The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 685: MeatEater Radio Live! A Cottonwood King, B&C Javelina, and a Sizable Meat Poll

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Seth Morris touch on their turkey trips, get the skinny on a fat cottonwood from the University of Nebraska's Justin Evertson, play 1-Minute Fishing with Tyler Coleman of Trout Unlimited, climb the latest Meat Poll, and talk Boone and Crockett javelina with Jim Heffelfinger. 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.com and make every call count. account. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live! It's 11am Mountain Time. That's noon o'clock for our friends in Forest City, Iowa on Thursday, April 3rd. And we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Boasville, Montana. I'm your host Spencer Neuarth joined today by Yanis Poutelis and Seth Morris. On today's show, we'll interview Justin Everetson about the new world record cottonwood tree, followed by one minute fishing with our friends at Trout Unlimited. After that, we'll find out how much Yanis and Seth know about their fellow outdoorsmen

with a game of meat pole, and finally, we'll talk to Jim Heffelfinger about the addition of a new species to the Boone and Crockett record books. Now I shout it out, Forest City, Iowa there. That's where I went on my bachelor party back in the day. They had a music festival. I think it still goes on. It's like a three-day music festival. That's what I did for my bachelor party. What kind of music? Primarily country. So like the headliners when I went Alan Jackson, Big and Rich, Thomas Rett. One of the surprising Jackson, Big and Rich, Thomas Rhett. One of the surprising bands there,

Phil, you'll like this, I think, was lit because it was right around when they decided to drop a country album. They were a one hit pop punk wonder from the 90s and then, I don't know, like 10 years ago, they're like, hey, maybe we try country music. Well, is it good? Was their country music good?

Yeah, their country album. No, so like at a music festival, there'll be like an A stage, a B stage, a C stage. They didn't get on the B stage I think they were a C stage and gotcha yeah, Yanni. What'd you do for your boy here was that? 17 2017 I think yeah, what'd you do for your bachelor party? What and what bachelor party was in 2003? We uh We had some troubles with the bachelor party, not the kind of

troubles you're thinking about. You can see where you're going. I wasn't really gonna go conventional bachelor party. What would be conventional? Well, these days it seems like you go to Nashville and walk around and get drunk and, you know, see some, hear some music, eat some barbecue, and I don't know, you know, you probably hit on gals you're not supposed to be. That's my guess. Yeah. No, we, we got married at my wife's parents' house, which is in Morehead City, North Carolina, and great fishing there, and so we thought we would go fishing, and so we sort of got a, you know, did a little poll about who wanted to go

I think we had two or three boats booked. I want to say the one boat was Miss Stacy Is that a boat I should know about? No, no I just want to give those guys a shout out if they're still if they're still going, you know 20 some years later But the day we were gonna do it, we get a call from the captain, and he's like, man, I don't do this often, but unless you guys are some just seagoing mariner sons of bitches,

you guys don't wanna go today, it's gonna be rough. And what'd you tell him? And we're like, you're right. I'm like, the only person that to probably be fine would be my wife mm-hmm That was another way we weren't gonna go Traditional is yeah, it was gonna be just like a group kind of a party thing you know and so I had cousins friends a lot of people in town and He's like alright good call. I'm like well. Let's try to do it afterwards

in a couple days after the wedding, excuse me. And sure enough, that night that we canceled, we end up at a bar doing some more traditional type stuff, which is just a bunch of people hanging out playing pool and drinking. And we run into a mate that was gonna be on one of those charter boats. And he's like, man, everybody canceled, but me and a couple of the captains went out.

Holy shit we crushed them of course, you know. He's like, he's like man it was so bad he's like I almost got sick. Crushed what? Uh mostly dolphin. Okay. Is that if I remember right I don't know what else they call it. It's mostly dolphin. But we had a smaller group just one boat go out on the Miss Stacey like two or three days after the wedding people that were still in town and

We did pretty good too, you know enough to have you know, everybody went home with a small cooler full of dolphin Seth What'd you do on your bachelor party? I didn't really have a bachelor party. Well, there was like a Sort of kind of a low-key party or your house. Yeah, there was there was it was like a yeah Chester was making beer brought Yeah, it was just like a little get-together in the evening But I don't even remember exactly when it was but it wasn't like some like, you know monumental Bachelor party. I remember standing around your wall. I boat a lot though. Yeah. Yeah, we should throw you a bachelor party I'm down man. So what'd you do for your bachelor party? Absolutely nothing

Well, okay, we got a bachelor. You boys come up with a square theme For your the second Phil bachelor party. I love to see where that Venn diagram crosses I'll go to a tiki bar Phil. Hell yeah While I fishing by day tiki barring by night Sounds like a pretty fun day. Yeah, sounds like a country song a bad one Well like an Alan Jackson country song him and Jimmy Jimmy just depends on who writes it You know, maybe throw that background band. They like that genre throw that bone to the Isbell brothers

They might be made to the Isbell brothers they might be made Seth you just got home from right you were in Florida and Texas or in Texas how many turkeys died on those trips two in Florida me my wife and then Three died in Texas. Okay, Steve got two and we're down there with Luke Combs and he got one. Hmm So you pulled the trigger once I pulled the trigger once. Yep. How was Florida? What were you hunting Easterns or? Osceola Osceola, okay. Yep Florida was amazing. We got a an invite from a guy that commissioned Kelsey to do some artwork for him back in the day. Mm-hmm, and

He's been inviting us to go down there for years and we finally took him up on the offer. What kind of artwork just dog portraits, Oh. Yep. So yeah we went down there and he's part owner of this like awesome hunting club and the the property is just like totally set up for epic hunting and full of turkeys and yeah we we ended up Kelsey ended up missing a turkey on the first morning and then that evening called two in and we ended up, Kelsey ended up missing a turkey on the first morning and then that evening called two in and we doubled up. First Osceola for you?

Yep. How did that compare to the rest of the subspecies that you've killed? Well, they don't gobble much. Oh. They gobble a lot on the limb, but they fly down and shut up. And that was, it's like not my favorite style

of turkey hunting where you just got to sit there forever and wait for them but still super cool like are they notorious for longspurs sent them and didn't did you like take notice of that or did you like any other bird Kelceys were inch and a half oh man and mine were inch and a quarter and razors too right yeah razor sharp they'll mess you up if you're not careful. They're big. They're super cool birds. Yeah. And just how much they weigh though they're kind of scrawny. Mine was 17, Kelsey's was 21. Oh 21. 21's a John. That's a heifer. That's like a corn-fed turkey. Yeah it was a big one. I was

surprised yeah. Okay but have you cooked anything yet with these Osceola birds? Schnitzel. Did it taste any different? we did some schnitzel two nights ago But now it was just like normal schnitzel. Okay, Seth on the board first then I think he you probably killed the turkey before Yanni This year, right? Maybe the first in the crew. It might be a maybe date. Was it? That was it's a squared away. Let's see, March... There's a title at stake here. It was like two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. That was way before Yanni.

No, it was before you went to... I think it was before you went to Texas. I killed mine on the 15th... ...of March. Oh. We'll do some date checking. Oh, you know what? You might be earlier than us.

