The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 698: MeatEater Radio Live! Turkey Reports and Do Aoudad Dream of Bighorn Sheep?

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

Hosts Brody Henderson, Cory Calkins, and Corinne Schneider recap Cory and Corinne's TX aoudad hunt, chat with Froylan Hernandez of Texas Parks and Wildlife about bighorn sheep in the region, get letters from the turkey woods frontline, order from the MeatEater Menu, and talk with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks' Scott Thompson about aerial big game surveys. 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.

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. I've been running FHF Bino harnesses for over a decade. And for the last couple of years, it has been the FOB because it's quiet.

It's tough and it just plain works and it's easy to work. I've worn it and damn near every environment you can think of desert, mountains, snow, heat, and it has never let me down. Now they've made it even better. They got new colors, more modularity and like everything FHF makes, it's built right here in the USA. This is gear you can count on season after season. Pick up yours now at Fhfgear.com. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live.

It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time on Thursday, May 1st, and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Brody Henderson, and I'm here today with Cory Calkins and Corinne Schneider who is busy checking her stocks just recently. We'll talk more about that later maybe if we have time. On today's show we're going to talk about Owdad Sheep with Cory and Corinne and a special guest from Texas Parks and Wildlife. We're also going to get a field report from some of our favorite turkey

hunting gurus. After that, we'll share some wild game meals we've made recently. And we're going to wrap it up by speaking to a Montana regional wildlife manager about aerial big game surveys and a big horn sheep hunting closure here in Montana. That's going to, that'll be pretty interesting. It's also kind of a bummer, but hopefully we'll get some good news out of it too. Before we get in the show, I want to send out another request to all of our dedicated diehard fans to submit a photo of their F'd up old truck for our 2026 calendar. We're still looking for images of unique hunting trucks. And for the folks who are watching today's episode

on YouTube, Phil just put up an example of the kind of hunting rig we're looking for. We're getting a lot of good ones. We're getting some not so good ones and we're getting some bad ones. But this is like a prime example of what we're looking for. That's right and Brody This is what we're not looking for. That is what we're not looking for Yeah, there's just like some confusion on the effed up part of it. Yeah, that's up. All right

Yeah, also the the formatting is wrong. See I thought about fixing it, but then I decided not to, because that's part of the bad in there. Yeah. It's on the wall. We don't need pictures of wreck trucks and ditches. So send us something like that first picture. And... What was that? Classic looking red truck with a dead...

With a big old gobbler hanging out. Couple of big spotlights on the front. Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a huntin' root. Yeah. you're not sneaking up on any elk and that thing is that a fresh killer you think that guy drives that hunting rig with the Bird on the front all the time fresh kill I think yeah But I wouldn't doubt there's been a deer on that hood Well as a matter of fact that gentleman sent us picture that same truck with another good picture bucks Gentleman sent us picture of that same truck with another good picture. Mmm bucks Calendar worthy. Oh, yeah, man. We're gonna have to we're gonna have to take a look at all of them. But here's the deal. Um

Send us a picture of your truck to fucked up old trucks at the meat eater comm And over the next few weeks, we're gonna to kind of get a collection of, I don't know, 50 to 100 of the best pictures we get. We're going to put those on the website and then you can go vote for the rigs that actually make the calendar. So you'll have a hand in deciding which pictures get in the calendar. The people who get their rigs in the calendar are gonna get a sweet prize package. $250 meat eater store gift card that's good across all the meat eater brands. You're gonna get a free BHA membership and BHA is gonna throw in some additional swag.

The calendar is gonna come out in a few months, like late summer, early fall. And here's why you gotta buy it, because we're donating $2 from the sale of each copy of the calendar to BHA to help them keep fighting all these never-ending attacks on our public lands. So it's going to a good cause.

You put that thing up in your garage and you feel good about yourself. Love it. So send us your pictures. We need more folks. Moving on. You guys, Corinne and Cory, a little jealous. You just went to get go to the like West Texas desert mountains to hunt for out dad.

So I want you to give us a rundown of that hunt. And then we're going to be joined by a guest from Texas Parks and Wildlife to talk about some of the problems that these non-native sheep are causing for native wildlife. First, just give us a rundown of your hunt. Yeah, let's see. Corinne, her significant other, Matt and myself were invited down to West Texas by Dr. Phil Levretsky, who's been on the Meteor podcast and this show more than once. The Duck DNA, turkey DNA guy, good friend of ours. He invited us down to hunt odd add on the Indio research, Indio Mountain research station,

which is right on the border of Mexico, right on the Rio Grande in the Trans-Pecos region of West Texas there. Yeah, we hunted two full days. Gratefully, it wasn't as hot as it normally is in early April down there. We got really lucky and never saw temps over 70 degrees, I don't believe. The first day we killed two ewes, which was kind of our primary goal down there was to do what we can to minimize the odd-ad population on that ranch by taking a few ewes, females. There's Corinne's boyfriend, Matt, with a beautiful ewe right at last light. That was pretty incredible Yeah, that's some cool-looking country man. It was it was way more rugged than I expected you get any

Step on any rattlers or get any cactus spines in your ass definitely some Was it Steve I forgot who it's like he said something about like the down there like the thorns having thorns Yeah, you can't you couldn't grab hold of anything everything wants to bite you sting you tear you apart. It's all spot and stock yeah yeah all spot and stock we drove around a little but inevitably to find the sheep we had to put a lot of miles boots on the ground and yeah we killed those two ewes on day one and then day two Corinne, Phil and I went out and glassed up this group of 23 odd ad on this. The high, it was actually the highest point on the ranch, 40,000 acre ranch.

