The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 669: MeatEater Radio Live! Bloated Gators, Feral Apples, and The Price is Right

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Ryan Callaghan, and Cory Calkins commiserate over NWTF travel woes, talk bloated gators with Kim Titterington of of Swamp Girl Adventures Reptile Rehab, come on down for another edition of MeatEater Radio's The Price is Right, race for smelt in 1-Minute Fishing with Christi Holmes, get some listener submitted hot tips, and search for lost apples with David Benscoter. 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 1761-1775. So again, you can buy this wherever audiobooks are sold. Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806-1840 by Stephen Rinella. Welcome to Mead Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on Thursday, February 27th. And we're live from Mead Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Spencer Neuharth,

joined today by Ryan Callahan and Corey Calkins. On today's show, we'll interview Kim Titterington about sick bloated alligators in Florida, then we'll play the prices right, followed by one-minute fishing with Christy Holmes in Maine. After that, we've got a hot tip off about recycled tent tarps and dip can windicators, and finally, we'll talk to David Ben-Scotter about hunting for lost varieties of apples. But first Cal, Cory, I think we need to debrief on our travel home from the NWTF convention.

It was sort of an adventure for all three of us. Oh, flying in the winter is always an adventure. I really dislike traveling through the air. I don't mind airplanes, but airports, trying to get your connection, it's just a headache Cal Let's start with you. We had an uber leaving the hotel for us three and Yanni at what time was it 530 a.m. Yeah, Cal was nowhere to be seen calling his phone Trying to find someone at the front desk to tell us what room you were in I even called the hotel nobody answered at

The hotel so we could just like compound on your door Cal was nowhere to be seen Cal would happen first thing that we need to address is I think either Phil actually has volume in my headset for the first time in a long time or Your announcer voice is just getting so much better every day one the second leap Thank you bounce. Thank you. Itaps and bounds. I missed the first flight of my entire life Really? Oh, that was the first time I've ever missed a flight and I'll tell you in the past my wilder days. I had plenty of excuses to miss flights Just a little sleepy this time Well, I don't I woke up like an hour before as you do like if you're you're anxious traveler, right? I woke up an hour before the alarm was supposed to go off

We had another big day in Salt Lake City sure so I was like, I'm gonna try to sleep this extra hour Mm-hmm, and it had just like the whole anxiety dream thing of like And then I was like I have an alarm set the normal thing and then I was like you're gonna miss your flight and then I was like I have an alarm set Yeah, the normal thing and then I was like by God My flight is boarding right now as I got out of bed to no alarm sure right? But I made it to the airport In time to see you guys take off That's special

Delayed because there's lighting There was lightning on the runway. So we were probably 30 minutes late. I felt extra bad, Cal pulling away in that Uber because you saved me in Philadelphia coming home from the live tour because I was a sleepy head. Had too much champagne the night before for celebrating the end of the live tour.

Yeah. And I woke up to Cal pounding on my hotel room door. Wasn't going gonna leave a man behind get up Let's go. We gotta go. We gotta go and Cal saved me from missing a flight after a very long Week on the road or ten days on the road They're literally on the road in the tour bus and I couldn't return the favor for you I'm not a state believe me that popped in my head and when I saw The text from Spencer. I was like, I'm not even gonna bring it up. I was thinking about it the whole time, Cal.

I was trying to do everything I could to wake you up. Oh! I've heard a recounting of this story and in the story, Spencer is just silent. Like you just kind of walked down, walked into the elevator, walked out of the lobby, just didn't say anything to anybody. Boy, I felt bad.

I was holding up an Uber outside the hotel hotel and then because of this lightning delight Cory You were running through an airport Yeah I think I had a 50 minute layover And then we were 30 to 40 minutes delayed so Yanni and I were on the same flight Cal You were supposed to be on that one the red flash It's what people called you to moving through the airport so quickly getting to that next flight I was walking making it had to pee so

Certainly had to make that pit stop and then I looked down at my watch and realized I need to run the last Probably quarter mile all the way to the very end of the terminal yeah, and the ladies like are you Cory like yep? She's like you better hurry up. Whoa And you don't want to hear your name at an airport. No, definitely not. I like the, yeah. Yeah, it's the whole thing. Like air travel's just not, there's plenty of anxiety, and then you're signing up to sit in like a recycled germ

and fart-filled tube for hours, trying your best not to make too much physical contact with strangers next to you. My adventure didn't start until we were about to land. We were coming into Bozeman, we're dropping into the runway, and the wheels hit the runway for about one or two seconds, and then the pilot hits the throttle and pulls the nose up, and we go back into the air. And everyone in the airplane was very confused. Folks were looking around at each other, and nobody panicked, but you could tell there were folks that were on the verge of panicking.

If it would have started somewhere else in the airplane, it would have been a chain reaction. So nobody knew what was happening. And about a minute later, the pilot comes on the speaker, and he says that, sorry folks, we had a wind shear at the last second there that was going to prevent us from landing. So we had to pull her back up. We're going to circle around and try this again. And so then 10 minutes later, they don't just go up in the air a little bit. They like get way up again in altitude. And he circles back and we come

in and we have a safe normal landing. But he said we had a wind shear which is like a gust of wind that totally affected the plane and made it unsafe. But there was no wind that day. I looked on my phone. It was one mile per hour wind. So then I was on my phone also reading about like what what's this mean.

It's called an aborted landing. And I had read a pilot's account saying that they have no obligation to actually tell you what happened. But that's like a common excuse. It's either the runway wasn't clear or there was a wind shear. But sometimes it's just they're coming in too hot and they made a mistake and they got a liftoff again to try it a second time. I didn't even know that was an option in airplane travel and especially with all the recent news. That was genuinely scary. Yeah.

We had just like a shaky flight coming back because we flew the day after that collision and the plane went down the Hudson, which was horrific. Was it the Hudson or was you know horrific and Was it the Hudson or the Potomac was it Potomac yeah, so yeah, sorry Potomac That was a different plane in the Hudson, but anyway yeah folks you know it was just like a what to me is like a very normal winter flying amount of turbulence and Had multiple people comment on like boy boy, people were very nervous.

Very nervous. But we made it here today to host me to radio live. All right, let's get on the show. Joining us on the line first is Kim Titterington, the founder of Swamp Girl Adventures Reptile Rehab. Kim, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you.

First thing, tell us about the types of animals and injuries you work with at your rehab facility. So I specifically work with reptiles and amphibians. So that's turtles, tortoises, snakes, alligators, lizards, frogs, toads, you know, all those fun things. Okay. And what's in your rehab facility right now? We have a couple of gators.

We have a couple snakes and I have quite a few turtles and tortoises because that's really what we get the most of and what is like the most normal injury that you deal with? Typically, it's from either hit by car, so car strikes are the most often. But then our second one to that is actually dog attacks on turtles and tortoises, believe it or not. So that's our second one. So we get a lot of both of those.

Okay. And do you have any of your clients around that you could show us for the interview today? Yeah, I actually I have a go for tortoise here. Let me grab This is go for tortoise and you're gonna see he's got some some stuff going on here This is called the hooks and wire method. So it's not permanent It's basically it's kind of the same stuff as a use for nail acrylic Helps keep the little clasps on and that reduces and supports the fracture so that it has time to heal. So this poor guy, he was hit by a car, but he's doing a good job healing right now with

those fractures. Okay. And is the end goal then to have him released back into the wild? Correct. Yep. As soon as he's done with all of his rehabilitation, he'll go back to the area he was found. Obviously not in the middle of the street where he was found, but as close by safely to the area he was found. Well, he's looking healthy right now.

