The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 682: MeatEater Radio Live! Turkey DNA, Turkey Habitat, and a Risqué Turkey Photo Contest

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Hosts Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, and Randall Williams are talkin' Turkey Week! They check-in with Dr. Phil Lavretsky about his new wild turkey DNA project, get the low-down on healthy turkey habitat with Kyle Lybarger, hot tip-off with chef Jesse Griffiths, take a tour of Janis' Wisconsin property with Wyatt Seep, and pick the winner of the 2025 Turkey Photo Contest. 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.

Turkey season is here and it's time to break out those calls Every serious turkey hunter knows every bird is a little different. You never know what will get them going You may need a trusty old box call Light purrs from a pot call or maybe some sweet yelps from diaphragms to seal the deal on that old gobbler But sometimes the hardest part isn't calling them in it's finding them in the first place That's where our locator calls come in. From crow calls to owl hooters, we've got everything you need to get those shot gobbles out of those old Toms unwilling to give up their position. Get fully geared up this season with the best tricky calls in the game. Check out the full lineup at

PhelpsGameCalls. Tell me when to start Phil. Okay. Three, two, one. Go. Tell me when to start, Phil. Okay, three, two, go. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on Thursday, March 27th, and we're live from Meat Eater headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.

I'm your host, Y Janis Patelis, and I'm joined today by Dr. Randall Williams and Brody Henderson, and we're celebrating Turkey Week. I love these birds so much, I was pushing for Turkey Month, but all the bear hunters here at MeatEater, like Randall and Cory here, thought that a week was enough, citing that they don't even have a bear day

yet here at MeatEater. Maybe we need to run that up the chain and see if next week we can get bare day or bare week. On today's episode, I'll recap my recent Texas turkey hunt with Jesse Griffiths, converse with Dr. Phil Levretzky about his new turkey DNA study, touch base with Kyle Leibarger,

one of my favorite dudes on the internet about prairie habitat for turkeys. Check in with my logger Wyatt Seep in Wisconsin to see how my logging, sorry, to see how logging my place is improving turkey habitat. And finally, we'll rate the top submissions from our turkey photo contest and pick a winner to receive a first line, first light tree line turkey vest, Phelps Game Calls and a Moultree Edge 2 Cell Cam. It's an action packed episode folks. We're going to be ripping and running here. A couple things right off the top though.

Texas turkey recap. Honestly, the turkey hunting was just so-so. Hmm. Mega drought in Texas right now. It was barely greened up down there. They were flocked up, hammering hard on the roost, landing, nothing. I got lucky because the first morning Jesse was like, hey, if it doesn't happen right off the roost, they like to come through this little zone. I shot one here last year. You know, might be a good idea to set up there. So of course, once it didn't happen off the roost,

Max and I went, did a little loop around, set up and like 30 minutes later, here comes the flock. What was way cool was hanging out with Jesse Griffiths and his buddy, Eli Cairo, who owns Olympia Provisions. Some of the best sausage cured meat, production that I've ever had, incredible stuff. So if you're, and he sells in Whole Foods. So if you're in Whole Foods, look up Olympia Provisions,

you won't be disappointed. But a couple things that I learned from my little trip down there. One, I think which hot tip are we doing? We doing a turkey tender hot tip or we doing the one around biscuits? Well, we better make that a decision here pretty quick. Well no, it's too late for that. We're made it. We're doing biscuits. We're doing biscuits. Okay, great. Thank you, Phil.

So Jesse's got a great hot tip about how to make biscuits easier, but what I learned, and it has changed my biscuit game. Since I've been home now for a week from that trip, I think I've made biscuits three times. My goodness. Yes, I now fold my biscuit dough about a dozen times. Oh yeah.

And I used to always think that that would sort of overwork it it and it would just be too dense. But what you're doing is you end up making these layers every time you fold it, kind of smash it out, fold it. Yeah, it's like the Pillsbury ones with the layers. I'm telling you, when you make it. I was gonna say, what I like to do with my biscuit dough is I pop the can, then I just flop out the little hockey pucks.

I'm kicking you out for that one. Anyways, amazing food, great sausage from Olympia Provisions, and I learned a lot about cooking. And we'll get to more about that when we do Jesse's Hot Tip. But we have a little bit of a spring dilemma to discuss. And I know, and we have people here in the room that sit on both sides of this discussion

Bears or turkeys? Randall, where do you sit? Bear man bear man. Why is that? You grew up in the Midwest you grew up in turkey country There's a sense of adventure and freedom getting out in the mountains in the springtime. Mm-hmm. I like to hike I like to glass I like to hike. I like to glass. I like to shoot things with rifles, preferably across canyons.

So bear hunting really speaks to me. I also just enjoy watching bears. It's been a couple of years since I've killed one. And, uh, just watching a bear do bear stuff on a mountain, see him roll over logs and negotiate terrain and stuff like that. It's just endlessly fascinating to me. So that's my case. All right Brody. Turkeys 100%. You killed a spring bear? Nope. Oh you're a fall bear guy. Yeah you get that fat in the fall. Yeah I hear you. But you can get some fatty bears in the spring too. Yeah. Yeah, and I think if I If I had like a go-to turkey spot, and I picked up the basics. I think I'd take the turkey hunting quite well, okay?

Well aren't you? Attempting to get your first turkey this spring. Yeah, I mean probably make a day of it I don't know how committed I am, but... Okay, well, I'm gonna help you get committed right now. I brought with me a Meteor Phelps 3-pack. I believe I saw one of these available at Bob Ward's the other day, so I imagine you can still get them at Shields, too. But it's the 3-pack.

It's got the Latvian Eagle call in it. It's got's Jake break and then the other one is called the loud and clear I believe Hmm, I'm gonna give you one. I would choose either Steve's Jake break or the Loud and clear don't go the Latvian Eagle. That's a little bit more of an advanced call it's it's just that it's a little bit harder to call because the latex is a little bit thicker. It's loud and clear. Okay. And so I love the Latin Eagle is still my favorite call.

That's why I made it and put it in here. I thought you were going to put that in the wrong way for a second. Oh no, I'm not that. It lasts longer. Now, okay, I'm trying to give you the fastest ever turkey call lesson here ever. You played football. Yes. I don't know, did you play quarterback?

No. No. Okay, but you heard the quarterback often say hut, right? So we're gonna say the same thing right now. Just do it without the call. Hut. Hut. Hut.

You feel how like you push the air out of your diaphragm and then your tongue stops the end of the word hut. Okay? Hut. Now you're just gonna put this diaphragm into the roof of your mouth and say the same exact thing. Huh. Huh.

But you got to push the air from your diaphragm across it. Come on, you're messing with me now. Oh my God. Have you used an elk claw- like you never used a- Rifle man, I love rifles. This thing is pressed up in the roof of your mouth, correct? With my calka. Don't choke.

Don't gag. This is a thing that happens with folk learning to use diaphragms for sure. It's uncomfortable and it can get a little gaggy. Or really. Take it out and talk. Oh yeah, take the Zen out. Take the second Zen out, that might help. Oh my goodness, Randall. They should make a mouth call with like, Zen Imp.

I didn't think we were actually doing this, so I wasn't prepared. Oh good, I wanted it to be a surprise Press it up against the roof of my mouth. Yeah, yeah, and just let it sit there Then you have my tongue on it. Huh, huh? Should I have my tongue on it? Not before you at the end you the at the end of the hut It'll your tongue will stick to the top of it Okay, so what do we have on our schedule for today? I'm failing

I'm not good at teaching people how to turkey call in a limited amount of time. Let's move on. That's what you need Okay, you're doing that one wrong too, I would actually say for all beginners go with the slate It's hard to mess up a slate pot call it Brody's got there. Oh, yeah All right, let's talk to dr. Phil Levretzky about his New Wild Turkey research. Phil, you there? I'm here. All right. I was just laughing at that whole scenario. Yeah. Well, it's meant to be funny. Makes two of us. I'm glad it was entertaining for you. We got Phil here. You might remember Phil from Meteor podcast episode 490 which was titled Duck DNA, are wild ducks really wild?