Because I think we were 17th through the 21st. All right. You're rooting for Seth huh? I was rooting for Seth yeah. Sorry Seth and Spencer. All right let's get on with the show. Joining us on the line first is Justin Everetson the Green Infrastructure Coordinator from the University of Nebraska. He's here to talk about the new world record Cottonwood that hails from the Cornhusker State. Justin, welcome to the show. Yeah, hi guys, thanks for having me. First thing, tell us about Nebraska's relationship with cottonwood trees. Well, yeah, you can probably imagine Nebraska doesn't have a lot of trees or it

didn't that settlement about 3% forested., were mostly a prairie state, but the cottonwood was a prominent tree growing across Nebraska, even at the time of settlement. It was a tree that would grow anywhere there was a little moisture, especially along streams or low wet areas. And it was highly revered by both the native populations out here and the early pioneers. So it was kind of Nebraska's favorite or most common tree since the time of settlement. That's changed quite a bit with the advent of agriculture out here and we don't see as many cottonwoods as we used to have. But it is our state tree. It's the state tree of Nebraska. I think also Kansas and Wyoming. And part of that has to do with the fact that we lost a lot of our American elm trees, which

used to be our state tree. That was from a disease in the 60s and 70s. So we just said, hey, how about our good old native cottonwood? I like it. Now earlier this year, it was announced that a cottonwood there is the new national champion tree. How did that come to be and who keeps track of these records? Yeah well I don't want to speak for every state but most states have a champion tree program and here in Nebraska it's with the Nebraska Forest Service and I've been assigned to it here for the last several years so we try to get out and document the biggest major trees in our state for our most prominent trees.

And you'd be surprised, even here in Nebraska where we were pretty much treeless, we can grow pretty big trees out here and also on the Great Plains. So we try to keep track of our champion trees, the most common ones. And then there's a national champion tree program too. And anybody could look that up,

the national register of big trees. And we try to align our standards with those standards because for about the last 25 or 30 years, the largest cottonwood, eastern cottonwood has been measured or found in Nebraska. So we wanna align ourselves with those standards. This particular tree actually grows up near Erickson in our Sandhills region, north of Lincoln and Grand Island.

So you wouldn't think you'd have a big tree out there, but the cottonwood loves wet ground, even in the Sandhills. And a per survey crew out there doing some survey work for the local conservation lake area nearby happened upon this tree and they said, Hey, let's let the Nebraska Forest Service know about it. They did. We went out and confirmed the measurement and then we submitted it to the national champion tree program and it became kosher as the national champion tree just this last summer.

And tell us about the measurements that this tree has and the scoring system that you put together for these trees. Yeah you bet that picture you see right there the guy who happened upon the tree is measuring it Dana Genro and he's measuring it and it turned out to be 37.2 feet in circumference. So if you can imagine, that would probably be six or seven of us big guys trying to hold hands to get around that tree. That's how big the trunk is. It's not super tall. It's only 85 feet tall. Cottonwoods out here don't get super tall when they grow in the open, you know, because they can get widespreading. But the tree does reach out about 120 feet or so. The tree was nominated at just the right time because our former national champion and state champion was dethroned because we had to remeasure it to keep in line with the national standards. And so we were looking for a new tree. This came along at the right time.

And you can see the pictures of this tree on our YouTube channel right now if you go watch this episode. Now, has this tree been on people's radar as a potential national champion? No, we were all surprised that it was out there. It's interesting when you see these trees from a distance, they're not very impressive. These cottonwoods that grow across Nebraska, there's probably 10 or 15 in our database that are over 30 feet in

circumference and you don't really notice them from a difference, but when you get up close to them, maybe a hundred yards away or so, you go, uh-oh, that's a big tree and that's kind of what happened here. They were on the side of the lake that doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. So it had escaped notice for a lot of years. And to be quite honest with you, I'm a big tree hunter. I'm not a game hunter.

I'm a big tree hunter. And we don't even see the biggest of our trees as often as you might think. So how old do you think this tree is? Yeah, cottonwoods grow fast here. So they're not nearly as old as we might think. So how old do you think this tree is? Yeah, cottonwoods grow fast here. So they're not nearly as old as we might think they are for as big as they are. We would guess, we guessed on this tree,

maybe 120 years old or so, going back to historical photographs of the adjacent lakes. So they grow fast and then they kind of die young. Now, 120 years is a good age, isn't it? But compared to an oak that size, an oak that size would be five to 600 years old. My goodness. Now, what is it about that tree's home

that allowed it to grow to such enormous proportions? Yeah, Cottonwood's like a wet spot. And this particular spot is a former creek side, a natural stream flow through the sand hills and then they've converted part of that area to a lake about a hundred years ago and that cottonwood was just in the right spot to stay with a moist root zone all its life to this point. Plus there's not a lot of activity around it, They don't farm right up to it. People don't drive over the root system or anything like that. So it's been able to just

kind of do its own thing for over 100 years now, which is really what we need. One issue we're running into in Nebraska with our agriculture, the way we do agriculture now, it's so big equipment and we use a lot of herbicides, it is impacting a lot of our native trees. And this tree thankfully doesn't have a lot of that agriculture happening right around it. Hey Justin, this is Janice here. I would think that the number one threat to a tree like that would be a beaver.

Yeah. I mean, just, you know, I floated by thousands of cottonwoods in my days as a fly fishing guide in Colorado. And it seemed like the number one thing that would take down some of these giants would be a beaver. But I guess that, like, are there near beavers nearby? Is that something that you guys would worry about

and maybe protect that tree from if they were found in The area. Yeah, that's a really good point to be quite honest with you. We don't see the beaver this tree got big enough That it must have escaped the beavers, but we see beavers chewing on trees right around it Oh, this tree must be big enough that they don't want to try to tackle it But boy do we see beaver damage on our young trees, especially cottonwoods and willows and anything that grows across the creek. I was just out creaking the other day and wow, the beavers can do quick damage on things. So if any of you are looking for a beaver hunt, come on out and help us, I guess.

Justin, Seth here. What about lightning strikes? Has that tree ever been struck by lightning? Is there any signs of that or? Yeah, thankfully, no, we couldn't see anything in it. The trees that get big out here on the plains, right? They are a lightning rod. Yeah, it sure seems like it. You know, so there's a lot that has to happen right

in this tree's life, escaping predation and lightning and all of that to survive to this point. So, but it's, you'd be surprised these big old cottonwoods are all over the plains, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, even out in near part of the world. They, they transition into a subspecies called the, we have the Eastern cottonwood, the subspecies is the plains cottonwood out in Wyoming and Montana. And I think that subspecies called the, we have the Eastern cottonwood, the subspecies is the Plains cottonwood out in Wyoming and Montana. And I think that subspecies national champion is actually out in Montana somewhere, just about as big as this tree. So it's just neat to see that across the Plains, these cottonwoods can grow big and old. And boy, the Native Americans revered them as the tree of

life. They used them in most of their Sundance ceremonies. Another fun fact is that bees, our native bees and our honey bees, used the resin of the buds of these trees. This time of year, they're gathering it to build their hives, and they have antimicrobial possibilities there. And so that's kind of a main ingredient in the Balm of Gilead and early settlers used that as kind of a antimicrobial salve for different things. So yeah, the cottonwood, wow, it's a tree of the plains and we're happy it's out here. So at this age and size, what kind of threats do exist for that tree? Yeah, you've named them there for sure.

