The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 713: MeatEater Radio Live! Rattlesnake Trail Cams and Hundreds of Beavers

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Janis Putelis, and Randall Williams recap Jani’s bear hunt and Randall’s turkey hunt, chat with Owen Bachhuber about Project RattleCam, review the modern slapstick hit Hundreds of Beavers, throw a fishy Hot Tip Off, and are rejoined by Kristine Fischer for some 1-Minute Fishing redemption. 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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. long lost treasure chest while you cook the lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen, discover bestselling adventure stories 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 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 Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live! It's 11am Mountain Time. That's noon o'clock for our friends in Ocher River, Manitoba on Thursday, June 5th and we're live from Meat Eater HQ in Bozeman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Yanis and Randall. On today's show, we'll recap Yanni's bear hunt and Randall's turkey hunt. Then we'll interview Owen Bachhuber about Project Rattlecam. After that, Meat Eater

Movie Club will review its strangest film yet, followed by a fishy hot tip-off, and finally, kayak angler Christine Fisher will join us for some one-minute fishing redemption. But first, before we hear about this successful bear hunt and successful turkey hunt, I have a listener feedback prompt for those folks who are joining us live. All your questions today, give them to Phil. Phil's gonna answer everything. Phil doesn't know about this. Ask Phil like the hardest video game level he's ever played is, what his favorite cover song is, what his first car was. Phil is always getting all kinds of questions, but he doesn't want

to throw himself into the spotlight. This is making me deeply uncomfortable. He ignores those questions that people send, but today we're going to make him address those questions. So just direct your questions at Phil. He's going to answer them. Uh, this is going to be Phil feedback. All right, this Thursday. Let's do it.

Okay. He's, he's mildly on board. I can't wait. I'm also excited. All right. Let's talk about the bear hunt. Yanni big old dead bear in Manitoba. How'd it go down?

The actual kill, how'd that go down? You want to hear the whole thing? You can start the story however you'd like. There's a lot to tell. Let's see some photos, Phil. That'll help me. Jog the old memory, huh? We baited a lot.

That's Craig McCarthy of North Mountain Adventures. He and his wife Melanie, they run a great outfit. High demand though. If you wanna book a bear hunt, you can't get in there till 2029, I found out. 2029? Geez. Man, are resident tags guaranteed in Manitoba? Yes, okay. Yeah, so they can hunt as much as they want

So have you been planning this trip since 2021? No Their demand has just increased With a little bit of a day with a little meat eater exposure And but but a little bit, but they've also just been crushing it doing a good job. Like I said, it's a great outfit. It's the quintessential family-run outfit. Like you are, you're staying in a cabin, but when you go have a meal, you're in their house, having meals with their kids who are both lovely.

Full on, and they wouldn't feel bad if I called them like this, but their kids are getting to grow up feral. And it made me sort of like rethink what I'm doing with my kids. Okay. They got a creek running through the backyard. The girl rolls in with like three creek chubs on a line, all muddy and dirty.

What are you gonna do with those? I'm gonna chop them up and feed them to the chickens. You know? Okay. I thought maybe that was your bear bait. No, bear bait was as you can see in those barrels, oats and corn doused with used fryer oil. And then sometimes a few extra sweets, dainties they call them up there in that part of the world.

Yanni is showing us a photo that looks like he's hunting in a zoo. There are two black bears, 10 yards behind a side-by-side who are waiting for the baits to be deployed. Yeah, I have other videos where a side-by-side that can't aim is parked exactly where it is and I'm leaning against it where Craig's standing there and one of those two bears in that picture are eating from the top of the barrel lickingicking the grease off, like from me to you. So baiting really works.

And what's cool about it is that, everybody wants to be like, oh, it's so easy. Well, there's a lot of work that goes into it. You gotta bait them up first, get them excited about it. They only start baiting, interestingly enough, about two weeks before season starts. So it's not a year round thing. It's not a long baiting season.

It's just a couple of weeks. But the cool part about the baiting is is that you really get to watch bear behavior which is super neat. Like spot sock hunting, you're never gonna sit there and get to hear all the little nuanced noises that they make. They have these very like Star Wars, Wookiee-like sort of moany growls that, but it almost sounds like when they go into hyperspace and you

get that kind of sound, right? When they're flying those bears, when another bear is approaching and getting, getting a little too close You just hear this like Is that how they sound Phil? I'm sure in one of the Trilogies it probably sounds something like that. That's not the first sound I would make but you know Maybe it's not maybe it's not hyperspace. Maybe it's some other sort of that's a tractor beam It sounds kind of like yeah tractor beam or when the Millennium Falcon is breaking down and it kind of goes

Yeah, wookie adjacent yeah, oh yeah, that's it yeah when they're whatever's powering the Millennium Falcon It's like sort of powering down and they're like hitting the buttons and you're not gonna stuff Yeah, look you go. Look at Phil's index of movie sound effects over there. He could hear Yanni's Impression and knew exactly what it was. Yeah, there you go. All right, what else we got? So yeah bear, bear baiting was cool. It works good. You get to check them out. We hung beavers. Beavers For whatever reason are so attractive. Oh, yeah, that's the one there where you can see my butt. That's the one where I'm super close to him.

Oh, you wanna? Yeah. We're watching Yanni and a bear look at each other from how far, like 10 steps? Not even. I got to reach down. Three yards. Okay, you got long arms.