Well, now we're gonna find out if wild turkeys are really wild. Wild turkey DNA, which is the title of Phil's project is the first citizen science project for turkeys ever attempted. It's a joint effort of Phil's project, is the first citizen science project for turkeys ever attempted. It's a joint effort between Phil's lab at the University of Texas at El Paso, Dr. Michael Chamberlain's wild turkey lab at the University of Georgia, Ducks Unlimited, NWTF, and others. So Phil, welcome to the show. Quickly remind us,

remember, we're on a tight schedule here, so you gotta be succinct. What was DuckDNA all about? And tell me the most interesting thing that you've learned from doing that project. Almost interesting. So this is just gonna be about 40 minutes long. Yeah, so DuckDNA was this combination between Ducks Unlimited and myself,

thinking about how can we monitor the genetic integrity of mallards and other waterfowl and sort of build one of the largest genetic repositories for a group of species. And that's sort of where Duck DNA was born out of and where we are in our second year. We just finished up just to give you a bit of a highlight. We went with 700 kits this year as compared to 300 kits still 4,000 plus people applied and over 2,000 samples analyzed just this year. We're getting over 2,000 to 3,000, close to 3,000 with the two years of data. It's pretty remarkable. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, it's been hugely successful. The hunters love it.

You know, the biggest thing is that it's a direct communication with hunters and they're learning more and more about the bird that they have. And you know, every time they post something, people can like pretend to think that they know what they are and then they come in and say, aha, this is what it is. Right, all right.

So what's the top thing? What is the most interesting aha thing that's come from this research? Actually, all the hot, I mean, one of the things is the monitoring of this whole game farm mallard issue with wild mallards and across the board and understanding that. But two other things were super interesting.

We now know that a brewer's duck, mallard, gadwell go both ways. So the male could be a gadwell, the female could or the male could be a gadwell, the male could be a mallard, a pintail, same thing. But the other cool thing is we started finding second year hybrids, meaning those hybrids are obviously fertile and making more kids out there. And so we're starting to learn some of the things that was, that is very difficult to do so as a single individual in a lifetime, let alone through plumage alone, because they start looking like that parent

as they backcross more and more. One of the cool things, I think we posted on this, I hope I'm not jumping the gun, but we got a three species hybrid, a true three species hybrid of all the blue wings. So it was a cinnamon blue wing hybrid that bred with a northern shoveler to make a hybrid that this guy harvested in the San Francisco, Sacramento area of California. That was super cool. Didn't see that coming. Wow. No, I wouldn't have either. Alright, so now you're wanting to do this for turkeys. What are you hoping to learn with doing Wild Turkey DNA?

Yeah, we're just expanding on the Edible Bird Consortium, so to speak. So moving into turkeys. This was, I have to tell this short story. I got a call by Mike Chamberlain on Super Bowl Sunday and he was like, hey man, there's all these weird heritage birds and things that look kind of weird. Is there any way we could figure out whether they're just domestic birds that people are harvesting, maybe hybrids, maybe they are just wild birds that have super weird plumage. And that is where Wild Turkey DNA was born. I was like, that's an interesting question. Very similar to what we're asking on Duck DNA.

And we've set up everything, you know, DNA is DNA. So, you know, whatever, five, six weeks later, the partnership between Ducks Unlimited and WTF, Mike, me, and as well as Lowcountry Gamebird Foundation made it happen for this year. So this is our pilot year. We'll see how it goes. But the initial ask is if anybody shoots

or harvests a super weird looking or cool looking bird to just go ahead and get in contact with us through the wildturkeydna.com website. We'll send you a kit. You'll just cut off the tip of the tongue, just like we are doing with DuckDNA. Send it to us and we'll start to analyze these turkeys. In the longterm, we're hoping to go across

all the subspecies, understanding not only hybridization and whether domestic birds, these heritage birds, are a problem for other species, the rios, the merriam and so forth, but also whether genetic diversity might be an explanation of declining populations. We already have preliminary data for Easterns in South Carolina, Georgia, New York and others

that they, large segments of that population are very much looking like second cousins, even half siblings And that's a real problem when it comes to wildlife If you don't know the Florida Panther was essentially half sip full sip And that was when we started seeing real genetic problems there and turkeys are trending towards that way And that's a real problem if that's the case. And so that's happening because the population it's almost like a double whammy because the population is getting smaller and thus you have just less diversity in that smaller population. Is that the origin?

That's the origin. So if especially for Easterns if anybody knows the history, most of those Easterns originate from mountains of PA where they were like remnants, and then they were basically spread out. So they already went through a bottleneck. And then effectively, all these birds have smaller and smaller home ranges. They don't necessarily like to cross streets, highways. They stay within, and the longer those birds are, they stay within and the longer those birds are, the more the connections are severed, the worse they become genetically. Cause the probability of dad mating with their kid

increases and increases and increases. Plus their lacking system where in essence, a few males contribute every year. So if it's the same brothers constantly with their sisters, it's a problem, right? So those are some of the questions. Habitat is always number one key, but if you've got a bird that is starting to have issues in nesting and fecundity, how many eggs actually hatch, then that is a compounding effect. Right. Oh, man. I was hoping for some good news out of you, Phil.

I got a question if there could be some good news in places where there's multiple subspecies of turkeys that are mingling. Like in Nebraska, you don't know what you're getting in places, right? That's a great question. So one of the things that I've always been curious about is I've known about the history of stocking, right? Even in Washington, they went and just like Washington, the Sierra Nevadas of California, they basically were like, I don't know what's going to take here. So let's just throw a Miriam Rio in Eastern in all these places and see what happens kind of thing. So it would be really cool to get some birds out of those areas to see exactly what happened. Did one of them actually take

or are they just like a hodgepodge of these three subspecies? The other cool thing will be to go after places that are core habitats known for rheos and merriams, ghouls, Easterns, osteolas included, but the only one not oscillated. So we'll go for all the North American ones, is to understand what does that genetic diversity look like versus populations of merriam on the sky islands of New Mexico or the Rios that are in all these little pockets like

you probably saw in Texas. So that'll be something really cool. On top of it all is just understanding something that I was not keen on until Mike Chamberlain sort of opened my eyes to it is the number of what is known as a heritage bird. Just so everybody knows, a domestic bird is your white bird at Costco. Just so everybody knows, a domestic bird is your white bird at Costco. Heritage birds is a mix of that domestic with a wild at some point creating a weird looking bird.

And so, apparently people are putting out these heritage birds to become feral or feralized for one reason or another. And so now the question becomes, how widespread is that? Like people, you know, harvesting cool looking birds, are they just all just weird heritage birds or are they hybrids? Or are they just wild birds with those cool plumages? You know, we'll start to ask the answer to those kinds of questions. All right, Phil, tell everybody how they can participate one more time before you go. Yeah, yeah. So please go to the new brand new website,

wildturkeydna.com. You can also watch us on Instagram at at wild turkey DNA or at Levretzky lab. You can, if you harvest something, go ahead and contact through those means and you'll be able to get a free kit. That's what I wanted to also mention. Anybody that gets selected, everything's completely free. We'll send it to you. You'll send it back to us.

And that's a product of both National Wildlife Turkey Federation, as well as others that have contributed donations to make this free for the hunters. So I hope the turkey hunters out there are gonna get just as excited as the duck hunters For the duck DNA project that we were doing. Oh, I can guarantee it 100% Randall gets his first bird It doesn't matter what kind of colors White Randall I'm taking my daughter out for her first turkey hunt this year and I'm

definitely, hopefully she gets one and nothing's going in no matter what it looks like. Thanks again Phil, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Phil Levretzky. Appreciate it. Thank you guys, enjoy. I'm telling you man, there's nothing quite like it. Gives me chubby just thinking about it. You hit the call way off in the distance, the time fires back. You work them in, watching his body language shift and cautious to commit it. Then that moment, the one every turkey hunter

dreams about all winter, is that gobbler locks eyes in your decoy and comes running in. And if you're using the right decoy, you don't need to then settle for a 40 yard nervous shot. Because with the right decoy, you can get that bird in your lap, putting on a wild aggressive turkey show.