I would say lightning. Yeah, here's another sad fact about the big trees here in Nebraska. Our champion tree program, once a big tree gets to that status, its life is maybe about up because when they get that big, they're running out of steam a lot of times, especially a cottonwood. They grow fast and they kind o if we can maybe squeak ou on this tree, that would

second biggest cotton wo in Nebraska did suffer f and a lightning strike a and now it is gone. So, yep. Maybe we shouldn't designate it as a champion because it might be due for succumbing one of these days. If someone thinks they know about a bigger cottonwood or any tree that's of record book proportions, what should they do? Yeah, it depends on the state you're in. Most states do have a Champion Tree Program, and they're happy to, and it's often with

the State Forest Agency or their university system. So you can, that's where I would start. Now you can take that tree to the National Champion Tree Register. They have a portal that you can log in as a visitor and nominate, anybody can do that, nominate a tree. So that's the, I don't have the website, but it's the National Champion Tree Program. Log in there and you'll find it. Poke around in there people too. You'll be amazed at some of the grand and fantastic trees that grow

across this country. One of the most spectacular trees is actually the Rio Grande Cottonwood. I think the National Champion is down in Arizona. You wouldn't believe how big around that thing is. So it's fun to just get out and see these trees. Thanks for joining us, Justin. Congrats on the national champion tree. Nebraska should be proud. Yeah, thanks guys.

I really appreciate the time today. Have a good one. Thanks, Justin. Hey, that was a good one, Spencer. How'd you find Justin? I enjoyed that. When I saw the news of Nebraska dethroning, I don't remember what the last day was.

Wyoming, maybe? He might've said it. It was, so they found this tree in the summer. It was measured late summer, and then I think again, measured earlier this year. So it was confirmed in March that that was the new national champion tree. When I saw that, I thought we have to have somebody on the show to talk about that because I didn't

know that record books existed just for trees. It makes me really interested in that whole world. Oh yeah, like you couldn't really get me to go look at big rocks with you. But if you're like, hey, Yanni, let's go look at a giant oak tree that I know about, I would go for sure. It reminds me, in Latvia, there was a book at this apartment that we were staying at called like Latvia's 100 Dij Woswels, is what they call it. Dij means like mighty, Woswels is oak. And so it was like Latvia's 100 biggest oaks.

Latvia, the country is only the size of West Virginia. So it's not a giant place, but it had literally coordinates and directions to get to like the 100 biggest, coolest oaks across the country. A lot of them are on public or on private land, but I guess they don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure that you can, you know,

go knock on a door and say, hey, can I go, you know, check out the tree? Because a lot of those big giants, even way back in the day They were revered and so they were kept not cut down and they've you know only gotten bigger So it's pretty cool the uh the stat I would love to know is how many turkeys roosted in that tree over its lifespan Yeah, 125 years that thing was born in 1900 then that tree seen everything It's seen something special too when you see a big old tree.

And I think cottonwood specifically to outdoorsmen from like our part of the world, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, is like kind of the tree that you associate a lot of time spent outdoors with. Yeah. So good for Nebraska. Happy they got the record. 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 of time fires back. You work them 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. 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 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 toms 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, moving on. Our next segment is One Minute Fishing. Do I feel lucky?

Well, do ya, 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. If they're successful, we'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. And for the whole month of April, our friends at Trot Unlimited

are joining us for One Minute Fishing. This week, our angler is Tyler Coleman, the lower Bear River project manager at TU. Today he's on the Bear River Basin in Utah and fishing for a donation to Trout Unlimited. Tyler, welcome to the show. Thanks, thanks for having us on and thank you for doing this for Trout Unlimited. It's awesome to even raise awareness if we don't catch fish. Really appreciate you guys doing this. We're excited. A lot of pressure on you Tyler as the first TU guest of the month. Now we asked trout unlimited to highlight some important watersheds across the country for this

segment. So first thing tell us about the Bear River Basin and its greatest threats. So a lot of our work focuses on habitat fragmentation. Having service to do this, I had to do something in town. It's a good example. You can see right behind me that the hydro station, a lot of our issues, we have migratory cutthroat trout and these fish need to move from downstream up into the headwaters of spawn. So our job at TU is primarily focused on reconnecting those tributary streams and

areas that those fish can migrate. And what are some things that TU has done to help this fishery? Specifically here we've done, we created actually barriers on one of the streams with partners to provide habitat for just cutthroat trout. They removed all the non-native fish and then provide habitat for just cutthroat trout. They removed all the non-native fish and then put cutthroat back in above the barriers and now that population can have an area where it's only cutthroat and they can migrate downstream and kind of be a source population for the main stem Logan River. In the area in the Bear River we've done a lot of diversion dam replacements and screenings to protect fish from going one way down the canals and ending up in a ditch somewhere. And we've done some barrier removals, dam removals, fish ladders, a whole lot of just

reconnecting the streams from the tributaries to the main seam. Good on to you. Now let's talk about the fishing. What are you targeting today and how are you doing it? So going back to the connectivity issue is there's no cutthroat trout that you're really gonna find down here. I used to guide this exact same spot years ago

and I've only caught one cutthroat trout over the four years that I bring people here to fish. We've got non-native fish such as stock green boat trout, brown trout, and there are the native mountain white fish that you find in here. What I'm targeting today is anything that'll eat this fly and get to you 500 bucks. Okay, we like that Tyler.

Is there any competition on the river today? Are you the only one there? There's two guys right there spin fishing and there's a couple people fly fishing downstream. So I got to a spot to hold it. Didn't think I would need to on a day like this, but the sun's shining midges are popping off. So we got got one rainbow in the under my belt right before we answered the call just checking the weight We'll see if we can find another one rainbow and how many casts was it to get that one rainbow? Too many too many

So you're not optimistic about catching a fish in one minute then is that what you're saying I'm always optimistic about catching a fish in one minute then is that what you're saying? I'm always optimistic. Okay okay well Tyler your one minute of fishing starts as soon as you make that first cast go at it. Alrighty let me get out there. Tyler is now wading into the stream this looks like the perfect place to pick up a white fish or a rainbow and he's made his first cast. Oh yeah he's already high sticking it. He's drifting. Yeah I'm surprised a beautiful hole like that beautiful sunny day no one else is out there. Yeah. Tyler you're 15 seconds in. There's got to be fish stacked out there don't you think? You would think so. Yeah, it's hard to say if that's a, did he say if it was a

tailwater or just a spillway? Um, I, I don't remember that detail, but I think most important thing is he's in town. So this is a, it looks like a pretty accessible area. Tyler, you have 20 seconds left. Tyler you have 20 seconds left He's just made another cast upstream this may be his last drift Oh, oh, oh, I don't think he has it. Does he have? He does have one. No, no, no Dang it Tyler your one minute of fishing is up. Can you hear us Tyler? Yeah, tell did you have a hook set there? What happened? What was that? Did you have a hook set there? I think it was a rock. Oh my god.