Is there anything else that bothers their bait piles? Not too much, I was surprised that there wasn't more stuff coming in. Like you'd see a few bears, maybe a squirrel would roll through. But yeah, and the pictures didn't really, you know, we weren't catching skunks and other stuff. But the beaver, he said he'll have deer carcasses, bear carcasses, and the

bears are indifferent. But a beaver carcass, they won't even look at that barrel full of corn, oats, fry or oil, donuts, croissants. They love the beaver. Craig thinks it's because it's one of the first foods available in the spring. And they're taught that, you know, by mom they go to a beaver run and just sit there and you know, catch beavers. So the first night a beaver was just hung on a tree ten feet up. First bear comes in runs up there gets it runs off you listen to him eat it for the next couple hours in the bush 50 yards away. So I'm like well we got to hang this beaver better, right? For more entertainment.

So one night we did sort of like a high line that you like tie off a horse to and had it in the middle, but they really had no way to get to it. And they must've known that because they kind of were like, yeah, we'd look at it, smell it, we're not messing with them. The next night we did it more of like how you hang food. We just throw it over a limb and it was maybe four feet out That got their attention way more they were like

Oh, I can they could like touch the rope and then they could see that it was attached to the beaver But still the first two gave it like two minutes and we're like, yeah We're gonna go to the barrel and eat the stuff in the barrel third bear comes in He's like screw the barrel. He eats the stuff in the barrel. Third bear comes in, he's like, screw the barrel. Spends an hour trying to figure out how to get that beaver down. Up the tree, down the tree, going to the next tree over, up that tree, walking out on the limb.

Like, came over to our tree, came halfway up our tree, and was like, dude, I'm getting frustrated over here. Get that beaver down, went back down. Eventually grabs, and there's a video of this, grabs that yellow rope that the beaver's hanging by with his teeth, then gets it in his claws, goes to the base of the tree, lets it go, and the beaver sort of, you know, it's been pulled up

and it slides down and stops. Now I don't know if he knew that, or she, that if you did that enough times, something would give. But basically he did that enough times something would give sure But basically he did that five times in a row and eventually the little noose that we had around the beaver He won popped. Yeah at that point we were rooting for him. Mm-hmm. Is that an hour into it? I'm like, man, I should just go down there and cut that thing down for that guy. He deserves to get that beaver What was the movement like almost exclusively morning and evening or they were also rolling in at 1 p.m. They're

According to the Moultries all day long, but the mature boars It's a it's an hour of power thing last hour. I Shooting light ended the day that I killed my bear and I think at 1020 and I killed my bear at I think at 1020 and I killed my bear at 1006 Damn yeah, and oh definitely the latest animal I've ever killed I think unless I miss forgetting something in Alaska, you know Alaska you could kind of hunt that way you do but It was cool. We had seen a bunch of bears It's getting late in the day bears at that point. That was the most we had seen

I think we've seen sow two cubs the four hundred fifty pounders that are like this guy that's in the video now. That's great. You can see the video that Yanni is referencing on the Meat Eater Podcast YouTube channel. Check out the episodes of Meat Eater Radio Live. And then we saw like a lanky six-footer, but he just wasn't thick. Uh-huh. saw like a lanky six footer, but he just wasn't thick. And then what was cool is we could just barely see out to this field that was, had just been disc maybe. So it was just dirt and you could see bears every now and then.

And then eventually they'd kind of show up at the bait. So you'd see like mama and she was this real pretty cinnamon and she had, I think this one was the one with three cubs. She had like a black cub, a cinnamon cub and a blonde cub. But like with 15 minutes of light left, I look out there and I'm like, man, that joker looks like he's got a little more girth to him. And sure enough, when he got to the edge of the meadow

where he's maybe 60, 70 yards from the bait, everybody at the bait scatters. Cubs are going up trees, everybody's getting out of there. This dude that finally had the beaver, he moves off like another 50 yards. And this big sucker rolls in and it was like the woods just went quiet.

Like he just rolled in, he was the man. But still then with such little bear experience for me, I looked back at Max, I'm like, is that the one I'm supposed to shoot? You know? Like I didn't, I mean, ends up being a four almost 400 pounder. Seven, he squared seven and a half feet, had a twenty and three-quarter inch skull. Is that boot and Crockett? Twenty-one is all I got.

Okay. Yeah, so he's real close. Right there. So you need to find a more generous measure mm-hmm Yeah, there it is There's Craig and I with the bear at the recovery. It was great. He's only went like 50 yards I'm guessing he was not alive more than 30 seconds. What'd you shoot him? a 600 grain arrow,

those tipped with a 200 grain iron wheel single bevel. Yeah. Good shot right through both longs. Is that your first bear with a bow? First bear ever. Oh. Yeah. First bear ever. Well, I killed one in my yard that Mingus had

Tried but I don't really count that as it wasn't a hunted bear, you know You said that you asked Max if this was the one you were supposed to shoot I assume then that they had like a Rolodex of what bears existed in this set of woods Well, you have trail cam photos and videos of sort of what's been showing up lately but the thing was we were pretty late into May when we were actually there into June and so the rut's definitely heating up and so he's like yeah look man like there's a sow around there's going to be boars rolling in so there are these two and there was one that had a little white patch and there was the other one which is the one that I had killed off his face. He's like, there could be a giant chocolate, but they didn't have names.

No, no, no, no, no, no joker. That was what Yanni called it. They outfit pretty close to the boundary of a national park and it's, I can't remember the acreage of the national park, but it's huge. And so they sort of have this You know sanctuary right next to them and so they have this a constant replenishment of bears So you really don't know who's gonna show up? What's what's their program in the fall are they guiding deer hunters as well a little bit of deer mostly moose?