I mean, I'm talking where he's fighting the decoy. I've had him sitting there trying to mate with the decoy. It's the best thing in the world. But to pull it off, you need realism. Like you need decoys that don't just fool turkeys at a distance. You want a decoy that fools them when he's up there at point blank range, beating the snot out of it. That is why diehard turkey hunters insist on Dave Smith decoys.

Their unmatched realism fools even the warriest of times into thinking they're staring and fighting a real bird. And unlike inflatable decoys that crumble when shot, DSDs are built tough. They last season after season, even if you screw up and put a little TSS into one of them. To top it all off, every DSD turkey decoy is made right here in the good old US of A made in America. Check out the full lineup at davesmithdecoys.com and take your turkey hunts to the next level.

All right, Phil, the other Phil. Hey, yeah, I was getting confused there. It can be tricky. Um, it's time for listener feedback. We have any at this point in time? We've got a few, just a reminder to everyone. Go ahead and get those questions into the live chat. Our first question though is from Andrew.

He says, what are good points to bring up in a persuasive speech on reintroducing Bison to Colorado? This is for school. Man, instead of going AI, he's bigger and he'll just ride into good man. Intelligent so go with I'm gonna pass this one off to Randall. Sure it's a tough one. I think you could point out that bison are native and good for the land good for the land I tell them to go read some stuff on APR's website that's a great point Brody yeah American Prairie Reserve I mean it's tough because they're not really

reintroduced anywhere as like a wild species if you're talking about like a APR style model I would go to APR and and read about their program. Plus it's good for bison. The more populations we have, the more genetic diversity we have. You will run into some pushback on that issue. I'll just let you know. Yep, yeah. But it's an excellent topic. I'm guessing he's been asked to write a persuasive speech and He just happens to be choosing this topic. Yeah. Yeah, so it'll be it'll be good practice for him What else we got Phil Joe asks Yanis? Are you running slash training for any races in the near future?

Oh, buddy, we don't have enough time to talk about this today. We need a separate Going on about how we don't have any time, talk about this today. We need a separate... Yeah, let's keep going on about how we don't have any time, but I have yet to see any evidence to that. I think we've got all the time in the world. Oh, oh, good. Well, listen, we just have an all company meeting, and I want this to end in time so that I can get... Pizza?

...some pizza in my belly before that meeting. Are you buying? We're all gonna go get pizza, of course. Okay, can I join? I literally, when I drove into the office today I opened up my calendar and I looked at the timing of the meeting and it's like one yeah oh yeah we're gonna go get pizza. We'll be getting pizza at the Bozeman Market in Delhi if you pass through town or if you're a resident here go check them out great sandwiches and I love their pizza. Let's refocus on the running thing. Yeah. Tip number one, pizza for lunch. Pizza a.k.a running fuel.

Yeah. Hey, when I ran my 50-miler last year, I ate a slice of pizza halfway through and it definitely helped me to the finish line. Joe, yes I am training. I'm running the, I've signed up for the Crazy Mountain 100 this year and so yeah, my knees are a little bit sore. I've been getting after it. Did some intervals yesterday, five minutes uphill, as hard as I could go, then five minutes chill downhill and did that eight times in a row. I was tired afterwards.

So yeah, that's at the end of July. So I'm feeling like I'm in a really good spot at the moment and I've still got I don't know three or four months to kind of keep building on it coach says I have a coach I have a logger. I have a coach Got it. I got a sound engineer. It's great Heavy lies the crown But she says I could do it right now She said it would hurt a little bit, but she said I could pull it off right now.

What's your goal? My goal is 30 hours. 30 hours. Yeah, I haven't said this publicly yet. Might as well do it now. Cam Haynes ran it the inaugural year of this race, which was four years ago, I believe. He ran it in about 34 hours. The course was slightly different so I'm giving him an hour for that. We're gonna be roughly the same age. He might be a little bit older. So adjusted for the course change you're trying to beat Cam Haynes by three hours. I'm trying to beat Cam Haynes' time. reasonable if I can do it in 30 hours. I'll solidly do that But yeah, that's my goal is 30 hours

If I'm around that weekend, I'll be packing in a pizza for you. Yeah, buddy. That's what I'm talking about There's some great spots to spectate that race in the crazy mountains. So alright, are we we got time for one more? in the crazy mountains. So, all right. Are we, we got time for one more, Phil? We need to move on to Kyle. Let's get one more here, Phil. Got a good one. Yannis, this is probably the fastest

we've ever gotten the listener feedback. So like, I think- Oh, what? Yeah. Don't we have multiple listener feedback sections? We've got one more at the end, but I mean, we've got time. I know you want pizza,

but the audience deserves a show, Yannis. No, listen, I know, but I feel like the pressure to keep this show Moving along. That's all I hear. You're doing a great job. I'll let you know if it starts to drag We've got a lot of these questions. Spencer hasn't commented yet We've got we've got a lot this is again a blanket question It could go on forever But but for some pros if you you had some tips for very,

I mean Randall's in the room, maybe Randall's got some questions. We've got a lot of questions about first-time turkey hunters. Kanye Northeastern, interesting name, is asking specifically about Miriams, but we've had several questions about just this first-time turkey hunters in general, like maybe don't overload them with info, but any sort of like first time tips. What do you got? Well, I already gave one. I would say if you're just starting out with the calling business, get yourself a pot call,

a slate, mind you. I feel like they are the simplest to use. That's why I started my wife on, like the second time she walked in the woods was one she had. Make a lot of different noises with them. Yeah, she had a conversation with a gobbler the first time she tried it, maybe second time.

Other hot tips for beginners, like with any game, do the homework and find the game first before you go out there and hunting. I think it's really easy just to walk into the woods and start squawking on a box call and not be anywhere near a turkey. Yeah, and one I would say that I still have trouble with is the old adage that you kill turkeys with your ass,

not your feet. Patience. 100%. You know, granted this, he was asking about merriam's and you got a sometimes you got a cover ground hunting those but sure like yeah, like Sit down and call and if you get an answer like

Sit there for as long as you can because sometimes it takes them a long time to come in 100% yeah, that's a good tip, man. Your butt can kill probably more turkeys than your legs can. We all love to run and gun and call them all in, but that's how I killed my bird this year was by just sitting down and waiting. And sometimes you gotta do that. Depends on what's more important to you,

the entertainment factor of calling and seeing the show, meaning when they're strutting, gobbling and all that, or do you just want two lobes of a breast, two thighs, two legs. Just bushwhack them. Two wings, yeah. You know something that's paid off for me that I think we learned from Mike Chamberlain,

is he told us, I shouldn't even tell people this. He told us that, like if you have a gobbler or goblers on the roost in the morning, they fly down, you don't kill them, they like go the wrong way like they always do. He told us that those birds will almost always come back to that roost area like late morning, early afternoon, which has gotten me a bird or two.

Oh, for sure. We saw it in Texas, Max and I, we got onto a bird that was gobbling hard at like two in the afternoon. He was probably two, three hundred yards from the roost tree, but he had found a strut zone, or that was his strut zone. He was like in this nice little cove on the rivers all green. He's in there just hammering. We got to within a hundred yards of him and we couldn't break him. But when he decided to move, he basically went and did the same thing within a hundred yards of the roost tree. He was gonna spend the rest of the day sitting there gobbling at the roost tree

being like, hey ladies come back here roost with me tonight. So yeah and again that's another way that your butt would kill him, is just by sitting at that roost tree. I can keep going. On the other side of the coin, let's do one more. On the other side of the coin, Canadian Hunter asks, any spring bear tips from Dr. Randall?

