want to eradicate them, then we often go and use a chemical called rotenone. That's a fish management tool that is used across the US. And that's what we've done heavily on the Kena to eradicate them from there.

But netting is often very common. And like you were saying, it's tough to get ahead of them. Yep. So back to the study. Yeah, I saw a question just pop up. How are the pikes spreading? Yep. Someone asked that. He's in luck. How are the pikes spreading? Yep. Someone asked that.

He's in luck. Yep. We're about to find out. So there's, they're spreading, well, really two mechanisms. Now that they're in this region, people still move them around. We have documentation of that.

And then, you know, once they're in an open system, they're free to swim where they want, right? And so one thing that we thought was some of these rivers flowing into Cook Inlet, which is brackish water, we thought that was most likely. That's a nice one. But we had some pike that showed up in a remote place on the Kenai Peninsula that it,

we don't know how they got there. Didn't make sense for someone to go through an extensive effort to get them to this remote place, but it has a very short connection to Cook Inlet. And so one thing that we did, we wanted to explore, if we're gonna invest money into getting rid of these pike from this drainage, we wanna know how they got there and prevent that from happening again.

So we did some sampling in this this lake, Vogel Lake, and we caught one really large female along with a handful of other smaller pike. And one thing that's a really neat technology in the world of fisheries is the otolith of the fish. So that's the inner ear bone calcified structure. Biologists use that often for aging fish. There's a good picture of it there. But what it also can be used for, it's basically a chemical fingerprint of the water that that fish has lived in

throughout its life. So you can cut that olyth in half and it grows on the outside, calcium building up on the outside as it grows. If you cut that in half, you expose the core when that fish was born and then the edge represents when you kill that fish. So we can send this otolith to a lab. We have one in Fairbanks that does this. They look at the chemical

composition of that otolith from birth to death. And what's interesting is water bodies often have unique chemical signatures specifically with strontium isotopes. And that's interesting is water bodies often have unique chemical signatures specifically with strontium isotopes. And that's what we're looking at. So the marine environment has a pretty particular strontium isotope signature. And so we took the otolith from that really large pike and measured the strontium from birth to death of that fish. And what we found is that the center of that

otolith where that fish was born did not match the water that we caught it in. Then about two years of age it had a signature consistent with being in a marine environment. And then the signature matched the water that we caught that fish in. So basically what that told us is that fish came from somewhere else, swam through the brackish water and then ended up in this Vogel Lake here where we caught it. And once we kind of had proof of that occurring we got suspicious of this happening in other places. For example, in Anchorage, we have a couple of lakes where we thought this might've occurred.

And indeed we did catch a couple of pike that had these signatures as well. And so that's what this study was kind of based on. These three different populations that we think got established by pike swimming through the marine environment. Mostly just brackish water, not full salt water. Gotcha. So they're able to make those trips, that's what you just kind of answered my question as you finished your last response, but they're able to make those trips just staying in brackish water. How long do you think one could last in open salt? Or do you think that would kill it?

So I think that would kill it. A couple of years ago, we did a salinity trial where we actually put pike and known salinity totes and measured to see how long they would live. And so we tested various gradients. And our highest concentration we tested was about 28 parts per thousand for reference, about 35 is considered fully marine.

And at 28, they lived maybe like seven or eight hours on the average. They can't tolerate fully marine waters for very long. But that lower brackish concentration around seven or 10, there's actually a pike population in the Baltic Sea that they just live there. And that's at about seven parts per thousand. So the fact that they can kind of traverse

through some of this low brackish water is not that surprising, but Cook Inlet, it's a pretty hostile environment. We have some of the largest tides in the world, like 30 foot tide swings, very glacially turbid. We got big glacial rivers that are pumping into it. So visibility is poor, really strong current. So it's not what you would think of

when you think of where a pike would typically live. So they can live just probably for a little bit in this environment. Are they traveling? Are you able to determine like how far they're traveling? Like, does this only happen where like two river estuaries are pretty close together? Or are they covering some distance? We can't tell exactly where they came from. The most likely source is the Sissetna River.