I think you're doing a good job, Kim. What's the rarest animal that you've had at your facility? The rarest would actually be the Eastern Indigo Snake. And they are federally protected by law. They're very rare throughout their whole Eastern range. But I've actually received two into care, which is pretty rare. And what was going on with those snakes

that they had to come to you? So one, the first one was actually had been hit with some lawn equipment and survived. It was some nasty scars were going on there, but that one survived. And then the second one was actually a zip tie that the snake had crawled through and then obviously It couldn't come off. So it was literally cutting into the flesh and had been there for quite some time But that one was also successfully rehabbed and released and what's your favorite rehab success story from swamp girl adventures?

that you know there's a ton of them but one that stands out that I feel like is the most unusual and just is actually pretty rewarding was one where we had a golf snake had swallowed a golf ball. Whoa! And so the golf ball, yeah the golf ball had to be surgically removed because it had been in there so long it was adhering to the stomach lining so it had to be a surgery We couldn't like just you know push it out, but the surgery was a success and the snake was released So that was probably one of the most unusual but rewarding is it safe to assume that snake thought he was eating an egg Correct. Yeah, a lot of people will actually use golf balls or false eggs in there in with their chickens

And that helps kind of keep them I guess from going off into other places and keeping the eggs in one spot but then I've also heard that people will put golf balls in there or fake eggs because then when snakes come and you know not being able to digest it and will die later which is kind of cruel because that's a long nasty death but but yeah that's do you feel appreciated by your clientele? You know, even though they're reptiles, I think that a lot of times I get some that they realize, okay, this person's just kind of helping me out. I'm just going to chill. But then I have those that they don't, they're just like, just stop touching me. I don't

care. Just go away. Now, the big reason I want to talk to you, Kim, is about this bloated gator phenomenon that you've been documenting in Florida. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, so back, some of the first reports that went into FWC were actually back in 2023. And after that, it just kind of seemed like people had seen them, but nobody really said anything or the reports weren't going through whatever the reason it kind of fell off the radar

So just this year All of a sudden, you know, I was getting guys a reptile rehab or people are like hey, well, can you help and I'm like Oh, all right. Well, sure, you know, let me you go take a look and we captured the first one you know, go take a look and we captured the first one, uhm, and which you can kind of see on the screen now. And she definitely was severely bloated, extremely emaciated, uhm, and then not even 3 days later, I got a call about another one in a completely different part of the state. It- in all the same bloated, very emaciated. Uhm, so this is something that is- seems to be on the uprise or at least we're hearing more about it now that people know to look

But definitely a concern and Phil is showing us some photos of these bloated gators And when I say bloated I mean like they look like a balloon they look wildly Uncomfortable yeah this this current photo is like two like Yeah, this this current photo is like two, like oversized beach balls coming out of each side of the gator. Like it swallowed a cartoon dumbbell. Kim, do you have a hypothesis for what's causing these gators to get so bloated and ultimately die? Yeah, so it's one thing we were able to rule out is that there was not a physical blockage. Like a lot of are like, oh, it ate a ball, or maybe it's a plastic bag, or something like that. We were able to rule that out on both these cases. Sadly, both of them did pass away.

What you're seeing here on x-ray is what we first saw, and it looks like a lot of stones, but what they're called is faecaliths. It's basically when the feces turns to stone. So the feces had been in the stomach, not moving or passing for so long, possibly even up to a year with this one particular case. And then gas just starts to build up in the colon. And so on necropsy, we found that basically their colons were just all distended with these fecalists.

Have you heard of this happening in other states or other countries? Not really. Usually when something happens like that, they contribute it to a piece of litter or something that's incidental. But at this point, we're seeing these cases throughout the state and we just cannot seem to find a common denominator yet. Some of the symptoms like we're seeing here were common like the fecalis and those buildup

and then the gas. So the progression of the disease, but it's actual cause we have a ton of labs out right now. We're just waiting on results and we're gonna be doing a lot more testing here this coming year on various gators as well throughout the state. And Phil is showing us an X-ray there of one of those bloated gators.

That's wild. Most of the folks listening to this show were hunters and anglers who spend a lot of time outside. So how can we be better stewards of the land and help out the reptiles and amphibians that you work with? I think the biggest thing is, you know, picking up after yourself. I actually, one of the things is one of the x-rays that I had also sent you. That gator had a lead toxicosis as well, and that was because the gator swallowed a lead

weight from fishing. Now was that the actual cause? Probably not because it seems like we're finding bloated gators that don't have lead toxicosis. It's just that was an added thing. So that's something that we see a lot in both like aquatic turtles and alligators, any animal that might ingest something like that accidentally through fishing lures or, you know, things that were disposed improperly and they pick it up out of the environment. So I think those are the biggest things. And then the next thing is awareness. You know, just be aware if someone's looking for reports, like say we are on sick gators or sick turtles.

If you see something that just doesn't seem right and you see it happen often, go ahead and report it. You could be the first one who's noticing that there's a problem and people need to research it. So if you are out there, that's one of the best things you can do is just be aware and help make those reports and observations. Now Kim's rehab facility is a nonprofit that relies on donations.

You can support her project by going to swampgirladventures.org. Kim thanks for joining us and thanks for doing the work that you do. Not a problem. Thanks for having me. It's a good reminder for everyone to pick up after yourself when you're out in the woods. Absolutely. Man, I'm not going to complain next time I have one too many hazy IPAs and feel a little bloated.

Those gators look so wildly uncomfortable. Man. And then you see the x-ray of the blockage. That's next level stuff. It is. Ouch. Yeah, that was shocking. All right, our next segment is The Price is Right.

Here it comes from Bozeman, Montana, MeatEater Radio's most exciting 15 minutes. It's The Price is Right! Yes, all right! Ryan Callahan, come on down! Whoa, yeah! Corey Calkins, come on down! His second appearance, alright Cory! You're one of the first two contestants on Meat Eaters!

Meat Eaters radios, the price is right! Now here's your host, Spencer Newhart! Wow, Phil, that was Cal's first time seeing that performance. I think he's impressed. Yeah, I actually feel special. Oh good. That's amazing. That's the idea.

Now this game is really simple. Phil is going to tell you about a product from the Meat Eater universe, and you need to guess its price. The player with the closest answer without going over will be declared the winner. If both players go over, then you'll both be told to try again.

