The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 707: MeatEater Radio Live! Mountain Lions, Hot Gear Tips, and Freaky Sheds

Episode Date: May 23, 2025

Hosts Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, and Cory Calkins recount spring hunts, catch up with Bart George, Director of Wildlife for the Kalispel Tribe, about his latest mountain lion research, shepherd a triumphant return of Gear Talk, and have an antler themed show & tell. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. 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.

Steve Ronella here. The American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the MeatEater podcast network. It's hosted by author and historian Dan Flores, who happens to be mine and our own Dr. Randall's former professor. By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the West unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is

Today I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of American history and I invite you To get challenged by him in the same way that I have. Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday May 6th on the MeatEater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcast, listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out and I mean that in a very good way. Eat Your Podcast. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 1 p.m. for our friends in Kalamazoo, Michigan. On Thursday, May 22nd, exactly one week

before my 47th birthday. Whoa. Hey. Yeah, I'm fresh out of a yoga studio, but right now we're live from Meat Eater World Headquarters in Bozeman. I'm your host, Giannis Battellus, and today I'm joined by Brody Henderson and Corey Calkins. On today's show, we're gonna chat mountain lions

with my friend Bart George. We're trying a new segment called Gear Talk, where we talk about equipment we love. We'll pause for listener feedback, so get those questions coming in the chat. We each brought in a special item that we'll share in Show and Tell. We might have a conversation with fishing guide,

Josh Miller, and his lucky fishing charm, and Turkey co-captain, Ryder. I don't know if I pronounced that right. It's got kind of a funny spelling. We'll discuss haircuts as well, but first, we're going to tell hunting stories. Cory Brody, great to see you fellas. Cory, do you smell that up dog?

You know, we had about a dozen hot dogs in here last week. Is that the up dog you're referring to? What's up dog is the answer to my question. Oh, what's up dog? Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Not much.

Okay, for those of you listening in at home, these boys thought that joke would really land with you guys So I hope you're all giggling that wasn't my joke. That was Corey's Corey and Phil. Hey, this is your script Just remember that I'm owning it I'm gonna own it. Um, it does smell I'm not smelling it, but you guys are saying you smell hot dog Oh, yeah a week ago Randall was in here pounding hot dogs Did anybody else have any I had one? Yeah, Phil had one I think Lake and Tony Peterson had one it was dog week

So we celebrated four-legged dogs and the food variety hot dogs the wiener dog. Yeah I'm kind of sorry. I missed out on that. It should have been here. Yeah, we had some steamed buns and some hot mustard Super tasty. Mm-hmm hot mustard as in spicy or warmed up Well as warmed up when you put it on the hot dog. Mmm. I like sweet hot mustard. Oh, I like the spicy brown We recently at turkey camp had Olympia provisions Frankfurter Those jokers. I'm not kidding. I didn't measure them, but they're over a foot long. It says right on the package, more meat than your bun can handle.

Wow. So did you double bun them? No, I cut them in half and went two francs in one bun. Cook them on sticks or on a stove? Stove top, yep, yep. Just made it quick and easy and got everybody fed. But yeah, extremely tasty frankfurter. They also make this sausage become fond of. It's a, I don't know, pretty plain Jane pork sausage, but it's stuffed, it's got some chunks of Swiss cheese in it

and then it's smoked just a little bit. Yum. Delicious. Wow. So kind of like a- Olympia provisions. Like a cheddar brat or like? A cheddar brat, but upscale. Upscale. High end.

Yeah. Swiss. No high temp cheese in there. Right. Yeah. Where can you find these? It's legit. I believe you can get them, I know for sure sure because the owner was telling me that he recently got into Whole Foods Which she was very happy about but I think you can get them all over the place But yeah, Olympia provisions. Check it out. Yeah, it's Memorial weekend. Go get your hot dog. Oh, yeah. There you go

You want to try something different than just the old Oscar Meyer? Hunt stories Who wants to go first? Well, you're up first, it looks like. Oh, well. Unless you wanna be like the big finale. I'm happy, listen, I got a couple dandies. I'm gonna start with this one.

Have you guys ever heard Stephen Rannell a blow on a crow call? Yeah, but he's not, I know where you're going with this. I don't think he's trying to sound like a crow. He's just trying to make a bunch of like irritating noise. You're a hundred percent right. I know this as well. I've always been like right next to him, right? When he blows his loud one and then he goes, I know it doesn't sound like a crow call but it gets results, you know?

And I'm like, okay, cool, yeah, that works. Okay, this is what happened this weekend though. Mabel and I, my youngest are out, get on a bird in the roost, aren't quite in the right spot, have a hen fly down just out of range, but then she goes over to a little rise, gobbler follows her.

So we end up sort of paralleling them along. He's gobbling decent. We're like peeking over these little hills. I can see them. They're in this giant meadow. So we're kind of pinned. And I'm telling Mabel, listen, we're just gonna be patient.

And when they make a mistake by going into a little draw or around a corner, we're gonna make a move. And Mabel don't care if we call the bird in or if she bushwhacks it, right? She just wants a dead gobbler. So we're sitting make a move. And Mabel don't care if we call the bird in or if she bushwhacks it, right? She just wants a dead gobbler. So we're sitting there being patient, just kinda watching them feed through this meadow.

And all of a sudden, I hear, weee, weee, weee! And I look at Mabel, I go, what the hell was that? You know, and she's like, I don't know. And a couple minutes go by, and she's like, I don't know. And a couple minutes go by, and it just didn't register with me at first. And a couple minutes go by and weee, weee!

I go, oh, that's someone replicating Stephen Rannellis. Or Steve Spokes in your spot. Blue Tray call, I doubt it. I think he was in Alaska. But I'm like, it was very startling to me well sure enough We're like watching these turkeys all sudden those turkeys are like Yeah, doing this how close was it like did it sound like that guy was on top? Yeah, no because we eventually saw him okay

So basically there was a big giant meadow that kind of led up to this hill and he was on top of the hill But he was after the same birds Well, I don't know if he was, cause he was shot calling, right? So I don't know if he knew, he had probably heard those birds from a distance and they had come in and was trying to relocate them. Again, I don't know for sure if these turkeys saw the guy,

cause not long after we saw the turkey spook, I see the guy like hot-footing it across the ridge trying to catch him, which is crazy. You ain't gonna catch a turkey after you spook him, you know? But I'd always agree with Steve, like, oh, you're probably right. You're just making a loud noise.

You get a shock-obble, great. These turkeys might have had an adverse reaction to that sound. Sure. Because they definitely, when they heard that, we were looking right at them, their heads popped up, and they were like, what's up? You know, they sort of started looking, and then again, I don't know at what point they saw the dude,

or if they saw the dude, but it didn't last much longer. And Mabel had her first experience of what it's like hunting public land when it doesn't go right. It's kind of, it'd be interesting to know if that noise is what spooked them. I was in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago, turkey hunting, and we were hunting kind of a small couple hundred acres and there were some other dudes hunting the next property over.

And first thing in the morning, like we happened to be right on the edge of that, you know, like the property line. And I was cutting loose with a coyote call and this other turkey on her, like pops up next to us, he's like, we don't use those to shut like, he was pissed that I was using a coyote howler, which I've always had like excellent results with like before fly down. He's like, that just scares the turkeys. Like, I don't know,

it's worked pretty good for me in the past, but maybe a noise could, you know, an adverse noise could do it. I don't know. I was hoping you were gonna say after you heard that noise that you'd looked over and saw a Blue Jay or something actually making the noise. I wish. Yeah.

No, it was startling and it was definitely out of place. It just took me a second to register exactly what the hell it was. Well, did you guys get any birds then after that mishap? Mabel did not. We ended we moved spots and did it did a not a big not a power loop, but we did another loop. And I'm proud of her because the couple of days before we did do a power loop. And 11 year old

I think she stuck with me for like seven miles Pounding the ground and making a lot of crow calls and loud yelps with no zero responses We had some crappy weather Some wind makes it tough, you know, anytime sun's out, guns out with turkeys. You know, when the sun's out, they're playing ball and it's nice, they're playing ball. When it ain't, sure, you can still kill them, but it's just, it's not as much fun.

It's not as easy for sure. So we ended up killing, I don't know, we killed, Ina killed the Tom at a different location on the way out there Thursday morning and I doubled up on Jake's, my wife doubled up on Jake's, she and I were together. She shot one, the rest of them were standing around and she looks at me and I'm like, yeah, shoot another one.

Oh yeah, man. When a gang of them comes in and you're holding two tags. Yeah. You know, a couple guys on Instagram, you know, had to say something about, because I was like, well, toms are hard to find. So I was happy that when we shot these jakes. And they're like, well, yeah, no wonder. Toms are hard to find when you're pounding the jakes.