And we were able to stock in, took a couple hours to stock into 400 yards and I was able to put down this beautiful ram and Corinne actually harvested a nice sub-adult ram as well from the Sand Farm. Sub-adult ram as well In front of us is the Recently Euro mounted ewe It was a lot of fun to Euro mount actually you got to pop these horns off And then you can boil the skull, bleach it Kind of glistened up the horns and then glued them back on Beautiful mount. Thank you. Yeah, but the the ewe meat

is delicious. Very blown away by the texture and the flavor of the meat. The rams a little tougher but got about 100 pounds of meat off the rams. Yeah, they're they're burly animals. They really are. Yeah, he probably before we field dressed him weighed about 300 pounds. So he wasn't easy to roll around we did make some There's a photo up of us making I think that was the ribs off of my you Over the fire as we packed up camp Made some great last Here he'd be tearing you up about how you're saying you oh

You who? You you you saying you oh You who? You you you what did I say who? Phil who me you audio you Classic So you guys had a good time we did it was a hell of an experience and tough hunting tough hunting for sure Tough tough meaning tough. I mean really tough physically tough from yeah, tough hunting for sure. Tough. Meaning tough, like physically tough. Tough from, yeah, maybe toughest for me. But yeah, it's really punishing territory.

I mean, and those animals are robust to be able to live out there. It's dry. I mean, they eat forage, cactus. Maybe there's a little bit water, a little bit of water here and there but yeah, they're It's tough tough to hunt them Well, that's a great segue into our first interview Our first guest is Texas Parks and Wildlife's desert bighorn sheep program leader, Froyland Hernandez Froyland we got you on the line. Yep. No, thank you for having me on the show. Glad to be here. So Froilin, these Audad, you'll also hear them called Barbary sheep. They're native

to like Northern and Western Africa, but in decades past, they've been cut loose in places like New Mexico and Texas to provide additional hunting opportunities. Can you give us like a brief history of the outed population in West Texas and then we'll get into why there's such a big problem for desert bighorn sheep? Yep, yep. No. So again, thank you for having me. You know, ironically, the Texas Parks and Wildlife brought them in back in the mid to early 50s. They brought them in, as you say, as an additional game species. And there was also some private reintroductions. And they were up in the Palo Ludo Canyon of the Panhandle of Texas, and then some in the in the in West Texas.

And at that time I don't think anybody envisioned that they would do as well as they've done and so now they occur in all the mountains in West Texas. They occur up in the Palo Alto Canyon and again in a Panhandle and also in Central Texas and they've done really really well just in the in the Transpacers of Texas we estimate that there's probably 20 to 25,000 odd that in those West Texas mountains So there's 25 Thousand of those suckers out there. What's your best guess on? Like a historic high

Population of like how many bighorns used to occupy the the mountains of West Texas? Yep, well and so back in the 1880s There were estimates of hunting of 1500 2500 north up to even 3000 and Up until recently about five six years ago. We had hit that Historic high again. We were seeing 1,500 big horns in the West Texas mountains.

In 2019, we've got a first disease event and we are now, we've lost over 50% of the herd. Now we've got about 600 or 700 big horns in the state when just five years ago, we were up to, again, 1880 levels. And that disease event, that's pneumonia, I'm guessing? Correct. That's the, no, we've had three independent disease events since 2019, and that's the

mycoplasma ova pneumoniae or the MOV that causes pneumonia. So are the audad transmitting that to the bighorns or the audad just out competing them for resources? Like what kind of problems are the audad actually causing for the native desert bighorns in Texas? It's a combination of those two things and others, but those two things. And so the audad do carry that MOV. We've done research in pen conditions, pen setting, and the audit are able to transmit

that bacteria to the desert bighorns. We have not definitively proved that in a wild setting, but we've tested 13 different mountain ranges in West Texas, and in all 13 mountain ranges we have found that all that carry that bacteria, and in some cases up to 60 percent of the animals that we've sampled carry that bacteria, so it's a huge problem from a disease standpoint. The competition, they completely out-compete the bighorns, not just through because of numbers, but also they're just a bigger, hardier animal. They hoard the bighorn ewes and push off the bighorn rams. And so, all that rams create their own bighorn harem type of deals, so they're socially disruptive.

I mean, it's just, you name it, they just out-compete the bighorns. And that's just from a competition standpoint. In the numbers that they occur, they just devastate the habitat. There's places that the countryside is almost peeled to the ground and that's simply just a density result of the high densities that they're occurring. Yep. So this is like a problem that's not necessarily unique to Texas, but Texas is I think something like 98% private land. And the area where these owdad are living is also almost exclusively private land. And you've got a lot of landowners that are charging folks to go hunt for owdad. So my question is like, can hunting really have an impact? And is it a challenge with getting landowners on board to really knock back those out ad numbers through hunting? Well, and so you got two things going on there. One is the

hunting aspect of it and it's supplemental income for landowners. But just from a sheer number perspective, a density perspective, hunting alone is not going to reduce the numbers down to levels that aren't detrimental to the habitat or that they don't compete with our native ungulates. And so when you have 20 to 30,000 bighorns on the landscape and only a few hundred big horns, I mean, it's just a huge, and they are recognizing that the odd that not only have negative impacts on our bighorn, but also on mule deer. And we're looking at that well.

Yep. So we've got research looking into that. And so you got the odd that out competing the bighorns. They're also wreaking havoc on mule deer populations and the habitat. And so landowners are finally realizing that too many out there on the landscape are detrimental. So we don't want, we, Texas Parks and Wildlife, would like to see all of that gone, but realistically that's not a realistic goal.

And so we're working with landowners to lessen those densities, the levels that aren't detrimental to our native ungulates or the habitat. What's that kind of work look like? I mean, like, do you see a potential of Audad, you know, getting knocked back to the point where there's a healthy desert bighorn population again, and like what kind of human intervention does that involve? It's going to require partnerships. I mean, there's no two ways about it.