And the chat should play along as well, because whoever has the closest answer will get a shout out from Phil. All right, there are five products for today's show. Phil, tell us about the first item up for bid. Whoa. Sick. Well, how would you like to scare every man, woman, child,

and beast who enters your home? Well, we've got just the thing for you. This brown bear is a half body mount that hangs on your wall. It's posed with its arms extended out as though it's getting sucked into a portal or is about to sack a quarterback. And the owner says he'll cut you a deal if you also buy his Havalina shoulder mount or shark jaw. Yeah, this beautiful piece of taxidermy is located in West Houston and was listed on

Craigslist ten days ago. Now you need to guess its price. Phil is now showing us some photos of this half-mount taxidermied brown bear. Again I found this on Craigslist in Houston. Texas. Houston, Texas. That's right. Not half bad. Yeah this is one of those things like Do you have one of those? Roadside attraction type shops, then it's worth some money. Sure Do you live in an apartment in New York City? Well, you can sort of get a glimpse into this person's home. You see a fella there with some suspenders on. Oh, he's a suspenders guy

Might be Brent Reeves. in the background of this photo And we've got a few pictures here of this half body mount of a brown bear in Houston, Texas You trying to get rid of it or is he trying to make some money? It was listed ten days ago It's hot so factor that into your calculation again. You can't go over if you both go over You'll be told to try again. Cal really likes his answer. Really? You ready, Cory?

I'm ready now. You ready, Cal? Go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying $75.01. We have Cory saying, what's that say, Cory? $1450. $1400 with an enormous, a comma so big that it looks like a seven Cory saying fourteen hundred and fifty dollars

That's a big swing between you two now Cal was that a safe answer. Do you think it's actually like an eighty dollar item? Were you just trying to go under no? I mean we all know that taxidermy like is the most valuable to the person that got the critter or somebody related. Sure. Right? And so then it like devalues greatly beyond that. Okay. Unless you're like a curio person, right? Or like, I want to have a weird hip VRBO. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. That would fit into one of those nights. So we have Cal saying $75, Cory saying $1,400. The correct answer is $950, giving Cal the first point of the day. Phil, how did the chat do? Fast math. Well, we have three people. Get it right on the money.

Cody, Canadian Hunter, and Ian McKenzie said $950. Well done, Cody, Canadian Hunter, and Ian McKenzie. We trust. Well done Cody, Canadian Hunter and Ian McKenzie. We trust that you're not googling this. Yeah, I don't know if we should trust that. We remove where you found the item from your next question. That's pretty quick googling though. You know what, if they got it that fast to put it in the chat for Phil to find that they earned it sure well don't listen to that kids Cheating's wrong all right Phil tell us about the second item up for bid Sure thing well your living room with the taxidermied brown bear won't be complete until you bring home this camouflage sofa from Cabela's

Snuggle up for a meat eater marathon with the whole family on this best home furnishing outdoorsman sofa The entire thing is wrapped in mossy oak break-upo, making it impossible to spot whatever stains you might create. This seven-foot sofa doubles as a recliner, allowing you to kick your feet up and relax after a long day of being a redneck. Hell yeah, Phil, and that camo sofa has a perfect five-star rating from six reviews on Cabellus.com. What are those people sitting on?

They're just floating there. Wow, that's right. You'd sure think so. All right, Cal and Cory, what do you think that elegant piece of furniture costs? Don't flip over your answers quite yet. Hold on now. Didn't you just ask us?

I'm like prompting you to write it down. But we got some time to banter and allow you guys to think long and hard about what your answer is. This is a Foley Camel. When I say Foley Camel, there's not a square inch of this sofa that is not covered in the mossy oak breakup infinity. If you wear the same pattern, all that's going to show is your face. You could take this thing turkey hunting, and then you just wear the Masio.

We've got people who are definitely Googling. I don't know who to trust anymore. Are you boys ready? Yeah, sure. Go ahead and reveal your answers. We've got Cal saying $405. And we've got Cory saying eight hundred fifty dollars the correct answer is $1,449 giving Cory our second point all right Phil tell us about the cheaters in the chat well

We have one person get it get it right on the 1449 up here I don't even want to call people out now. I don't trust anybody shut the whole thing down Uh-huh did they put 99 cents after they did not but who's gonna guess? 1449 unless they looked at we had some people guess 1450 and a couple people in the 1300s I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here But no, I'm sorry. All right, I mean Tell you right now retail pricing is just not something I'm familiar with. Ryan Kimbrel said $14.99.99 he's got three of them.

Oh god, three of them! Awesome Ryan, I love that. And I'm sorry for writing that mean line about kicking your feet up after a long day of being a redneck. I bet you're a good guy. We need to go back to used pricing. That's something I'm familiar with. I bet I could find one of these selfies on Craigslist somewhere in the nation. 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 you can buy this wherever audiobooks are sold. Meat Eaters American History, The Mountain Men, 1806 to 1840 by Stephen Rinella. All right, Phil, tell us about the third item up for bid. Oh yeah, give me one sec while I get everything lined up here. I'd love to. Oh, where's the music?

Hey, if you're looking for a movie marathon to watch from your new camo sofa or three How about reaching for all 41 DVDs from Drury Outdoors? That's right The big butt killers over at Drury Outdoors have dozens of DVDs for sale on their website with titles ranging from whitetail Madness 12 to whitetails extreme 4 all the way to whitetail obsession 7 These videos will give you hundreds of kill shots, thousands of inches of antler and endless opportunities to ask yourself, what the hell am I going to do with 41 hunting DVDs?

Well, Phil, I'd hope those DVDs come with a time machine because that's the only way I'm watching a movie from a disc. Cal and Cory, what do you think those 41 jewelry outdoors DVDs cost? Where are we purchasing this now? From their website. On their website. Jewelry Outdoors DVDs cost? Where are we purchasing this now? From their website. On their website. Jewelry Outdoors. I think it's like store, if you wanna buy these,

store.jewelryoutdoors.com. You can buy all 41 of their available DVDs. Phil, when's the last time you bought a DVD? Act now, inventory's limited. Oh man, well, I mean, if we're gonna count 4K steel books Spencer You know 4k is like H super HD what a steel But you know you sometimes well back in the day used to buy like collectible steel books

It wasn't just a plastic case. It was like a nice sure metal Thing though, then I've never heard of this bill. Oh, you got a as well gotta be more you know listen to more movie podcast heard of this Phil. Oh you've got to be more, you've got to listen to more movie podcasts. So the last time you bought a DVD is? It's been over a year. I don't, I'm really bad. You'd think I'd be like a physical media forever guy, I'm just not man. I'm too lazy. I just, everything's on digital now. Video games, movies, TV. It's bad. I feel guilty. How many DVDs are in your home you think? Oh I've got a couple hundred but I haven't added to the collection in a long time Do your kids find that like like they're looking at a caveman when you grab one of those oh 100%

Well actually no because we've got a DVD player in our minivan, okay? So they they associate DVDs that this is what we can watch in the car So they still would see CC a DVD in the store and say well I want to watch this in the car, so let's let's pick out does the same thing what type of minivan you're rocking all-wheel drive It's a Plymouth Montana Pontiac Montana Your prices right Cory Cal do you have your answers? Yeah, so is this the last one no we got five of these

Go ahead and reveal your answers We've got Cal saying 49.99 saying 29.99 again, that's for the price of 41 Jewelry outdoors DVDs. I'm assuming shipping is free the correct answer is $61.09 giving Cal our

Third point to the game give me a big buck knowledge for nothing One lead you can probably find those on YouTube. That's a dollar 49 per DVD Mark Kenyon's gonna get a nasty phone call from the Drury boys being like Cory caulkins does not think much of us. Hey, we just, I bet we sold their whole inventory. I'm being serious now, if I had a deer camp in like the Great Lakes region that didn't have like cell service and an old box TV sitting there

with a DVD player, you best bet. I feel so left out that you guys didn't invite me to a Drury day live this week. What's up, Yanni? Yanni, grab yourself a whiteboard, put on a headset. What the hell, Spencer? I'm here and no invite? I thought you were recording a TV show today. Whoa, is that a fresh new lid?