I actually might go up and do an exploratory caribou hunt with them this I mean who's going to member I haven't decided that yet I invited Clay he was very excited but it doesn't the dates don't work well I guess that we had on the back from Randall means nothing he just gave you a minute ago we can discuss Randall I think we have a great on-camera dynamic yeah yeah I agree it could be a good time exploratory means that another outfitter that runs up there has switched his business basically to all ecotourism, but he has the lodging and the equipment, everything set up for caribou hunts, but he just doesn't want to do the hunting

anymore. He's got just the same amount of money in ec-tourism and doesn't have to deal with skin and critters and meat. You know? And so he's basically said to Craig, like, hey, if you want to run it out of here, you can. Just give me a, you know, cut off the top. And so Craig doesn't know anything about it. He needs pictures, he needs images. He's sure it's a good hunt.

And I'm like, oh, well, I could be your guinea pig, you know? Yeah, and then maybe take Spencer and Randall with you that clay your invites. It's gone. We could do ways already We've already ditched clay do meat eater roast redux Battle north of the border. Yeah, we'll kill the thing and then cook it. Yeah That was like a lot of fun. Oh, it's a great great trip man We really got the whole Manitoba experience because I killed on day three. We had two more days.

So we got to go fishing for a half a day, cooked an awesome bear meal. You know, all this stuff about bears, whether you like them or not, and I'm in the same boat of often being like, ah, do I really want to kill a bear? Ah, they're kind of cuddly. Ah, they're more curious, they're smarter

than these other animals that we hunt or whatever. But as soon as I get to eating one, I'm like, oh, I should kill a bear every year. Because we just did an overnight brine and then slow roasted it the next day. And in like 90 minutes, you go to baste it and it's got an inch of pan juice.

And there's just, besides maybe a hog, but I don't care what fat cow elk you shoot, you're not gonna get an inch of pan juice in your roasting pan from that animal. Or deer or carrot or whatever, you know what I mean? And I'm pumped, man. I brought home, I brought home probably well over a hundred pounds of bear meat.

Okay, now you're gonna have a big old bear rug in your house, in the office. I haven't decided yet, man. I got a quote, 2,500 bucks for a six footer and it goes up from there. Oh my goodness. So the seven footer, I don't even know what it's going to be.

But that's what, yeah, that's what the going rate is right now. And so I might just get her tanned. Okay. Seems like a lot. I know. I mean, that's half of another bear hunt to go on, you know? Yeah. Wow.

But it's also like, well, when's the next time you're gonna kill a seven plus foot black bear? When can you draw the state again? 2029. I don't have to draw it. Yeah, you just gotta get a spot. Before we move on here about Randall's turkey on, you said you wanted to talk about an argument you and Max had. Oh yeah. A French toast versus toad in a spot. Before we move on here about Randall's turkey, you said you wanted to talk about an argument

you and Max had. Oh yeah. A French toast versus toad in a hole. The viewers can help us out too with this. So one morning, Eli Harris, who's new videographer for us on this trip, did a great job. He makes Max and I some toad in a hole breakfast,

which is just when you take a piece of toast, cut out a little hole in the middle, crack an egg in it, fry it up. Max, uh, pours maple syrup all over his, and then proceeds to tell me that it's pretty much like French toast. And I'm like, you have kind of some of the ingredients are the same. Half of them. Yeah, but it's not French toast. It doesn't taste like French toast. You don't make it like french toast. Well, you fried it in a pan that part is similar. Is it closer to french toast or toast and a fried egg?

I would say toast and a fried egg 100% Even if you put maple syrup on toast and a fried egg, I would still say it's closer to toast and a fried egg It's very clearly a gimmicky way to make a toast and a fried egg. I would still say it's closer to toast and a fried egg It's very clearly a gimmicky way to make a toast and a fried egg French toast feels like it's for a child Like that's what you'd cook for your 11 year old to get excited about something. That's not a Cereal obviously I really enjoy a total the whole cuz I use a lot of I'm not saying a lot of a lot of butter So that toast is just like extra crispy buttery Anyways, Max is like it's pretty much French toast Eli's like adding his French toast

You know what I wouldn't argue with either one of you. I felt like no I think you'd have syrup on it not that wouldn't be offensive to me. It's not offensive I'm just saying it's not French toast not French toast agree with you there. Yeah, not at all There's got to be some other weird regional names for that food that I'm not aware of the egg in the yeah And yeah, there's bulls eyes friend a French term. I know egg in a basket bullseye croak Whatever croak to toast What are the viewers say not even close to fresh egg in a nest one of them says is what it's called egg in a basket. Okay

Yeah, looks like you got a quote on a on a rug There you honest. Oh, I'm gonna someone's gonna lower the price for you. Oh, yeah Yeah, and it's not any good tax numbers. They're big meat eater fans DM me Tell us about the the Cory's got a big bear We'll send you to two customers and maybe a turkey customer tell us about this dead turkey Well, we didn't max and I didn't get into any arguments about breakfast food on our hunt. We actually Didn't eat breakfast until after the turkey was dead because it got shot it breakfast until after the turkey was dead because it got shot at shooting light essentially. It's amazing you two shot your animals probably like six

hours apart or something like that but one of you in the morning one of you in the evening. Yeah yeah and no Max took me out we found a we went to a property he's got permission on we started climbed up to a little ridge and drank some beers and gobbled and the turkeys gobbled back. And then we glassed one up. Then we found another one and, uh, we never saw him, but we went back. Uh, and that night, Max said I had to make the decision about whether or not

I wanted to go to the one that we didn't see or the one we saw. whether or not I wanted to go to the one that we didn't see or the one we saw. And so we played a quick game of chance and the one that we saw won. And you know, I can't really do justice to this hunt. So Phil, I spent about nine minutes yesterday using the movie maker feature on my iPhone. And would you just play that?

I think it... My first turkey hunt. Max took me hunting. I caught one. Oh you cut out the part of you running at the bird there. I like that. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Is Max crying in the background? One, two, three.