It's going to require partnerships with Parks and Wildlife, with landowners, with NGOs, with the hunting community to be able to address that monumental challenge. And it's not going to happen overnight. And again, it's going to require everyone getting on that same ship and saying, okay, we've got to do something. We've got to decrease the population, the audit populations dramatically for there to be change. And again, I'm pretty optimistic. I like to consider myself an optimistic person,

but I do realize, I'm also a realist, and I do realize that it's not gonna happen overnight. And so we got our work cut out for us. And when I say we, I'm not just talking Texas Parks and Wildlife, I'm talking landowners, NGOs, the hunting community, just everybody's gonna have to get on board to be able to move in a positive direction

Great So can you crystal ball a future for desert bighorns and say 20 years like even like? if you're being Super optimistic like you like like what you would like to see eventually happen. Well, and so my goal, and I'm charged with that responsibility, but my goal, professional and personal goal, is to see the West Texas mountains, all of the West Texas mountains that are considered historical bighorn range, for them to be occupied by bighorns. And so can we do that? Yeah, absolutely we can do that. But again, as I mentioned, we all going to have to, you know,

kind of roll up our sleeves and get to work. We just did a capture and translocation from our only clean source in the state, and that's Elephant Mountain, Wallach, Baton, Genaria. We captured 77 bighorns, we took them over, translocated them over to the Franklin Mountains, which are situated within El Paso. And, you know, we hope that that population there does well, it takes hold, it becomes, you know, sustainable on its own, and then it grows and we're able to do capture and translocations off of there to other mount ranges. So, you know, again, I'm optimistic that we're able to do that, but we need to address the odd-ad densities first.

Yep. Gotcha. You mentioned some NGOs. What are some NGOs people can throw a little cash towards to help out? Yeah, two of our greatest partners are the Texas Bighorn Society and the Wild Sheep Foundation. You know, they've been with us through thick and thin. They've supported us financially as well as logistically. So those two organizations have been at the forefront with us, you know, trying to attack these issues. But then you also have, you know, in fact,

I was at a conference just last week and talking to some folks from Grand Slam Club, OVUS, we got the Texas Wildlife Association, Dallas Safari Club, Houston Safari Club, you know, any conservation organization, they lend a hand. But our two greatest partners is the Texas Big Horn Society and the Wild Sheep Foundation. Great. Okay, last question, Froylan. How did I get a bad rap as table fare? What's your favorite way to eat those things? Man, I love them. I love them. And they do. They do get a bad rap. And I think they get a bad rap because most of the animals that are harvested are tough old Rams. And so as you might suspect, it's probably not as tasty as a lamb or a you. And so Corey was mentioning that, you know, I heard that he he harvested a couple of years and they were a great tasting man. I love them. I grew up on goat.

I love them. I grew up on goat. I love it to me. It tastes very similar to goat You know, you got cabrito you can do it in Birria. You can you know, do some steaks you name it I've done some sausage that process my own meat And so I've done some odd that sausage and that's the best eating sausage that I've had so far So now they're good eating out I would like for people to try them a little more Maybe change that perspective or change that, change that attitude. Yeah, for sure. I want to come down there and have you cook for us. Yeah, we're going to, we're going to hit you up for some recipes after you jump

off the line. I want to. Absolutely. Y'all come down. I'll, you know, y'all come down. I'll definitely burn some meat for y'all. Well, great, Royland. Thanks for checking in with us and learning us up on this.

It was real interesting talking to you. Thank you so much. Yeah, man. Drive safe. Now, you bet. Thank you all again. Appreciate what y'all do, your interest in getting the story out, man. It's awesome.

Y'all do great work. Great. Thanks, man. Have a good day. Likewise. Gosh, that's really interesting. I didn't realize that the odd-ad rams gather bighorn females. Yeah, I think he was more saying they push them out. Real aggressive.

Well, I guess there is evidence that the rams will gather harems. And then the big horn Ramses can't get to them, right? Yeah. Yeah gotta wonder if yeah out competing just In their blood to be kind of bullies and they think they're all badass. Yeah, it hits them Yeah, well you guys make me want to go down there and hunt them now. It's pretty fun You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled crackens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen.

Discover bestselling adventure stories on audible. Hey guys, it's Steve Rinella here. When I was a little kid, my number one piece of hunting equipment was my mom who would always drive us around to go hunting. She would take me out to check my traps. Never asked anything in return. Very, very supportive. When I knew that I wanted to find out to get a life in the outdoor industry or become a writer, she had my back, never made any other suggestions otherwise and just helped me push and pursue for

what I wanted and helped me maximize the amount of time I got to spend out hunting, fishing, trapping. Now this Mother's Day, if you love your Ma like I love mine, you can show her that you see the hard work and dedication that she put in in raising you. From now until Mother's Day, First Light is offering free shipping on all women's products. Whether she's chasing down adventure just out in the field. First lights gear is built to keep up, give her gear that works as hard as she does head to first light.com today and take advantage of free shipping. That's first light F I R S T L I T E.com for mother's day savings. But I'm a turkey hunter this time of year.

And next up, we've got some regional turkey hunting reports. Oh, it's music to my ears. Wow. It's my favorite. Favorite two sounds in the world. Get him while he's goblin. Um, we got we're going gonna check in with Yanis Brent and Doug and get a report from those guys first All right turkey report from southern Colorado Yanis Patelus and Steven Ronella as you can see we've got a couple dead birds. We actually had three in the last three days