It is. I actually had Cory give it to me because I'm going to give it to a buddy of mine. Oh, that thing's sharp. Yanni, we're playing to prices right. We just had Cory and Cal. How long is it going to take? You got about 10 minutes. Alright, I'm'm in grab yourself a whiteboard and a marker Cal has two points Corey has one point They just guessed the price of all 41 jewelry outdoors DVDs that are for sale on their website What do you think that would cost total total for all 41 DVDs of them killing big old giant whitetail bucks

If folks want to know something funny about Yannis if his the text on his Screen if the font gets any larger. He's gonna have to scroll for every sentence 850 eight hundred fifty dollars $61.09 what yeah, you can buy all of them in a package for one You should have these at your hunting camp in Wisconsin. You just got a new customer, Drury, out there. No, well, we don't have televisions there. OK.

By the way, Sean Pettit or Petit, yes, 60. I think that was close. 60 bucks. Well done, Sean. I bet you didn't Google that one. Professional skier, Sean Pettit? Yes. All right, Phil, tell us about the fourth item up for bid. Sorry, it's taking me a while. Bell tell us about the fourth item up for bid. Sorry to take me away. Hey if you're feeling inspired from those 41 dreary outdoors DVDs how about taking a trip to the Michigan Whitetail Hall of Fame?

Conveniently located just off I-94 in the charming town of Grass Lake Michigan the museum is full of family fun. The Michigan Whitetail Hall of Fame features taxidermy of some of the state's biggest bucks, live deer that you can feed apples to, and an awe-inspiring collection of antique two-man chainsaws. The venue would also love to host your next special occasion, such as a wedding or family reunion. That's right, Phil, and the owners of the museum also have a tennis and pickleball court in the building, where they teach private lessons but for now you just need to guess the price of adult admission to the Michigan Whitetail Hall of Fame. Yanni did you know this place existed? No but I definitely want to go

there. Okay and as a Michigander give us a review of Grass Lake Michigan what do you know about that place? I don't know anything about Grass Lake. Have you ever heard of it? Never been there never heard of it. On the men? I don't know. Someone in the chat will tell us what they think of Grass Lake and then Have you ever heard of it? Never been there, never heard of it. Anybody know where it's at? On the men? I don't know. Someone in the chat will tell us what they think of Grasslake and then, yeah. Phil will report back on it. I'm guessing it's near Detroit.

So again, we need the price of admission for one adult to the Michigan Whitetail Hall of Fame and Phil is showing us some photos of that Hall of Fame with those big old giant whitetail bucks, the live deer that you can feed, and their collection of antique two-man chainsaws. Is it more or less than ten dollars? I don't think it's over twenty. I'm not giving you any hints, but if you do go over, it doesn't matter how close you are to the right answer,

you're just disqualified. Oh really? If all three of you will go over, then you'll try again. You gotta be under, huh? You gotta be under. These are of you will go over and try again. You gotta be under huh? You gotta be under. These are the prices right we're museum-ers. You gotta be under. Yeah, yeah. Pickleball option. I wonder if that's extra? That's not part of the admission that's just like hey I got a whole day to kill in Grass Lake Michigan I'm gonna go feed these big old white tail bucks and get a private pickleball lesson in the back. For folks who are scared of privately owned museums, like

there is just no better way to spend your money. It is so much fun. Is that a thing people are scared of privately owned museums? I think so too because they look, I mean they look exactly like the place that you get killed in a variety of cheap horror films. Oh buddy, I got a great story about one that you should all, everybody should visit this one out in eastern Colorado, and I think it's Genoa, Colorado, and it's wild and wacky, man. And it's often just like a husband and wife who curated everything in there, and that's how you wind up with a whitetail hall of fame that has a collection of antique chainsaws in it. Are you boys ready?

I'm ready. Go ahead and reveal your answers. We've got Cal saying $12.99, Yanis says $12, Corey says $21. I'm feeling good. You're high, bud. All three of you are too high. All three of you are going to try again. So write down a new answer and we'll give someone a point after this is so much drama get under

The correct answer the price of admission for one adult to the Michigan White Tail Hall of Fame Yeah, he's going back to his drawing board. I'm gonna go we know it's lower than $12 Fantastic one I've been there several times, but I finally took my folks to The ice caves museum out of Shoshone, Idaho And it's it's phenomenal. I encourage everybody to go okay, but when we went there You know it's like taking the folks someplace special the two kids family members Taking the folks someplace special mm-hmm the two kids family members

Wouldn't get off that a little tiny TV that they were watching and they wouldn't get off the couch To even take the money. They're just like uh-huh. They're just kind of pointing Just put the money in the bucket and there you go. Yeah, it was amazing this place We would go tell you I've been there twice taking a couple different friends there there on our travels between Michigan and Colorado, but it was only a dollar to get in. Ooh. What year? The first time I went there was probably, I don't know, late 90s or early 2000s. But there was a case of oddities and at the end of the tour he would grab one thing out of the case of oddities and if you

could guess what it was you got your dollar back. Amazing! That's great. I went to the creationist museum in eastern Montana. Glendive? Yeah exactly they have little diagrams in there of humans hand-feeding dinosaurs so that's a special place to visit short dinosaurs do all three of you have an answer go ahead and reveal your answers Wow Okay, we've got Cal saying 499 Yanis says one dollar Cory says ten dollars The correct answer is $6.00

Third point making him the winner of the price is right, but we'll finish out the game anyway. Phil, how did the chat do? Well, first we had Copy Guy come in with five dollars. Okay, good job. Brian came in with six and then after we all found out that it was less expensive, Copy Guy for some reason raised his price to six. All right, Brian and Copy Guy. Well done. All right, Phil, tell us about the fifth and final item up for bid.

Yeah I just want to do a little vamping here Spencer for a second. Let me bring this up there. Get rid of this comment and then I look at the script and then I say hey if whitetails aren't your thing then how about a brand new boat. This 1989 16 footfoot alumacraft John Boat is located in Rockville, Indiana. It comes with a 2015 25 horse four-stroke engine, trolling motor, batteries trailer, and a badass camo paint job. You'll be able to catch all the catfish and kill all of the ducks on the Wabash River with this nifty little skiff. And she's available right now on BoatTrader.com for the low low price of well I'm not gonna tell you guys what do you think that 1989 John Boat costs and I'll point out the script says how about a not brand new boat this boat is not brand new it's a 2015 four stroke that's what it says but it's also been painted eliminating basically any chance you have of figuring out precisely what that motor is but they say dang brother

I know 2015 2015 four-stroke 25 horse four-stroke Yeah, I mean that's where the cost of that whole kit is She's a little trailer she's got she's got bicycle. Yeah the donut wheels on there I love it now back to the Michigan Hall of Fame, it's two dollars if you're a child, and it's one dollar for a bag of feed to give to the deer. So everyone should stop in Grass Lake, Michigan and check that place out,

and then you can play some tennis afterwards with some D1 athletes that are in that family. All right, do you boys have a price for this not brand new boat? It's a 1989 John boat? That is 16 feet long. It's an aluminum craft and has a 2015 for strata chat is way they call me Cal heartbeat of America Callahan Cal That's right. Yeah, I got my finger on the pulse here. Mm-hmm