First gobbler. Look at that sunrise, dude. What a great day. Very nice. Do you know what that reminds me of is when, like, on Sesame Street they'll have kids like, I went to the candy factory. we got to watch them make chocolate. And there's just a bunch of b-roll. Yeah. I was adding this stuff to the drive and when I was like manipulating the files on my phone trying to send them places

It was like do you want to open this in iMovie? And I was like what the hell? But I literally couldn't figure out how to change the text on the title It's better to get rid of it. It's not very I just thought it was a really funny joke, but but no No, I don't think you did justice to how you determine which turkey were going after We we flipped an empty zin can okay in the In the truck as we drove onto the property and it landed heads up or heads down Heads up which was the Ridge bird Wow

Bottom of the can was the house bird. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we we hiked in to where this thing was and About We didn't hear any gobbles and and ten minutes before shooting, Max said he's going to start calling, you know, in 15 minutes or so. So he's going to call just after shooting light to let the bird come down. Then right after he said that the bird started gobbling. So Max waited a little while longer till it was shooting light and started talking back to it and came right in and, uh, Max coached me through it.

And I don't know if you could hear it in that. In that little cinematic treat, but Max actually just goes, get him. And that's when I shot. Okay. So I didn't realize he was filming me, but he, he sort of was coaching. He's like, sick. Now just follow the sound with your gun barrel. So when it pops up, you don't have to move to get them and so I

I shifted the barrel over slightly to where I last heard it and then there's a big fan in my face and Then the fan goes away and this head comes up and the head turned sideways and then Max goes shoot him And I gave it to him Great little movie we Clay Newcomb commented and he said, that was a film. Yeah, that was a project. I doubt that's the real Clay Newcomb.

It's probably just some dude signed in as Clay Newcomb. No, I hope it is Clay, because he's been having a conversation with Brent and Brent thinks it's Clay. I will say that the hardest part of making that was figuring out how to do the voiceover feature because then When it has you record the voiceover you can't listen to the audio so you end up talking over the things you want to hear

mmm, so I probably did five takes on that which was maybe four and a half minutes of the Eight to nine minutes. I spent making it you nailed it Now what happened to the you were gonna last time I saw you you patterned a 10 gauge That you were gonna use yeah, but remember that that trigger Didn't work No, he didn't remember that I took a trigger too heavy or too light to roll Double trigger and one and one of them just doesn't reset and I got in it to get fixed

I took it right back away. I took it right back from the shop, took it straight to the 277 shooting experiment, cracked off one barrel. We were all impressed. And then I went to crack off the other one and just did the thing where you shoot a gun and you're anticipating the recoil and you just squirm.

So it's fixed now apparently, but I have yet to pick it up. So next year we'll get the old 10-grade. Are you going to go turkey hunting again? Did you have that much fun? Yeah, I had a great time. I mean, it was just like a fun morning. You know, I didn't suffer for it. I didn't dream about it, but it was very fun to see someone who knows what they're doing just like Um, it was very fun to see someone who knows what they're doing, just like work a property and then work a bird. So I learned a lot and I see the appeal of it. We've eaten, uh, two meals out of it so far. We did a little, uh, katsu chicken style turkey bowl, and then we did two comments I want to

highlight one of them is Clay Newcomb says this is the Clay Newcomb which is exactly what an imposter could yeah I was gonna say some and then he also said a Kern oh spelled phonetically too hard yeah that's exactly what someone who wasn't clay would say to make us think that they were Clay. And then someone else said Randall Spielberg.

Randall Ford Coppola, that was another one. There you go. First bear hunt story, or excuse me, first dead bear story, first dead turkey story. Yeah. Well done, boys. Couple firsts. Hey, thanks. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map.

You battled Krakens 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. Steve Ronella 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 I invite you to get challenged by him in the same way that I have.

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 All right moving on joining us on the line now is Owen Bocuber a grad student from California Polytechnic State University. He's here to talk about project rattle cam Owen. Welcome to the show Thanks for having me Owen first thing tell us what Project Rattlecam is.

Yeah, so Project Rattlecam is a partnership between Cal Poly and Dickinson College run by my advisor, Emily Taylor and our partner, Scott Bobak. And we use cameras to study snake behavior. So this actually started by using trail cameras at rattlesnake dens to get a sense of what they were doing throughout the year. But they do so many cool behaviors, right, that we can't really capture that with just still images. And so that's where we're using live streaming cameras now to broadcast these dens live to YouTube so that we can study them as well as share them with the public.

And what sorts of things can scientists learn from this 24-7 monitoring? Yeah, so as I'm sure that you know, just the presence of a researcher near an animal can have an impact on their behavior. And so a lot of our perceptions of what snakes are like and what they do are impacted by them responding to us, right? If you see a snake that might sit still, trying to hope that you ignore them and move away, they might act defensively. And so what I'm studying is the social behaviors and communication between the snakes. So we actually see that rattlesnakes have friends, they have individuals that they prefer to spend time with. And they seem to have communication too.

So they do this really cool head-twitching behavior where they kind of bob their heads at each other as they approach. And we're trying to figure out what that's all about, what they're saying to each other. Okay, you have more intimate knowledge about rattlesnakes and maybe anyone else. So walk us through the average day in the life of a rattlesnake that lives in Colorado, which is the live cam that you guys have available right now.