We'll call it a fish for the sake of. Yeah there you go. Just lie to us next time. All right Tyler, well no $500 donation to TU this week but we're gonna try again next episode. Thank you for joining us. Yeah thank you for having us and help raise an awareness for what Trout Unlimited does. We really appreciate it. Hell yeah have a good one Tyler. Thanks Tyler. Thanks Tyler. Alright let's take a break. I would have liked to have known what flies fly or flies he was drifting. Hmm what do you think he was? He said midges were popping so I'm guessing you know probably some kind of a bigger attractor nymph up top and then a midge trailing it in the back but you know there's a thousands of midge patterns. I want to

know if them boys spin fishing were catching it. We'll come back to them later for one minute fishing and spin fishing. You know we might have to switch this segment up to maybe two minute or five minute fishing. Well, if that happens, then the suits at MeatEater are going to be sending me an email like, hey, we can't be giving away all that money every episode. So one minute. I think we've had three successful anglers and it makes it extra special when it does happen. Yeah.

Yanni, you were one of them. You were one of the successful anglers. Chumming that water down in Louisiana. Yup. Yup. No, that was a fishing in a barrel for sure. Yeah. That could have been 10 second fishing that time. All right.

Let's take a break for some listener feedback. Phil, what's the chat have to say? We've got Leland writing in asking question for Spencer. When can we expect more meat eater kids and why the long delays breaks and episode drops? So I'll pipe in first as the part of the podcast team That that show despite its relatively short runtime does take a lot of Teamwork and resources around here. You've got Steve having to write a script for his bit Spencer writing trivia for kids You know Corinne and crew working on Guess That Critter.

Even though it's kind of like a short bite-sized show, it is a lot of work and it's a labor of love. But also we don't really wanna like, I almost use kind of like a very dirty term. I'm not gonna do that, but we don't wanna, now it's stuck in my head. It's good to space the shows out, is what I'm trying to get to,

and kind of eventize them as seasons get people excited. Because I think if that were a weekly show, I think people would be excited about it for a while, and then it might get kind of dull. Yeah, a lot of scheduling, a lot of people involved to put it together. Our plan right now, and this could change, is to drop two seasons of Meat Eater Kids each year.

One in the summer, kind of right when kids get out of school, and then the other around Christmas break. So it spreads them out about six months from each other. Expect that next one, Leland, sometime between Memorial Day and Fourth of July. We're gonna have five new episodes for you. Beginning of June, I think I have five new episodes for beginning of June I can I think I can officially say it again is the next season of meat-eater kids

So so keep an eye out for that there you go tell little Leland more meat-eater kids is on the way Mike Seth you're getting a lot of questions from a lot of different people Michael asks What is a good camera for beginners for photography? Oh? You know one of the first cameras I was the second camera I ever had was a Sony a6300 it's like a crop sensor mirrorless camera made by Sony and it's reasonably priced and good quality photos it's not quite like a professional camera But it's like something worth getting to like start with and see if you want to stick with it and see if you like it

And then is that north or north or south of a thousand bucks? I Think it's probably north, but it's pretty close to it. I don't know what they are these days I haven't looked at camera prices in a while, but I feel like that's one of those things that Prices are probably coming down. Yeah, I haven't looked at camera prices in a while, but I feel like that's one of those things that, um, prices are probably coming down. Yeah. I don't know, like Seth, you and I are the right age that we remember when flash drives came out, Phil, you as well. And there was a moment where like a flash drive was like $80 to get a one gigabyte flash drive.

Oh, I mean, gigs that's, that's being generous. Sure. Several megabytes. Yeah. And then at some point everyone could make make them. The technology got to a point where it was far easier to create a super high quality flash drive. I think that's kind of happening with cameras. Yeah.

Like, it's better now than it's ever been to get a good camera for photography. What other tips you got for Michael? Yeah, well, a tip would just be learn the camera real well and shoot a lot of photos with it and you'll figure out if you like it and if you like it, you know, just upgrade your gear from there. What do you shoot with now? A7R5 which is like a kind of the top of the line, not necessary for someone just getting

into it. That's why size pictures look so good. And he's also very talented. Thanks Spencer. What else you got Phil? From Adam, is there any contention between Janice and Steve being that Janice won a bear tag on Prince of Wales and Steve continues to lose out?

Well, Steve is not losing out. He has other friends and family that have drawn that tag. I believe one or maybe two kids have drawn the same year that I have for 26. So yeah. These days when our kids have a tag, no one's losing out. 26 is gonna be a big year for bear hunting up there. Yeah. My dad drew for 26. So we'll be up there too. Yeah. I'm gonna go out at Clay Newcomb style. I'm bringing my wet suit and my bow Are you being serious? Oh, yeah, what time of year? What month may probably yeah Like the week before oh, it's gonna be great. Yeah, you have a gun picked out for your dad Seth to take on that hunt

He'll probably bring one of his yeah, right old 30-odd six or something. There you go. Yeah, you have a gun picked out for your dad Seth to take on that hunt. Uh, he'll probably bring one of his yeah Right old 30-odd six or something. There you go. Yeah a couple trapping questions for Seth. Oh boy Rashad I've been trying to catch a fox or coyote for weeks now using a dirt hole set with a lure a few times The traps have been trig triggered but with no catches any idea of what I might be doing wrong but with no catches. Any idea of what I might be doing wrong? Um, well, a lot of times when that happens, it's because the fox or coyote is smelling the trap. So there might be some scent contamination there. A lot of times when they'll smell the trap in the ground

and dig it up and it triggers it. Hard to exactly say, you know, what's going on there, but that happens often. Cool, and to follow that one up, do you ever use the old Johnny Thorpe no leg hole beaver skinning method? Those are a bunch of words, I have no idea what they mean. Tried it out and it makes a really nice clean beaver hide,

perfect for making garments. Have you heard of this, Seth? No, I know Johnny Thorpe, but I can't say that I know the no leg hole method. I'll have to check that out. Ben, you taught something new to Seth. Ben Anderson Outdoors. Let's see, this is kind of an interesting one, maybe.

Brad asks, what is the line between helping an animal in distress and letting nature take its course, i.e. a fawn trapped in ice or something like that? You guys have any opinions on that? I would say no what's legal, Brad. In that situation, your best bet is probably to track down a game warden and just use your judgment. If your gut tells you that you should put that thing out of its misery, then that's probably what you should do.

I don't know that I've been in that situation a lot. I hit a doe with my pickup one time, had to cut its throat. But like putting animals out of their misery. Haven't encountered it a whole lot. That's not exactly what Brad asked. He's asking about just helping an animal in distress versus letting it continue to be distressed.