And if that's the case, you know, Vogel Lake, where one of these studies was based on, that's about 18 miles if the fish was to swim perfectly straight, you know, from Anchorage, if it made the trip from the Sissetna, that's like 15 miles. So not really that far. And we think a lot of this movement's likely limited to the upper part of Cook Inlet, to where we have these, you know, brackish waters.

As you move south, it gets pretty fully marine pretty quick. So I think this is just happening kind of in an upper Cook Inlet region. Years ago, I was talking to a researcher who was looking at, trying to explore the question of how bad could the Burmese Python situation get. So they would take Burmese Pythons and move north of the Florida Everglades and make these enclosures

just to see like what, at what point would they not be able to survive anymore. And they were kind of able to draw sort of a sort of line saying what they projected to be the extent of the spread for average temperature purposes, right? When you guys look at this, now that you're understanding that these pike are moving, not just from people moving them in buckets, but they're moving on their own into unexpected areas, do you have a sense of how bad it could get? Or do you think you already looking at the extent

of what they could possibly do as they spread into these waters. And I think within that, I think we didn't cover on, just, I don't mean to lay too much on you at once, but you should probably speak to what this could mean for salmon, right? Cause that's what we're really talking about here, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So we know how bad it can get, but it all depends really on the specific habitat of a location. If you're a pike angler, you know what pike habitat looks like, you know where you target them. And in the Susitna Valley, we've almost complete expansion

through all available habitat. But what's at risk here is the Kenau Peninsula, for sure, the northern portion at least, and there is some tremendously good, well, salmon habitat currently, but it would make for very good pike habitat. And that's what we're nervous about. There's some locations that if pike got into,

it would be completely devastating. Completely wipe out salmon because of the type of habitat in that system would favor pike in an apex predator like that. Does it seem like there's, does it seem inevitable? Or does it seem like there's something that there's a move you guys will have at your disposal? You know, it's with enough time, it's likely inevitable.

Now we're taking some preventative measures in that Vogel Lake that I mentioned, With enough time, it's likely inevitable. Now we're taking some preventative measures in that Vogel Lake that I mentioned, we eradicated Pike from there in 2021. And what we have now is a we're in place near the mouth of that drainage, preventing Pike from moving up through Cook Inlet through that pathway.

So, you know, so we're taking prevention measures there, but some of these other locations, you know, we're kind of exploring options. We really want to dial in how frequently is this occurring? We don't know. It seems to occur frequently enough that Pike can establish a population. So a male and a female get into a system

and spawn and kind of game over. So, but we don't know exactly. a male and a female get into a system and spawn and kind of game over. But we don't know exactly. We don't know really what the exact salinity concentrations or trends are in Cook Inlet. We need to figure that out to actually find what we think would be the boundary of how far south they can go. So once we kind of do that, we can know monitoring and prevention measures. Just to play devil's advocate, I think there would be some people that might

say if these things are traveling on their own into these areas, they're not getting no one's dumping a bucket of pike into a lake, right? They're doing it on their own. Like, are they still considered an invasive species? Yeah, so that's a really good question. Short answer is yes, because they wouldn't be spreading if it wasn't for an initial human introduction. Gotcha. They're still not native to the area.

So to be invasive, they have to be non-native and causing harm. You know, a good example of that would be like the Asian carp throughout the Midwest. If they got established in the Great Lakes, you wouldn't consider them native because they swim their own, right? So the kind of the other part of that, that question is at least down here, you'll have these situations where like pike or smallmouth bass or some other non-native game fish will get introduced into a system.

And often there'll be like a contingent of anglers that are like, we don't want these things gone, they're great, right? Brown trout. Yeah, what I mean, you know, there's so many examples down here. I would imagine in Alaska, maybe because of how important salmon are that there's not really that kind of pushback like for, for recreational and subsistence

anglers saying, oh, you know, they're not so bad. Well, we do get that. There's definitely a following of pike anglers here that want the pike to be here, you know, move them around. That's why they were introduced here in the first place, right? Somebody wanting to fish for pike. So we have that, but it is still, you know, your average, you know, Alaskan, overwhelming majority understands what's going on and would much prefer the salmon, you know, over a pike fishery.