Yeah. So this, these sites that we're watching are dens in that there are places where the snakes are hibernating throughout the winter, but now that we're getting into summer, it's turning into a rookery. So the snakes that we're watching right now are actually pregnant females who are gonna stay here for the entire summer until they give birth later in the year. And right about now, the sun is starting to hit the rocks, things are warming up, so they're gonna start to emerge from these rocks and embask in the sun to warm up their internal temperature. And the really cool thing is that these snakes,

because they're not leaving the dam, they don't have access to any standing water. And so whenever it rains, they're really thirsty. They come out and they flatten themselves out like a saucer, and they'll actually drink the water off of their backs. So sometimes, too, we'll see predators come through, like magpies trying to eat the baby rattlesnakes and so there's there can be a lot of drama that ensues with these animals. Tell us

about some of the names, the the personality traits that these rattlesnakes have and do rattlesnakes ever show up that you're not familiar with? All the time. So there are dozens if not hundreds of adult rattlesnakes that are using this site. And so it's impossible for me to keep track of all of them. And just imagine when each female gets birthed to eight pups in August, right? That number increases by an order of magnitude. So it's really hard to know who's all there.

But the ones that we see the most often are actually named by YouTube viewers. So if someone's watching and they see a snake a couple of times and they take screenshots, they can submit them to us and get naming rights to that snake. And so some of them, there's one who's a really charismatic male named Thor and he's been sticking around. He's really desperate to find a mate. We see him courting a lot of females.

He's even courted a couple of males, but we've never observed successful copulation. Okay. And some of the snakes too are named after people's moms and dogs. And so they have really cute names too. Sometimes noodle names, lasagna and ramen. So it's kind of a really fun thing.

And you're seeing right now all these snakes kind of slithering out, checking out each other, I can actually see that that's Thor in the bottom right there. Cause he has kind of a droopy lip. Um, he was bitten in the face by an ant and ever since he was bitten in there, um, the venom must have like caused lip paralysis or something. So he's got kind of this droopy lips to, oh, yeah, it's pretty amazing. And you can see some of those babies in there hanging out with him as well. You told us that Thor is charismatic, but it's because he is so desperate to mate with the other snakes.

I'm amused by that description. What's the camera setup like? As hunters, we're really familiar with trail cameras, but I assume the technology used now is way beyond that. Yeah. So you're seeing the camera right now. It is a Axis security camera that is powered by two eight foot solar panels. And then we have a big battery bank that's up there as well. And so because this is totally off grid, we have to use cellular streaming to get that to YouTube. And so it's quite cellular streaming to get that to YouTube. And so it's quite the operation to get that all up and running and we're actually just about

to publish a paper on the whole setup because before this we were kind of working on our own with how we were gonna figure this out. And so we had a really great team of engineers here at Cal Poly who were able to put this together for us. And has your team had any close calls with snakes while setting up these cameras? You know, as a snake biologist, I wouldn't characterize them as such. So, you know,

there are snakes, quite a few of them there. When we go to set up the camera, we went earlier in the year when fewer of them would be out. Some of the snakes were still out, right, and kind of doing their things, but usually they try to get away from us. We always make sure that we're wearing high boots, right, so that if we accidentally did step on a snake and didn't see it, that would provide us some level of protection. And also you got to kind of make sure what you set down. So I went there last summer and, you know, if you set down your backpack, I was warned that a rattlesnake might decide to make its home right underneath there. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. One of them decided to coil up. And so yeah, we just kind of moved the backpack gently and carefully and got that out of the way. You mentioned magpies, but what other animals show up on these cameras near the dens?

Yeah, a lot of animals that your viewers might be familiar with. So we've seen Yeah, a lot of animals that your viewers might be familiar with. So we've seen long-tailed weasels and there's a whole lot of wildlife that we could see. But two really exciting ones that we saw this past year were an elk came up and actually put its face right in the camera and checked it out. And then we saw a porcupine too on the camera. So it's kind of a window into all of the nature that you could see in this area. Tell us about some of the highlights. What are the best moments that your team has captured so far? Yeah, well one of the amazing things is that we can watch the snakes at night and so that's when we saw those other

animals. But also it's a lot of times when the snakes are giving birth and so last year we got to watch two pregnant females give birth live to their pups on camera and zoom right in, see the snakes pop their head out of their amniotic sack for the first time. You can see the placentas. It's all like right there in really high definition. And we can look so close at the snakes even

that we can see bugs. And you might not think that bugs are that interesting But we notice these mosquito looking things kind of dancing on the snakes And we didn't know what they were but when we contacted an entomologist who studies Flies he told us that they were these psychotic flies that were actually Looked like they were courting females so that the female, the male flies don't eat, but the females feed on blood.

And so the males were doing like a dance, trying to lure the female flies to mate with them on the Battlesnakes. Which, you know, there's no fly cameras, right? So, but if we can zoom in really well on this, it's providing a window to other people who are interested in totally different things too. Yeah, and tell folks how they can support this work and how they can watch the Rattlecam.

Yeah, so you can learn more about us at battlecam.org and there we have a donate page where you can support our education programs and research and it also links right live to our YouTube. So Project Rattlecam is the name of our YouTube channel where you can go and watch anytime. Yeah, and I checked in four or five times this week in preparing for the interview. Every time I opened it up, there were rattlesnakes on the camera. I was very impressed. It's 24-7 action on those live cams. It's pretty amazing. We had a camera set up in California and the densities of snakes here just aren't the same. You know, you might see one a day or something like that.

But this is a really impressive site where, yeah, basically you can always see a snake. Yeah, and it feels more intimate too, because when I go look at like a live bald eagle cam, there's 50,000 people watching. When I look at your rattlesnake camera, there's like 25 people watching. So we need more shine on the rattlesnakes.