I'm guessing for like first timers, if you would have any sort of intro to. I need to listen here too. would have any sort of intro to. I need to listen here too. I would say that you just need to have faith. I think like you can stare at a hillside for a really long time and there's not a bear there and then all of a sudden there's a bear there.

And I think like if you're used to glassing, like serious glassing, it's probably easier. But if you are not a glasser, just have all the patience in the world and know that like the bears aren't gonna be there right, well sometimes they are right when you start looking. I mean you just got to keep your eyes open. Yeah. And But I feel like it's a pretty casual glass, right? It's not like you're having to pound. No, you're not gonna you're not gonna pick them here Yeah, you're not gonna pick out an ear or anything But like like you could watch a whole hillside with a ton of little tiny pockets and you look at them all and you're like

There's not a bear here and then all of a sudden There's one in that pocket. Have you um Something i've heard a lot about spring bear hunting. Have you found it to be true that the evenings are best? Or just when you find them, you find I feel like when you find them, you find them, especially earlier in the season. I mean, I've seen bears, like I've been out backpacking and like woken up in the morning and seen two or three bears in the morning, you know?

And I feel like mid-afternoon, you'll see them a lot of times, it's funny, cause I feel like that's the conventional wisdom. And you hear a lot of people that know a lot of stuff, a lot of, you know, people that know a lot about bear hunting will say that. But in my experience, at least, I've, it's kind of a crap shoot. It's like the more time you're out there,

the more likely you are to see a bear. But I definitely know like a lot of guys that, you know, nap through the afternoon and get out in the early evening. I definitely feel like, and this is across many states where I've done spring bear hunting, but it seems like this the evenings have been better I mean southeast Alaska. Yeah, there's no doubt about it That those last two three hours seem are more productive. Yeah, or the tide Yeah, that's a big one, too. Yeah, I killed my bear up there like probably 10 in the morning

That's a big one, too. Yeah, I killed my bear up there at like probably 10 in the morning because we were just timing the tide. Hunting low tide. Yeah, because they're coming down on those rocks. But yeah, it's, I don't know. Cory, what do you got to say about spring bear? You love it.

Cory likes to hunt some spring bears. Is his mic on? It'll be on for the YouTube audience, but not for the podcast audience. So apologies to the podcast. Do you want to get on a different mic or something lame? I mean, no, the only ones I have on are the one or the host. Sorry. I screwed you up Phil That's okay, Brady. You didn't know just talk with your chest Now that I have a kid and it's harder to bear hunt with a kid

Turkey hunting is a lot easier Until I'm old and can't pound the mountains anymore I'll keep bear hunting when the day comes out then I'll get more excited about turkey hunting. Was that an underhanded insult a turkey hunting there? Sure sounded like it. Alright hmm I mean I will qualify what I said earlier like I'm not trying to get up and be glassing at first light like I'm not I'm not saying that Yeah, exactly like there's long evenings But but I do think like you're not wasting time if you're sitting there, you know checking spots and yeah, just looking yeah

I find it to be very casual hunting like bring a book Glance up from the book every five ten minutes, glass your hill, because again like you said it's not like you're gonna see a part of a bear. Usually all of a sudden you look across the hillside and you're like holy shit there's a big old black spot that's walking. Yeah exactly and that's what I mean I kind of like that about it because you can just sort of get out and watch the birds like stare off into the distance kind of stop thinking for about 10-15 minutes

listen to turkeys gobble exactly if that happened buddy I'd be out out what tastes better turkeys I don't know I like eating No, not the kind of turkeys I eat. There ain't a bear nugget in the world that tastes as good as a turkey nugget. Dude, right now I follow Jesse's, Jesse Griffith's recipe from the turkey book for fried turkey. I started yesterday when I did a brine. His brine has pickle juice, whole lemon in there, and then the basics, some salt and sugar, bay leaves. And then it's been, that was for four or six hours, and then it's been sitting in buttermilk

and hot sauce overnight. And then later tonight, I'm gonna dredge those suckers in some seasoned flour, it'll be heavy on celery seed and black pepper, and I'm making some mashed potatoes. I might even do some gravy. I'm going to do some of those biscuits we talked about. Let's go baby. What time is that?

What time is that? Tonight? Yeah. It's for my brother-in-law's belated birthday. So we already have guests. Otherwise I'd have you over for that, but they're coming. All right, Phil, I think it's time to move on to Kyle Yeah, Phil. How's the timing looking now? It's looking perfect now. Oh fantastic. Damn. We're good

good job Brody and Randall, thank you. All right. We're on to Kyle Liebarger. Like I said earlier man this guy I Absolutely love his Instagram posts. Are you guys familiar? You guys found Kyle? Like I don't know I had never been that interested in native plants and I guess pretty much mostly native plants is what Kyle talks about But like when he puts it out there on the old gram. I'm like hell. Yeah, that's awesome. That's great, and then how How how much of a fighter he is what's the word I'm looking for not protester

What would you call it? Advocate? Advocate. Yes for these places that need you know help You know no one they can't the plants don't get to talk for themselves. So we need people like Kyle out there Helping keep them or keeping them around for future generations. Kyle, really quick, your mic is muted right now if you want to go ahead and unmute that. Oh, I was just going to do all the talking for Kyle. Just look at his face. As my friend says, I'm not an environmental extremist. I'm an extreme environmentalist.

Maybe that's a better way to put it. But I'm honestly more of a conservationist. And those plants, I used to be in the same boat. I'd walk right past them and never even notice them or pay any mind to them whatsoever. But when I was on a property, I guess back in like 2018, it just had a ton of wildlife, and I was like, what the heck's going on with this place? And I saw all the color, man. It just, a switch went off, and it all started to make sense why,

that's the habitat. Without that, you don't have wildlife. So that's the switch that went off, is that you were there, you saw a pile of animals, and then you looked around and you went oh my gosh look at it look at the habitat of course. Yeah you could hear like you could hear like the amount of insects there too which is which is crazy when you're in the place it's got a ton of diversity there's gonna be a ton of insects and a ton of ton of birds because of that. Okay hold on that that that's the perfect segue

you use the word insects in a recent Instagram post, you said everybody's heard the quote, a cattle farmer is really a grass farmer. And then you said, and a turkey hunter should be a, you said managing for insects, but should be like an insect farmer. So explain that for me. Well, I mean to me it's kind of puts it in some more simplistic terms, but it's you know that's the foundation. If you want to have great cattle, you have to have great pastures and you have to have healthy pastures. If you want to have great turkey populations, you need to have a lot of insects because

that's what the poults are eating, you need to have a lot of insects because that's what the poults are eating. And you need to have a lot of seeds and a lot of other things as well, like amphibians and salamanders. Down here, that's when turkeys are scratching around, they're eating a lot of salamanders and snails and things like that that you wouldn't even think about. And this is something I guess I observed in one of Cal's posts, I guess it was a couple years ago. It may have been a photo he was sharing that somebody sent in to him,

but he showed a turkey crop that had a bunch of that horsetail reed. Have y'all, you know those like, it's called horsetail, that's what I call it. I forget the scientific name, but it's got those little segments. You can like pull the harrow. Yeah, it's hollow.

And, uh, and it was this, uh, turkey crop was like slapped full of that stuff. And I just read about how native Americans use that to like glaze the inside of their pottery because it has like high silica content. And, uh, and I was just, I was like, I wonder if that silica that has to be beneficial for turkeys and of course there's some research that somebody had done about feeding some feed to like domestic turkeys that had higher silica content, having better survival rates and poles and stuff like that. So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Even plants you wouldn't think of. Oh, you can never really know what all a turkey's gonna need, but if you just throw the whole buffet at them, they're gonna have what they need most of the time. Yeah, why is it that we don't have, you're often talking about prairies and remnants of prairies. Tell me why we don't have a lot of the prairies,

and then again, why, I guess, you've of the prairies and then again why I guess you've kind of been talking about why they're so beneficial but specifically about the prairies. Yeah I mean in the southeast here our prairies were gone before the camera was even invented so if you want to if you want to like learn about the prairies that used to be here you have to go way back to these like historic surveys and writings you know I read a lot prairies that used to be here, you have to go way back to these historic surveys and writings. I read a lot of surveys that were done in the early 1800s. A lot of times they're marking section corners and they can't even find trees close by. They're having to use stakes.