Yep. Only takes a couple of bad apples to really, you know, create a situation like what we have. Is this like a super high priority problem now for Alaska fishing game? It is. This is probably the most devastating aquatic invasive species we have in this region. problem now for Alaska fishing game? It is. This is probably the most devastating aquatic invasive species we have in this region. You know, there's several others that we're dealing with,

but I mean, for the pike, we've documented about 25% of our anadromous lakes on a surface area basis, completely destroyed from pike. 25%. Wow. And this is where salmon are rearing and growing before they out-merge rate. And then another good 15% are in pretty dire straits. So significant portion of habitat in this region is being impacted by Pike.

But there's other species on the horizon that we don't want here and we're working to prevent those as well. Have you guys implemented like mandatory catch and kill regulations in places? We have. In this entire region, if you catch a pike, you're required to kill it.

You can kill it and toss it back or keep it if you want, but you can't release it alive legally. You can kill it and pickle it, though. Yep alive legally. You can kill it and pickle it though. Yep. Yep. You can kill it and pickle it. And I would recommend that. They're pretty good pickled. Well, thanks for chatting with us today, Parker.

That was real informative. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. And hope you guys have some success with that because, you know, the world's gonna start no matter where you go, the world's gonna become at risk of looking the same no matter where you go, you know, the world's gonna start no matter where you go, the world's gonna become at risk of looking the same no matter where you go, you know? Crows and Northern Pike.

Thanks, man, appreciate it. All right, thanks, appreciate it, see y'all. Thank you. All right, are you allowed to go out of order? You know, there are no rules, it's just a suggestion. Can we do two questions then do the photo thing and two. Cause I saw you pop up two questions. Yeah.

Go for it. Someone asked about making Venice and Demi-Gloss. Oh, I saw that one too. Absolutely. Just make sure you leave some meat on the bones because it's a little lean. If you don't, it's a real blonde. If you, you got to commit to the time involved, man. Oh, but it's so worth it.

Yeah. You got to commit to the time involved, man. Oh, but it's so worth it. Yeah, you gotta commit to the time being involved, then you gotta commit to later trying to get that ring off your pot. Because you're gonna have a ring of like something that looks like it would have an industrial application. Yep. Like a ring of sort of like epoxy that forms. Yep.

But you gotta cook it down to, I mean, picture that you're cooking it down and cooking it down to the point where it's like, it's the consistency of cold maple syrup. Yeah. Like when you lay a back of a spoon in it and lift it up, it's, it's, uh, it'll stick to that spoon, you know? Wow. And then I'll put it into ice cube trays. That's what I do.

Cause it's powerful. Like you can throw one ice cube worth and it's like a pine of stock Yeah, but then later when you're having your supper I'll take maybe like two parts butter One part demi-glace a little booze or a little wine or something. Yeah. Yeah. No, it works good man. It works good I like that. You said supper not enough people still call it supper dude I remember what's so funny is I remember when I went to graduate school, okay? Graduate school. I remember making a conscious decision to stop saying supper because I didn't want to seem like some redneck.

Nobody said supper. Nobody said supper. Yeah, that's not a West Coast thing. I remember being like, man, how come these guys, no one says that's why I switched to dinner. Yeah. Yeah, I hate it. I hate it about myself now, but I like consciously switched to dinner. So I thought it made you sad. I was like, fuck it. These guys didn't even know what supper is. Oh, there's another question. Yeah. Someone asked, I saw a comment come up where there's a, there's a host forest, Galant who, is that true that he said that? I couldn't tell you. I can look it up though. Says that he said he shouldn't be able to hunt bears

because it's trophy hunting. You know what? Here's a good thing to go look at. There's about a guy. Yeah. Talked about that bear that fell out of the man while hunting in Virginia. So a guy was hunting in Virginia and they treat a bear. It was a tragedy. They treat a bear and we discussed this. They treat a bear, someone shot the bear, a guy's dog got under and he thought the bear was going to land on the dog. He went in and tried to save his dog, got hit by the bear and it killed him. So naturally it brings out all this commentary like, oh, he deserved it, you know, and all this terrible stuff everybody's saying. It was pretty nasty.