Turn off the bald eagle cams, go check out these rookeries that they have a live look at. Thanks for joining us and thanks for creating this special way for people to interact with wildlife. Thanks so much, it's my pleasure. Randall, I saw you making a lot of faces over here, not a big snake guy. Yeah, not a big snake guy. Serpents, give me the heebie-jeebies. I'm sure there's other folks out there that feel similarly. Me too. I get a cold shiver anytime I see one. It can be the most harmless small snake. I was just mushroom hunting a week ago. Came across four of them every time. Just like sends a chill from my ankle to my back. I hate it. Yep. Hate it. Hate it. All right

We're happy anything to him though, you know, I'm very excited for this now more exposure. I get plenty of exposure It's not the answer good touches something in my deep caveman brain. We're gonna get some listener feedback I'm very excited about this because it's all for Phil Phil. What do we got? Oh boy? First one Let's see., let's start, let's warn people up here. I think I had one there. What's Phil's favorite band, someone asked? Oh yeah, my favorite band. It's pretty close between Radiohead and an indie folk band from Portland called the Decembrists. I love them dearly. Colin Malloy is a Montana native, the lead singer.

He's also an author. And their songs are nerdy, literary, storytelling set to awesome music. How many times have you seen Radiohead live? Radiohead only once. They don't come here very often. I saw them on the In Rainbows tour in oh eight and it was Incredible. I've seen I've seen the December is probably a dozen times though Cuz they're around the west coast and and Montana. All right, they'll give us some more Phil Let's see. This is specifically for this one guy. I'm sure have you played expedition 33 yet?

If so, what do we think the answer is? Yes, I beat it. It rules my game of the year so far Wow Phil Kingdom Hearts guy For those of you who don't know Kingdom Hearts is a Japanese action RPG game that melds That was like a multiversal project that mixed the worlds of Final Fantasy and Disney IP. It seemed insane at the time I was obsessed with this game. Aren't they on like their 20th edition? Yeah, there's been many spinoffs each one more insane and preposterous than then than the last There's commercials for during the NBA playoffs. I Don't think so. I don't know what they have commercials for but LeBron does a commercial. Okay, it's a game on a phone

I was I was so obsessed with this game. It came out on my seventh grade picture day I brought the I brought the case to my school and asked if I could hold it up in my school picture and they said no and I was devastated. Phil how hyped you for GTA 6? Pretty hyped I really enjoy the GTA games I know I but I never get into online I play the campaign the story mode I have a great time it's it's a blast a lot of fun and then I put it away. These are great give us some more Phil. Okay quick hit. Love it. Oh boy I think I saw one that was like death row meal I might have not started that one but death row meal simple just a really good fish and chips with a tartar sauce And and malt and malt vinegar and a multi beer cod

Preferably, but I'm really not picky. I'm not picky with who at all. Who does good fish and chips in Bozeman? Oh, I mean not a lot. I'd say like the Bacchus is solid. I don't know if you guys have any tips, but the Bacchus is like my number one go-to in Bozeman. Is it Guttlaun? Is that the German play? Guttlaun. Okay. Like their fish and chips. I haven't had it, but I love the idea of having there because that you can get the big German German steins of beer More Phil what game you playing right now? I just played Death Stranding in

Anticipation of Death Stranding 2 coming out later this month But also I was telling the boys in here before we started I have an unboxed Nintendo switch 2 upstairs in my office I mean just turn the whole Q&A session to an unboxing video Just got rattlesnake ASMR so I'm diving into the whole thing Let's let's let's call it there I asked bill if he was gonna have to share his switch to with those Torp children he has what was your answer Phil? No, they they all they got their own switches for Christmas and part of that was so, when the Switch 2 came out, it could be mostly mine.

Yeah, good parenting advice there from Phil. Yeah, and I'll do one actual question for Meat Eater fans, because Janos is here. Odie the Good Shepherd asks, how's Mingus doing and how's his training coming along? Kind of regards on the other side of the pond out of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. That's a hell of a port. Yeah, a lot of traffic. Yeah, what do they mostly move through there? Whatever. Shipping. Okay. Mingus is doing it, doing great. He's kind of trained up. My main mentor says that Mingus is as much of a lion dog as he's ever gonna be And he's not gonna get any better, but he's great right now. He does his thing. So yeah, we're

We're having fun. How seasons over so we're you know Mingus is waiting for December 1st at this point How long will he be at the mountaintop of his like best? I don't know I in hunting do they start to go downhill at some point. I suppose their physical fitness Yeah, but I think that the you know the older the dogs get maybe they get more efficient Maybe it gets you know smarter about how they run tracks mmm I think this doesn't seem to be a real genius So I don't know if that's gonna happen with him, but I don't know. He's only four now. I guess he'll be five this fall.

So I imagine he's got at least that many more good years. He's in his prime. Yeah. All right. Moving on. Our next segment is Meat Eater Movie Club. This week, we're reviewing the comedy, Hundreds of Beavers. I've just passed out a few scripts. Your lines are highlighted. Cory, if you'll begin. Oh, okay. Oh, hold on, Cory. I gotta turn your mic on here. They did not know about this. Was that were you were intentionally leaving this. Yes. Yes moment

Yes, this is why I was so concerned that the printer wasn't working for me earlier. Perfect So Cory, yeah, your lines are highlighted. Am I on Phil you're on and also for those of you wondering this These other man sitting at the table is he's Jake. He's gonna be he's our newest addition to the podcast team He's gonna be doing some stuff for radio live after They're starting at the end of Jake. He's going to be our newest addition to the podcast team. He's going to be doing some stuff for Radio Live after, they're starting at the end of the month. So hi Jake. Anyway, Corey, go ahead. The setting is the podcast studio, Meteor headquarters, Bozeman, Montana. It's 1141 AM. No, no, no, you're supposed to read it as if it's before the show. Just read it as written. Jesus. A lot of work put into this.