Certainly there is some truth to that. But also hunting public land, it's like, and all the other things that love to eat turkeys. Right. It's hard to say that if us killing two Jakes would have equaled more Jakes next year, or if it's going to be the, or sorry, more times next year, or if it's going to be the same amount. Certainly there would have been two more that maybe would have made it, but we

all know that, you know, what are the chances that Turkey makes it from egg to two year old gobbler it's like one in 50 or something crazy like that yeah and like I get it like the not killing Jake things like maybe back East where there's just a lot more hunters and a lot more hunting pressure and some of those turkey populations are yeah on their way down, but It's just a different situation out here. Oh, for sure. Yeah, Brent Reeves tell you it's sacrilege, you know, to do it down there. They just will not shoot Jakes unless you're a kid or it's your first time hunt. And the way I'm looking at it, I'm like, man, that's turkey schnitzel walking around on two legs.

And it's still like you're taking, whether it's a gobblerbbler or Jake you're taking a turkey out of the population Right, you know, I mean, well, you can shoot hens in the fall Obviously after breeding season. Yeah. Well in Montana. Yeah referring to so yeah Yeah, everything was bushwhacked didn't call in nothing in Montana listen But this is I've been wanting to have this conversation about bushwhacking for a while. Like, what's happened? I wish I had a drop for this.

Oh, no, it's like there are, there's a certain contingent of turkey hunters that really look down their nose at bushwhacking, like the purity of calling them in and I get it, but if you've ever tried to like Stock a turkey you might like if you haven't tried it and then you go try it You might have a different opinion about it because they're not easy to stop I guarantee you that half the people that look down on it is because they had they haven't tried it or they or They have a little bit and they can't do it right because it's too hard Yeah, like it's way harder than stocking a spot in stock

Rifle hunt for mule deer elk or whatever. Yeah, man. Try stalking an eagle in the tree. They got the same eyesight Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always say man a turkey doesn't have to 100 yards 200 yards doesn't have to look over and go, oh, I just saw Cory Calkins skyline himself. He just sees like Cory Calkins hat brim, yeah, move 90 degrees and he goes, I don't know what that was exactly, but I'm gonna just go the other direction just to be sure because ever since I was born,

ever since I came out of my mom's cloaca, something's been trying to eat me. Yeah, listen, it's just the way it is. Would I still, do I love calling them in? Yes, which is why I'm gonna tell you this story, because in Colorado, I bushwhacked one too. Couldn't call one in there, they were super hened up. But I get to Wisconsin.

I got one day to hunt. Well, I had two, but I knew the second day was just gonna pour rain all day. So it wasn't gonna be a good day of turkey hunting. So I kind of chase a couple off the roost, but they get onto the neighbors and I can't call them back in. And long story short, I crisscrossed 400 acres

for like four hours maybe longer yeah because I probably started at five now it's noon I'm heading back to camp kind of worn out coming down one last ridge still calling and I get an answer sweet do a little loop I kind of know where they're at I'm set up on this I set up on this little bench and I got the roll of the bench, definitely not 15 yards away, maybe closer to 10. It's not far. I tried to get, I tried to back off the edge a little bit so I could have a little more room to work,

but everything behind me was kind of, there was no shade. And right where I was, there was a pine tree and it was shaded. I was like, man, it'd be better to hide in in the shade So I sit down. I don't even call I just do a couple scratches in the leaves Wow, and there's two birds like right gobble on top of each other Got my gun up. I'm ready and I can hear him walking That's one of the beautiful things about hunting them in the eastern deciduous forest man is when they're on those dry crunchy oak leaves You can just hear them coming

Just I can taste the schnitzel at this point, you know Well, the first one pops up blue and white head head pops up Looks for a half a second Full strut, you know, I'm like, oh sweet, and I don't shoot, I hesitate for whatever reason, because I was just enjoying the show, I guess. Well, where he popped up, just his right, my looker's left, there's like a double-trunked oak, and he like immediately is behind it. Which normally is a good thing, because you can like... Totally. Get into position, right? Right, but there's two birds.

So, I'm thinking, well, no big deal. I'm just gonna track through that tree, and when he pops out the other side, I'm gonna roll him, you know? And he's close, how close, like... Like I said, less than 15. Yeah. Well, I get like halfway through this double-trunk tree,

and I look out of the corner of my eye, and the second gobbler's head pops up. Well, this dude is not white and blue, it's full red. And when I see him, I'm thinking, okay, I should probably need to swing back and shoot him. Well, as I'm just thinking that, that bird putts one time and is on his wings, and the other bird is on his wings.

I've never even seen the first one again. And both of them Pitch off into the woods never to be touched by Yanni's TSS Wow Moral the story is Like I take your first I wasn't in like full kill mode right mm-hmm Even though I had just been pounding it for seven, eight hours, and here's my opportunity, I coulda rolled him, and I just hesitated,

and there you go. It was bad. Like, my stomach, I haven't had like a stomach in the bottom of my, what's this, what was I trying to say? Like the, you know, when you get that pit feeling in your stomach. I always say my stomach falls the, you know, when you get that pit feeling in your stomach? I would say my stomach falls out of itself.

Yeah, something like that. Like I haven't had that that bad for a while. Like I was close to camp, five minute walk, and I almost didn't want to go back to tell the story because it was hurting me so bad. Yeah, some of them hurt, man. I just must've muffed it. It's good to have those hunts now and then that really hurt. Yes. Mm-hmm He's good to be humbled. That's why I love the wild turkey because that Joker humbles me and Yeah, so that's about all of my turkey hunting stories. Yeah um a little little while back I was out with my older son and little while back I was out with my older son and

sprung him out of school after he had a good baseball game the night before and We got into the spot slept it slept in the truck got up hiked into our spot Hit the coyote howler a few times didn't hear anything hit it again didn't hear anything hit it it again, didn't hear anything, hit it again, like real aggressively and wham, three gobbles. I'm like, okay, I kind of know where they're at, but we, we, we were just like a little too late with the light. And so like, I didn't want to push it and get in there tight and have Marty on the ground and see us. So we set up, it was probably, I don't know, it was more than 200 yards away,

right? But I just didn't want to move. I was like, we're just going to be patient and they'll come. Like, and we, I called and they'd answer. I called, they, they weren't getting any closer. We ended up sitting in that spot for an hour and it was cold, like, like cold enough that I was getting ready to be like screw it, we're going to walk just to warm up and get closer. Um, and we hear like obviously in range, but same thing over a little lip, this hand start, just starts making a racket like yelping and cutting and yelping and cutting to the point where I was looking for you to the point where I was like Hayden I think there's a dude down there because

it was just it sounded almost unnatural it was so like aggressive and loud you know what I mean I was like I think there's a guy in here with us and I was like my heart was just like broken at that point. But then I see Hayden, I see Hayden like shift his gun this way. And I see that hen's head pop up. I was like, don't shoot. That's a hen. She ends up coming into we, I don't carry decoys a lot, but I had them that time. And we had a quarter strut Jake and then a hen on the ground. She came up to those decoys, puffed up like a gobbler, strutting, making all kinds of noise,

like not paying any attention to the Jake decoy, just walking circles around that hen, very irritated. And then kind of like gave up on it and wandered off. Then we see a lone gobbler out at like 80, 90 yards and he takes a long time coming in, he gets to like, Oh, 35, 40. And I, and I tell Hayden to cut loose on him. Um, immediately after he shoots, we hear three gobbles also in range, like right from where that

hen came from I'm like can you see him can you see him can you see it and finally it's like I see him and they get in the decoys and do the little dance around the decoys and when we get a couple of those nice you got three gobblers in one morning well one gobbler Oh and two J's. Yeah. Yeah, so that was exciting because he's never had that kind of show before and it like reinforced to me and definitely him like If you sit tight like good things will happen. Oh, yeah So I'm guilty of walking too much when it's turkey season for sure Yeah last weekend of the season this weekend here in Montana.

So I'm going to take my younger kid. We're going camping and we're in a camp in a spot where we might have a shit shot at a, at a Turkey. Good. So, so he hasn't been out at all. Just timing man, sports and whatnot. Oh man. Those sports.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Priorities. Yeah. 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. Steve Rinella here. The American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the Meat Eater Podcast Network. It's hosted by author and historian Dan Flores, who happens to be mine and our own Dr. Randall's former professor.

By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the West's unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is today. I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of American history. And, uh, I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have. Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday,

May 6th on the MeatEater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out. And I mean that in a very good way. I was in town and country the other day and it was coming around the poultry aisle and saw a turkey and I went and crept in real slow and then I went up and smacked him. He was frozen.

So that was my turkey hunt and I did this year. this year. Congrats. Yeah, I didn't buy him But I could have could have could have tagged that one could tag that one, but I've been bear hunting Yep, you've been bear hunting. Yeah, how many days did you put in bear hunting man? It was pretty quick this year only three Typically I hunt I don't know 10 to 14 days It's easy that these long days to just get in a couple hours after work and I call that a day because It ends up being an eight hour adventure. Yeah But I went The last week of April spotted a bunch of bears ended up going back to the same spot the first weekend in May and

Stayed overnight spotted a bear in the evening and then in the morning Was hyper focused on the drainage that I saw him in and found him again about two miles away, closed the distance to... Two miles from where you first inspired him or two miles from where you were at? About two miles from where I first spotted him. Sorry, like glassed him up two miles away, what I'm trying to say. And then probably an hour and a half later, I was within 90 yards of him and I shot him on the run running away. Biggest bear I've ever harvested.