I don't understand what trophy hunting has to do. It's just like... Yeah, I mean, like bears are great to eat. I don't get it. Like, I kill deer and I have deer skulls all over my damn house. I don't know how true that is because I'm finding... He has videos of himself hunting bears online, so I don't know where that came is because I'm finding, he's put, he has videos of himself hunting bears online. So I don't, I don't know where that. Yeah. That's what I was wondering about. Maybe he had a change of heart. I don't know. I was wondering, I don't know, but either way, you know, what's a great line. One of my, there's a Boone biography by a Farager, Mac Farager, and in the Boone biography by Mac Farager, he's talking about venison and bear meat.

And he says that on the American frontier, bear meat was for eating. Yeah. You shot deer for leather, and when you got hungry, you shot bears. Yeah. Anyone who's ever eaten a good fall black bear should try it. Oh man it's

fatty and delicious it's it's awesome. You know everything's got a trophy man. Yeah some some weasels back there. Weasels got a little trophy. Okay people are saying that he said it on his most recent podcast but I haven't heard that I can't speak to that. I don't think any any of us can right now. Yeah it's a weird it's a odd like you'd have to really, you'd have to stay up for a few days to find a way to justify that. Yeah, and you still wouldn't. How do we do the fishing trip thing?

You say our next segment is called Meat Eater Top 3's. Our next segment is called Meat Eater Top 3's. If they feel, Oh, okay. Don't forget about this Brody. Well, I this. Yeah, I was waiting on these musical transitions. I hadn't heard one yet. It's great

Phil. Really good. Thanks. But it's really good, Phil. Thanks, appreciate it. And then yeah, Steve, if you look at the script, then you continue a little bit more and say, this week we are ranking our three favorite fishing trips. So naturally, this week we're ranking our three favorite fishing trips.

Maggie, you go first. What's your third most favorite memorable fishing trip? So this was a fun trip down in Florida in the Gulf. My folks had just retired and they spent three months Airbnb hopping in Florida. They drove down with their lake boat and they had their old town canoe on top of the truck. My mom was like, we look like Beverly Hillbillies going down here. So I flew down there and hung out with them. My dad and I went out with a guide for a day and then-

Well then here you are in the canoe. Yeah. We just took the canoe out in the mangroves. We had a little trolling motor. We would paddle around some. Fly casting was kind of difficult, but spinning gear, I'd never caught redfish before. They're super fun fish to catch. And that's your old man in the canoe there? That's my dad.

That's awesome. Yeah, he's big on sun protection. And man, redfish on the half shell. Holy cow, that's a great fish to eat. I didn't really know what the half shell thing meant, but when you cook them up like that, it hardens up. And it's- Well, those big scales are like- Oh, it's almost like pulling chunks of crab out of there. It was amazing.

I actually, I just cooked up that red fish you gave me this summer. Oh, that's good. It was delicious. You can steal my fish. I didn't, no, you gave that fish to me. You can do that same thing with northern pike. No kidding. Oh yeah. I can man. You're gonna have to catch some cooked northerns. You leave the scales on. You can do that. And it forms that

delicious. Yeah. You got some slime scraping to get down to man. You're not going to eat the skin. Oh, you know, a trick on D slime and those those suckers You ever put them in salt for a minute. Yeah, that shit comes off. It's amazing how they keep producing it for ever Where's it coming from? Yeah All right number two Was that all I think we all do now. We're gonna do Brody's number three. Oh Wow, this can take forever. Yeah, I tried to go fly through it. It's nine things to talk about Um, this is tough for me, man. I've had a lot of good fishing trips.