Have you ever had that happen where you had to go, I'm gonna do air quotes for save because I lean on the side of kind of letting nature do its thing. I Was deer hunting in eastern Montana one time and I saw an owl in a barbed wire fence that was still alive And so I went and cut the fence I couldn't get ahold of the landowner at that time But I made the call that I was gonna try to help it So I got a wire cutter out of my pickup cut the fence put it in a tote Track down the right people to give that to there's like a Raptor Association

Had to go like do a handoff to someone else an hour away. They took that Raptor They got it to a rehab facility. It died a week later. So it was it was disappointing facility, it died a week later. So it was disappointing that that was the outcome, but encouraging that like that exists for animals in that exact situation. So I did my best at that time. I sacrificed some hunting to make that happen. And then weirdly, because I had to go way out of my way

to do this handoff on my way back, I saw some deer entering a guy's field, got ahold of the landowner, got permission on a half hour later, I killed the big old four by four. So it was, uh, the nature, uh, did me right on that hunt. You guys ever help or kill an animal that was in distress? Uh, yeah, I did the same thing with hitting a deer with my truck one time. How'd you kill it? 22.

Yeah. I don't know. I feel like if it's like a man-made issue. Sure. It's, I don't know, in my mind, might not be the right thing or legal thing to do, but I don't know. Yeah.

It's tough watching a deer struggle along the road, you know? Oh, for sure. For sure. But now if a young fawn is getting taken down by a pack of coyotes. Let it go. Yeah. Let it go. I mean, if it's nature, let nature do its thing.

It's the name of the game. To put a bow on that story. I did get ahold of the rancher later on whose fence I cut, told him what happened. It's like, Hey, I'll go back and fix it. And he's like, nope, don't worry about it. Thanks for telling me. Good on you for doing the right thing. So it all worked out except for the owl.

All right, moving on. Our next segment is Meat Pole. I said, show me your meat, boys, and take my pole. Welcome to Meat Eat Radio. I got a game to play. Wow, that's great Phil. MeatPole is a test of how much you know about your fellow hunters and anglers. I surveyed 500 MeatEater listeners about the outdoors.

Your job is to predict their answers. There are three questions. Whoever is closest to the correct answer between Janis and Seth gets a point. Whoever gets two points will be the winner. And everyone in the chat should play along as well because Phil is going to watch your answers and then give a shout out to whoever is closest. I feel like I'm a good, good above average trivia player. Quite the opposite here with Meatball. You're not an average Joe, Ianni. You're too disconnected from these 500 listeners

we're talking to. Maybe that's what we learned. Could be. Let's see how you do on today's questions. The first one is what percentage of meat eater listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared? This is so subjective because they have to be humble enough to admit.

I'll admit I got lost to the point where I was scared before. Have you boys had that happen to you? Yeah. I mean between the ages of 12 and 47, has it happened once? Yes. Twice? Yes. Okay well apply that logic to the folks who were answering this question. What percentage media to listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared? What was the worst that you ever got lost and scared Yanni? Oh Geez It's probably you know, my dad and I had quite the moment the other day. We just did it via text.

The other day. Yeah, a couple days ago. I was thinking about a podcast idea I have, and that got me to thinking that I'd never really properly thanked my dad for taking me hunting as a young man. So I just shot him a text saying thanks and he replied with hey, you're welcome Sorry, I yelled at you some of those times And that one time that I'm pretty sure he's probably thinking of Like is it's on our current property wasn't now civic about what the time was no no Okay, but I know that this is those. I mean there's probably some other times. Yeah, but

You know we both just went into the woods Basically and we had prep stands the day before whatever and we're in the dark He goes on to his spot And it was one of those things where he kind of dropped me off and I was just gonna walk right 50 yards and right to My tree well like an hour later I'm just stumbling around in the oak leaves crunching around my flashlight going everywhere and out of the just pitch black quiet Still, you know pre dawn nightness. I just I can't remember the exact Explodings in the sense, but it was basically like yelling just sit down and wait for it to get light

I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea Of course when it got light I could see my stand. A little lost and a little scared that time. Yeah. The most scared I ever got was I was in college, I was mushroom hunting along the Missouri River and it was getting dark and it was just like a totally monotonous forest of every tree looked the same. The ground was totally flat.

And at some point, I didn't know where I was or how to get back to the road and my pickup. And this was before OnX was there, is before CellSignal had so much coverage. But I could get out a phone call if I needed to. And so my plan was once I was lost for like a good hour, I was gonna call one of my buddies, have him drive like an hour to the road

because he would know where I was at and then have him honk the horn. And I thought that would guide me out of the woods luckily right before I got to that point. I made it out Okay, and it wasn't that serious, but I was concerned enough where I was coming up With ideas of how to get out of there. You were like you're like right around 20 Yeah, I was I was probably a freshman or sophomore. Yeah. Yeah, I got lost one time coon hunting when I was in high school. Yeah, I think it was in high school. At night? At night, had like a mag light and that's it. And I by accident after several hours by accidently stumbled into my house. Is that where you left from was your house? No. That's good. Okay, you were a little scared I imagine.

I don't know if I was scared or not, but probably, I don't know. All right, Yanni and Seth have their answer for what percentage of media listeners. I'm watching the room there online and their numbers are a lot lower than mine. So what percentage of listeners have gotten lost in the woods to the point where they were scared?

Go ahead and reveal your answers. What? We have Yanni saying 87% and we have Seth saying 11%. The correct answer is 39.1%. I think that means Seth gets that first point. But honestly, neither one of you boys were very close to that answer. No, no, no. According to one study,

it's estimated that over 4,600 people get lost in the woods each year. That's 13 people per day. Hikers make up 48% of people lost in the woods, with the most common demographics being men aged 20 to 25 and men aged 50 to 60. The three most common reasons people get lost is because they got off a trail, failed to have a good plan, and miscalculated time or distance. Phil, who was the closest in the chat to 39.1?

Oh, we had Lane with the 38 and Devin with 38 as well. Well done, Devin and Lane. Here's question two. What percentage of meat eater listeners would give up fishing for a year in exchange for their dreamboat? What percentage of meat eater listeners would give up fishing for a year in exchange for their dreamboat? Seth, describe for me your dreamboat. You know, my dreamboat's not that crazy. It's just a simple, like, 20-foot tiller, aluminum tiller boat. Oh, okay. Yep.

Yeah, I think mine would be pretty attainable as well. It'd be like a 17-foot Lund Deep V with a nice open floor plan. Like a Lund Pro Guide tiller boat. You guys aren't thinking this through. What do you mean? You could have any, if you were to give up fishing, he's saying you could have any boat of your dreams.

I know, but the boat that I have the most use for would be that Lund Deep V17 foot. I'd probably have a steering council in there. Yeah, but you've maybe never even been on an 80 foot catamaran, so you didn't even know. What on earth am I gonna do with that boat, Yanni? You want me to list off the things that you could do on and off that boat?

For me, yes, go ahead. Oh, you mean like live like here in Bozeman. Yes You can put it out on Canyon Ferry and have great big parties on it. Okay, maybe my dream boat You know go and dive what's your dream boat then? Since me and Seth I would have I would have to think about it a little bit I don't but it wouldn't be no, you know, whatever $50,000 boat you guys are talking about a landing craft would also be nice for up in Alaska Uh huh, see? See? Now Seth's starting to think a little bit So what percentage of listeners would give up fishing for a year in exchange for their dream boat? Seth would you do it?