We'll see what he knows about boat prices you boys ready go ahead and reveal your answers. We have Cal saying $801 what Yanis says 22,000 Cory says 699 Value you boys have a $20,000 difference in it I guess if you're listening what if you got your this but telling us to come stroke wandering and I was gonna go get a loan to buy that

The correct answer is $3,399 giving Cal his fourth point a dominant performance I can tell you why no way that that's a five-year-old four-stroke engine listen. It's charging What I painted over it Yeah, let me tell you how this works if you're not Deeply uncomfortable and embarrassed with your first offer on something on Craigslist you are doing it wrong Implying you should lowball him is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, that's what it's for I understand Ryan man of the people Callahan with four points in the price is right. Hey, thanks for letting me play Spencer

All right, okay. We'll see you later. Yeah Now thanks for playing Yanni and remember to help control the pet population have your pets spayed anew. Oh really quick You had Skyler guess right aptly named by the way, so you guessed 3300 chase wolf. You're a dirty cheater You know, I almost bought, uh, I was hanging out with a bunch of commercial fishermen a long time ago and, and, uh, I almost bought a boat on Craig's list. Um, it was fresh off of guidance season, had a bunch of cash and the dude Got so pissed at my offer That I kind of had to be like, you know, I Guess if me and my stack of cash are just gonna go cry in the corner

But that guy's insult is what separated me from being a successful commercial fisherman, but you didn't buy it I didn't didn't know it. All right. Let's take a break and get some listener feedback Phil what's the chat have to say yeah sure let's see I never know how to pronounce this name I'm sorry Hova Jova and figure oh question for the guys do and if you have any untraditional or unusual pieces of kit that you've adopted into your hunting setup over the years anything that you've adopted into your hunting setup over the years? Anything that you've stopped bringing? Hmm. Hmm.

I, this is untraditional, but are you guys familiar with the app All Trails? Sure. Oh yeah. I've reserved saying this for a future Hot Tip Off, but I'll say it right now. All Trails is primarily used by people who are not hunters and anglers. I'll say it right now, all trails is primarily used by people who are not hunters and anglers. And so they'll go on there and they'll do some specific hike and then they'll share photos and write a review afterwards. And they give out details that no hunter would ever say.

They'll say, I saw 10 elk and a black bear. And then they'll even have pictures to show it. And so you can go on there and mine little information. If you're looking at doing a hunt somewhere that has like named trail heads Download all trails. There's a free version. You can get a lot of this information People are willy-nilly sharing a lot of really good information that hunters are not going to tell you You know on other apps that exist for this kind of thing and Spencer built a little AI crawler that Automatically scores the bucks that people

see. So you can be like, yeah. Well, I wish I did. So I'd say that's an untraditional thing that I've used for hunting. Yeah, I do something similar on Facebook. There's like hiking forums and whatnot. Like, oh, watch out, there's a black bear up this trailhead. Like, oh, okay.

Well, maybe I'll go spring bear hunting up there. I saw him two days ago, about a mile from the trailhead. I'll do a thing I stopped bringing and, uh, for my backpack trips, like it used to just be like a really common thing that you would hear or see in all the hunting articles or backpacking articles of like trying to pack light is like eliminate redundancies. And even if, if you're in a group, right. It's like, you don't bring three Leatherman tools.

Like he may be one person packs a Leatherman tool, right. Um, even sharing a rifle or, you know, sharing a sleeping bag, depending on how, um, ultra light you want to get. Um, but yeah, I've quit packing like my beanie, my tuque, because everything I have typically has a hood on it. So, you know, it's a real common like sleeping kit. But I just put my hood on and have not found any need or want for the tuque on the big backpack tours these days Hoods double just as good. Yep. Well, that's thing about all trails a lot of people take photos

So you can see exactly what the area looks like you get an idea that You know something that onyx can't really provide you these on the ground photos and that's super helpful They'll show you where water is what that stream looks like if you think you can cross it So that it's it's valuable for people in the West. Phil, what else you got? We'll do one more since we've got a couple of people waiting on the line. I just have, oh yeah, here it is. Question for Caleb.

Spencer, how are you feeling about Denver Nuggets repeat championship this year? I knew it in my bones in 2023 when they were going to win the championship. That was one of the most satisfying things. It's like I knew this all along, the Nuggets were going to win the championship that was one of the most satisfying things is like I knew this all along the nuggets were gonna win that I didn't have that feeling last year I don't have that feeling this year but they have a chance they I would say in the entire NBA they have they're one of the four best teams they will be competitive it's just about how far Joker Jamal and MPJ can take us. Wow. First name basis. Listen, how you got those fancy pants seats? I love down there on the court.

I love the Denver nuggets. Wow. Heck yeah. I love chicken nuggets. All right. Moving on. Something in common. Our next segment is one minute fishing.

Do I feel lucky? Well, do you punk? Go ahead. Make my cast. One minute fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish. And if they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. This week our angler is Christy Holmes in Maine. And she's fishing for a donation to the Down East Salmon Federation.

Christy, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. Kristy, tell us about what you're doing out on that icy lake today. Yeah, we are actually on a tidal river, the Kennebac River, near kind of near the capital of our state, Augusta. We are fishing for Sea Run Rainbow Smelt. You guys are probably familiar with the little smelts. Well, these

ones are about seven to nine inches. And some people use them. Some people catching some smelts in the background. Is that a good holler we're hearing behind you? Yes. Yes. Those are good hollers. Yep. But don't they kind of like push through and runs? Sorry, are you missing your opportunity right now? No, we've already caught about a dozen, so we're doing okay. But this is like a commercial smelt operation, so you rent a shack for about six hours. And you know, most people use the smelts to eat. They're wicked good. They're my favorite. Chop the head off, take the guts out, fry them whole

so you eat the bones, eat the fins. Some people keep them for like tog and pike, but it's just a really fun way to enjoy main winters. And tell us about the tactic you're using today to try to catch these smelt. So come on in, in our shack, and I'll show you. today to try to catch these smelt. Kristi is walking us into this ice hut and the ice huts are so close that they're dang near touching each other.

Yeah, so we've got raceways, so holes in the ice here and then we've got jig boards, we've got jig poles and we've got the smelt we've caught so far right there. And a couple heads are missing because my friends, Kathy and Jill here, it's tradition when you catch your first ever sea one smelt, you have to bite the head off. Yeah, all right. I like it.

And Christie has a baby on her hip right now. That baby gets a limit of smelt as well, right? Oh, of course. Yeah, the limit is one gallon per person. Oh, that's bigger than the child that she's holding. Alright, Christy, your one minute of fishing starts as soon as your tackle hits the water. Alright, well they're already in, so we can just start. Alright, she's... okay Well, we're gonna start so we're watching for any little movement here or These jaypoles, okay, we're in about 20 27 feet of water

And are you fishing on the bottom or the suspended river is gonna change by about Okay fishing on the bottom or are these suspended? The whole river is gonna change by about 17 today. Okay, you are- The Wally's Shack will lower by about 17. You are 20 seconds into your one minute, Kristy. Is there any bycatch while you're doing this? Yeah, I've caught a tawny pod before and I've caught a headlamp before. You use pieces of sand worms as your bait and then you

have fangs so we will fight. Sand worms are cool. You've got 15 seconds left. Are you guys tensioning? Tension. Christy was a little pessimistic. She said this is Tension Christie was a little pessimistic. She said this is better done in the evening So we we put her in a tough spot Alright, Christie your one minute is up We couldn't make it happen today, but thank you for joining us and showing us how a smelter does it in Maine I hope you guys make it out to come smelting sometime. That's that looks like a ton of fun. Thank you, Christie Thanks Cal have you ever have you ever eaten smelt? That's that looks like a ton of fun. Thank you, Christy Cal have you ever have you ever eaten smelt?