You spooked him. I did. I think he winded me. Yeah. I was trying to play the wind as the thermals were switching around. They move so much all the time, but in the spring, the Bruins especially are just cruising, roaming, looking for that fresh patch of grass or new flowers or something dead. Yeah. And I watched this guy cruise, probably a solid half a mile. And he luckily stopped in the drainage that I last watched him go into. But you couldn't see him until you were on top of it.

Right. Yeah. He went into this thick, not super thick, but thick enough to where I couldn't see him until I was on him and got up into this, into the drainage that he was in. And figured he had left because I didn't see him I was about to set up in predator call, and I heard a stick pop right below me, and then just saw a flash of black Probably that was probably 40 yards away, and then he would I could tell he was running away And there was this little gap between some tree and a cliff and I shot him right through that little gap probably about 90 yards

Could he pull on hauling ass or as fast as he could go? He's a he had a big Butt on him so he couldn't go very fast Mean embarrassed that you know they do 30 40 miles an hour Yeah This guy like I could tell by the way he was running was huge And I knew he was big when I saw him from miles away like I wanted to kill him I could tell it was a bore from that far away and I saw him the night before like I wanted to kill him I could tell it was a boar from that far away And I saw him the night before

And did you have to lead him? No, it was so close that I just put it right behind the shoulder and that's where it went Did you bring in a picture of him? No, I didn't got it up on my Instagram. I saw the same man Calkins see see man Calkins great big noggin on him. Yeah Calkins see see man caulkins great big noggin on him. Yeah Look like it look like a dandy. Yeah, I'm tickled his skull I mean it hasn't had time to you know do the the green scored the skull at 20 inches So which is BNC minimum. Mm-hmm, so it might shrink under that again We'll see but yeah got the hide in the freezer fat in chunks ready to render meats in the freezer

feeling good Nice, what do you do with the hide? I'd like to get a rug made but we'll see gonna have to save up a couple of paychecks for that one, dude It's not cheap. I know. Yeah, I don't want to say I'm going on a guaranteed hunt But the outfitter that I'm going with next week in Manitoba but the outfitter that I'm going with next week in Manitoba. He's texted me, I think two days in a row, and one day he's like, we killed four last night. And the next day he's like, we killed five last night.

I'm like, hold on, is that like, you forgot about one, and that was from two nights ago, or you guys killed nine bears in two days? He's like, oh yeah, we got nine in two days. And then he just lists all of the numbers baited, you know, in Manitoba. Sounds like there's a lot of bears there. So not guaranteed, but high probability. And yeah, I'm not looking forward to the the rug bill. Yeah, it's a big one. I've got I think I'm just gonna tan it and just hang it. It depends on how big I was just talking to Cory about this man like that's what I did with

my first bear which was a giant. And for two years I just looked at that tan thing hanging there just like wishing I had gotten a rug made and then I had a rug made out of it. Yeah, if they have a big old noggin. I mean, I feel like it's worth foaming that out just so you can relive that. Did it cost you any less or more when you got the tax of the rug done? It'll cost you a few hundred less if you get it tanned first because otherwise they gotta send it off

to get tanned before they make the rug. Yeah. Because I want it to sit right on the floor in front of my wood burning stove and I don't really have that set up yet for it So I don't I don't need the rug right now. Yeah, well, we'll see what kind of bear you get See how big his head is first That's exciting though. That's next on some newspaper up in that head after you get it. Oh, yeah. There you go

All right. Do we need to move on Phil? I think it's time. All right. Well, those were good hunting stories fellas. Thank you All right, well those were good hunting stories, fellas. Thank you. All right, next. Oh, Catch Crayfish Counting the Stars is now available in paperback. Right here, here it is. Why does it take them like two years to decide to put something out in paperback? The time varies, but it's the decision that the publisher makes based on you know When they think the timing is right for a paperback But they obviously it's based on probably on sales of the sure hardcover too, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's done well enough It's been popular enough to release it in paperback. Yeah, definitely. So it's out now

Lots of cool activities in there for your kids, outdoor activities. Cory, what's your favorite one in there? Man, there's a lot of good stuff in here. How many of you actually done with your kid? With Marshall. To be honest, I haven't looked through the whole book. This is one of those where you could just flip to a page and then find the most recent chapter that they're talking about

and just go from there like a couple winners ago we flipped to the make your own aquarium and we did that caught a little really perch from a local pond and maybe threw him in there find an antler that's pretty fun to do this time of year but I flipped to go rock hounding and we're gonna go look for some quartz and agates this weekend Oh nice, it kind of just spun off of reading this book Great ideas in there. Yeah, and that's easy to do right there go for a walk and pick some rocks. Oh easy peasy You'll go for just those two rocks, but your kid will come back with a box of rocks

Oh, yeah, it could just be gravel. Yeah, I've had to rewild some rocks recently. Oh, I do it all the time. Yeah. Because my wife's my wife is bad about it. The kids are kind of like, eh. But my wife will not let a piece of petrified wood stay on the banks of the Yellowstone. Right. It's coming home. Yeah. Yeah. Be honest, what's your what's your favorite one?

I'll be honest, I haven't done many but I did do one before the book was out and then wrote the Little how-to to do it which was to build a PVC bow, which is an idea I think I got from Jimmy Miller, but yeah, man, it's super easy and You still need to make some arrow. Do we is there a how to make some arrows along with the bow? No, we didn't go that far with it. Just the bow. That's getting serious.

Yeah, so you gotta have, I just used old hunting arrows of mine, but you just take a chunk of PVC and some string and cut some notches in the PVC and use some tape for a little handle and a and a Arrow rest and you got yourself a bow that My kids they ran around in princess. I remember when they were little running around Yeah, yeah, just flinging those arrows all around see an arrow

Yeah, you gotta wear a helmet in the backyard. What about what's your, it's your. There's a couple in there that I'm partial to the track and animal and the read animal sign one. I think that teaches kids a lot. Um, like looking at poop, looking at whatever hair feathers, whatever they can find, you know, maybe it's a snake skin on the ground. I like, I just think kids are naturally, the biophilia thing is just built into them. So those are a couple of activities that play into that that I like a lot. And it's

going to teach them to be a better hunter. But there's, I don't know, 75 more activities in there, There's I don't know 75 more activities in there like everything from Gardening to fishing to like history. There's all kinds all the kids that I know that have that book. Love it. Yep Yep, absolutely love it. Yeah Such a great one to just throw in the camper in the back of the truck if you're even just going to a local park So many activities in there. Yeah, you wouldn't just think about yep Alright, let's kind of ties it together with activities for kids Getting kids into hunting and also Mabel's turkey cuz she didn't get a turkey when we were out on our big trip but she did kill a

Yanni's ranch bird the other night Who that's been causing some strife and actually Jennifer's not home, my wife, but when we told her, she's like, I told you guys not to kill that bird. And we're like, did you? We thought you just said like you didn't want us to kill that bird. You didn't say you can't kill that bird.

We tried to kill him two other days. One time in the evening and he stayed over the roll and then he just kept gobbling. And finally I'm like, did he roost? And I went and peeked over to the hill and sure enough he time in the evening and he stayed over the roll and then he just kept gobbling and finally I'm like did he roost and I went and peeked over to the hill and sure enough he's in the tree. So the next morning my oldest and I we get up at 5 a.m. and I got her sitting on the deck like in the dark waiting for it to get light. Well I didn't because I dropped back to call a little bit so I didn't see but the gobbler was in plain view of I know and so of course like it was doomed from the beginning because even a

Jennifer's like you guys are killing a half domesticated bird. I'm like, yeah kind of like This person not doesn't live in suburbia Like everybody around us lives on 10 to 40 acres or something, there's coyotes around, there's foxes around, wolves. Sure. You know, these are not quite, I mean sure, are there people feeding them?

Yes. Well anyways, the other evening we could hear them gobbling across the way, I told Mabel, I said just go out there and every 30 minutes just give a couple strokes on the box call, he'd answer. And then after dinner, Mabel's like, ah out there and every 30 minutes just give a couple strokes on the box call he'd answer And then after dinner Mabel's like that's probably getting too late. Yeah, I'm like, yes, you're probably too late But just keep listening and looking and we're cleaning up and I know looks out the window

He's right there, you know So anyways, we go out there. It doesn't take much make a few calls peek around the corner of the garage kill him and It doesn't take much, make a few calls, peek around the corner of the garage, kill them. And she's very aware that it's like a different hunt than what we were just experiencing on our turkey camp trip. But it's not what I wanna talk about. What I wanna talk about is that she's very skittish around gutting and the processing.

My oldest one, I'll put her up against anybody in this office. She might not be as fast as you, but if you could give her a whole deer and she could process it at this point, at the age of 13, she's good at it, she enjoys it. Maybe on the other hand, like sticking her hands up in that turkey's cavity and pulling those guts out,

fighting it, fighting it. So my question is Corey you haven't gotten there you're gonna have to deal with this at some point but like for kids that like to kill stuff do you force them if they're not into dealing with guts and processing do you force them to do it anyways because that's part of the deal I mean mean, I can't, it hasn't been a problem with my boys. If anything, they're like curious about it. They're like interested in it.