Oh, that's gorgeous. On the fly. I kind of concentrated on family trips, because they're the most fun these days. Look at the colors. Every couple of years, I got to go on this vacation where my wife's family gets together for a family reunion down south. And it's kind of vacation

where people spend half the day on the beach and half the day at the pool. And that is tough for me. So I always try and squeeze some fishing in. And we got into some, that first picture, we got into some Dorado and Cobia a few miles out. And then the next picture, we really got into the speckled trout and white trout back in the Sound. And it was just a great trip. Love it. Did you gaff that thing while you had it on the fly? We were fishing with a guide we know down there. He threw that gaff in there.

He did the gaffing. Yeah. Oh, it was my number three. Oh, I was just seeing... we know down there. He threw that gaff in there. He did the gaffin. Yeah. Oh, it was my number three. Oh, I was just seeing, here I'm holding the triple tail. I shot with a spear gun, but this is just a placeholder for the last bunch of years, handful of years I've been going down and diving, spearfishing the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And that's become not my most favorite, but a favorite

thing of mine to go do is do the oil rigs. And, uh, with that triple tail, it's funny cause you have all this murky brackish water that floats up top. And then you have this little band of clear water. So let's say it's 30 feet deep. You'll have like 12 feet of muck that's on top. Then you'll have a four or five foot band of water you can see. And then you got all the bottom muck and they call it like the center of the Oreo and you hunt the center of the Oreo. And it's funny because like fish go into the center of the Oreo and this, this Oreo center was about big enough for a person to lay horizontal in it. I'm not kidding you. It's like a very narrow window of clear water. And I go down and I find that narrow window of clear water and I look and

there's that son of a bitch in trippin' tail sitting there. And he, the last thing he thought was someone's going to shoot it. You know how they lay sideways under like pallets and shit like that. He wasn't upright in the rig, upright in the rig. And I walked up to him, like I was walking up to you You know in no country for old man when he gets the cop with that captive bolt gun. Yep, that was me and that fish That's a big triple tail Okay, I'm done

Maggie's number two my number two. This is a cool mountain fish and trip right in my backyard in the winds. Went up there with my boyfriend. This is actually a very memorable fishing trip from a dumb mistake I made, which I'll get to. So where is this, Maggie? Sorry. This is in the winds.

I don't know where that is. It is the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Ah, gotcha. This is the lingo I'm not privy to. Thank you, move on. So we went in, I think about 16 or 17 miles one day and we'd sorta just made a big loop and fished our way around for a week

and came out another trailhead. It was awesome. My old dog, he was I think 11 there and he was a trooper. Came the whole time. We caught cuddies, brookies. It was just a really great trip. I brought this little packet of like curry paste up with me. It was like a single-use packet and cooking fish over the fire with some curry paste in the middle. Like maybe you're just backcountry hungry, but holy moly It was delicious. That's good. That's the best way to eat trout. It was you like didn't need butter anything

It was really good so the last day our Wow, it rained so hard our our tent It was like slapping a bag of wine if you ever did that in your youthful days. So it rained harder than I'd ever seen it rain in the winds. And we're walking out and I'm just bopping along thinking about a cheeseburger and a cold beer at the burger bar. And you know, we're off trail cause there's a bunch of trees down and stuff. And I just took one bad step and there's a lot of swearing involved.

Looks like you took a bad step and got hit by a truck. And he was like, you know, he was like, I'll, I'll just set up the tent. I'll leave you here. You know, I'll go get some horses and come back and get you. And I was so mad. I was pissed. I'm walking out of here. God damn it. So I walked out nine miles on a broken ankle and I've got a plate and seven screws to boot from it. Wow. Man, that looks painful. So watch your step out there, kids.

All right, Brody, your number two. Oh yeah. A couple years ago, we go to Fort Peck, usually every year for Memorial Day weekend. And a couple years ago, we just had like the trip of trips. Like for three days, we could do like no wrong on walleye and pike like giant walleye big pike. And it was, it was just like one of the best fishing trips I've ever been on. Like the boys were just crushing big fish. It was, it was just a lot of fun. You can also get your heart broken there too. Oh yeah. I mean the, the year before it wasn't that great. Last year it was just like the wind too. Oh yeah. Yeah. But that we just like hit it perfectly. And it was not great. Well, I mean just like the wind too. Oh yeah, yeah. But that, we just like hit it perfectly and it was just

Lakers, Northies, Walleyes. Oh, that's awesome. Cool, Steve, you want to do your number two and bring that up here? I think we all know this picture. Oh yeah, one, the one that got away, that octopus. Still down there. Still down there, still haunts me. Someday I'm going to find out where he lives. Puss in the pot. Puss in the pot. I know where he lives. They don't move that much. We're going to tangle again. Probably this August. That thing might be big enough to just drag your boat down with it. No, because I told you what I learned about it. What the guy told me, a trick, a fishing trick.