But the turkey hunting has been tough. We found them on the roost. They've gobbled good on the roost. Once they hit the ground, they've been silent. We killed two of the latest birds we've ever killed. The one fellow that was here for the TRCP hunt killed a bird at about 730, 740, and I killed a bird almost at 8 o'clock last night. Now Steve, anything to add to that? No, it's been tough. They're glued to the hens. You know, guys will be like, oh, they're all henned up, but glued to the hens. The turkeys we've killed. I mean, to be honest

with you, we've had to bushwhack our turkeys. We've had to like, hunt them like spot and stalk turkey hunting after a lot of calling attempts. Lot of calling attempts. I'm hunting at one of my most favorite places with some of my most favorite people. It's Missouri turkey season, week two. Yesterday, first day that I got here, it rained all day. It was cold and miserable and my hunt was cold and miserable, but I was turkey hunting and that beats

work any day. No gobbling from the roost, no gobbling from the ground yesterday. Didn't even see a gobbler where I was hunting. This morning, a new day, a new hunt. No gobbling from the roost. Just a little bit of wind and cloudy, you would think there'd been gobbling, but as luck would have it, you didn't. So it's discouraging to say the least, but if you stick with it long enough, you're gonna be a turkey hunter and you're committed to being a good one, you got to stay with it as long as you can. Sometimes patience is a virtue. It's gobbling time in Missouri. Nice. Well we're hearing the report from Stan. What's that? What

did you hear down there? You? One gobble this morning after 6 30. Wow. How about before? Huh. Well, quieted down. This is the report from Southwest Wisconsin. I still think that if you're out hunting turkeys in this area, the best thing you can do is find a spot where they're likely to be wanting to move and be patient and stay there. We certainly employ that strategy at the first part of the season. Really sitting in blinds or finding a location and finding a good tree to lean up against and stay on. But keep the running and gunning to a minimum. We've done really well with that strategy. We're 7 for 7. but keep the running and gunning to a minimum minimum.

We've done really well with that strategy. We're seven for seven. Kieffer is the first one so far. I haven't got one, but this was just the first day of it. It's April 30th, the first day of season C in Wisconsin. And that is the report from here. Be patient and stay after him. Yeah, nice. Thanks, guys. Man, I don't know about Yannis and Steve. Maybe they're just not good at calling turkeys. Everyone else is getting them. Yeah, it was interesting while they're filleting some breasts on the tailgate,

but they had to earn them it sounds like. Looked like it was hot down there. Yep. Yep. I've been out a couple of times here in Montana. Season opened the 15th. I killed one I've been out a couple of times here in Montana. Season opened the 15th. I killed one opening day, like classic, you know, gobbling on the roost, gobbling a little on the ground and then worked on him for an hour and killed him and then went out last week and got a couple with my boy. So it's like, it's been good here in Montana. It's, I mean, it's always the thing where they gobble like crazy on the roost and they slow down for a while. And it seems like an hour after they hit the ground, the hens leave them and the goblin picks up. So like, it's it's been good here. That's that's that's really all I can say.

Yeah, it sounds like there's been a lot of success around the office. Yeah. Yeah. Opening day, especially. And, man, I think it's like any other kind of hunt like Someone's hunt in one spot. It's like yeah They're not gobbling here and like you talked to someone who's hunting ten miles away or 20 miles away And they're like other gobbling like crazy They came running in so like regionals is a regional reports good But I like I think it's like real important to to know what's going on on a micro level, local level too. We went turkey hunting, this is the only second time I've ever gone.

We saw four different hens, came real close, but no gobbles. No gobbles. You haven't been out you're you've just been out bear hunt yeah I like to kill a bear before I go turkey hunting which should have one down in 24 hours how to buddy miss one last Friday it's a long shot though make sure your dopes accurate there you go there's a good tip tip all right Phil what do we got on the listener feedback here? Oh, yeah, just a reminder.

Let's get some questions in for the hosts, especially if they're specific to any of the host, Brody, Corinne, Cory. We had this question last week, but it's a whole different crew this week. And it's a popular question, I've noticed. But the dubster is asking for those favorite turkey recipes other than standard frying. I'm guessing like, you know I hear about nuggets all the time And schnitzel that was the popular answer. It's like 60 different versions of frying turkeys. They're all good Something I like to do that's like my whole family loves is just slow cook, braise those thighs and drums and wings.

Like it's a pain in the ass to cut turkey wings off of those birds, but it's worth it. Like you get two wings off of a gobbler and there's like a significant chunk of meat off of those wings. So you throw all that stuff in some stock, braise it for however long it takes, five, six hours. stock, braise it for however long it takes, five, six hours. Then you pull all that stuff off the bone and just make tacos out of it. What's a flavor profile that you're normally doing that with?

You mean flavors? Yeah, right. Citrus and cumin, a lot of that. Oh, that sounds good. You can fry that stuff, that pulled meat, and get a little crisp on it. That sounds citrusy and cumin. Yeah, go to the MeatEater website and look for Danielle Pruitt's Tequila Turkey Tacos. That's my favorite way to eat those legs.

Mm. Mm-hmm. That sounds good too. This one is something I know nothing about, but Jeremy asks, he says, I've recently been hunting pigs in close cord with a lever 357 as anyone else had success with hunting with a pistol caliber rifle. Cheers from either Australia or Austin or Austria. We don't know. He cut off the word there, but you know. I've never, never done it. I don't see why it wouldn't work great if you were shooting them up close. Yeah, never tried that Don't know thank God. We don't have pigs up here yet

Yet Brandon asks Brody. What was more fun competing on meat eater roasts or judging on the show? Oh um obviously, it's like It's just way more relaxing judging But it was fun cooking too. I don't know. I liked them both. You know, you got Steve and Jesse were a little harsh with their judging.

They were harsh. They were being mean. They were roasting. I got thick skin. I liked them both. I'd like another crack at the cooking though. Yeah. This is going to be a Brody specific question, I'm sure.