You know, with fish, they want to see what's in the stomach. That's all I know. Turkeys, they want to see what's in the crop. Um, I mean, forcing a kid to do something is maybe not ideal mm-hmm But you should at least I think you got to get him involved in some of the steps right like But yeah, I mean I'd lean towards like you killed it. You're cleaning it Well, cuz it used to be just like a you kill it you eat it right? Yeah That's like the original version of this.

And then I think sort of as, cause I know Steve would just bring meat home to his mom and his mom would kind of prepare it and then they would eat it. Right? I think that's kind of morphed as we've become parents to, we're like, oh no, there's this other thing too. Like you need to be involved in the whole process. Right.

Cause we want them to be. But what I'm scared of is if I force it too much, then she's going to be like, screw it. I don't need to kill a turkey. I'll go play volleyball. Yeah, I mean, maybe try doing it in steps, man. Will she cut the breast off the carcass? Or just?

She's the, yeah, man. She's not huge into any of that stuff you once it's in the bag and I asked her to run the sealer yeah she'll do that I mean I guess if I was in that situation I'd rather like and worried about that you're gonna turn her off a hunting all together I'd rather have her go hunting with me and not do it. Oh, 100%! Then force her to do it and then she doesn't want to go hunting. You know what I mean?

Totally. Yeah, my kid was with me on a turkey hunt last year and it was pretty funny because I'm like, all right, now I got to gut this thing. And he's like, oh, gross! And started walking towards the truck. And then he like stopped and wanted to watch and got very curious about halfway through the next thing You know, he's like looking up into the turkey and wanting to get his hands dirty And so yeah, I never went through that gross thing man. It's just like a lot of curiosity. Yeah Yeah, that's yeah, I got one in one I know hung out with the turkeys guts for 30 minutes and I was sort of heading towards the sauna and

She's running around the side of the house with like different pieces. What's this? Then she'd come back. What's this? 30 minutes and I was sort of heading towards the sauna and she was running around the side of the house with like different pieces what's this and then she'd come back what's this come back she took like 50 pictures yeah she doesn't mind getting in there yeah you mentioned fish that's a great starting point I feel like yeah something about fish and the lack of eyebrows that maybe mm-hmm or eyelashes yeah that maybe would and bird guts smell really bad Boy do they ever ever? Okay, we're gonna do a

We're gonna request that you guys the listeners we're gonna do a listener hot tip off showdown So we want you guys to send in a hot tip We're gonna play it next week If I was here, I'd host it on this show on my birthday, but I'm gonna be in man, Manitoba Hopefully looking over some bunch of bears eating donuts and maple syrup But Brody wants hot tips for taking kids hunting fishing, fishing, camping, that sort of stuff, because we're celebrating the, uh,

paperback release of Catch Crayfish Count Stars. Yeah. What do you want to add to that, Brody? Well, we'll, we'll take all, everyone's gonna send us all those parents out. They do, you know, it doesn't have to be from parents, but I imagine the bulk of it will be from parents. Well, I think if your kid has a hot tip.

Oh, kids too. Coming straight from the source, have them do it. Yeah. But anyway, we'll look through everything we got. We're going to take the three, what we think are three of the best ones. Then in next week's show, the hosts are going to vote on the winner. Now the three finalists that are going to compete will all get a copy of the book, the paperback copy. And then the winner will get this bad boy knife here. You

want to pull it out and show them? Yeah, super sharp MKC. You want to pull it out and show yeah super sharp and Casey Maybe like be if you give that knife to your kid haven't be awful careful with it Yeah, guaranteed you're gonna need some band-aids So if you're the lucky winner you're gonna give that let your kid mess with it get yourself some band-aids ahead of time This is the Montana knife company flat tail. Yep little collab we did with mk Great do it all hunt night So like 60 to set 90 is a long hot tip video keep it succinct

Yeah, like 60 seconds is ideal And then just send that send your videos to radio at the meat eater comm that's that's the right email address Cory Yes, sir, and we'll vote on them next week Send it that'll be fun radio at the meat eater comm that's the right email address, Corey. Yes, sir. And we'll vote on them next week. Send it. That'll be fun. Radio at the meat eater.com. All right, now on to our first guest, Bart George joining us today.

He's the Wildlife Program Director for the Cal Spell Tribe. Bart, thanks for joining us. If MeatEater has a Mount lion expert, Bart is it. We filmed Idaho mountain lion in season seven of MeatEater with Bart. Bart's been on several MeatEater podcast episodes. There's a great one where he tells a story of almost losing one of his hounds

and himself having a very close encounter with a mountain lion. You should go, I couldn't find the episode number. Sorry, but search around Meter Podcasts, you can find it. Maybe Corey will find it now. And he was also on the hunt episode with yours truly, where I followed along as Bart performed the research that we're gonna talk about today.

Bart, how are you? I'm well, yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, explain where this study came from, how it was executed, but save the results here for a minute. Yeah, yeah, of course. So like I mentioned, I work for the Kalispell tribe. I'm also a hound handler in Northeast Washington. I keep dogs and have for, I don't know, 15 or so years here. The state of Washington, you know, hound hunting is illegal here.

So there's not a lot of people with dogs. So when there, you know, when cougars get in trouble typically it's with pets or small livestock in our area the state has a pool of folks that they'll call to come out and deal with that situation typically it's tree that cat and if it's killed something the state kills it so Bruce is also on that episode, both the episodes, kind of my hunting partner, mentor, whatever. He and I have been doing this for quite a while, 15 years, we're getting these calls from the state

every once a month or something like that until about 2018 and 19 really picked up. I don't know what the change was. We have no way of really knowing that, but we started seeing a real increase in depredations. When there's a depredation, we go out, catch that cat, kill it, and it becomes property of the state and typically it's discarded. So as a hunter, as a tribal representative, whatever, it kind of goes against what we all stand for to see such a cool, charismatic species in carcass just get pitched in the dumpster.

So Bruce and I kind of started brainstorming, kind of come up with a way to have some sort of proactive response for the state. So in a real common narrative when we were at these depredations, we'd be talking to the farmer or the operator and say, yeah, this cat was hanging around a week ago on my neighbor's place. And then I got a trail camera picture of it or I got a ring doorbell picture of it or

whatever a couple days ago and it hadn't caused any trouble. But now here, you know, killed llamas or pets or whatever. So we kept here, you know, we heard that a lot and we got to thinking like, well, what if we had been out here a week ago when it first showed up and, and chase that cat off? Would it have still hung around and killed something? Or would it have, you know, left the area or what? We don't we didn't know. So we kind of started brainstorming working with the WDFW enforcement crew that we're, you know, we're

working with all the time. And we came up with this idea to haze in the castle. We didn't really know what that looks like yet, and we didn't have the technology to do it. And then I'll get into that a little bit in the episode. You kind of get to see what we're doing with the collars and different things. So I was buying some collars from Buddy up there at W Pound Supply. He's really, he's a tech guy, he's like an engineering background. He's into that kind of stuff more than I am for sure.

And he came up with this idea to develop the sleep mode on our Garmin collar. So then I could put a collar on a cat. Uh, that picture you got up is actually the largest Cougar ever collared that we know of. He's 197 pounds male cat we caught right here. No kidding. He's a whopper, man. He's big. That was for the state of Washington. We call it that cat, uh, for them on their predator prey project.

Wow. That's what an almost 200 pounder looks like. Yeah, you could see the folds in his arm, how much fat he's got just up around his neck. Wow. Yeah, if he'd have taken a couple more bites, he'd have tipped this 200 pound mark. Anyway, so I was working with Buddy

and he came up with this idea for a sleep mode on a Garmin collar. So the survey collar, you know, the typical wildlife collar, it's a big kind of clunky thing. Got a long battery life though, four years of battery life if it's programmed properly. But the Garmin collars, you know, they only get a couple days out of those with the dogs. You only get a couple days out of those with the dogs. So we needed a way to get real time data from a cat, but have it last long enough that we could revisit this thing for five or six weeks. So the sleep mode that Garmin developed with Buddy Self

kind of made that possible. So we were able then to couple like a regular dog tracking collar onto our regular survey collar and then revisit that cat periodically and see how it's responding to our hazing. So that was kind of the nexus of the thing. Then we needed to come up with a stimuli and we kicked that idea around.

And in a perfect world, we'd have had a whole bunch of time and a bunch of folks helping and a big budget and everything, and we would have tested whole bunch of different stimuli. But we settled on human voice just because for public safety, hiking, for people yelling at a cat to move it along or whatever else. We just thought human voice made the most sense. But I would have liked to test it, dogs barking or an engine or

car horn honking or whatever as the stimuli. So the stimuli that we settled on was meat eater podcasts. It works nicely and you guys have big loud voices and everything else and yet there's not a lot of dead time in it. Other podcasts with like long gaps and people like ruminating silently. We wanted constant talking. So you're saying this is a crew of talkers we have here huh? Yeah man when Steve gets going he doesn't stop. He doesn't come up for air. It's like, keeps it going, constant talk, and that's what we wanted.