That tells you that area used to be a prairie. But all of it in the southeast was turned into cotton fields. Pretty much all of it was, except for the rocky places and the areas that were too wet. And so now if you if you find a prairie remnant or remnant grassland, it's going to be in those rocky areas or where like a power line goes across a mountain or like a steep spot where there's not flat ground that you could plant crops on. So it was our dominant ecosystem in the Southeast and people find that hard to believe, but that's also including things like longleaf ecosystems, which people think of as forests, but like 99% of the diversity in a longleaf ecosystem is in the understory in that grassland that's

underneath. Longleaf being longleaf pine, correct? Yep, yep, longleaf pine. We had shortleaf pine savannas and oak savannas, oak hickory savannas, but we also had glades and prairies and fens and bogs and just a whole array of ecosystems. And it was just a mosaic, just a mix of those different ecosystems across the Southeast. Kyle, you've got some pictures

or you sent Phil some pictures, right? Of some habitat work that you guys have been doing. When these pop up here, can you see those too? Walk us through a little bit of what we're looking at and what you would call that habitat type. up here. Can you see those two? Walk us through a little bit of what we're looking at and what you would call that habitat type. Yeah, so that's a glade or a barren. And just like you can see the power line up in the top right hand corner. So that was a power line right away that kind of saved this prairie. That line of cedars you see in front of you, that

used to be like an impenetrable wall of cedars. And so the only grassland stuff left is what was right there on the power line. Everything else had turned into a shaded out thicket of cedars. And so you lost all that biodiversity underneath all that plant diversity. And then now we've opened it back up. You can see, you can see there's some openings in those woods now where we had some Mennonite loggers come in and remove some cedars. We reintroduced fire to it and the place is thriving now so yeah oh that's a Nashville breadroot which is pretty uncommon. It's really only found like around Nashville and in a few little spots in Alabama and it grows on limestone but you'll have I think there's a bread root out west.

They had these huge tubers that was like, it was a main food source for Native Americans. Balsam root? Is that the yellow one? Bread root. It's kind of like, it looks like lupine kind of, the leaves do. But there's one out west that everybody talks about, maybe only in the botanical, like the botanist world, that's the more common one. But this is that same blade, man, Alabama Lark's Fur,

that's only found in Alabama. And this is one of those places where there's just insects everywhere. It's just, it's incredible. It's like a time capsule. And I'm sure the turkeys probably eat the plants but they're all they're there for the for the bugs right? Speaking of the devil. Insects yep yeah that's my buddy Alan who who bought one of these glades so we got 24 acres next door that has

federally endangered leaky prairie clover on it. He bought this population. I was just trying to, there was like 1200 acres that came up for sale at once that had seven of the eight populations of leaky prairie clover in Alabama. So it was going to be split up into a million pieces and I was trying to get everybody I could to buy a population of this. And he ended up with this blade and it's it's a absolute incredible example of a limestone blade. How many of those populations did you guys buy in the end? There's six that are being

managed now. Oh great. Two years ago there were none none of them were being managed and so so that leafy prairie clover that's on there is federally endangered but there's just like a ton of other rare species that grow there too. So we're conserving a federally endangered plant, but also hundreds of other plant species that are high conservation value. And then the benefits of that is there's a lot of wildlife there. There's still wild quail and it's it's a you know great place for hunting and recreating. Not just good for turkeys. Yeah yeah it's good for people who like to look at plants too. Right right. If that has any if that has

any value in real estate. It's hard to quantify. Alright well folks you can find more about what Kyle's doing at, well, it's up on the screen there, but if you just listen, it's kyle underscore libarger, and then there's also, it's just at native habitat project on Instagram too, is that right? Yeah, yeah, native habitat project.

But go check it out, like I said, even if you're not into plants, native plants, ecosystems, after you watch a couple of Kyle's posts, you will be. Any other questions, boys, you guys have for Kyle? No, we just got to get you back on one minute of fishing again here. Hey, hey, I had, that's what I was going to say before I left. I have to, this is going to sound like a fishing story, but as soon as y'all hung up, my first cast, it was within like five seconds I caught a biggest crappie of the day. That's what they all say Kyle. That's

what they all say. I know you wouldn't believe me. Hey well now that the ice is off well I'm guessing you didn't have any ice down there in Alabama but now the ice is off I'm sure we'll be doing more one minute fishing so thanks again for stopping by Kyle. We'll be in touch. Yeah, thanks y'all. Thanks Kyle. Okay, now we are onto a Turkey Week Hot Tip brought to you by none other than our, he's not our very own, but he's part of our family here.

Friend of the program. Yep, Jesse Griffiths, Chef Jesse Griffiths, owner of Die Due. Let me know when you got that ready to play, Phil. Well, we got important business to get to first. Oh, which is what? H-O-T-T-I-P-Op. Turn your head and give up. What's that face?

Don't use scoff. There aren't any words that rhyme with off. H-O-T-T-I-P-Op. Let's all do a hot tip-off. H-O-T-T-I-P-O-F. Let's all do a hot tip-off. Randal, your face there listening to that. Oh my goodness.

Like a kid in a candy store. What a treat. Phil, when did you do that one? Oh, it was a few weeks ago. Oh, it's brilliant. I appreciate that, thanks, Randal. Phil is brilliant. You know who doesn't like that one? That was a few weeks ago. Oh, it's brilliant. I appreciate that, thanks Randall. Phil is brilliant. You know who doesn't like that one is Brody and Steve

because it's too modern, it's too pop. Yeah, I think you've done better work. Yeah, that's understandable. Is that a... I don't agree. It's Chapel Rowan there. Yeah, at first I was thinking it was like an 80s song, but no, that's just the vibe.

Dude, I got two girls, 11, 13 year old. I'm all in on pop right now. You know, it's like, if you can't beat them, join them kind of a thing. So yeah, bring it. I call that pop-timism. Okay. That was an actual music journalism movement and like the mid-tut, sorry.

Here's Jesse. Jesse Griffiths. All right, hot tip, making biscuits biscuits you need to get your butter incorporated into your flour. Use a cheese grater, doesn't have to be a broken cheese grater, but this one is broken, but it'll still work. And so you grate your butter into flour, a little bit of salt, some baking powder, and then it's all ready in the exact size pieces that you need to make the perfect biscuit, which goes great with fried turkey. Hmm. Love that guy! Jesse Griffiths! I got my own hot tip here. Oh, please add on.

Hey y'all, it's Jesse Griff please add on Oh, we're doing to Today these are some beautiful fresh turkey tenderloins from a big old Rio that Yanni shot today I'm going to remove these tendons from These nice tenderloins with a fork so you get on the pointy end, just grip that tendon, come in with a fork, put the tines on either side, grip said tendon and just pull it like this

and it'll pull the entire tendon out like that. If you're making stock, this is great addition stock because it's collagen and it'll convert over to gelatin. So save those up your stock and then you have a perfectly tendon free tenderloin. Dip it in now, brine, dredge and fry. Do you still have something to add? I do? You know You're making your morning toast and you realize that all the butters in the fridge, and it's it's too hard to Spread well you don't want to tear up that toast especially if you're using cheap sandwich bread