Yeah, I probably would yeah, gosh of course yeah, I would I would do it too. Well, there's some data for you boys. I'm going to raise my number. Yeah, but it didn't work for the last question. All three of us have been lost and scared in the woods. I guess that's a good point. You guys have an answer? Yep. Go ahead and reveal your answers.

Okay, we have Yanni saying 87%. Same number as Weston. Seth saying 80%. And you boys are in the right neighborhood this time. The correct answer is 75.1, giving Seth the second point and the victory. According to one study, the quintessential boat owner in America is as described,

they are a suburban white man, age 54 with an above average income. But that same study shows a shift since COVID towards boat owners who are younger and more diverse. Phil, who was the closest in the chat? Cody with 75 is right there. 0.1% off well done Cody. All right, question three,

we're gonna see if Seth can shut out Yanni, make him go streaking around the building as is tradition when you get Skunked what percentage of meat eater listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad Yanni who just had some very honest conversations with his dad about thanking him for hunting and then papayannis Apologize for yelling at Yanni. Do you think you're a better hunter than Papayanni? Yes. And he would agree. He would tell you that. All right, Seth, how about you? Yeah. Yeah, he would agree to. Yeah, me too. You do. There's some more data for you guys. You know,

the data data has not been helping this game. Cory, what about you? Oh, yeah, way better. Better hunter, better fisherman, better golfer. But I have him to thank for all that. There you go. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Again, what percentage of meat eater listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad? Wow, the chat is stoked you guys are participating to this level you're keeping Phil busy over there yeah yeah lots of numbers a lot to sit for percentage of listeners think they're a better hunter than their dad are you boys ready yep go ahead and reveal your answers we have Yanni saying 76% Seth is saying 97.2%

There's no shutout the correct answer is 77.5% Yanni was 1.5% percentage points off of the correct answer. Now this is a bit surprising since previous polling of our audience showed that only 42% of listeners think they're a better angler than the average angler. But an overwhelming amount of listeners say they're a better hunter than their dad. So either our audience is far more confident in their hunting skills than fishing skills, or most of them think their dad is a poor outdoorsman. Big big discrepancy there.

I would point it to the the availability of information that that Like the average totally average son versus the average dad at this point in time had coming up Because again, I didn't my dad got me into it took me hunting but I would say that you know The large majority of what's in my head about hunting did not come from him. Yeah, the the The large majority of what's in my head about hunting did not come from him. Yeah. The, the, um, the hurdles to like get into hunting or whatever thing you like, mushroom hunting, rock hunting, fishing. Uh, it's never been easier because of all the information available

online and podcasts like this one. All right. We had, we had John Torres with 77. 77. There. Well done, John. Good work, John. Dang near nailed it.

All right last thing for today joining us on the line last is Jim Heffelfinger the wildlife science coordinator from the Arizona Game and Fish Department He's here to talk to us about the addition of have Alina to the Boone and Crockett record book Jim. Welcome to the show Good to be here. Jim. Are you a better hunter than your dad? Yes, I think so because I taught him when he was in his 60s. Oh, okay. That's an easy one for you to answer then. All right, Jim, what was the motivation for getting Javelina added to the Boone and Crockett record book? Well, what is not to like about these cool things? I mean mean they're just little wild pigs that live in the desert. Hold on, hold on. They're pigs?

No, no, I was gonna get to that. Okay. Yep. So we call them pigs just as a nickname, but coming from South Texas that was confusing to me because we had pigs and then we had these that are not pigs. So javelina are not in the pig family, the suede. They're in their own family, which is the peccary family, which is teya suede. And some people make a big deal out of them not being pigs, and they're really not because they're not in the pig family, but they're in a very closely related kind of branched off little family. So I don't make a big deal out of it, but they're very

different. And the reason they're different is the peccaries, which is the javelina is a colored peccary, and there's three kinds of peccaries. The other ones are in southern Mexico and South America. The peccaries are a new world animal. They evolved in North America and South America. The pigs, the real pig family is an old world animal that was then brought over here. And so that's the difference. We had peccaries in the Pleistocene running all over North America. They all went extinct. And then the collared peccary reinvaded North America, really in the last thousand years. So the motivation for getting them added to the record book

is just because what's not to love about a little hattie? Exactly, they're really cool animals. They're a big game animal. Arizona's been managing them as game animals since 1929. Texas and New Mexico has been managing them as game animals since 1929. Texas and New Mexico has been managing them as game animals since the 1930s. And like Arizona has a lottery style draw, you have to apply and get a permit to hunt javelino. We've got 26,000 permits available and increasing trends in popularity in Arizona and New Mexico. They're managed sustainably in sustainable populations in all three states.

And how they've escaped the Boone and Crockett record book for a hundred years is the real question. Yeah, and it was announced in December that Boone and Crockett would start tracking Javelina records after a unanimous vote. What was the process like in getting them on board? Yeah, interesting story is I have an old Manila file folder from 20 years ago that says Havlina Boone and Crockett category and I became a professional member in Boone and Crockett, started going to meetings and meetings of Boone and Crockett people and I asked them that question, why is this Havlina not in the record books? And I just got kind of a collective shoulder shrug,

like, I don't know. And I was really passionate about making that happening, but there was no like momentum. I just kind of ran out of, I wouldn't get any traction anywhere with anybody. And so I started raising a family and doing my job. And it was last year that Nicole Tapman from New Mexico Game and Fish called me and said,

hey, would you write a letter to support putting Havalina as a new record book category? And I said, write a letter. I'm clearing my calendar. I mean, let's get to work. Let's start working on this. And so we enlisted a couple of people from Mexico who have an interest in this, three people from Texas,

Nicole from New Mexico, me from Arizona. And we all came together as a team and we wrote this proposal that was presented to the Boone and Crockett Records Committee. Nicole is a member of the Records Committee. I'm kind of a recent member of the Records Committee and I have a little asterisk by my name because I'm not an official measure, but we were in the Records Book Committee meetings, and we put together, first of all, we just put together some rudimentary information. We brought that to the records committee

and we said, we'd like to do this. There's good reason to do it. What we'd like from you is just to invite us to come back with a full proposal. And they did that. They were interested enough. They said, let's see what you got. So we spent six months or so

and we came back with a full proposal. And some of the members of the records committee that had been there for decades said they have never seen more research and well put together proposal. And it was just really an overwhelming success. Everybody saw the information we brought to bear and agreed that it was a pretty good idea.

So they approved it in December and now we're in the phase of implementing, kind of rolling it out and getting it set up. Well, you must have done a good job because again, it was unanimously approved by Boone and Crockett. Now let's talk about scoring them. What measurements are taken on a javelina? Yeah it's going to be, we want to keep things simple. We don't want something different for this kind of animal. So it's just length plus width like we do for bears and mountain lions. And you can see in the background there is the Arizona record book.