We didn't want to have gaps or music or anything else. Yeah. So you were measuring basically, you were walking towards Collard Lines, you knew the location, and then you were measuring, and you had a loudspeaker playing the Meteor podcast, it was 80 decibels, right? Yep, 80 decibels. And that's a kind of an outside voice, right? If you're at a cocktail party, 80 decibels probably wouldn't be obnoxious. When you're out in the woods and it's quiet,

it's loud enough that it's carrying a couple hundred yards. So we expected those cats to be hearing us approach with this human voice stimuli. And we're able, like I said, we know exactly where they're at. We're looking at our handheld. We know where we're at, where the cat's at. We approach with this human voice and we're watching as soon as that cat gets up to his feet and kind of flees, we stop, gather up our data, and we see how it responds to us. How scared of us is it? We're able to measure then how far that cat moved away, and when it stops, we radio back

and they turn the dogs loose, and the dogs would come to us, find the cat track, and they'd run that cat triot. The first time we'd triot, we'd mark it with paint balls, permanent paint, and that was kind of the only hands-on, that was the only real whatever hazing that we did other than the dogs barking. We wanted to test if it could associate then like this human voice approaching it

and then this negative interaction. So we did that with cats and we would do that four times with each cat and that was kind of our data set. So each cat had its own unique sort of data set with four points on it. We also did a control portion. So then we would take cats and approach them exactly the same way with the speaker playing. And when they mobilize, they leave and then we turn around and just walk out.

No hazing. No hazing. We just wanted to see how that cat would respond. Yeah. And how many total cats did you end up collaring and doing this to? Well, we collared more. And how many total cats did you end up collaring and doing this to? Well, we collared more. We ended up with trying to, you know, we had some trouble at first getting technology figured out. I think totally total cats collared and handled was around 50, but we got complete data on 41 cats. Okay. That's a pretty good sample size.

It's a little bit heavy on males, but not bad. So we were able to get, you know, they were all adults. We didn't call our subadult animals. And we tried not to capture females that had accompanying young, just because it muddies the data when we show up and there's three cats there. We don't know which one runs first.

Does one of those subadults get spooked and run off and the mom follows her? Like we just didn't know. Sure. Sure. So independent age, independent cats are what we were after. 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.

All right, so these cats all heard Stephen Rennel's voice a whole bunch. How did they react to that? Positively, I guess, or negatively. I don't want to tell you to look at it. They learned to avoid us. It really indicated that the pursuit with the dogs can alter their response to this sort of what should have been a benign stimulus with the human voice. So it's called a flight initiation distance project. And they do them with birds a lot, because birds are easy, right?

A bird sitting on a telephone pole, or a pole you can walk out and measure how close it lets you get and all that stuff. Sure. Guggers are a lot harder than that. They're secretive. So this is kind of the first flight initiation distance project with cats.

And our data, you know, for our project CATS, looking at it right now, our mean flight initiation distance increased from 75 at our first interaction, 75 meters, to 128 meters by the fourth interaction. So almost doubled, which is pretty good. When you start thinking about just limitations to this, they can only hear you from so far away. So 128 meters is pretty good distance. And then the distance moved, um, was really interesting. It almost doubled from 278 meters to 582 meters.

Wow. They really, they really wanted to get away from us. By the end of this thing, they recognized that, you know, this person approaching me is bad news. It means something bad is about to happen. Yeah. When you, when you hear Steven Rinella coming through the woods, there's going to be a pack of hounds not long after. Right.

If you're a wildlife and you hear Rinella walking towards you, you better skedaddle. The control portion was interesting and that was a little bit later in the game. We really struggled with how to develop this control idea, so it didn't start until about midway through the project. We wanted to first see if we were getting good data on our project cats. And the control cats showed an interesting thing. Our flight initiation distance decreased. It started at 68.

We only had a end value of about, I think, 12 for our control cats. But it started at 68, which is very close to what we saw with our project cats at 75. And it actually decreased down to 35 meters. So by the end of that project, those cats recognized pretty quickly that this human voice doesn't, isn't that scary.

It doesn't mean very much to them. Oh, interesting. So, and was it, did it show clearly that basically with every touch point, it was getting closer by just a little bit or was it kind of all over the place? Would you jump sometimes from 68 to 14 or is it like always 68 then 50 then 40 and then 20? Yeah, there were certainly some cats that weren't that linear

But there were some that really tracked like you're describing really closely to that That was a little heavy on Tom's we We ended up with a lot of toms late in the project. So we don't know if the females would have responded accordingly. But yeah, by there's some of those cats, you know, 35 meters is just the mean, but three or four of those cats by the last approach, we were walking up and looking at, you know, we'd stop at 10 meters. That was kind of what we called, you know, close enough. We'd stop at 10 meters and we'd be laying there in the brush looking at each other. So those cats weren't afraid of us at all. That human voice they had recognized is not

something to be concerned with, which is really interesting, you know, that's like when you think about these cats in parks and along hiking trails and stuff like that, you know, there's maybe a hundred people a day walking by talking to each other and stuff. And they've just learned like, yeah, just be still and let them pass. Sure.

Yeah, it's a wonder we don't have more attacks. And you know, who knows who can explain that. But all right, so you can see there's like two, I don't know, there's a lot of ways to look at this, but it's like one, it's good information for the cats, right? And for saving cats because as opposed to you guys just coming out, killing these cats, and then they go into the dumpster.

Like if you can show that these cats by a little bit of hazing, then learn to stay away from humans, that saves cat lives, right? So- Yeah, that's the idea, right? We want those things out on the landscape for hunters or whatever else.

Yeah, just to, I don't know, be a part of the landscape that is wildlife out there. So, like how has the research been received? Are people reading it, looking at it? And then is it changing any minds or is it affecting management at all, management thoughts, decisions in Washington? or is it affecting management at all? Management thoughts, decisions in Washington?

I don't know if it's made any major, led to any changes just yet. I think it's being well received for the most part. There's of course people trying to make it into something that it's not. It's not a silver bullet. It's not gonna correct all cougar public safety issues or depredations or whatever else, but I think it's another tool for managers to consider when you have a landscape with lots of people on it and lots of cougars around and you want

to lead to that sort of safe coexistence. It just gives managers another tool. And I think it's being received by managers fairly well in that way. You know, there's a lot of movement right now with cougar management across the West. There's a, you know, people aren't going anywhere. Cougar populations seem to be stable

or increasing in a lot of places. So yeah, I'm hopeful it gets picked up and people kind of consider that before, you know, killing a cat potentially needlessly. And also when they're thinking about, you know, policy and opportunities for hound handlers to get out and sort of recreationally pursue these cats. There's maybe an opportunity to get ahead of some of these things altogether through recreational hound pursuits. Yeah, you know, that's such a weird idea.

Like before I got into hound hunting, I would have never thought that there would be people out there that'd be like, oh yeah, I just want to go and chase these cats. I don't even need to kill them. Like just like going out like, oh yeah, I just wanna go and chase these cats. I don't even need to kill them. Like just like going out and participating in trying to catch one, catching them, taking pictures and then leaving them.

That will be plenty to keep me excited. Now that I've done it, like I totally get it. Like you don't have to have a kill season to have hound people be super into it. Oh Yeah, yeah, it's just it's a cool thing and a lot of you know hound handlers have been really strong advocates for wildlife protections across the West just recently in Wyoming is the hound groups that they kind of squashed a Bill that would have Right an idea would have really probably damaged

while cougar populations in that state. And that, you know, pound handlers have came to the plate several times to sort of protect calves because they want something to do on the weekends and they want to be pursuing cougars, taking their picture, working their dogs. I mean, that's kind of the important thing now that you have Mingus. You sort of

recognize how much, you know, that having a dog in the hunt saying really means. Oh yeah, that's another thing too. If you're out there and your dog's not there because he's out on injured reserve or whatever, you might as well just stay home because it ain't no fun. Once you've had your own dogs in the races, it's not as much fun. Well Bart, thanks for doing the work and thanks for coming and telling us about it. If anybody wants to learn more about this project or actually look at your the results of the research, where can they go to find that? I emailed you guys over a copy of the final publication.

You can share that if you'd like. Okay. You know, that episode that we did really describes the process of the hazing pretty well. They can check that out also. Okay, cool. Thank you. Have a good day, Bart.

We'll be in touch soon. All right, thanks guys, take care. All right, I'm watching the clock finally after an hour. I see that we've burned up 60 minutes. And we haven't even gotten to the first listener feedback yet. Yeah, we haven't even gotten to listener feedback. So we're gonna do that. I'm gonna also, while Phil's doing that,

I'm gonna also ask you guys to sort of just you know in the chat kind of vote You guys would rather hear gear talk or show and tell Here's the thing. I was gonna say I was gonna call an audible. I'm gonna suggest something because this is If the audience hasn't noticed this is a little this shows a little different this week We had to make a last-minute change So we're kind of just mixing things up and the feel of the shows a little it's it's it's a little different this week. We had to make a last minute change, so we're kind of just mixing things up and the feel of the show's a little, it's a little unfamiliar.

So I'm thinking we just do one listener feedback at the very, very end. It feels very familiar to me. Sure. I think we just do one listener feedback at the very end. That'll be the last thing we do. I think we can cruise through Gear Talk and show and tell just back to back.