It's 1028 a.m. on Thursday, June 5th, 32 minutes before the recording of Meat Eater Radio Live, episode 41. Hey, good morning, Randall. Good morning, Phil the engineer. Do you have all your jingles lined up for the show? Yes, all set on that front. Are you ready for Meat Eater Movie Club today? I think the whole movie club segment has played out. for the show. Yes, all set on that front. Are you ready for Meat Eater Movie Club today?

I think the whole movie club segment has played out. My monologues just get longer and longer. The tone has gotten darker and darker. The references are just too obscure. I think the jokes run its course. It's tired and my heart's just not in it anymore. Well at least we've got a great film to discuss today, right? I saw that the movie you've selected for this week has a score of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. What's it called? Hundreds of Beavers? Yes, that's exactly right. Hundreds of Beavers 2022 directed by Mike Cheslik and starring Rylan Bricks and Cole Two's and yeah I was a little surprised by that Rotten Tomatoes score as well as the critical claim I saw online

Why so? Well, I just, I'm not even sure what to make of the film. It was about trapping, right? Loosely, well, no, it is. In the same way that Space Jam is about basketball, or maybe just a little less than that. There's a man who begins as a drunkard, something to do with apples.

It's also very cold out, and he catches some fish with his fingers. and then he spends much of the film getting hurt while trying to catch critters of all kinds in increasingly elaborate traps and schemes. Half the time his plans backfire spectacularly, but large men in furry-like beaver costumes are killed and skinned, yes, and the plot does involve the accumulation of bodies of dead beaver men. But then the beavers hold a Soviet-style show trial for the lead character before attempting to skin him and make a coat out of him.

And there's a weird rocket ship at the end. It's partially animated, there's sort of a weird video game-like quality to the whole thing. Eh, maybe it is more like Space Jam than I thought. And the whole thing's in black and white. It's just a lot of weird stuff. I don't know. The chat might be's in black and white. It's just a lot of weird stuff. I don't know. The chat might be disappointed with this segment today, but at least it's not because they had to sit through yet another heavy-handed film analysis in migrating monotone delivery.

Oh man. Wow. Yikes. Were there any highlights? Well, the thing that immediately comes to mind is the sound design. Absolutely fantastic. Lots of rattles and crashes and whistles and bonks. Brought me right back to the golden age of Tinseltown. Above and beyond that, I guess I just admire the commitment to the whole... vision. The commitment to what, exactly? It's a comedy, right? Well, yeah, I suppose it is, but it's not that simple. It's more like a chaotic avant-arde, comedic experiment that defies the

conventions of mainstream filmmaking in the 21st century. Yet at the same time, it's clearly in conversation with a variety of cinematic touch points. It's got slapstick sensibility, like three stooges and merry melodies. We see traces of the stop motion aesthetics of South Park, and tonally there's a little bit of Burt Ive's Christmas specials. On top of that, the dramatic arc of the film is basically just a simplified version of the best eight and a half minutes of Home Alone. That is the first Home Alone, the one where McCully Culkin's character is actually alone at home and not at the Plaza Hotel in New York City.

Of course. Yeah, and throughout the whole film, the main character just grunts and makes faces. She's surrounded by actors in animal costumes that are eerily reminiscent of the rabbit figure in Donnie Darko. I also have to point out, only because it bothered me so much, that there's a brief nod in one scene to that terrible dogs playing poker painting so often displayed in suburban rec rooms and American casual dining chains with friendly atmospheres, like for example Applebee's, TGI Fridays, O'Charlie's, and Chili's. Or Bennigan's. But that's a more obscure reference because there aren't many Bennigan's around these

days since the parent company Metro Media Restaurant Group was forced into an involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2008. According to Bennigan's.com, only six full-service free-standing locations remain open in the US. Two in Texas, two in Iowa, one in North Dakota, and one in Illinois. Although don't quote me on that because I don't know if those are corporate locations or if that's inclusive of franchises. Regardless, it's a striking number considering at one point there were more than 150 corporate Bennegan's locations. My goodness. That's interesting to learn about

how few Bennegan's there are in the United States. I guess I'd noticed that their footprint had shrunk considerably since I was younger, but I didn't quite know the backstory. Yeah, but a growing part of the business now is a derivative of quick serve, fast casual concept. Bennegan's on the fly. That's geared more towards high traffic locations like food courts, airports, arenas, university campuses. They offer fresh, innovative selections as well as some customer favorites from the traditional Bennegan's menu, including the Monte Cristo and the Turkey of tools.

Spencer, you're laughing. You gotta stop. I appreciate that information on Bennegan's on the fly, which I hadn't heard of until just now. Look, looking to the future of the company is plans to expand its already strong international presence, which includes multiple locations throughout central America, as well as two in Bahrain, two in Qatar, two in Dubai, and curiously four in Cyprus. Coming soon, there's a location in Pakistan too. These are all full service locations by the way, just like the original Bennington. God damn it. I got sad tracked last night, prepping for this show by reading about the resurrection of the Bennington's brand. And I'm falling

into the same trap again. We can't get distracted, Phil. We've got to figure out this movie club segment. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, Hundreds of Beavers also includes these surreal sequences where reality just bends. Bends how? Picture this, a wet piece of firewood is actually a log-shaped pillow,

so our hero is able to wring it out like a sponge. Or the fur trader spits his chaw of tobacco towards a spittoon and then the plug just curves wildly through the air so it never lands in the intended receptacle until the very end, symbolizing the resolution of the conflict at the heart of the film. The physical universe of Hundreds of Beavers makes no sense but somehow it works with its own hallucinogenic logic. And this goes on for how long? Well I figured it would go on for about five minutes, but it seems like it's going longer than that. No. I mean the movie.