So Arizona has had a record book since 1970 in keeping track of length plus width of the skull. Texas has had a record book since 2010. New Mexico just uses SCI of scoring. They don't have their state record book. So we have a huge body of information to guide us in how to measure them and what the minimum score might be. The one quirk was that all of those Arizona records, if you can see in the picture, the incisors hang out a little bit farther than the skull bone itself. Boone the Crocket always includes the teeth with lions and bears. The historical Arizona javelina records did not include those incisors, just the skull itself. And so we had to look at

the historical records and we looked at a whole bunch of javelina skulls and saw that the teeth add about 1 16th or 1 8th. And so we had to just kind of add that little bit to the score to get an idea of what a minimum score might be for for Avelina. So how many how many entries are in that Arizona book, Jim? About 700 in the Arizona book. And the minimum score, it started out. This is the 1970s book. It started out with the minimum score and this is all species.

This is our state record book started out with a minimum score of like 13 and something. It's been 14. This is our current book of all species. It's been 14 inches for a long time. And so there's seven, so there's 700 in there, which some are grandfathered, but they're above 14. New Mexico's had, using the SCI they use a flight 14 and 1 16th and Texas had a lower one to 13 and 10 16th, but to give you an idea of the range of those since we have this information The the largest javelina on record in any of those states is 15 and 7 16 That gives you a good idea what pretty much maximum is or at least what the goal is to beat. And there's 21 javelina that have been measured that are over 15 inches.

That gives you, lets you kind of frame what that looks like. 700 over 14 inches and only 21 over 15 inches. And what's the minimum score going to be for Boone and Crockett? Was there any disagreement on that number? Not disagreement, just a lot of discussion and that's not finalized yet so they're talking about that now but having all of this data set for a new animal is so valuable because we can look at that and we could even do some little diagrams and say well if it's set at this limit how many can we expect and we can we expect a lot you know over that amount

so it gives us that kind of basis information. But one important thing is, we don't take all those records out of Texas and Arizona and throw them into Boone Crockett record book, every skull will have to be measured by a Boone Crockett official measure. And so obviously, all of those won't be in the Boone Crockett record, but anybody that's got a big skull laying around, they can measure it themselves with length plus width and just see where they are in relation to

some of these numbers we're talking about. And then when this goes live, find an official measure if you think it's close and can get it measured. So any skull people have can be brought in. Just like now, if you find an old cow's white tail in grandpa's attic, you can enter it. Do you have any advice for hunters you find an old cow's white tail in grandpa's attic you can enter it. Do you have any advice for hunters on how they can best field judge a boon or javelina?

That's not easy. It's not even really possible to tell male from female unless you get a little side shot and you see like a penis sheath. But as far as size or any other characteristics you can't even tell the sex. And so telling skull size isn't always going to be body size. And an animal that grows up the first couple of years with not much nutrition. So there's my dad with his javelina, 89 years old.

He killed a mule deer at 90 the next year, and he's 91 now. So the thing with the skull measurement is that the big skull has to start with good nutrition the first year. So an animal doesn't have good nutrition for the first couple of years and then as gets into an ag field and gets a real fat body, it may not have a big skull. So I think what's going to be important is an animal that grows up, mother has good nutrition, that animal has good nutrition year one, two, three, four, and I think that skull is going

to come along with that nutrition. So it's going to be hard to judge. It's going to be hard to field judge an animal, but it's a fun thing because javelina are so fun to hunt. It's a fun thing to have this little extra thing that you can go check and see if you've got a book pig. Now, Jim, what are some things you predict that we'll learn about javelina once these records are compiled? Is there going to be some decade or year that produced an unusual amount of records? Will we realize that there's a subspecies we didn't know about? It is like some county in Texas or Arizona suddenly going to be thought of as the Buffalo County of white tails for javelina? I don't think we'll find a different subspecies because we have

enough measurements now to kind of compare that, but the Boone Kroker record books were originally designed not so people could brag about the big animal they killed, but to document North America's big game animals. And so this is just in line with the original purpose of these record books is to start documenting some of this biological information for javelina. And so we may be able to look at geographic differences. I don't think we're going to see annual differences like we do in antlers that are grown every year, because what I just talked about was skulls needing that

nutrition there. But we may find areas like if you look at a soil map and compare that to Boone Crockett whitetail entries, you see a correlation with thick, fertile soils like Buffalo County, Wisconsin and whole Mississippi River Valley. I think we may see something like that, although with Javelina, we might find that Javelina's Buffalo County, or the one county where all the big trophies come from,

might be a county in Texas that has the highest density of feeders or supplemental feeding that has that nutrition. It's probably not going to be like in the middle of the Sonoran Desert where they're eating a pretty big pair of fruits and digging for roots and things like that. Well that's a good prediction I think you're gonna be right there Jim. Well thank you for joining us today and thanks for fighting on behalf of the javelina. I'm

happy too they're awesome. Have a good one. Thanks Jim. Thanks Jim. Yanni have you killed how many javelina have you killed exactly one okay? Do you have you ever measured it? I have it my will tonight. Yeah, do it Do you have calipers at home, or you gonna use a tape measure? I do have calipers, okay? I believe in my reloading kit you let us know what that thing's gonna score Yeah, then maybe tell tell Jim what it is so he can fight for the the minimum to be right at that number. Mm-hmm Yeah, you know, all right that brings us to the end of this week's show Phil. Let's get some final feedback from the chat Yeah, last call for questions for the crew. I've only got a few so far so get those rolling in

Zeb Zooms asks who in the office is the best with their bow? Hmm I bet it is whoever shoots the most which is maybe Yannis. I don't know who the best is with their bow. Mm. I bet it is whoever shoots the most, which is maybe Yannis? I don't know who the best is with their bow. I'll say you. Who would you say if not you? I don't know. Corey. Who else shoots Hans with their bow a bunch? Logan? Logan. Yeah.

Logan, like last year, killed two or three big game males with his bow. Maybe we'll find out in the future, but we'll say Logan and Yanis right now best with their bow cool Jordan question for Phil favorite tiki cocktail. Can I guess have at it Mai Tai? Incorrect. That's a good one. How about like like a fruit punch with rum? Oh rum punch It's the same as Richard Nixon's. It's called the Navy grog. It's, it's, uh, there's several different ways

to make it, but it's, uh, it's one of the few big Tiki drinks that's like kind of grapefruit forward, so it's a, you know, strong rum, more straw, a different kind of strong rum, all spice dram, which is like basically what it sounds like it's kind of like an all spice, really like warming spice, uh, uh, syrup. Uh, or I guess it's more of a Liqueur and lime juice and a bunch of

other stuff in there, but it's just, it's, it's strong. It's well balanced though. And you said there's some grapefruit in there too. Really easy to make. Yeah. Yeah. Fresh grapefruit juice. What would be the silver and bronze medalists for top Tiki cocktail?

Oh man. Well, as far as classics go, uh, Planters Punch. That's a really easy one to make. It's very simple and and then you know, Mai Tai's up there as well. They all kind of, I mean we went to False Idol in San Diego's panther and I could tell you were kind of underwhelmed by the classic tiki drinks because a lot of them kind of taste the same. It's like a lot of lime, a lot of rum, and then it's the other stuff that sets the drinks apart.