I like it, Phil. I think Phil wants to share his sound drops and I really want to hear him. Oh, okay, that's true. I forgot that he had a special new sound. I just I just hate cutting things It makes me because we had to cut something last week. It made me feel bad. All right Well, Josh Miller if you're watching or listening, um, you know, get your program together so you can join us on a future episode because uh because it's gonna be entertaining for everybody when we when we get to see how you run this program cuz I got a lot of

questions for Josh in this program. Alright so I like that so we're gonna save listener feedback for the end that's what you want to do Phil? Yeah so get some more questions in. Okay bring some more questions. So now we're on to Gear Talk. Let's talk about gear, baby. Let's talk about scopes and beats. Let's talk about boots and binos, camel patterns with ya meat. Let's talk about gear. Let's talk about gear. Let's talk about gear. Hell yeah! There we go. I told the crew I was going to do a different song. I was going to do Jive Talking, the Bee Gees, but there were just too many harmonies and I was feeling lazy this morning, so I stuck with that one.

Man, if that was lazy, that's... You nailed it, Phil. We used to just come up with a new segment every week so that Phil has to do a new show. Phil has to come in here at 6 in the morning before everyone's here and like hide in here and do his- Yeah, but you can hear it in his voice when he's doing it. He- that's what he loves about his job. That's what he loves about it. All right, gear talk. Who wants to go first? Well, you're just going the order.

Going the order that it's written? All right, all right. I recently- that it's written? All right, all right. I recently, I've had this cooler for a while, but I got to use it again at Turkey Camp. We had the right kind of weather. Last year, Turkey Camp was so cold, I didn't even bring these suckers out. Now listen, this is mega expensive gear.

I didn't pay for mine, but it's cool, okay? No pun intended. Yeah, no pun pun you can make it cold you can make ice if you want yes it is a solar powered cooler made by Dometic okay roughly you're gonna be in to it the coolers gonna, depending on the size, plus or minus a couple hundred bucks, a thousand. Then you also need a solar panel, then you also need a battery that stores, there you go, there's a picture of my setup. So the juice is captured by the solar panel,

it goes into the battery, it's stored there, and then into the cooler. You can't go direct solar panel to the cooler. How many quarts is that cooler? That one is, they call it the 55. The nice thing about these coolers is that, and I would call them, it's more of a refrigerator that is in the shape of a cooler than it being an actual cooler. It's definitely not as insulated as a Yeti.

If you just used it as a cooler and didn't have power to it, it's not going to work as well as a Yeti would. But if you've got it set up like this and that battery, I haven't tried it just alone, but you could probably not have sun or ditch a solar panel. I'm guessing you could run that cooler at 38 degrees for three to four days off that battery which gets you through a lot of camping trips. Memorial weekend. But man, the real benefit, and I don't know, is it worth $1,600 for the whole kit in Caboodle? I don't know. You're gonna have to not buy a lot of bags of ice

for it to pay for itself. Well yeah, buck 50 a bag, that's up. But not having the wetness in the bottom of the cooler, not having to deal with the ice, just constantly knowing that like, oh, no, this thing at all times is 33 degrees or whatever you set it up to. It's pretty sweet. It like it just takes out that element of dealing with the ice, wondering if your stuff's getting too warm.

And especially like we we had some birds that needed cooling down. Right. I used to always bring a separate cooler with separate ice, keep it locked down so that when I get turkey meat I can jam it in there. It'll get cold and I can get it home. Well this time we basically just processed the birds, put them into ziplocks and gave them their own little, you know, quadrant of that refrigerator and They're just in there Doing their thing. No, don't have to worry about any kind of meat spoilage.

All the comforts of home. Yeah, no, listen, when your buddies showed up in camp, which we had do, they were giving me some shit. They were like, dude, like, did you have to like have another trailer with you to carry all this with you? You could say it looks like it takes up the whole back end of your taco. It doesn't actually.

I mean, if you think about it I brought two and I was actually just swapping I would just unplug one and plug the other one in and then they would They would work that way, but that solar panel. It's skinny So you just kind of slide it in anywhere you want the battery is I don't know size of maybe three Nalgene bottles So definitely doesn't take up any more room. But the big benefit is that, yeah, no ice, no ice mess. It's got a setting in there.

I haven't done it yet. I haven't been drinking as I'm getting ready for the big race, so I didn't have to bring any ice for cocktails, but it's got a deal where you can go to the lowest setting and then you basically have like a little mini compartment that sits right on the compressor and you can actually make ice in the field.

That's a game changer. If you like to have your whiskey on the rocks. Well, yeah. Brody, what do you got? I got these bad little mamajamas here. This is the Sig Zulu. What are they? Yeah, Zulu 6.

Zulu 6. So these are the image stabilizing binos that Sig Sauer makes. And I'm generally pretty slow to adopt like new technology. But if you've never looked through these things, like it's impossible to explain to someone who hasn't looked through one of these and just used a regular binos, the difference that it makes like freehand and binos. Um, especially I'm like Western spot and stock hunts. It just sucks.

Like you have to have a tripod. You still do, but with these, like you can kick back and throw them up on your knees and actually do a little work with them without a tripod. And it gives your neck and your shoulders a break. You're not hunched over that tripod all day long. And you can certainly set them up for a tripod. The reason I like these is not for tripod glassing our big spot in stock hunts. I like them because they're small. They're 10 by 30s. So they're light. They're light. So like turkey season, great. If I was a tree stand whitetail hunter, they'd be ideal for that.

And we've been talking about kids a lot today. Like they're awesome for kids, because especially younger kids just have trouble holding binos steady enough to look at any, you're like, the deer's over there. And they're just like all over the place. With those things, they can actually see stuff. Yeah.

So my boys will definitely be carrying those this fall deer hunting and stuff. Yeah, they're small enough that definitely be carrying carrying those this fall deer hunting and stuff Yeah, they're small enough that I was carrying them in the pocket. Yeah of my first light turkey vest Yeah, yeah, definitely like a 10 by 30. It's not not a wide field of view, right? Yeah, it's for long-range class and it's not gonna be ideal, but they make What are they 12 by 50s? Yeah, I can't well. Yeah, those are in the newer version. Yeah, they make they have a bigger objective

with a bigger field of view But I actually prefer these older versions or the first not older but the first iteration Yeah, just because it is a smaller package And it just there's super tidy. Yeah, I because it is a smaller package And it just there's super tidy. I love it. I Would probably I'll carry I may even carry these and my regular glass and binos this fall like deer and elk hunt Yeah, like you said for hand holding Yeah, you're just gonna like quickly need to scan a hillside or you see something moving you need to get on it quick Those things are amazing. Yeah, I

Guess we're on the battery train or everything that needs charging or takes batteries, but Yeah, I am in love with this new well It's not new but new to me the uncharted supply companies the Zeus air which is a air inflator One of those Cory Beats me. I thought your whole job was to keep me decked out with all the bitch and stuff No, I'm also a podcast producer. Oh But this thing will pump up any tires bike tires to truck tires It also will jump start a vehicle up to a six liter diesel engine. Whoa, which I haven't had to use that yet That's a big battery is probably seven years old so one of

These days, it's just not gonna start for me. I do have a little like pin leak in my truck tire Passenger side tire so I've had to use this every couple of days Definitely gonna take it with me camping. It's just a good thing to have in the truck all the time also charge USB Both types of USB cords has a little handy-dandy flashlight on it that'll blind you if you're not how much does that thing cost? 250 bucks that's reasonable. Yeah, I mean there's some other ones out there like Dewalt makes one But it's like three times the size. It's pretty amazing how much power is packed into this little kit right here What kind of jacks does it got like USB and

like USB and USB see yeah so it comes with its own little cables though to say if you have to have you had to hit your battery yep comes with the jumper cables and then they hose to inflate your tire and it works it's kind of slow but it works well like I've used it a few times and I don't know you could probably get all four tires filled up on one Oh like from flat to filled like in my ton before the battery ran out. Mm-hmm. It's pretty impressive Well, I've been carrying this thing everywhere. So always good to have in the truck. Okay, Cory wins gear talk Oh didn't realize it was a competition. All right on to our next segment show and tell

Good choice, Phil. This is my shriekiest one, it's a little out of my range. No rocks today, baby. No Spencer, sorry. Course he brought a rock. I Love this. I love this bit of Yanni just complaining about Spencer all the time. It's my favorite Well, I didn't know it's been just the whole reason we just don't get to come on here and tell haunting stories Especially when all the viewers are like tell us more on stories

This is kind of like now this show is kind of his fans. This show is kind of his baby. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. You're the producer. It's a great job. But it's it all started and, you know, kind of morphs off of Spencer's ideas. So hats off to come on the show more often, Yanni. You can crash it and tell more hunting stories. Hey, love to have. Cory knows exactly when I'm available to host. Yep.