But Nick asks, what advice does the crew have for someone trying to get their first turkey in Pennsylvania? Three years, zero turkeys, he says. I would, I don't know. Like Pennsylvania is a big ass state with a lot of different kind of country. You could be hunting turkeys on a 20 acre chunk of private, or you could be hunting thousands of acres of state forest. So like, I don't know, man. If I was hunting in the middle of the state where there's a lot of public land, I would kind of look at

it like elk hunting out west and just like hike into some stuff that's just not getting hunted. But I don't know if that's that's Nick's situation here. If there's turkeys around and you're hunting a small chunk of private, take Doug's advice and just like find a good spot where there's turkeys passing through and just sit there as long as you can and just call now and then and eventually something good is gonna happen Cool see here Jacob asks hey Cory. I was going turkey hunting this weekend, and I might see a bear I was going to carry my slug barrel to I'm using a 20 gauge

Do you think if I keep it under 100 yards? I'm assuming I could kill a bear hmm man. I'd get even closer than that It's a long shot with a slug. Yeah, 50 yards Yeah, just the idea of having to like oh, there's a bear change barrels and then all it's like that's I'm not telling him Not to do it, but he's making life awful difficult. Yeah, I've done that before I've carried shotguns around and and a bow on my back Because tis the season for both turkey and bears to be on the docket for hunting if you were hunting a spot where you could run Bears with hounds. Yeah, there you go. That's slug gun work. Just fine. Yeah, shoot him out of tree. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, get tight man. That's a hundred yards would be tough unless you're that confident, but

I'd say get right in there and shoot him in the forehead yards would be tough unless you're that confident but I'd say get right in there and shoot him in the forehead. McKenna is asking you guys what caliber you used for your on your odd-ed hunt. I had a 300 win mag, very trustworthy caliber I've used since I was 12. I brought my 6.5 which would have been fine but then I used Cory's rifle just because of the whole situation. Yeah It was all we were set up on a rock pile Surrounded by cactus and just found like the one little body shape size that didn't have cactus And I shot mine and the odd add most the odd add went off the cliff But a couple stayed there and Corinne jumped up and onto my gun that the dope was dialed and everything and got right

What was that? SIG cross it's the sawtooth yep So you run in a suppressor on it yep got the the recoil didn't bother you with that suppressor on No, not at all normally recoil coil doesn't bother me. That's good too much for For any kind of bigger guns I've shot suppressed or not that it doesn't bother me much But a 6.5 would have been fine for that and probably a couple other calibers would have been Oh, yeah, just fine for that. I probably would have shot it use my 308 to you on that hunt. Mm-hmm

For sure. All right. We'll do one more here for this segment and we'll move it along here This is the big question Corinne, but this is for you Corinne, what is your most memorable moment? Outdoors, I think we can narrow that down to the last six years or so since you've been working here. Well, I would honestly have to say bits of this recent odd dad hunt, I think because it was so, so, so challenging for me. Traumatizing, no. it was just really tough. At one point I was probably close to being dehydrated. The heights and the incline were pretty terrifying for me. So definitely

memorable. There was a point where I was like so so I guess weakened by it all that I said like I'm very grateful for the experience but I'd never do it again and obviously that's not that's not true now that I've come through it but but that hunt was was probably up there and then probably my second solo mule deer hunt it was just very gratifying to Take something on my own that that's always a little bit of a Of a boost to know that you could be successful out there on your own. Mm-hmm. That's huge

And there you go. Cool That it Phil. Yeah, we've got more coming in but yeah, we can we can tackle there's gonna be another segment at the end of the show So don't stop submitting questions and we might tackle a few that people have already asked. So All right. It's time for meat eater menu Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey I was editing that this morning, I was just laughing at how that's probably my most dumb one. I've done so stupid. Those notes made me cry. Oh, good. All right. Meteor menu is when our hosts cook up a wild, wild food dish, and we're going to share those dishes with you and show you a picture.

And then we're going to do something a little different this time. We're going to let the listeners decide who made the best meal, which is only based on a picture, of course. You know, you can't taste it, but the eyes are important when you're eating food. Don't nobody be licking their computer. Well I'm glad I didn't end up cooking what I thought I may have had time to do. Why? That's what I wanted to see. I just had a busy week. Well tell people what you were gonna do. Okay so this past fall a bunch of us with meat eater experiences fished in Louisiana and there were we when we were

cleaning fish Steve and I cleaned up some some fish head and so I was gonna look into tuna you're talking about well no there well there's so we actually have we have it in our have it in our freezer here. We have some ginormous tuna head. Yeah, I want one of those. But we also cleaned up the heads of the redfish and some others. So I think there were redfish heads that I brought home that I was thinking of doing some kind of grill or stew.

There's a surprising amount of meat when you start digging around in like certain kinds of fish heads. Yeah and the cheeks and the collar and then there's actually like I don't know what you call it forehead meat. Sure. Dough meat. I mean of nothing else you can make a big batch at seafood stock. Yeah that's right. That's right. Yeah. And you know, for some people looking at a fish head, it does not conjure up like that real like, I want to eat you. Yeah, but I mean, people cook whole fish all the time.

I mean, for me, for me, I have associate looking at like fish head soup with yum, get in my belly, but I did not make that because I didn't have time. And instead we are gonna show some photos from the Canada Goose Stir Fry that I made on a recent Meat Eater Roasts episode. Wow, that looks good. So this was Yanni's Canada goose from Arkansas. I believe this is the first time I had ever

Cooked goose. I've never hunted goose and this is probably I don't know the third time I've eaten goose So not that much experience with the bird and it was a really beautiful breast and Stir-fry is something. I mean, I guess I didn't really get creativity points, but stir- fry is something I mean I guess I didn't really get creativity points but stir fries is something I whip up at home it's pretty easy and so I used a soy little bit of oyster sauce I think was in the kitchen that's a nice thing about stir fries you can just like, it's perfect for a roast, because you can just kind of throw it together however you want.

Exactly. You can throw any sort of sauce or sauce combination for a stir-fry. That's delicious. So how did it turn out? So one of the judges was my dear friend, Linda Huang, who is a Chinese chef. And Yanni thought I was making a stir fry to like, I don't know, make it easy for myself, but I told him it was actually gonna be more difficult because Linda's standards would be very high.