No, I you know, I had to like a Scandahoovian Grandma great grandma and she was a who've Ian that's how a gramps said it That would get like very upset over the fact that I used smelt for pike bait here in Montana. Very upset. Because she wanted to eat them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Scandahovian. Is that, is that a derogatory term you think from your grandpa? Well, I, I never took it that way, but it's possible. It's possible. As a Norwegian, I don't take any offense to that. Okay. We're safe. All right. Our next good. We're safe. All right. Our next segment is Hot Tip Off. H-O-T-T-I-P-Off.

Turn your head and give cop. What's that face? Don't use scoffs. There aren't many words that rhyme with off. H-O-T-T-I-P-Off. Let's all do a hot tip off. H-O-T-T-I-P-Off. Let's all do a hot tip off.

Well done, Phil. Phil, I trust the next time we'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off.

We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot Tip Off. We'll see you at the Hot TipOp. Let's all do a Hot Tip Off. Well done, Phil. Phil, I trust the next time we go to karaoke, you're gonna sing some Chapel Rowan. Can I count on you for that? You have my word. All right.

Hot Tip Off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice. And after we hear each tip, we'll declare which one is hotter. If you have a hot tip, take a one minute video on your phone and email it to radio at the meateater.com with the subject line Hot Tip Off.

All right, let's hear this week's hot tips. Tyler Harm. I'm Tyler Harm and this is my Hot Tip Off. For those of you who hunt out west, keep an old tent rain fly in your pack. It'll serve two purposes. One, you can tie it between trees and use it as a rain fly if you get caught out in the rain without your rain gear. Or you can lay it out when you're cutting up your meat gives you a good clean staging area

for your meat and it's lighter weight than a tarp and works great for keeping that meat clean. Crucial. Dylan Sunderland! Welcome to another hot tip-off my name is Dylan and I'm here to tell you how I make a cheap, affordable, yet very effective scent checking system. You're only going to need a few things. For those who don't you, you can always use yourself an all-toys container or a film canister. Those who like to dabble with the old devil's dirt there and put a big old lipper in, upper decky, you take one of these, you drill about a quarter inch hole right in yonder. Oh, if you want the picture, you know,

you like the deer, put it on the backside, doesn't matter. After gathering this stuff, which is called milkweed, which we all probably know. Pull off the seeds, twist her up and try to make a long, most like a length of rope with twisting. Okay, then you take it, you pack it down in, then the more the merrier.

Pack it right down in there. Okay, so if you wanna get it out of the hole and you just take your drill bit, okay, you pull it up, there's that. Now instead of using powder or checking a flag, yeah this right in your pocket costs you absolutely nothing. It's a piece of something we're gonna throw out in the trash or recycling. And yeah, you can even get one with cool pictures on it. Oh, he's got a few handy. That's my hot tip off.

And you can see these hot tips on our YouTube video right now. Oh, I love it. All right, Cal and Cory, do you like Dylan's hot tip about the homemade windicator or Tyler's hot tip about the tent rainfly? Man, I love to recycle. They're both very smart and useful. Windicator, 100%. I mean nobody's wrong in this, right? It's just, I mean, it's great. I agree with the with the wind indicator I also carry milkweed when I'm white tail hunting what I do differently than him though Which is is worse is I just like shove it in a loose spot in my bag And then if I have a hundred little seeds from milkweed in there You see all 100 of those but he he has those very tightly packed in that dip can that's real clean

And he can just pull out little strands at a time I love that he said he's pulling the seeds out too which is like I'm not spreading milkweed everywhere right right there there was a company that had a very similar deal and it was like polyester fibers and I just hated it yeah hey I'm like you're you literally trash. I'm voting for the Windicator. Cal's voting for the Windicator. Cory, what's your vote? Tyler, I love your tip, but Dylan wins. I also like Tyler's tip. I would say that sounded pretty dang loud to be hauling around in your backpack. Yeah, you stuff it in the bottom. Sure. You never know what's there. Yeah. But I love the idea of sliding your meat on that thing instead of just whatever is convenient nearby

Now Dylan is our winner and he is going to get a brand new Treat up gnome t-shirt. You can see it here on the camera This is dropping today in the meat eater store and they sell out very fast last time I was told they sold out the day of so Tyler is getting exclusive Last time I was told they sold out the day of so Tyler is getting exclusive one of those as well as a Meteor trivia board game that has been signed by the crew. We're gonna get those in the mail to you Dylan That's a big one. Yeah, so Ty I'm sorry I said Tyler one Dylan one Dylan won the board game and he won the t-shirt You're gonna hear from Cory about how to get those sent to the mail. Yep

from Cory about how to get those sent to the mail. Yep. Really quick, just so we don't have any sort of technical hiccups for you, Spencer, we had Dave on the line. He was hanging out for a while, our next guest, and I'm not seeing any video or audio from him. So Dave, if you're, if you're around, if you turn anything, your micro camera off, go ahead and turn that stuff back on now. Um, otherwise we might just have to have him on.

Well, can we hear from the chat for a little bit, Phil? And then maybe, maybe in the meantime, we'll hear from David. Yeah, we hear from the chat for a little bit Phil and then maybe in the meantime we'll hear from David. Yeah we're live folks we're live. It's what it's all about it's what we're doing here. Cal I have a five month old chocolate lab any advice on a training program? I know it's kind of a big question but maybe someplace to start. Just I mean it's just consistency like get a routine in place and it all everything is structured off of sit stay come You know and for for me really like sit should also mean stay So start basic always return to the basics. Don't add too much too fast

There's not a whole lot of secret here. It's just consistency and do not over complicate things. You'll be, you'll be great. Cool. And this is another kind of big general question, but maybe, maybe some words of inspiration or someplace to start. Uh, free crank says that he's been hunting turkey for four years and he hasn't been able to seal the deal. Any advice?

He's located in Western PA. Man, keep at it. I've been there four years, not tagging out. Then the next year, we'll buy him. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, do your due diligence so you know you're hunting good areas. And then as my buddy Jim,

who's like the most turkey killing son of a gun I know, he says, kill him with your ass Frank. Yeah, free crank Yeah, sit and call commit see what happens. Yeah Well, I think you might be able to answer this one. This is from Harrison Cal Do you still have your own podcast and what GPS collar do you use for snort? Thanks? I've been running Garmin, um, like a tracking collar, like you use for hounds or like real lanky pointing dogs. Um, which, you know, is definitely overkill for a lab, but I just like the data. It's pretty fascinating to me how, how much it, uh, work and dog can move.