Yeah, that's why it's thinking man. Just leave his butter out on the well sometimes sometimes you use all the counter butter the night before okay? I'm tracking so if you find yourself in that situation you get out the counter butter the night before. Okay, I'm tracking. So if you find yourself in that situation, you get out the cheese grater and you grate your butter on your toast. That way you don't have to just tear up that beautiful Wonder Bread. So you were already aware of this hot tip. That was a hot tip just to show that I already knew that hot tip, which is the best kind of hot tip. Brody, you're a

biscuit maker right? Mm-hmm. Isn't it? It's a little bit of a pain in the butt to sit there with like a knife and... Or the thing you use to mash potatoes that whatever that thing is called you know that. Well I believe that that thing, what is that a tool called? A masher. No but it's not the one used for mashed potatoes. There's one that actually is meant to cut butter into flour.. Oh, yeah, yeah pastry cutter. I believe mm-hmm and But anyways, you still got to cut the butter up into pieces and then cut it into the flour with this method here It's small enough thin enough that you don't have to do the cutting part anymore Like you don't have to do the cutting into the flour

You can basically just start adding your wet ingredients and Start doing the mix. Don't do what my son does which is just melt the butter in a microwave and then pour it in. No No, that will that's like I've done that on my toast before too. Your butter or any fat that you're using the other day I did half butter half lard. It's got to be cold Mm-hmm. If it gets all all melty you're just gonna I don't even know what it's gonna happen Jesse could explain that the other hot tip I did that yesterday in preparation for making my fried turkey holy shit does that work a lot better than trying to fillet that chunk of silver skin out

of there with a knife way faster yeah do you guys have an opinion on which hot tip of Jesse's was better? I've used that, the tenderloin one for a long time. Oh, you already knew that one. Man, maybe everybody knows these tips. I'm gonna go with the butter and the cheese grater. Yeah, if you want some badass biscuits, I think that's a... Okay. I'm gonna disagree with you guys and think that for Turkey Week, taking the silver skin out of those tenderloins with the fork is the better hot tip.

But still, it's two to one. So Jesse, you're a winner either way. Congratulations. Nice tips. Thanks for doing those for me down there in Tejas. All right, that brings us to MyLogger. Love calling Wyatt MyLogger. Wyatt, what's happening? How's it going, guys? It's going great. Although you're the one, you're outside under bluebird skies

and we're in this stuffy podcast studio but it looks nice there. Yeah man I have no complaints today. Beautiful day about 60 degrees here. Tail end of winter time that's about all you could ask for. All right bring us up to speed. This is a very selfish guest on my part. No one else really cares what Wyatt's doing up here. Well I will if you ever invite us to go hunting there. You haven't been invited yet? No. Oh okay well I'll take care of that right after this show. Yeah and the video might be kind of hit or miss with Wyatt as he moves through the property so uh uh apologies to the YouTube audience it might fluctuate a bit. All right we'll try to explain everything that we're seeing but uh Wyatt's up there logging my dad, my place now for

uh geez I don't know since about September, October of last year and where are we at right now Wyatt? Yeah this one's been a bit of a process but I'm gonna flip you around here if I can it doesn't look like a can I'll turn you around like this, so I don't know what all you guys can see But right down here Wow, we've done kind of a clear cut This is the area that Yanni is gonna be turning into kind of an oak savanna And the way that we designed this property was not only for, you know, timber management, but also for wildlife habitat management.

You can see down here, we kind of left a pocket of white oak trees. They're gonna be left for mass crop and savanna purposes. Yeah, and there's a couple of different goals on this one. You know, there's a small part of the property that's gonna be kind of converted back into an oak savanna. We are managing for an oak forest, and then a young oak forest. And then if you, I'm going to try not to move too fast here, but if you look behind me back here, we did leave kind of a mature stand of residual oak trees. How many acres is there, Yanni? Six? Yeah, they're ridge tops. Depending on

where you demarcate it, it'd be six to eight acres. Yeah, and so what we've done here is we've pretty well impacted the majority of a 40-acre parcel, like I said, with the intent to convert it back into better habitat and all the benefits that young forest bring. All right, how is this gonna, how is what we're looking at there? And just for folks that can see this, you can see the thicker forest

in the background of that video. That's what that place looked like too, is a closed canopy, you know, mixed upland oak forest. And now you can see we have, we're letting a lot of sunlight hit the ground there. But tell us how that's gonna be beneficial to turkeys. Yeah, man. Young forest is great for a lot of different types of animals,

especially in this area. This area used to be really heavily impacted by fire. There was kind of always constant young forest happening, constant regeneration happening. That doesn't happen quite so much anymore. So species like turkey, the rough-grouse deer, non-game species, they all rely on not only mature forests but also that young forest type. When you're talking about turkey specifically, I mean what we're doing here, as you can see behind me, we've got the mature stand You know those trees are going to be left for mass crop producers are going to be left for roosting trees

And then as you transition into this oak savanna We're gonna have an edge here that's going to be great for nesting and brooding and then when you get out into that clear-cut area in the savanna area, now I'm not a savanna expert. But the interesting thing about converting things back to savanna is you not only get the use of the trees, but there's also a lot going on on the ground with the forbs and the plants and everything. You're going to create a lot more insects, a lot more food for the turkeys. You get an open area like that turkeys love to

strut out in those open areas, roost up in the trees where they can see something, you know, from that savanna. Yeah, it's interesting. You sent me some, a little publication from, I think it was the 60s or maybe even the late 50s yesterday. And it said that at a time that was like one of Wisconsin, at least in the southern half of Wisconsin, oak savannas were one of the dominant landscapes. And now it's one of the hardest to find landscapes in Wisconsin. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Savannah or, you know, southern Wisconsin was definitely dominated by Savannah at one time mainly because of that fire aspect that we're missing now. And with the lack of the fire on the landscape and everything else that's changed that humans have brought, you know, different invasive species and things like that, that's kind of gone away. And a lot of that is transitioning into kind of a more more of a maple forest, which is fine, but it's just not what was here before we got here

Well, i'm planning on bringing back the fire too Um, so hopefully we can continue, you know make more savannah any questions. Yeah Boys, have you seen any turkeys while you're out there? It's a good question. You got a little scouting report for you on us here Yeah, there's turkeys everywhere Um, they seem to be a little bit more skittish. They seem to be a little bit They seem to be a little bit more skittish with the logging operation than the deer are Uh, but they're definitely utilizing the areas around here. Uh, there's a lot of roosting happening right behind me Um to the south a little ways there's some travel corridors. They've been using they're they're curious

They're just not sure about it yet since we're still working in here. Mm-hmm Buddy that's intriguing. Yeah about 30 days. I'll be sitting right where Wyatt's at right there and listening to one of them gobblers I hope I hope you put him to work while he's up there Yeah and listening to one of them gobblers, I hope. I hope you put him to work while he's up there. Yeah, we're working on finishing this project up so it should settle down just in time for Turkey on for you. Yeah, Wyatt's hoping to not be there by the time I get there. But if he is, then yeah, I'm going to jump in the dozer

and work with him. Wyatt, thanks for taking a break from your day, man, and giving me an update. Hopefully everybody else here enjoyed that as well. Enjoy the nice day. Put on some sunscreen, don't get burned. I appreciate you guys having me. Brody, Dr. Randall, good talking to you.