Oh, where you snag them. When you're fighting, having a fight with one, put a hook into them. Yeah, before he can latch on. Then you fight with them. And when, if he wins the fight, he just takes off to the bottom. Then you crank them back up and fight with them again. You can fight them as many times as you want because you got that hook stuck in them. So next time I get them up to the boat, I'm putting a hook into them or I'm going to drag his ass to the beach. I'm just going to drive to the

beach. He can stick to the bottom of the boat all he wants. And then he's pretty soon he's going to be pinned between my boat bottom and the bank. I got it all planned out. I'm just imagining this being the last act of your life. Like decades from now, and it's just you and the octopus, you both end up on a beach somewhere and you grind together. Steve battles the Kraken. I would love to die fighting that octopus. Great, okay, let's go to Maggie's number one.

Let's see what. Nate, my boyfriend and my good friend, Emily and I took this awesome trip to Costa Rica. Pesgayos! Pesgayos, ye. That roosterfish, it fought so hard. It was like tailing like a tarpon. Oh really?

Like getting up and I was so spent and the guys picked it up and handed it to me. I was like, oh man, I got to do push-ups before my next saltwater fishing trip. I am spent. Um, but so we went out a couple of days with the guy. We went out at the beginning of our trip. This was like a two week trip. We just kind of bopped around the Osa peninsula. Um, and so we went out the first day and we crushed it on Dorado.

So we had a pile of fish that we just freeze and carried around with us. And we went out, I think it was like right before Christmas that first day. So I think the next picture should be our Christmas feast. Oh, that's a jack I caught offshore. We just tossed poppers off the shore for jack and there were rooster fish surfing in the waves. Oh really? It was incredible. Just the diversity of fish we found. So this was all Dorado. We've got like

three different, we've got like two ceviches, a poke, kind of like a crudo sashimi thing, some pan-fried fish, some kind of burnt fried plantains, and a embarrassing amount of pilsens in the trash can over there. But that was our Christmas feast. Oh, and the snapper was incredibly good eating. That's a mutton? Is that a kubera? I think it's a small kubara. The kubara was

really tasty. Those things get gigantic. They get huge. We caught a bigger one, but that size was really good eating. We actually, the one souvenir we brought back from Costa Rico was this like metal dish that we bought at one of the local stores so we could cook those snapper fish in it. That's the one thing we brought home and I still use it for cooking fish. Great. All right, Brody, you're number one. Every trip to the fish shack is good, but last year was like exceptionally good fishing. The funny thing is like a day or two before we got there, Steve called me

and he's like, man, I got some bad news. He's like, fishing's really good. So it's bound to end soon. Yeah. And It comes in seven day waves, man. But we got there and it just kept going and going and going all week. Nice. going and going all week. Um, halibut salmon, Pacific cod, um, ling cod. It was just like a really good King salmon. Um, it was just a really, really good week of fishing and

it's just always a great time up there. Great. All right. Let's move on to Steve's number one here. Oh yeah. So that's a, yeah. That's a wooden hook, a traditional native Alaskan, coastal native Alaskan fishing hook called a knock. Knock. I was out with Heather Duville and her father, Mike,

who live in Craig, Alaska, their Klingit. And they took me out to fish. We were filming my new History Channel show, Hunting History. And one of the scenes, we go out with them to fish with traditional hooks. I had always seen these hooks. Everywhere you go in Southeast Alaska, one of these hooks is hanging on the wall. And I always thought two things. I thought, how do you set that thing into, there's no way that thing works. And we put a dozen of those hooks down, let them fish for maybe two hours. You're baiting that with octopus, right? Baited with octopus. Her and her dad set out, they always set them in pairs. They set them in pairs so the hooks compete with each other. We set out six pairs, okay? They let them fish on them two hours maybe, we let them sit for two hours.