So she was surprised. I was surprised myself, but she was surprised that it turned out as it did. I just tried to not overcook the meat. That's what I was going to ask. That would be the challenge. It was tender. I think that was the first time she's eaten Canada Goose and she said if she didn't know, she would have thought it was beef. Nice work. What's your garnish on that?

There's some scallions and sesame seeds and then the vegetables were it was yellow pepper and some mushroom Yeah, it looks delicious tough to beat that one Cory oh, let's see. Well wait here. Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah, I couldn't remember how many pictures corin sent going in the microwave This is not current here we go. Oh, yeah, man, that looks good right now. Oh, it does. I made a Black Bear California Crunchwrap Supreme. Black Bear burger is that like what kind of like so good.

So I took a Black Bear shoulder roast and braised it for, gosh, nine hours or so. Kind of forgot about it, honestly, but that was probably for the best. Oh, look at the nice blaze on that bear. Yeah from a bear. I harvested last spring. What do they call that a chevron chevron? Yeah Good thing he had that going for him because his back was rubbed off really bad Got that late May and he had already rubbed too many trees. But yeah, big old bear, 15 year old black bear, uh, meats delicious every single morsel of it. But this was the last chunk of it. I figured I might as well eat it before I kill another one this spring. Uh, but I tried to copy Taco Bell's Crunchwrap Supreme and it's the California Crunchwrap cause I threw some avocado in there. Yeah. It's explained the layering you got going on there

Let's see. It's bear a crispy corn tortilla cheese Avocados and some hot sauce and then you just wrap it up all pretty kind of like a quesadilla But there's two flour tortillas all Pressed and heated and warmed and melted and gooey and then I got a little not homemade salsa to go with it. That looks great. It was ripping off Taco Bell.

You don't need homemade salsa. Oh, it was pretty easy to outdo Taco Bell. Yeah, great. All right. The old fried turkey, we're talking about fried turkey. Just a minute ago, that there is a fried turkey sandwich. So I just take a lobe or half of a turkey breast and slice that against the grain

and get your cutlets and then just pound those things out. Then I like to soak them in buttermilk for a little while. And then it's you throw like one layer of the breading on. Like you just get them in a dry breading. Then you dip them in an egg, egg milk wash, and then get another layer of that breading on there. And I did these in my deep fryer. You can do them in a cast iron pan, you know,

with whatever half an inch of grease in the bottom. I did these in the deep fryer. Honestly, this is how in my family we eat most of our turkey breast meat, because my boys love it. Yeah. It actually stretches it out more than making just a big batch of nuggets.

Like we always have leftovers for extra sandwiches from one lobe. Very simple, and it's just like a solid meal that my kids love, I love it too. That looks so good. And it's a buffalo, I think it's like Frank's buffalo wing sauce on there. Might as well.

All right, I'm gonna put a poll up in the live chat right now. Who had the best meat eater menu dish? Was it Corinne's stir fry, Canada goose-fry, Corey's black bear California crunch wrap, or Brody's fried turkey sandwich? And we're just gonna come back to that later, Phil? Yeah, how about after the interview with our next guest? We'll check in there. I don't know if anyone's paying attention or they're all talking to Spencer in the chat. Yeah, Spencer's always lurking in there, man. I don't like it.

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Okay, our next guest is Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park Region 6 Wildlife Manager Scott Thompson.

Scott, you there? I am here. Welcome to the show and thanks for chatting with us today. Yeah, you bet. Thanks for the invite. Scott, can you tell us about your role with FWP conducting aerial big game surveys in Northeast Montana? Yeah, you bet. conducting aerial big game surveys in Northeast Montana?

Yeah, you bet. So I am the regional wildlife manager for Region 6. That area is a huge northeast corner of Montana from about North Dakota over to Sweetgrass Hills, about halfway over to the front. So my role is I have the privilege of leading a team of wildlife biologists. They get to do most of the fun work in the field and the backseat of the super cub, counting critters. Um, in my previous life, I did a lot of that for about 14 years. I was a area biologist as well.

So, um, yeah. And you guys do those aerial big game surveys like late winter, early spring. Is that typically the time you're out there doing that? Yeah, it varies. But that is right for most of our big game species, except for antelope, which are spring or summer surveys where we're trying to get an idea of fawn production. Yep. And so we can react to changes in the population for the upcoming fall right away. Gotcha. So when these biologists are going out in the plane to do a count, Are they focused on one, like each flight has the goal of doing a survey for one species? Or are they kind of gathering in all the information they can?

Or what's kind of the process? Most of them, most of the surveys are designed to collect data on one species. So for instance, some of the pictures here are during winter elk surveys in the Missouri River breaks, of course at high elevation in those photos. So, the primary target then is elk, but biologists do record what we would call incidentals, sightings or observations of mule deer, other species encountered. The elk survey, we do also a bighorn sheep survey at the same time. So that is a dual purpose survey. Gotcha. Bighorn sheep survey at the same time. So that is a dual purpose survey. But gotcha. And what's the actual counting process look like? Like are they sitting up there with a clicker or like, how are they doing? The actual counting?

Are these are these guys just good enough? They can like look at that photo right there and be like, man, that's like 30 right there. Yeah, I challenge you to count elk once they get past about 30 to 50 in a bunch. Yeah. So there's a couple things that the biologists will do. The idea is to get the animals on a side profile. That helps us not only count how many animals, but then they're also classifying. They're looking for how many calves are in the bunch, how many bulls or bucks are in

the bunch. So oftentimes it's finding a group of animals and circling them. If they're in a super cub, for example, if they're in a helicopter, you're kind of moving with the herd, but both trying to count and trying to classify. And so it's a bit of a process. You might spend, you know, five, 10 minutes with the group till you really get a sense of what's in the group. Sometimes photography can help.