So, um, and then yes, Cal's Week in Review. It's the Cal of the Wild feed these days. So a little bit of a rebrand, but yeah, tons of stuff happening right now in the world of conservation and legislation. So give her a listen. Thank you. Phil, are you seeing Dave in the weight room at all?

I am not. I saw that he tried to hop back in, but it said they were still having trouble connecting to his camera. Let's answer a few more questions, and if he's not there in a few minutes, we'll just end the show. Yeah, sure, keep sending those questions in, guys.

Trav says, hey guys, someone wants to hunt and collect firewood on some property I own. I'm fine with it, but wondering if I should have them sign a contract or a waiver or something. Check with your state. Uh, a lot of states, if you provide a free public access, the state's liability will cover, uh, we'll, we'll cover you. Um, but yeah, I, you know, I'd definitely do a little due diligence.

And obviously if they're knocking trees down That's a little more severe than if they're just picking stuff up off the ground I I have knocked on hundreds of doors trav asking for hunting permission I've never had anyone ask me to sign a contract or a waiver, but I wouldn't scoff at it if they did it totally makes sense Especially if they're a stranger to you like I am to most of people. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened at this point. I think it's National Deer Association provides a contract that would cover you. I believe they have one maybe for

when you're leasing a property and for one when you're just like hunting on private land. So go check out the National Deer Association. They might be able to help you out. And Phil, it looks like our guest is now in the chat. So I think we're going to do that interview and then call it a show. Sounds good. All right. Joining us on the line last is the founder of the lost Apple project, David Ben Scotter. David and his network of Apple detectives have found 30 varieties of apples that were previously lost. David, welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you. Thank you for letting me be here. First thing, tell us about the Lost Apple Project. Okay, yeah, the Lost Apple Project began about 10 years ago. And kind of by accident, I'm retired law enforcement and I was taking care of a disabled neighbors orchard and

One day she came and asked me What? Could I go and pick some apples for she lived on her family's property? And they had been on the property since before 1915. And so I grabbed a bucket, I grabbed a ladder headed over to our orchard, came back 10 minutes later.

I said, I can't pick a single apple. Those trees haven't been pruned, you know, probably 50 years, maybe more. And I said, but I do know how to prune apple trees. So I'll, this winter when they're dormant, I'll go prune the apple trees. So I'll this this winter when they're dormant I'll go prune the apple trees and I said within two three years you'll have lots of apples. So that winter we get quite a bit of snow here. We're butted right up against Idaho and about 200 miles from the Canadian border and I was probably on a winter day and I

was thinking you know those apples not gonna be the same kind of apples that I go and eat today and so I called her up and I said I was just curious you know do you know what's growing up there and she remembered she'd come back in a sec one apple yelled hers first apple that that you eat during the summer it ripens in July, and she didn't know any of the other apples so she called her brother. He remembered that there was four trees at the very top of the orchard. They were called a wealthy, which just happened to be the first bread apple tree in America. It

was bred in Wisconsin because it was such cold temperatures up there. They couldn't get any apples to live. Wealthy was a wonderful apple and it solved that problem. And I got to do the biggest mistake of my life. I got on the internet and I started typing in, you know, apples for our area and stuff like that. And I was just fascinated by the apples in Washington. Everybody knows that Washington grows the most apples

in the United States, but those are all along the Columbia River and the tributaries of the Columbia River where they can irrigate the orchards and they've got really hot summer days, cool nights. We're over in eastern Washington where it's rolling hills, nothing is irrigated, and we but we do have deep soils and a lot of ravines and things like that. And so to make a long story short, I just started researching. I found out that there was a book by a fellow by the name of Lee Calhoun called

Old Southern Apples, and this book listed the first half of the book was all Old Southern Apples that still exist today, and the last half of the book were extinct Old Southern Apples. And that was the first time I even knew there was such a thing as extinct apples. And so excuse me, it just so happens that there have been about 17,000 apples that originated in the United States and Canada and fellow by the name of Dan Bussey just wrote a book about that. I think it came out about five six years ago listing all

17,000 apples there and whatever is known about them. And of those 17,000 apples, only 5,000 of those apples exist today. And so anyway, I started looking at the list of apples and then I also was kind of curious about a famous, at least locally famous fellow. He was a nurseryman about, I live near Spokane. Spokane, he was saying.

Spokane, Washington, 70 miles, 70 Colfax, Washington, which is really close to Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. And I was reading old newspapers about him and apples that he had introduced and things like that. And I was reading, and there was a little article about county fairs. This was back in the early 1900s. I thought, well, that's interesting.

They're listing the county fair winners. And I started looking at that. And I immediately knew that I was on to something that was important. The reason for that was they listed every apple that was entered in the fair. So I thought if they do this over a course of let's say 10 years, I will know pretty much what was growing in this happened to be Whitman County, Washington in the early 1900s. I started writing the names down of these apples. Turns out about at least four of the apples that were entered in the

county fair were listed in Lee Calhoun's book as extinct apples. And I thought, oh gosh, you know, this is, I'm the only person that knows this. You know, there's nobody here. There are other apple hunters around the United States. There's John Bunker up in Maine. There's Tom Brown in North Carolina. Lee Calhoun, he was in North Carolina. But if you happen to notice that, all those people lived on the East Coast.

I had no idea why. Figured there must be some reason why that nobody ever hunted apples out west, but there must be a logical explanation for it. But I thought, you know what, I'm going to just try a little bit to find one of the apples. And that apple that I was looking for is the Wall Bridge. And the Wall Bridge was entered by six different people in Whitman County in between 1900 and 1910. So I called some Apple identification experts that I knew who were over in Oregon. And I said, it would it be okay if I sent you like,

you know, three, four or five bags of apples and you could see if they have a Wall Bridge Apple. And they said, yeah, go right ahead. And I chose the Walbridge not only because it was entered more times than any other apple in the fair, but also because it was rather distinct looking. It was a red apple with very crimson stripes on the apple. So this was, I believe this was about 2013 and I started looking around Whitman County which again 70 miles south of me. I went through a little town of Colfax which had three nurseries in that town. I had found little catalogs of the apples that they grew and nurseries nearby that grew apples.

Walbridge again, it was very popular. I found a few trees, ended up finding, I believe, three or four trees with apples that were red, with very crimson striping on them. And they looked like, to me, somebody who doesn't, I still can't identify apples worth beans. But I thought that these might be the lost Walbridge apple. Put them all in a box, getting ready to ship it off,

and I happened to drive by a water pump station in Colfax, Washington. And hanging over this water pump station was the weirdest apple I'd ever seen. it was an apple that had corners to it They call ridges, but I thought it was just a really strange looking apple And so I picked some of those apples to stuck them in a plastic bag. They had The experts want you to send like six or seven apples. They picked them, where they were picked from, all these are important things. They sent those apples off. To make a long

story short, all the Walbridge apples were not Walbridge. And that's still our white whale. We're still looking for that apple. So still haven't found it. What's that? Still haven't found it. What's that? Still haven't found it. Still have not found that apple. But the other apple happened to turn out to be the

yellow, let's see, it's the fall geniting. And the fall geniting was the first lost apple we found. And just got us off to a good start. And what's the strangest place that you found one of these 30 lost apple varieties? Well the strangest place was is the apple closest to where I live. I always thought that these apples were going to be in at least a few counties away from me. And then I knew about this apple tree. I had gone hunting and I knew this was my one of my favorite places to hunt because there was an old apple tree right next to a swamp.