So 12 hooks all set in the same area on the same bank. Come back and had three halibut all 70 plus. So you're not like trolling or jigging? That hook floats. So that hook is tied to a rock. So there's a rock, you got about 18 inches of line and that hook floats above the rock. It's buoyant and it's got two different woods. So it floats the right way. And it's one of those, what he ate is wrapped in octopus. So he goes on and they got a metal spike on there that winds up catching them. Pointing back the other way. So they were telling me that traditionally those hooks were made with bare, not metal, not stainless, but bare shin bone. Okay? So they carved their own nocks

and they put that stainless barb on there. But, you know, but I, when I got home, I put out an email at looking for bare shin bones and Corey is not here. Gave me a bare shin bone. So I cut that bare shin bone up and I made a couple bare shin bone barbs. And they had given me one of those nocks and I took the steel spike off and put a bare shinbone. I made the, I did the whole thing. I dried it out real good and then made

it with a belt sander. So I made the prong and mounted that bare shinbone prong and sent it back up to Heather and they're going to take it out and fish it and see. And I think it's going to hold up. Nice. Yeah. I think it's going to hold up. That was like, but that day, um, that was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. 12 hooks, three big halibut. One of those sets had two. So seeing a halibut come up on a wooden hook tied to a rock.

That's wild. I mean, a rock. I had seen those, but I always assumed they were like trolled or something It was cool as shit. I couldn't believe you know the other thing is when that fish is hooked on that thing. He's just like They take him up real gentle. He's not fighting It's like you got him by you got him by the balls when he's on that thing man They just come up there like I give up and when they're pulling them in, are they harpooner or they just lifted them up and in.

So he takes a, I learned so much shit about hell, but this day, when that fish comes up, he's got a way he hits it on its nose. Just stuns him, just stuns him. And you know, when you pull a big hell in the boat, starts beating all around, it's going to like break fishing rods and everybody's freaking out, they pet it on the white side of the belly. You just tickle its belly. I got to remember that.

And they go rigid. And then I also learned I've been bleeding halibut all the way wrong. When they bleed a halibut, it's like a Quentin Tarantino movie. Yeah, where did you, you told me where do you got to stick them? I can't, I'll have to explain it. You don't want to give away that. Dude, and they're not sawing away, I mean, they take that knife and one little, and it's like, like I said, it's like a, I didn't know there's so much blood in a halibut. We bleed halibut and you get like a thimble. They bleed halibut, like I said, it's like watching Pulp Fiction. That was a hell of a day. I bet. Thank you, Heather. Awesome, thanks guys.

Okay, last Q&A section here, and then we'll wrap up the show. So your last call for questions, get them in if you want. The first one's more of a comment, but he thought you'd appreciate this. Steve Collins says that he finally picked up a copy of the Scavenger's Guide to Hocuzine from a used bookstore,

and the lower half of the pages are covered in dried deer blood. So that's great. I wanted to let you know. That's great. How's he knows deer blood? He says apparently someone, whoever sold it to the store wrote a note saying it was deer blood. Maybe he's just trying to cover his tracks. Well, that's classic murder. That's a classic murder move right there. Murder behavior.

Cops get to your house. That's all deer blood, boys. Question for the crew. What do you think of shed hunting area closures? Is it ethical or a pointless gesture? No, I think it makes sense. Like in some places, it depends. In some places, I think where you have like, I think if you got an area where you got this incredible amounts of snow and you got a bunch of animals that are already stressed and half dead and it's March and they, and instead of people hounding them and chasing them around and get antlers, I see now and then that it makes

sense to tell everybody to hold off till, till you reduce the snow load and the animals can move on. I totally agree. Cause I live right in the middle of a huge mule deer migration corridor. We've got elk feed grounds. And if people could just go in there whenever, like those animals would be freaked out in the most stressful time of the year. You just don't need to be bumping them around at the time of year when they're at their

like, the bottom of their health for the year. It's just like too easy to run them down. Yeah. And there's a saying winter,, winter, weekends, spring kills, um, you're hitting them at a bad time. And then, and then too, you always gotta like the problem is too, you always, sometimes you gotta make laws for the worst actors. Yep. And you get people, it sucks to say it, but you get people that run after and chase after animals to get them to drop.