I was going to ask if that plays a role like you come back later and count from pictures that you're taking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to get the classification data from a photo. Sometimes you can, but the photo really helps verify that, it's a snapshot, you can count it. When you have almost 400 elk in a group and you're trying to count that and they're all moving,

that's pretty difficult. Gotcha. So one of the main, other than getting the lowdown on how these surveys work, the main reason we wanted to talk to you today is Montana FWP was recently forced to close hunting for bighorn sheep in District 622 after a really drastic decline in sheep numbers in that unit in recent years, how many sheep were in that unit, say, 10 years ago?

Yeah, so sheep numbers in that district have ranged between 150 and 300 animals that we observe on the survey. Um, we are population objective is about 200 animals. So obviously it kind of varies through the years. So 10 years ago we had over 300 animals in that population. And things that things were looking good back then, maybe too many in that unit. Yeah, that really signaled to us to be a bit more aggressive, especially with ewe harvest and provide a lot of either sex or ram harvest at the time. So we were pretty aggressive, allowing

quite a few hunters access to hunting there and trying to bring it back to about 200 sheep, which we did for a period of about five or six years. And so how many, when you went out there to do your survey this spring, I'm sure you guys were already aware that there was a decline going on, but this spring when you did your aerial survey, how many sheep did you guys see in that unit? Yeah, we were prepared for a reduction, but probably not what we saw and that was five. Wow. Five rams. No use.

You know, hunters previous fall had kind of had some trouble finding sheep, so we knew something was going on. And what is going on? What's the main driver for the decline in that unit? Well it is disease related. You know we were able to get some samples from both hunter harvested sheep last fall, an additional sample this spring. Pneumonia is a driver here, visible pneumonia in the lungs of several animals. In some recent lab work from those samples, there's a number of bacterias and pathogens in the herd. And we've known that for years, but this is the first time we've detected one of the key ones is Mycoplasma ova pneumonia. So we did detect that in the herd for the first time So yeah, it's a complex thing. There's a lot of a lot of bugs that can affect sheep and

Respiratory health and it looks like it hit them hard in 622. And so the habitat there is in good shape. Like, that's not playing a role at all here. Yeah, the habitat's good. You know, we see the ups and downs with drought events, and a couple years of dry conditions, and we see land production suppressed during those times, and then they bounce

back. But yeah so no overlying habitat issues that we see. So like I've spent a little bit of time up in that part of the state and I know there's sheep nearby you know where these sheep kind of where these sheep kind of dropped off to nothing. Is there a concern about the sheep and units that are adjacent to 622 where these sheep were at a really tough time? Yeah, it did. This die off did cause us to do just a quick check on those neighboring herds. And it looks like we're not seeing the same thing happen there. Thankfully we have a pretty good separation. There's about 40 to 50 miles between those populations. So we can expect to have minimal interchange between those populations of sheep.

But it can happen. Rams do go wandering at times. But at this point, we don't have any major concerns for those populations. Is there any hope for recovery in 622? Will sheep from those adjacent units maybe fill in? Or will you guys maybe get active and putting sheep back in there? Are you just going to like kind of see what happens?

Yeah, a common question and a good question. I would say there's a lot of decision points between here and. Yeah, what's early. There's a lot of decision points between here and there. Yeah, what's early? We're probably on about step two of 10 in where do we go with this herd. And I think at this point, we really need to know more about, you know, where did, you know, the MOV, it appears to be a new strain. And so learning more about, well, what does that mean? And so learning more about, well, what does that mean? And then there are a few individuals, and we've learned of a few other individual sheep that hunters and recreationists have seen out there.

So, you know, there's a handful of sheep left. So it would be good to know what is their status before we take any additional steps. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well thanks a lot for talking to us. I know this is not necessarily the happiest discussion to have, but it's important for people to know what's going on out there. I mean you're talking about like a pretty well-known, pretty well-regarded area for sheep hunting. It's a place people, you know, dream about drawing a big horn tag. So hopefully the future's got some bright spots in it for those sheep up there. Yeah, yeah, I hope so too.

And yeah, we'll certainly be working hard to see if we can't recover that herd. It's still good habitat and, you know, we have a lot of support to do that. Great. Great. Well, thanks, Scott. It's been good talking to you and I hope you have a great day. Thanks, Scott. Thank you guys. Bye. All right, Phil, who made the best food in this room? I would love to let you know. Let's end this poll in third place with 16% of the vote

It was Corinne's stir-fry Yeah That got my vote. That looked good. And now in second place with 30% of the vote It was Brody's sandwich making Cory the winner as Crunchwrap with 52% of the vote. I feel like that's the, yeah, Taco Bell and bear. People just want to eat bear. That's the way to everybody's heart. Little 2 a.m. Taco Bell. I guess, man. I guess.

Whoa, rough. Well, thanks everybody. It was just as good as it looked. We got any other feedback to check in with, Phil? Well, yeah, if you want to want to answer a few more questions. I'm going to answer a few more questions. Yeah. I'm going to answer this one for Ben unless Corinne has some specific examples from the Meat Eater podcast, but I can't think of any, but there might be some Black Bear Hunt recaps. So Ben asks, is there a podcast devoted to DIY over-the-counter black bear hunts in Montana,

like for degrees of difficulty, et cetera? I would direct you to the wonderful Cutting the Distance podcast, which is hosted by our good friend, Jason Phelps and Dirk. But yeah, you can go through that whole catalog. I'm not sure if he has a specific Black Bear in Montana one, but I can almost guarantee, if you go even further back, when Remy Warren was the host,

you'd probably be able to find some stuff there as well, because that's the podcast where you're going to find some very specific instances, specific situations and how to cut the distance. It's kind of the whole thing in that podcast. So check that out. Yeah, agreed. Go back into the archives on that one. Remy has multiple podcasts just related to that. Not Montana specific, but Western bear hunting. A lot of questions for Corinne. This one's from Andreas.