Thanks. Thanks, nice meeting you. Well, now what you guys have all been waiting for. The photo contest. This is exciting. It is exciting. We got, we had over 200 submissions. That's great, thanks everyone. Yeah. Do we have a jingle for this? We appreciate it. I don't have a jingle for this, no. You want to just sing something freestyle? It's okay, something involving turkey. It's the photo

contest, the most contested photos You were singing some some Kelly Clarkson earlier as it sends you being goblin. Oh, yeah, I can That's all I got. I'm sorry. It's listen. No. No, we'll work on it work out. We got 12 months. Thank you Just 30 seconds to whip something up might have been my best one yet. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty good. So we had over 200 submissions. Appreciate you all doing that. Corey says that we had pregnant wives slash girlfriends

with their birds and belly bumps. He didn't think they were that impressive though. He did not share those with us. So we didn't, so if that was one of yours, I'm sorry. Everybody's getting put on the spot today. That did not make it to the top 20 but we saw a bunch of cool photos a lot of kids kids with parents kids dead birds big smile faces which I love this brings up something that I've been working on if you want a reminder of how to be in the moment, because you know, we all tell anybody

that's been a parent for more than 10 years, well, as soon as you meet somebody that's got like a newborn, like you can't help yourself, but to be like, man, listen here, this shit's gonna go by so fast. You have to figure out a way to like relish every moment, stay in the moment, right? It's so hard to do. Recently I've been, I've had to find

baby pictures and sort of like show a album of my oldest daughter from 0 to 13 that they're gonna use in a slideshow for eighth grade graduation with iPhone and I'm sure with the other phones now you can literally just go to your photos and Put in someone's name and then every single picture with that person or most of them pop up And man you want to talk about a good way to draw out some tears Just do that with your kids and then scroll all the way to the bottom and just start scrolling through there It draws out some tears, but it's a reminder because you're like well damn don't get to have that moment again with your kids and then scroll all the way to the bottom and just start scrolling through there. It draws out some tears, but it's a reminder because you're like, well damn,

don't get to have that moment again when they were all little and young and cuddly. But it reminds you to then, hopefully that night at dinner, get off the phone and stay in the moment and be with your kids because it's fleeting. All right, that's all I gotta say about that. But yeah, you can't help yourself, right Brody? Yeah, man. Because it's fleeting all right. That's all I gotta say about that mmm, but Yeah, you can't help yourself right Brody. Yeah, man when you're when you're get to be our age And you got kids that are past 10. I mean you're in the same boat like my older

Kid is 13 now going on. It'll be 14 early fall Like it's it's sinking in it's like holy shit Only a few years left to hang out I mean we'll hang out obviously oh, yeah older, but not like you have been right So like sad like hunting fishing with them all right Hopefully I didn't bring anybody down But as a reminder stay in the moment with your family and your kids if you need a way to help yourself do that Just go into your iPhone photos and look at all the pictures of your kids when they were little.

Back to the photo contest. We had 20, Curry had 20 good ones for us. We narrowed it down to three and we're going to now ask the live audience to help us pick who should be one, two, and three. Yeah, before we look at these pictures, for the very first time, we are going to be polling the live chat of the YouTube live audience right now. So after we look at these top three pictures, I will put up a poll between photos number one, two, and three, and you are going to decide the winner. Phil is digging into his toolbox here. That's right. I already picked the winner,

and if you guys don't agree with me, I don't know what we're gonna do. All right, are we ready for this? Yeah, let's go. Okay, let's bring up photo number one here. Yeah, remember. I'm showing off one of the prizes here. The winner, the winner winner.

Oh yeah, let's get that back. Everybody's a winner here, the top three are winners, but the winner winner gets a first-light treeline turkey vest. I was wearing one of those when I shot my Texas Rio the other day. I was wearing this one earlier, which is why all the straps are stretched out. They get this bad boy too, right? They get a Moultree or yeah, Moultree Edge 2 cell camera, which I've been using for a couple years now.

I love those cameras. And what else we got? Some calls, right? Some Phelps calls, Cory? You're throwing in a bunch of calls. That very one right there. Runner Up is going to get... Help me out, Cory.

What's Runner Up get? More... More calls? Phelps calls and their choice is a shirt or a hoodie. Okay, and then... We have some cool new logo wear on our website. And third place gets... A shirt or a hoodie.

Can't beat that. Everybody's a winner. Alright, so the first picture, Phil had it up there for a second. Let's come back to it, Phil. Sent in from Jacob Zetterman. It's a pretty picture, well pretty gun pretty gun but unbelievably nice long remember remember friends out there in the audience you're voting on this so take a good hard look well there you like this one because oh yeah because of the caption is it in here it is the caption

is in here. It was in the email that came with this photograph. And Jacob's caption reads, "'Tell Steve, switching from flintlock to percussion is a little bitch move.'" Actually, Jacob didn't say LB. He just said wuss. He said, "'Tell Steve, switching from flintlock

to percussion is a wuss move There you go Steve. I hope you're listening and you hear that You just gonna be a little baby from here on out with your new muzzleloader All right number two Hmm happy Halloween this is this is Ed Snell with a Fall bird come on Phil. Can you zoom in there? I can't know I'll make maybe I can but I What popped out to me when I first saw this picture was a couple things Ed

And this is before we read Ed's email one he remembered his hearing protection and nothing else Yeah for the for the listeners who don't have the benefit of YouTube, the photo shows a man standing on the little walkway next to his house. He's wearing extra toughs, a set of a headset of hearing protection and a pair of boxer shorts. And he holds a turkey and he has a shotgun slung over his shoulder. Is there anything in his left hand? It doesn't look like it, it's just a clenched fist. Okay, yeah he's just excited. Excitement, yeah. But even before we read Ed's caption, I was like, man looks like he got a hen. And bro he said, well yeah look at

the pumpkin. It was a fall hunt Ed's caption read I woke up to a flock of birds in my yard grabbed the shotgun and knew I was going to be shooting so I grabbed ear protection too didn't bother with the pants though we're giving a lot of weight to the good captions yes Yes. Good stories are good. Hell yeah. All right, photo number three came in from Austin McDaniel. Another good story. And for our listeners, the photo shows two men behind a bird with a bow and behind them is a billboard for Cafe Risqué. So if any of you listeners have been to Cafe Risqué at exit 374 in some unknown state, you're about to figure out a good turkey.

It's 24-7. It's not going to be unknown because Austin wrote, we killed this bird in Florida, 200 yards from this sign. There you go. We just did a big spot burn. Yeah, I apologize For reading that caption, but man if you're in Florida right now and struggling There you go figure out where exit 374 Instagram 33 plus years of family-owned adult diner entertainment. Mmm, an adult diner. Wow, I've never heard of an adult diner.

And then he could just say, I'm going to my turkey spot, you know? I'll be there all weekend. Well, let's not digress too much. Okay, Phil, how much time do we need to give everybody to vote? Let's give people a couple minutes. I'm gonna put the poll up now Okay. Now, folks. Democracy in action here. The voice of the people will speak. Like I said, I already know who won. You guys disagree. You don't know what a good turkey photo is. Should we do a little listener feedback? Oh, sure. Yeah, we'll do some listener feedback while the poll. That's a great, great idea, Janice. Look at that host. Hey, I could also pitch the new

television Program that that we have coming out today at some point. Yeah, absolutely do that right now. Okay You may have heard you may have not we've got a new program out. It's gonna be out today at some point I wish I knew what time probably soon here. It's live. It's live. She's so Watched it. You got something to do It's called meat eater roasts yours truly hosted it 1000 people have already viewed it means they must be digging it. It's a little cooking competition show we have a little process here within meat eater where

Colleagues employees submit ideas and there's been a lot of ideas submitted for some sort of cooking competition show. A lot of different versions, but we came up with this one. Originally it was supposed to be roasts, as in like, as the host and the judges, we're just gonna be roasting and just cutting down the people that are trying to cook the whole time. We've been doing that, but I'd say very lightheartedly

But we basically have two people just normal cooks Brody has been a contestant Randall's been a contestant Just a normal cook. Yeah, you guys are just normal dudes Yeah, that's the intro of the show you say ordinary cooks Yeah, it took a little bit of offense at that. What kind of of a cook I did not what kind of a cook would you describe yourself as like every day better than ordinary to sound so Brody's worked on cookbooks noted I like no that's a better choice of words I agree every day every day cooks and we make them cook against each other limited amount of time and they don't know what protein,

what chunk of wild game they're cooking until I reveal it in front of them in the show. Right? We didn't cheat on that, right? You didn't know what you were cooking. Then we have a couple of judges who are mostly a little bit more experienced than the everyday cooks that are doing the cooking. And as they cook, the judges help them, roast them, make some jokes, give us some banter. And at the end, we judge the dishes, rate them,

pick a winner, give some money to conservation because we like to do that. And I've been loving hosting it because it's really spurred some, like spurred me out of my normal sphere of what I always cook at home when it comes to wallet game. Like I did Corinne's, I don't wanna give away too much, but I cooked what Corinne cooked.