Yep. Oh man. And like the, the shed opener where I live, it's, well, they actually have a week for locals now, which is nice because it's slowed it down a little bit. But like I walk my dog out on BLM every day and I know the places where the deer hold and I avoid those places, you know.

Shed opener, people are just running around on four by, side by sides, like not on dirt roads. There's more people out there I never see a soul out there and they're just all over the place deer running around freaking out Like it's always a big ordeal So, you know, there might be something to having like one opening day being this big event But I think it's better than animals getting chased around in the winter when they're already struggling pretty good Mitch is asking how long is too long to freeze a skull before cleaning it to mount?

It's not. I had a deer skull in a Dave's sushi bag that I forgot about in my garage when I lived in a trailer here in Bozeman with my friend and goes I was wondering what was in that Dave's sushi bag in the garage and I opened it up and good lord Maggie That things rancid. I was like, oh, don't worry. I'll boil it. It'll be fine. Yeah that bone will never weaken in a freezer Cool I think you covered a lot of this stuff on the podcast with most Steve but this is the first radio live since your new show, Hunting History, premiered. And Anthony's feeding into the conspiracy. He says, do you think D.B. Cooper burned his parachute?

No. I mean, no one knows, but I don't know if you ever messed with the parachute. They're a mess. They're a mess. I think he think he's I think he stashed it. I Think he stuck it somewhere. I don't think he carried it around. I think he buried it somewhere You know after messing with one like you stick that thing under log and jam it under there and throw some moss and stuff You'd have to just you'd have to like dig in the right spot, especially in that environment I don't think you carried it around. I think burn it would have been a bitch in the rain I don't think he carried it around. I think Burn, it would have been a bitch in the rain. Uh, Greg's asking thoughts on Colorado non-resident Elk Botag's in 2025.

Do you think the old over the counter units will be zero points? He's trying to build confidence. He wasn't over the counter guy that wasn't smart enough to save up his points. I think, I think it was a necessary move as much as people don't want to hear it. And the point thing is going to be very unit dependent. Some units, you'll need points and some you won't. It just depends how many tags they issue. Cool.

I could do this all day, Phil. I like these questions. Okay. Well, this is officially the longest episode of Radio Live. We can keep going. Oh, let's quit, let's stop. Yeah, okay, cool.

Thanks for the questions, guys. Appreciate it. Is the part where you wrap up the show, Steve, you know, say anything else you wanna say. Oh, phew. Brody, wrap it up. How about I wrap it up by telling you to talk about your little history tour you're doing?

Oh, yeah So me and Randall tour is a little someone pointed out the tour is seems a little it's a little heavy Guess what Randall and Seth are still in the waiting room. Hey guys, what's going on Randall? Here's the deal me and Randall Does anybody know the dates off the top of your head? Me and Randall are going on a mini tour. We're going on a college tour. We're going to college campuses and doing a free lecture about the Mountain Man era.

We're doing one at Montana State University. We're doing one at University of Montana. February 20th? Sorry? I was trying to stick the dates in there for you. Montana State University. February 11th. University of Montana.

February 20th. University of Wyoming. February 26th. Yeah. It's free, open to the public. Watch our website to get, you got to register. You can't just show up. You got to like tell your comments so we can, so people don't show up and there's no seats.

And I'm not sure how many of them still have seats, but like I said, come on down, me and Randall on stage telling the story of the mountain men and what that era meant and means. There you go. Go on TheMeatEater.com live events. I'm gonna come down here next week. Maybe. Maybe. Tune in to find out. Thanks everyone. 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 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.