All right. For show and tellell today I brought in my axis buck euro mount and this is from a buck that I killed with the element boys and let's see February of 24 so a little over the then over a year ago. I like the way it turned out. This is my first animal that I've ever sort of kept the velvet on. The Outfitter and the Element Boys were really impressed. They say this might have been the biggest one they were going to kill the whole season. They think that it's like top 10 or 20 archery SCI axis. No shit. Yes

which Well, I've just never been close enough to a set of those antlers to get a feel for like looking at it on video You can't tell how big or small they are. Yeah And this isn't a this isn't a insult to you in any way But those antlers are smaller than I thought they would be Yeah, I mean axe's deer is not a giant animal, right? Like it's an animal that you can by yourself drag along right? You know Sorry, i'll say in the video with the element boys when you kill this thing. He looks huge on the hoof No offense to the beautiful trophy. He's next to some doughs. He's next to smaller bucks. Yeah

That really shows his size in that video. I feel like totally What's I think the the thing that I'd like to share about it means a great hunt I had a great great time with everybody there and Outlaw outfitters if you're looking for a good axis deer hunt Team outlaw, I believe but yeah, so you guys know what makes long, I guess trophies or whatever, is long browatines. And then I can't remember what they called these, something with a P. It's, anyways, when these are as tall as the main beam, then he gets to be a big boy. But this is a reminder to me that for me to get excited

about hunting and killing certain species, I need to have some amount of exposure to them, more than I have with an Axis deer. Now that I've done it three days, I'm kind of excited to go back I'd like to go back during when they're really roaring and the rut which is middle of summer in Texas So it's kind of an adventure because you're gonna be out there with the snakes, you know in the heat in the heat but like

Now I know a little bit about them and I'm kind of like it Tidrelated by it and I want to experience more of it. But like, how excited these guys were to see this animal? For me, I was like, I don't know. It's like the fourth buck I've ever seen. It's just another axis to me. I don't know, do you guys ever feel that? Unlike when you're like, when you come to new territory,

new animal, but like you don't know the landscape You don't know the animal. It's kind of hard that you don't have a connection Right. Yeah, especially with I've it'd be especially true with the species like that, which isn't even native to North America. Yeah, exactly. You got to go to India. Yeah Yeah, I just recently did an odd ad hunt and never seen one before so I was basing everything off a big sheep that I've seen thousands of and very different animal

Similar but different totally that was yeah difficult to feel a connection with that out dad or once I Connected no once I put my hands on and there was a full-on connection, but before that nothing No, once I put my hands on them there was a full on connection, 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. All right, Brody, what'd you bring? Cory, you want to help me? Oh yeah.

It's a truck. I feel like I need a drum roll here. You do. These boys, for those of you just listening and not looking, it's taken two of them to lift up and, oh, look at that, and move. Move a little bit further in there. They're moving Brody's giant moose skull and antlers.

He killed and was that last fall? Yeah, last fall. I finally got it back. Man. What a beauty. That's bigger than my dad's. I guess I should sit down and talk about it huh Phil? Yeah this might be a problem. Sorry we don't have more flexible mic situations. You need me to help you to get positioned? We're live. Alright we can just rest it there. yeah, this is my first and only bull moose, Alaska Yukon moose.

Brought in for a couple reasons, just because moose antlers are super cool, but one of the reasons is the bulls, and Janice knows this from his dad killing one, and not in the same his dad killing one and not in the same spot, but same general zone of Alaska. The bulls in that area tend to have these really big fronts. He's like, Paul, almost like a second Palm, you know? Yeah. And a lot, a lot of bulls will just have like a couple of times coming out. Um, so it just, just makes these particular bulls really, really neat. The other reason I brought it in is this is the first big game animal whose skull I paid to have done.

Normally I clean all my skulls by simmering them in water and then cleaning them up. I paid to have this one beetle and the main reason is is if you look how this these antlers come off of the skull you can't get it down there in a pot that's right like there's a way to do it where you can make notches in a big pod and all that but I didn't want to mess with it so I paid to have it beetleled and I think beadled skulls look better than then can look better than Well, they're definitely stronger. Yeah, they'll hold up longer. Let's brutal. Where's that? Where are you hanging that thing? I haven't decided yet Oh, so it's not even on a wall. Yeah. Yeah, I just put the the

The wire the wire yeah, do it the other day. So yeah, I got it. Got to pick a spot How much do you have you weighed it? I'm guessing 60 50 60 you think yeah I know what the really when I went to that dnc or dne. Is that who shipped yours to? trophy trophy Alaska trophy express

Trophy trophy Alaska Trophy Express I Went into one of those in I think it was Fairbanks, and we were going to ship my dad's which was a pretty average 53 54 inch bowl or something nice fronts, and there's a couple of the big boys in there They were so big that I picked them up and could only hold them long enough for a snap a picture before I had to set them down. Yeah, there was two bulls when we got back in into the town, the hanger from the air service, we were using, you know, there's there's 20, 30 bull skulls in there. There was a 68 and a 72. The 68 was like my thigh, his bases, and I'm guessing weighed close to a hundred pounds I mean amazing so yeah like packing this thing out. Um my guess is around 60 Cory says more

Maybe so I don't know it's hard to say but um yeah, it's like a 50 trophy of a lifetime for me more than that Let's put the sucker down, okay Thanks for bringing that in yeah That's that's a lot of effort Brody's really committed to this episode again if you're just listening at home. We were just looking at Brody's how wide was yours? 55 inch Alaska Yukon Moose head. Beautiful. Alright Cory. Oh Cory what'd you bring? Let's see. Cory brought an antler too. Yeah it's the horn episode. Alright this is. That thing is dark as can be. You found it that dark? Have you

added some shoe polish? I stained it. I told them it looks like a Roosevelt. Yeah okay now looking in the camera it looks like a Roosevelt. Yeah, okay now now look at it in the camera it looks a little better, but this is the coolest shed I've ever found and if You're if you're listening and not watching you should probably go watch. It's got teeny tiny fronts, but it's third crab claws and splits and He's got me. I don't know crab claw dude. You can't call that a crab claw What is it lobster claw? No, but I mean, it's just like a good Three yeah, it's yeah crab claw means it's like a little bitty crab claw. It's huge though

Yeah, and I don't know that's like a 21 inch in line coming out of off of his fourth off his royal time Dude that day listen Cory His numbers there's no way that's 21 inches that extra point No, it might be 17 you count it from down here I'll have to look at give it the old hand It might be 17. I can't remember the whole thing the whole thing scored this shed scored 178 Remember the whole thing the whole thing scored this shed scored 178 178 and that's not guessing us. Yeah boon and Crockett. So 183 60 plus

So for hundo with the spread. Yep, dang, but the coolest part about this is how I found it So this bowl Phil, I don't know if you want to play the video. Oh, yeah, hold on a sec. I Used to guide on a ranch in Montana here, and this bull was found in September. This video was taken by the ranch owner slash outfitter, and this is the first time we had seen this bull. Anybody had seen him. And this was in September of 2016. And is that the antler you're holding? No. So this is, so yeah.

It's probably a year or two years after this shed was dropped when this video was taken. You can tell he regressed a little bit, every time's a little bit shorter, at least on this side. Look at that inline off his fourth is only seven inches. They ever get him? So we couldn't kill him in September. We didn't have that many hunters in archery season, but come rifle season, that was like the bull everybody wanted just because he was such a freak.

I called him T-Rex because he just looked like a dinosaur. Good name choice. Yeah. And he alluded a lot of hunters for three weeks. And my hunter on the third week really wanted to fully commit to finding this one And now the bull had moved a few miles from where this video was taken to another spot like a little Juniper hellhole kind of Missouri break style like they do and he would People would see him from far off like not being able to put much of a stock on him or they'd see him and try

And put a stock on him and he'd see him and try and put a stock on him. And he alluded a lot of hunters, a lot of really good guides that have killed a lot of elk. And, uh, and on the third week, my client and I were sitting up on a knob looking down into this spot where he was last seen. We caught a glimpse of a huge bull by himself at like 11 o'clock in the afternoon coming over a hill. We dropped everything and rallied down to try and kill him and the second drainage that we went through I stumbled across this shed sitting there and nobody had seen him prior to that year so he was some he was on the ranch obviously at least in the spring I'm assuming the year before maybe two years before but probably the year before and then the next week we didn't

end up killing the bull he ended up being another giant seven point that we passed up because he really wanted this one. He ended up killing a different bull on the last day but on the next final week of the hunt, one of the last days of rifle season, this bull was killed in the same exact area by another hunter. So he did go down eventually but yeah it's the coolest shed I'll ever find and I'm not a shed hunter I just pick them up when I come across them shed hunting's gotten a little out of control these days and if it's if it's hip I'm not doing it yeah it's an amazing one that's my story that's a once-in-a-lifetime

shed yeah filler we had the two hour mark yet? Not quite, but I think there is gonna be an extra commercial break, so. We'll hit 90 minutes by the time we're done with questions. I saw one I for sure wanna answer about one week in November. Oh, yes, please do. I'm always skeptical to choose ones based on programming

that I don't know about and I don't wanna cause any hubbub. So if you wanna answer that one, have at it. Yeah, I can't remember what the fella's name was. Oh, I'll try to find it. Or Gal for that matter. But they asked if there's going to be another one week in November show. And if you didn't watch it, you should go back and watch it.