They all have a similar theme. How, why she started working at a company like Meteor with minimal hunting experience. That's a big question. Putting me on the spot. I'll make this short. My background is in journalism and news production. I moved to Montana seven, some years ago, came upon meat eater and I guess the background

parlayed into what I do now, but the subject matter did not. The culinary aspect of meat-eater was always appealing to me. I grew up eating all the things, as I've stated throughout the years. I've loved the outdoors and just was open to what meat, open to what meat eater, uh, was, was doing. Um, and, and you'd probably never have you, had you even shot a gun? Uh, I had, yeah. Yeah.

My dad, my dad, um, my dad's hobby is firearms. So, so indoor range stuff wasn't yeah, but long distance rifle, all of that was new to me. Um, uh, and yeah, I was just, I was open to it, and I've loved every bit of it. I've learned so much. I'm so grateful to all of my colleagues for the mentorship. I'm grateful that I have full freezers, and I get to get outside and do this for a living. Yeah, seven years later, you're just a stone-cold killer for a man. Yeah yeah, seven years later, just a stone cold killer.

Yeah, that's for sure. So I think that's one of our most viewed clips on YouTube is you shooting the hog in Texas. Oh, yeah. Oh, gosh. Oh, I get excited thinking about that. I do that all over again. And this is also I'll say to this, that's a credit to Steve finding Keranga. Steve actively looks, was looking for people and still does look for people that are outside the kind of usual hunting bubble. Like who are people that are just killers at their jobs who are outside of this whole industry. So yeah. Let's see here. Devin asks, hey is Dan Flores' The

American West an extension of the Meteor podcast or is it going to be an upcoming book release? Looks really good. First question I would say it's it's neither an extension of the podcast or an upcoming book release. It's going to be on its own feed. So if you haven't checked it out the trailer is up now. Historian author Dan Flores who taught Steve's to taught Randall at the University of Montana as a brand new podcast. It's all about the American West,

but not sort of like Cowboys and Monument Valley. It's going deep, deep further into deep time. First Peoples, history of the land itself, the animals that have been there and will be there and are there, it's gonna be great. We've recorded a bunch of episodes, getting cracking on them now, and the first episode launches on Tuesday, the 6th of May.

On Tuesday, so everybody please subscribe. Yeah, big thing, it's on its own feed. It's on its own feed, so you're gonna have to do some very minor Googling or clicking of links in podcast descriptions. We should just, I'll make a link in the description of this show Yeah, we need a radio live today a link to the new Dan Flores American West feed and there will also be accompanying video episodes on

Right here on the YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've got some visuals that go along with with the show too So check it out on YouTube as well and it's not going to be an upcoming book release, but I will direct you to Dan Flores' whole bibliography. Is that the right word? Especially his last book, which was why? His catalog. Yeah, his whole catalog. Check it out. Very super nice guy, incredibly smart. It's gonna be a good show. Samantha asks or says, Phil don't skip everyone's questions for you. Mogor asks question for the team when you're

in an area with a game species that requires a lot of glassing. What do you use against mosquitoes? The big mosquito question. You guys have any go-to tips? Go ahead Cory. Ah man, last couple springs have been pretty brutal Bear glass and glass and for bears and trying to swap mosquitoes at the same time I'm usually prepping my clothes with some permethrin for ticks, but it also works well for mosquitoes Oh, it kind of works for mosquitoes. They still will get you. I don't have a great Tip just keep swatting them or move around. I mean, like in the fall, it's just like in this part of the country, it's just not a problem.

But I have hunted in Alaska, like tail end of summer, early fall where mosquitoes and these little things called white socks, teeny little biting flies and really like a head net and gloves is like like you can put all the deed on in the world in that situation and there's They're still gonna get to you. But yeah, I mean, I know it's not practical for glassing to have a head net on but I Mean other than permethrin and deep there's not a whole lot you can do. Yeah.

Wear clothes down works well, even if it's hot out, you can wear a light down jacket. Oh, you know what you could do is as long as you're glass and far off and it's not going to disturb the critters, just build a fire. There you go. Smoke them out. Smoke them out. Yeah. That's a good point.

Hope for a breeze. Cool. Good question. Well, I guess I will just because so many people are asking if I'm going to turkey hunting at all this year. Nick says, Will Phil T. Engineer be hunting turkeys this season? Phil T. Engineer. I have no plans currently because I always feel weird asking people to take me hunting. But do you know what I would love to do? And because's not in the room I don't feel weird about it and because he's also never shot a turkey yet as far as I know I'd love to go out with

Randall because we are both turkey virgins there's a video right there boy go follow you two around so Randall if you're listening this is my weird passive way of asking you to take me out. He better be listening. Cool. I thought that was a pretty good show, guys. What do you think? Yeah. Super interesting.

Before we go, though, I've got a little announcement. I want to let people know that the paperback edition of our number one New York Times best seller, our kids book, Catch Crayfish, the Stars is coming out in paperback on May 27th. So it's just in time for Father's Day and summer vacation for the kids. And if you're not familiar with the book, it's a book that's full of dozens of activities that are going to get your kids off screens and get them outside and doing cool stuff out in the natural world. If you bought the hardcover, great, we appreciate it.

Buy the paperback too, because your kids probably already destroyed the hardcover. If you haven't bought the hardcover, then get the paperback now. It's a really cool book. It's got a bunch of great illustrations in it and my kids love it. I don't know if your kids

have gotten into it yet, if they're old enough yet or not, Corey, but it's just, it's a great book and you can get on Amazon and pre-order that thing now. So it'll be at your door the day it comes out. Yeah, man. Last winter, my kid opened up the book and the first thing he saw was how to build a fish tank in your house. Yeah. Stocking aquarium. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did not go find some little perch. Well, now is the time to do that right now. Right.

That was a winter project. Yep. Yep. That was fun. So yeah, that's it for today's show, folks. Good luck to everyone that's headed out turkey hunting or bear hunting this weekend. And we'll see you next week.

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