But I mean, every tiki bar in America has like their own sort of house menu where they get wild and that's where you can find some good hidden gems. But as far as classics go, it's the Navy Grog. Underwhelmed, but I'd say like a bad tiki drink is still a good cocktail. I agree. What's it called? The Navy grog underwhelmed, but I'd say like a bad tiki drink is still a good cocktail But I agree the what's it called the Navy what Navy grog Navy grog

That's what we're gonna drink at you and Seth's bachelor party. Oh, yeah I'm looking forward to this What how much lime juice would you have to add to a rum and Coke to turn it into a tiki drink? Well, yes, I got to get the Coke out of there first no coke. No coke. No need more fruit Yeah, yeah, I mean it's there is, man, what is the Cuba libre? That yeah, that's that's a rum and coke with line. That's a Tiki adjacent drink. Like a lot of those kind of Cuban, those Cuban inspired drinks are, you know, rum Tiki drinks draw a lot of inspiration from, from, from that. If you don't want to call it a rum and coke, Yanni, if you want it to have

like an upscale name, you'd call it a Cuba Libre. Which is just a rum and coke with a lime wedge. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You squeeze in there. What else we got from the chat, Phil? You know, I was waxing about my tiki drinks. I haven't been reading the chat. So if you guys want to make some small talk, I'll try to find some other ones. Someone was asking about your live stream in there. Oh yeah. The Red Dead live stream. It going to happen very in the next few months, most likely. I'm, I'm in the midst of planning it, making graphics, making overlays. I don't want it to be just me playing video games cause that sucks. So I'm trying to make it fun and free even people who don't care about video games.

You should have a little Tiki bar during your live stream. Oh, I just, you just sip on drinks. The light bulb just went pop. That's an incredible, incredible suggestion, Seth. That's absolutely happening. Great. Dr. Randall has been very active in the chat room today. It's almost like he's not working and just chatting in the chat room.

Don't discourage that, Yanni. We want the crew members to be in the chat room. Here's what I'm going to say about Randall. The reason I'm not addressing his very ecstatic, tiki drink comments is because I'm pretty sure I misled Randall about the drink that Phil Spector drank that night. I don't believe it was a Navy Grog Randall. I think it was a zombie. And I apologize for the last few months. If you've told that story to your friends, you got to call him back that's not the Navy Grog It was the zombie that Phil Spector drank before he murdered his his girlfriend Okay, sorry

Randall called us liars earlier It was at 1142. I don't know Hargis sometimes you don't know what they're referring to 1142 would have probably been playing meat pole at that time So what one of the three of us? Oh wait Randall Randall says he told he just pulled that from Wikipedia So maybe it was the Navy Grog. There's a lot of tiki lore out there guys. You can get lost in it And that's that's where we will end the tiki talk. Okay. What else you got Phil anything else from the chat? Uh, I Don't know what this means, but Taylor asked Spencer. Have you ever found any you perlite rock hounding? I have not found you per light the Great Lakes region is largely unexplored for me when it comes to rock hounding

but there are a lot of aspirational fossils jams rocks over there that I would love to Get on someday and you per light is the top of the list I have traded some people for you per light So I have you per light in my collection, but none that I have found yet. What about lever rights? That's that I heard that joke for the first time from Max Barton. I like that. So you said did you find a lever light? You do it to set This is totally something Max Barton was that have you found any lever rights? What do you write rocks? What's a lever right kind of rock you just leave it right there?

Randall says that he was referring to people lying about being scared or lost Randall it's time to update that YouTube chat room picture, buddy Why is that? It's just doesn't look like Randall really. Doesn't look like Randall. Yeah. Anything else from the chat Phil? Someone asked favorite way to cook turkey legs and thighs. And you know, it's still turkey season. It hasn't even started. It's just getting going.

I feel like when Turkey Week is over at MeatEater, it just, I mean, as someone who doesn't hunt turkeys, I just feel like the season's over. So honestly should be turkey month. Hey, hey, you're the second guy to say that in this room in the last seven days Maybe eight days. Did you say that too last week? There we go. We're on the same way Hey, I got a hot tip from I got a bunch of hot tips about cooking I was down in Texas last two weeks ago and another one was that instead of doing the

or two weeks ago. And another one was that instead of doing the slow cooker with your legs and thighs, do the braising pot. What was the word I'm looking for? Insta pot, pressure cooker. No, no, no, no, like the one you put in the oven. Like a cast iron. Oh, a Dutch oven. Yeah, use a Dutch oven.

I did that a couple nights ago and just the difference is very demonstrable. Way more tender. It actually took less time. Probably a lot of liquid needed. You know, about the same amount, I actually left, I was, I didn't fully cover all of my, I did all drumsticks in this batch.

I had two or three of them that were like at least half sticking out. They didn't dry out. So somehow that seal was just somehow better than in the slow cooker. And yeah, I mean, I usually give my drumsticks like eight hours, I would say, in the slow cooker, and this was done in like five. I just, cause I kept checking them. And the hardest part about it is to get your oven temp set just right so you're not ripping too hard but you're still just

rolling a little bit and I was fluctuating a bunch and I ended at 240 was where my oven need to be set to get that just nice slow roll and yeah I was in like I said Jesse had told me to do this and it paid dividends. Yeah, with any turkey legs, you're probably looking at like three very important things, low, slow, and liquid. And Evan, to answer your question

about favorite ways of cooking, go to themeedeater.com. At our recipes page, you can sort by ingredient. So you can see all the turkey recipes there with just a click of the button and people can leave reviews on our recipes so you can see what other visitors to the website have liked or disliked. You'll see how many reviews there are, how many stars it's gotten. You'll find all kinds of good recipes over there. Seth, anything to add about cooking turkey legs? No I just yeah it's got to be low and

slow. Bill let's do we got one last question. Yeah we got one last from a guy named Garrett Long sounds like a dumb name. Plus two. Never heard of her. To who in the office or who would win the most dangerous game who would hunt to the most dangerous game the best. What does plus two mean? I don't know. Yeah I don't know what that means either. But who do you think would be able to hunt people? The most dangerous game. Who would win? So the most dangerous game in quotes is a thing that you all know about? But I think that implies that we're hunting humans. Yeah probably are folks that have actually done it.

Okay. Yeah it's gonna get dark if actually. Yeah I should have actually done it. Okay. Yeah, it's going to get dark. Actually, yeah, I shouldn't have picked this quick. Garrett, why would you ask that? We've got a couple Marine Corps folks in the office. Our veterans in the office. There you go. Are you happy with that answer, Garrett Long? Okay.

That's going to bring us to the end of the show. Sorry to go dark, folks. We'll see you guys back here next week. That was my fault. Oh, wait. Are we ending the show? Yeah, we're done. Oh God, sorry, hold on one sec. Goodbye. See ya.

Goodbye. Bye bye. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya.

See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya. See ya.

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 him in watching his body language shift from cautious to committed. Then that moment, the one every turkey hunter dreams about all winter, 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 him 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 toms 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 in the 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 Dave Smith decoys.com and take your turkey hunts to the next level.