But that's where a bunch of us were hunting different locations, but on the same days. And then we sort of showed the communication that we had through text chats and just phone calls. And sort of as the one week in November went on. I thought it was a cool idea. Problem with it is that like, every kind of wants to be hunting somewhere sometime.

We have other hunts that we might wanna be doing. It was hard to get everybody to do another one. Cause I think we did two seasons so far. or hunts that you might wanna be doing. It was hard to get everybody to do another one. Cause I think we did two seasons so far. So we just got an invite to go hunt somewhere pretty far South, still in the United States, but Southern where the rut is later. And we could do this in January.

So we're trying to put together a one week in January where we all would be on the same location hunting the same whitetails. That's cool. Yeah so it's in the works. Hopefully we will pull it off this upcoming January. You'll probably get to see it fall of 26. Thanks for the question Garrett. I still think we need to do one week in September. Get four guys out in different states, huntin' elk, see what the rut's like. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Use inReach.

Oh my gosh, we totally forgot. We're gonna check, I forgot to put this in the intro. Let's check to see if Yanni drew his Wyoming elk tag. Oh, that's a great idea. I'll play a little music. Yeah, we got time. Yeah, that's fine. I'll play the Price is Right product music here here. Oh now you seriously haven't looked yet. I have it. Oh boy

You drop son of a gun. No it No, it's signed me out. Oh, here we go Yanni how many points do you have? Think I had 14 going into this year must be hunting for a trophy unit then Oh buddy Oh Buddy verify the information is correct Yes Continue this is compelling podcasting. I love it This was this was Cory's. This was my idea. I'm it sounds like I'm being sarcastic

But I think this is fun. Well, yeah, to do it live on the show. I didn't draw! No way. Non-Resident Mountain Goat and Non-Resident Special Elk unsuccessful for both. Man! Dang! Time's tough out here in the Western states.

It's cramped. Back to the hoping board or whatever. You'll just be slumming it here in general season. What a downer to end this podcast on. Yeah. We have some breaking news from the live chat. Oh, bring it. Randall Williams.

Oh, not Hello Mogor. I mean, yes, Hello Mogor, but he said, did you guys hear about Randall's turkey hunt this morning? He got one. Oh, man. We should have called him in. Who was this guy oh I don't know possibly max. I just know he didn't invite me, but that's fine Pete Munich probably Wow way to go random

breaking news Also, yeah that bad luck for Yanni good luck for Randall Congrats Randall He probably was hunting at Walmart or town and country. Yes is is a He probably was hunting at Walmart or town and country. Mattias is upset that we didn't talk more ice fishing this winter. Do you guys have any ice fishing stories or anything fun happen? No, man. I like it's because everybody's given up on the ice here in Southwestern Montana. Yeah, we're certainly good ice this year.

It's no, no, no, no. Yeah, sorry. I phrased that wrong. They've given up on the fishing beneath the ice, whether it's good or not. You just have to go a long ways. There isn't great ice fishing. I mean, if you're happy just catching these little perch and bluegills out of the local ponds, sure. But yeah, we just don't have it great. And so I think everybody's like, they don't know wants to drive four hours for ice fishing. Yeah. No, sorry

No good stories this year I took a fly fishing this winter at the top before the show even started Tucker said how quick do we think the removal of federal? Lands from the big beautiful bill will come up. Well Tucker. It's been about 90 minutes So do you guys want to say anything about that? Yeah, I mean I figured by now hopefully most of the people out there know what happened that the sell off of public lands was withdrawn from it was cut out of the bill. And our home state Senator Ryan Zinke kind of led the charge to go rogue and go against his Republican counterparts along with a small group of other Western congressmen. And so that stuff got cut out. It's not good. The land's

not going to get sold. So it's good news, but I'm assuming by now most people have great news. What was interesting to me is that I didn't catch the talk about the public land sell-off anywhere besides my sort of like hunting Instagram channels. I saw it in a couple of like major news. Oh you did? Yeah, so it was like it was there. Someone was covering it. And they mentioned this morning when they went through

what was cut out of the bill, it was mentioned in there. It's great news. Unfortunately, I like, I think that a lot of people aren't aware that like, like there's a couple of things that remained in that bill, which aren't cool, which is, uh, boundary waters, like mining right next to it is could still happen. Um, and protections in ANWR are being lifted, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. So while lands aren't getting sold, there's certainly public lands that are be, are still in danger. So there's a reason to keep paying attention to what happens with this.

That's right. So take a break for a day or two. Then we got to get right back to the fight and give your reps another call. Tell them how you feel about mining next to the wilderness area in Minnesota and how you feel about drilling in Anwar. Yep. Yep. Devin says, hey, Yanis, seen the new video with you and Randall blowing stuff up with the new SIG 277 Fury cartridge What was your favorite thing to blow up that day? And what did you like about the cartridge? The watermelon definitely looked the coolest

You know, we did blow up some some sort of fake ballistics gel animals that also had Blood inside of the ballistics gel, which was surprising. We didn't know that was a part of it. So that was fun too. But I'd say if you're going to go shoot something, the watermelon is the thing to do. It's a little wasteful, so you might have to buy two so you can eat the other one. The cartridge, yeah man, it's a short action. So it's gonna be a lightweight gun with Magnum power.

What don't you like about that? Yeah, I haven't gotten to hunt with it yet. Hopefully this fall I will. I'll let you know then. Cool. Oh, that's not what I wanted to do. Boy, it's a big bull, Cory. There he is. Hey!

He got the early morning turkey too. Looks like the sun's not even over the horizon. Probably sent a roost rocket up there to get him. I heard that one, Brody, that's good. That's great. Randall wouldn't kill a bird off the roost. Way to go, Randall. That's a beauty. Jackson says, have any of you used thermo cell for mosquitoes

I've never heard them mentioned on the show when the topic of mosquitoes is brought up. They work like magic for Jackson. Oh, yeah I have any other mosquito tips, maybe No, man. Oh hard hard to beat thermo cell along with deep Everything else but thermocells are great how heavy are they I've never held one like not heavy couple hours carrying around on a 10 mile bear hunt I mean yeah if the if the mosquitoes were really really bad sure like that they're light they're kind of bulky but they're light mmm yeah cool need to try one I

Don't know have any of you is anyone in this room hunted a mountain goat I've helped a couple different buddies harvest some okay So yes, the SBO says that they drew a once-in-a-lifetime mountain goat, Idaho tag any tips whoo get them before the snow gets too deep That's good to Go learn the unit man Country yeah, yeah Make sure you train if you're not in mountain shape train. Yeah getting goat shape Make sure you know the difference between a nanny and a Billy That's tough depending. Yeah, he might most go tags though aren't

Either sex most of them are. But yeah, might as well aim for a Billy. For sure. Let's see. Does anyone have any good crayfish or crawdad recipes from our guy Leland? He's helping run a crayfish BHA event in Arizona and he needs recipes to share.

Crawfish etouffee, man. That stuff's great. And then just the old crawfish boil. You gotta do that too. Yeah. Specific recipes, I don't know, I would just go to cajuncooking.com for those two. Any shrimp recipe would work too or whatever, you know.

Yeah, what's that seafood boil that they like to use? Low country, or, oh, like the brand? Yeah. I don't know. I think the brand is Louisiana, isn't it? Might be, Louisiana, yeah. You were down there for a bunch of those boils, don't you remember?

I think it's Louisiana brand. Yeah, just buy like, go online and order like a big box full They got jugs of the boil you just pour in with the water Yeah, then you just dump all your ingredients in there. It's easy Okay, you know what guys we just set the record for the longest episode of me We did it we did that last time I was We did that last time I was hosting. This seems to be a trend. Let's go ahead and call it there.

I hope everybody enjoyed it. I hope you know that you're completely, even slowly moving out of frame, Yanni, and now nobody can see you at all. Just drifting. I hope you all enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun retelling our hunting stories and listening to Brody and Cory's hunting stories. We should tell more hunting stories on this show. If you like hunting stories, make sure to write in

and say, and put, you know, attention Spencer, we love hunting stories. I'll read it, don't worry. Maybe we'll just have, we'll have a two host show soon, it'll just be you and Spencer, and you guys can kind of compete for, you know, meandering fun hunting stories without any sort of fenced in.

And then you got Spencer trying to move the show along. I think there's a lot of contention there. I think it could be a really fun show. We'll put a poll up at the end to see which format people like the best. I just ran a race called Don't Fence Me In. Oh, nice. Don't Fence Me In, Spencer.

Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next week. Steve Rinella here. The American West with Dan Flores is a new podcast production on the MeatEater Podcast Network. It's hosted by author and historian Dan Flores, who happens to be mine and our own Dr. Randall's former professor. By focusing on deep time, wild animals, native peoples in the West's unique environments, Flores will challenge your understanding of the American West and he will help to explain why it is the way it is today.

I count Dan Flores as a friend. We do not agree on everything, but he has had a massive impact on my understanding of American history. And, uh, I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have. Catch the premiere of the American West with Dan Flores on Tuesday, May 6th on the MeatEater Podcast Network. Subscribe to the American West with Dan Flores on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts, listen to Dan and it will stretch your brain all out. And I mean that in a very good way.

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