I've cooked what Spencer cooked. What about me? What else? Yeah, I cook pot roasts often, and so I didn't like, I didn't remake your specific recipe. I didn't rekindle a love or a new outlook on the possibilities of a pot roast. You guys are giving too much away here. Phil, can we bleep all that out?

Anyways, the first episode is live now. It is Brody cooking versus Ryan Callahan. And for judges, we have Jesse Griffiths and Steven Rinella. And those boys were harsh. They, out of the five episodes that we- Jesse was harsh, but he was also helpful. Steve was just harsh. Yeah, it's funny.

I don't really associate Steve with being judgmental in any way but they did what we asked of them and I think the episode came together nicely oh I hope that all of you can watch it Ed is in the chat Ed is in the chat you made our day today thank you Boxer shorts Ed is in the chat. Number two, Ed is in the chat. Ed, you made our day today, thank you. Jacob and Austin, you're really missing out on this opportunity. If you're in the chat, show yourselves. Because right now, it is, well, the spread's getting wider,

but we've got, well, actually, before we even say anything about the photo contest, let's get a vote from the crew, you guys. Oh, yeah. Your votes do not matter, but just an opinion. Would you guys like number one from Jacob, number two from Ed or number three from Austin? Randall. Oh man.

Ed's photo brought a big smile to my face. I like the cafe risque. You know, I like, uh, you like going to billboarders. No, no billboards. But, uh, yeah. Ed smile really delighted me. Yeah. I like that pretty picture of that, that, uh, musket net Turkey. Um, that's a great photo, but like, I like, I like Ed. He's great, man. Like I, like I'd love to be living in that house and see a flock of turkeys in the backyard and jump out there and shoot one.

Yeah. I was thinking you were going to say you'd love to be Ed's neighbor and then see Ed jump out in that outfit and go shoot a turkey. I could picture myself doing the exact same. It's very relatable. One of the members of the chat just suggests that we should give Ed second or third place so he gets a shirt. That's witty. Or he can just go shirtless with the vest.

Listen, I'm voting for Ed, man. I think that dude's got balls. All right, I'm going to give the chat 30 more seconds than I'm ending the poll. Who are you voting for Ed, man. I think that dude's got balls. All right. I'm going to give the chat 30 more seconds than I'm ending the poll. Who are you voting for, Phil? I mean, it's all due respect to Ed, incredible picture. I like how classy number one is, and I like the Cafe Risque billboard in number three. Those are my two picks.

I tell you what, they're cutting into my pizza time right now, Bill, let's go. Okay, 15 more seconds, 15 more seconds, because it's kind of close, so these last few seconds could change the poll. If you're not going for Ed, something's wrong with you. That would be me. Weighing our...

Sorry, Ed, I'm sure you're a good guy. All right, let's give him five, four, three, two, one. I am ending the poll. In third place with 15% of the vote, we have photo number three, Austin McDaniel, the Cafe Risque billboard. Congratulations, Austin. Good showing, Austin.

There's someone driving to that turkey spot right now. I was gonna say, he burned his spot for third place. That's tough. Yeah. Yeah. And now, I'm gonna announce the first place winner with 43% of the votes. That's tight.

We have Ed Snell. Yeah. There you go, have Ed Snell. Yeah. There you go, Ed. Snell, yeah. Send us a picture with some clothes on next time. And that makes up with 40% of the vote, Jacob, you got second place. He'll get a little coverage out of that vest.

That'll work for him. Very close, very close. Very close. Ed, thanks for submitting your photo and thanks for being here with us. What a true pleasure. Hmm, yeah. I mean, I don't know if I have it in me

to send in a photo anywhere in just my boxer shorts. Would you do that? To have it publicly displayed? For a free flashlight? Yeah, I'd do that. Turkey hunt best, I would. Oh, you would for a free vest? I come on here and make a buffoon of myself every week,

Yannis. I don't know why showing a little skin is such a hangup All right, let's new segment last but not least Thanks again Ed last but not least We have the meat-eater turkey calling contest ongoing and today it is yours truly versus Tony Peterson and it's Tony just on his pot call again you've watched this video I haven't watched it that's the one he's running both okay I mean the pot calls the one he said is for beginners right oh right right now Tony is ahead 57% to my 42%

Hey, listen if that's what the people think that his call sound better. They might I just feel like I did all mine with the mouth call yeah, I Like to make it hard I feel like myself I feel like that's in the spirit of the competition. Yeah Feel myself. I feel like that's in the spirit of the competition. Yeah Get in there and support you honest yeah, and then support us Yankees whether it's Peterson myself Who else is left? I don't know But yeah dropping like flies plays over there calling on on the top of a mule I I don't understand that except that I guess that just novelty gets votes but maybe that'll work but yeah I say let's knock

Clay off of his high horse yeah and and yeah it'd be good for a new champion anything else to add this week boys? Phil we got any last-minute gems chat Yeah, I know Yanis is itching to get some turkish to a rapid-fire turkey tip. So you ready for this? Well actually first mogul piped it and said wild turkey and Hungarian is vod pulia. Ka I Hope he didn't tell me to like F my mom or something like that Trusting you mogul you seem like a nice guy I hope he didn't tell me to like F my mom or something like that. I'm trusting you, Mogor. You seem like a nice guy. Uh, number one, rapid fire.

What's the best state for public land, turkey hunting opportunities? Next question. Throw a dart at the map. Yeah, man. There's turkeys literally in all of the states in the lower 48. So pick one that has a lot of public land. You'll probably get good turkey hunting on public. Top three snacks for a long turkey sit. Oh man, PB&J, jerky. I like to have a little fried chicken in my backpack, which isn't really a snack, but it's good.

Oh yeah. I think fried chicken is a snack. Snacks and food and meals, it's kind of all the same to me when I'm packing my turkey vest So I like I'd rather have more than less. Yep, who's gonna kill a turkey first this year? Yeah, I think you were the first on the crew this year right might have been Oh, that's true. Yeah. We'll have to check those time codes. Any turkey tips for closing the gap? Be sneaky or stay where you are.

Yeah, just real, real quiet calling. That's what I've found that is when you think he can't hear you, he can hear you. Decoy or no decoy? No decoy for me. I've never killed one over a decoy. Is that right? Carry them around. But this is very, I know we're trying to do this real fast, Phil, but this is just for if I'm going out personally hunting by myself. I'm going to go with no decoys.

I feel like if you do it right you can set up in a spot if the terrain allows you can set up in a spot where you don't need one. Oh 100% and and then in the back in the east it doesn't even have to be terrain it's vegetation right you just have to set it up so that the turkey has to come see you in your range. But again, we hunt western stuff a lot. If you're hunting fields, the decoys can be deadly. And if I'm guiding, whether it's friends, family, kids, whatever, I might be doing that.

Yeah. I might be doing that. Yeah, and I mean, you start talking about super realistic decoys like these, they can definitely get a turkey in a range when they wouldn't have come otherwise. Oh yeah, and you get to see the whole show and all that, but I just like to, again, I like the challenge of calling one in. I like to make it hard. Okay, last one, Is pineapple acceptable on pizza?

Yes. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. No. Speaking of which. Let's go eat some pizza. Thank you all for listening. Thanks, gang.

Watching MeatEater Radio Live this week. Again, just one last reminder, go to themeateater.com, see what we got going on there. There's all kinds of great content this week. Get you fired up for Turkey season. Hell of a show. Phil. Congrats. Ed. I'm telling you, man, there's nothing quite like it. It gives me chubby just thinking about it. You hit the call way off in the distance, the time fires back. You work him in, watching his body language shift from cautious to committed.

Then that moment, the one every turkey hunter dreams about all winter, is that gobbler locks eyes in your decoy and comes running in. And if you're using the right decoy, you don't need to then settle for a 40 yard nervous shot. Cause with the right decoy, you can get that bird in your lap, putting on a wild aggressive turkey show. I mean, I'm talking where he's fighting the decoy. I've had him sitting there trying to mate with the decoy.

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