And although that apple tree was probably 130 years old, it was in really good shape. The apples were wonderful. I actually have one of the apples here. And this was determined to be the Shackleford. The Shackleford was one of the most popular apples in the late 1800s, early 1900s. It unfortunately, I think probably the reason it became lost was it was just a red apple. Nothing remarkable about it. But it's an excellent apple.

And actually, I think it's one of my top three apples. And I think it actually could compete to be a grocery store apple today, a commercial variety. I don't think it's as good as apples like Crimson Crisp or Honeycrisp or some of those, but I think some of the other app. And Dave, what what is the best tasting lost apple that you found? Well, I'm going to I can't I wish washy. I can't tell you that, but I've got three for favorites. There's that one, the Shackleford, and another one's called the Goldridge.

And finally, the last one is called Kitageski. And this is a little Kitageski. And again, this would not make a very good commercial variety today because it's too small. I think it's Stark Brothers has an apple that they advertise as a lunchbox apple. It's a small apple called a pixie crunch. This is about the size of a pixie crunch and it could go in if you had a child in school you stick that in their lunch but commercially I don't think could ever make it but it has a wonderful taste to it. And it was from the South and it's

just a wonderful apple. Now, how can listeners help with the Lost Apple Project? And what should they do if they think they know about a lost apple tree? Well, I can tell you a few things. First of all, if you live in Oregon, Washington, or Idaho, get ahold of me and I'll give you some information about that in a minute. And and I will I will get your apples to our Apple identification experts. Now, if you're not in Oregon, Idaho, or Washington, there's another thing that we can do. And we we're working with Washington State University and

they're doing an Apple DNA project. And if you contact me, I will send you contact me, I will send you however many little tubes you want. And DNA from an apple tree is actually not obtained from the apple itself. It's from a leaf of the tree. So you don't have to wait till fall to do this. You know, in May or June, when the tree is fully leafed out, I'll send you instructions on how to take a leaf and put it in this tube and mail it to us. And Washington State University has over 3,000 apple cultivars in their database.

And we've had success, I would say about 50% success rate in identifying apples that way. Patient experts who use the basically 50 different characteristics of an apple, including how long the stem is, what shape the seed is, all the things that I'm totally unable to do and that they can do. That's how we send local apples to at least the first stage. And then if they can't identify the apples, then we move on to the DNA testing also. You can learn more about David's story in apple hunting

in his new book called Lost Apples, the Search for Rare and Lost Apples, The Search for Rare and Heritage Apples in the Pacific Northwest. It's available right now on KiyokeBooks.com. David, thanks for joining us. Thank you. That was awesome. Yes. Could I just, could I just mention one thing? Sure. They look under Whitman County Historical Society. We're under the Whitman County Historical Society. You can donate to our cause. And if you have any questions,

you can also reach me at dbens23 at gmail.com. All right, good luck with your apple hunting this year. Have a good one, David. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. Art Phil, I think we're gonna skip the chat that's left unless there's anything really pressing since we're running over on time. Oh no, nothing super newsy or pressing.

Alright, well next week the Meat Eater Movie Club returns with a review of the 1988 family film The Bear. You can stream it on Prime, Tubi, Roku, YouTube TV, or Peacock. Watch it before the show if you want to participate in the discussion. Also Chester will be performing at the Pheasants Forever and Quails Forever concert for conservation in Kansas City next Thursday, March 6. Cal's going to be there too, right? Well yeah, actually starting that Wednesday in DeSoto, Kansas, we got a Kansas BHA slash North American Grouse partnership, uh, event that's open to the public and, and will be great.

It's called BHA at the barn. And it's just, uh, open forum, learn about a bunch of stuff that's going on in the organization. And then, yeah, Wednesday concert for conservation. Um, we're cheddar's going to kick things off for muscadine bloodline. Now in the script here, it says Thursday is the concert. Thursday. Yeah.

It was the sixth, right? Yep. Yeah. Thursday the sixth. And then, um, Friday there's the bird dog parade that kicks off pheasant fest and quail forever there. And which is pretty, pretty darn cute. Will Snort be there?

Snort's been there two years in a row now. So she's taking a break and then, um, uh, yeah, we'll have a first light booth and, and, uh, awesome, just an awesome conservation event like PFQF does a really, really, really good job of getting people up to snuff on what they need to know, uh, for all the habitat programs and farm bill and, and stuff that may not sound super sexy and fun, but they make it fun. Uh, and, and, uh, if you need a little, little lube to get that going, there's a

bar on every corner in, in the, uh, on the show floor, uh, and then Sunday we have, um, uh, awesome fundraiser lunch to kind of wrap things up with North American Grouse Partnership and we're talking about the Lesser Prairie Chicken and the fact that the North American grasslands are the most threatened ecosystem in North America. So happening in Kansas City next week. Last question, what's your favorite apple, Cal? Are you loyal to any variety when you're in the grocery store?

I have not personally purchased an apple in many, many years. How do you acquire your apples? You just don't eat apples? No, I mean, I'm like not a big sugar guy. I gotta ask someone else. Corey, what's your favorite apple? I'm a big apple snob.

Like I don't let my wife Tell me more are you agreeing? No, cuz Adrian is and if I buy anything other than a honey crisp, she gets mad. Let's make this show ten more minutes What's your favorite Apple then Corey? Yeah, I'll second the honey crisp or a pink lady But I got my two favorite going through the whole bushel and feeling everyone Yeah And I'm that guy will go into a grocery store with apples on my grocery list And I'll walk out if I can't find the right one buddy. I'm with man

I I worked the produce section of Walmart my freshman year of college I didn't really care for making minimum wage So I got my money back by grazing on apples in the freezer back there And I really became like a small yay for, uh, apples at that point. I feel like you could have handed me one. I could have taken a bite and been like, that's a jazz apple. Now that one, there's a gala apple. That one's a honey crisp.

My favorite to the pink lady in the honey crisp that you can't go wrong. I especially love honey crisp because they come from the university of Minnesota, they were created there. That's right. I have, uh, you know that Phil? Oh yeah. I got Adrienne's from there. So that might, that might have to do with her hun, her honey crisp, you know, I feel like an honorary Minnesotan and an honorary Coloradans as well as a

Montanan and South Dakotan. So I claim four states to, I never lived in, uh, but that's, that's one thing I really like about honey crisp apples. They came from the U of M. Yeah. And one of my favorite celebrity sightings was we went mini golfing outside of the Twin Cities. It was this really cool course in the middle of the woods and we drove by the farm where the Honeycrisp Apple was, was, you know, invented. It seems like a weird word.

What's the, what would be the word to use? No, it really is. It's creative. It's creative, sure. They collect a patent on it. So it is like something you invent. Yeah, yeah, and they had signs everywhere is like something. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah They had signs everywhere like home with honey crisp apple and it was I felt like yes, I was starstruck

Yeah, how about them apples? All right, we'll see you back here next week. Sure. Apple talk on media radio. Thank you so much 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 Longhunters 1761 to 1775. So again you can buy this wherever audiobooks are sold. Meat Eaters American History The Mountain Men 1806-1840 by Stephen Rinella