Oh, of course. An hour and 48 minutes. I checked my phone a lot, actually, mostly reading about Bennegan's thinking we were surely near the end. But no, the movie just kept going. More encounters with people in animal suits, more elaborate failures, more falling in the snow, more rolling in the snow, more grunting and more yelling. Do you think Spencer and Janis enjoyed it? That's doubtful. I think it's too far out in left field, creatively speaking, for Spencer's tastes. And Janis, well, I know he appreciates good filmmaking and has a very open-minded sensibility,

but I'm not sure even he can make sense of whatever this was trying to be. Oh shit. Sounds like Movie Club might be a pretty tough segment. I'm pretty sure Spencer's got 10 or 15 minutes dedicated to it in the run of the show. this was trying to be. Shit. Sounds like Movie Club might be a pretty tough segment. I'm pretty sure Spencer's got 10 or 15 minutes dedicated to it in the run of the show. The show will be recording in less than an hour. Don't worry, we can fill it out somehow. Too bad we can't include all of that good information about Benegans.

That's fun pre-show banter, but not exactly what the Radio Live audience is tuning in for. Totally. The thing is, I can't shake the feeling that there's something profoundly lovable about the madness of this film. Like, you've got to admire an unshaking conviction to an absurd premise. You just come up with something completely bonkers and take it all the way. So you respect it even if you don't fully get it? You know, the more I think about it, the more I like it actually. I just love stuff that is genuine in its weirdness. There's no cynicism, there's no winking at the camera. There's just a bold, unadulterated fever dream of

a concept that doesn't shy away from the gaze of the critic. Well, what will you say on air? We're going live at 11. I wasn't quite sure before this conversation, Phil, but it's becoming clearer and clearer as we talk. There's an interesting tension here. On the one hand, put yourselves in the shoes of the makers of this film. You are truly inspired by a creative concept so over the top, so wrapped up in its own bizarre vision that you've just got to run with it, and you can't half-ass it. Sure, sometimes it might leave viewers wondering what the hell was that, but there's something joyful and beautiful in the deliberate insanity of it all.

Yeah, I get that. On the other hand, if you're so committed to producing something in keeping with your own comedic sensibilities, damn the viewer, you're on the risk of losing the audience's attention, maybe even earning its resentment. And point is, at that point you're just doing it for your own amusement, completely for your own amusement. And here's the big question, is that type of content just masturbatory self-indulgent on the part of the artist, Phil? Or is it a truer expression of creative integrity? That... well, geez, that's actually not a bad angle for movie club.

Assuming you're still talking about the film. Precisely, my friend. Precisely. End scene. Wow. Fade to black. Thank you. Audience goes nuts?

Yes, they are. I gotta catch my breath. I didn't even have to read anything. Wow fade to black. Thank you audience goes nuts. Yes, they are Huh, I gotta catch my breath I didn't have to read anything Oh, man, I I actually like this movie more than I I made it seem I started working on this about halfway through when I wasn't sure what to make of it But at the end of it won me over. Okay, but I thought this was such a good bit that I couldn't let it go Randall I you didn't that was spectacular Thank you so much broken. I told you someone's gonna cry in this building

Randall correctly predicted someone would cry and I have laughing tears 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. Thanks to Mogor for a very strange film. Yeah, I don't know.

How would we have not heard about this film? Well, it's very new. It was only released in 2022 and the star and the director wrote it and they released it at a film festival and then they, I guess, the studio attempted to distribute it and they just wanted it to go to like streaming platforms. And it didn't even make it to streaming, I think, until like 2024 or something like that. I thought this movie was a lot of fun. think like Randall said in his in his commentary It's a little long in the tooth, but 100% so many creative gags

Like it was I I couldn't believe just how much stuff was unexpected or genuinely funny I'd say that the jokes worked more than they didn't for me, which is you know key to a good comedy Yeah, things I like the music, key to a good comedy. Yeah, Things I Like. The music was great. To make any movie on a $150,000 budget in 2022 is wildly impressive. So it felt like it far exceeded that. It also felt like an adult swim bumper from 2006, and that's a compliment. Because the weird on those bumpers, if you're familiar, you know what I'm talking about. It's kind of limitless Phil I imagine you were really no idea. I'm lost. Yeah

Phil explain oh, yeah, I mean it's kind of hard to explain but adult swim had kind of shorter programming so they would fill the just fill the space between shows with these kind of like short films and And just stuff that varied wildly. I think I think they just hired different crazy creative people to make just these these weird uh bumpers like Spencer said. This movie felt like one of those to me but uh you know drug out over two hours which I think was was too long. Yeah. We're in agreement. I had a line initially in my review where I said um and I did have to cut quite a bit out of this. Oh really? Yeah. I had a line in my review where I said, and I did have to cut quite a bit out of this. Oh really?

Yeah. I had a line in my review where I said, it seems like something I should watch and hold my attention for about five to ten minutes on the internet and maybe ten to fifteen minutes if I was drinking. Yeah. But like that's sort of it. But I liked that they were just like, we're going to make a two hour movie of this. Yeah and this felt like something that AI could not make no

That's refreshing in a world that feels like it's being swallowed by AI in this medium The movie got a real laugh from me around minute 100 when the daughter gets on a stripper pole that was unexpected Which most things in this movie are and then shortly after that a word gets bleeped Which was also wildly amusing because there's no dialogue Yeah, the movie so a bleep felt genuinely out of nowhere I think bleeps are always funny you could you could serve me a bleep in any show or movie And I'm gonna laugh at it, but I got a real real giggle when that happened. Yeah, Yanni Did you watch this with anyone you you?

Recording the idea of watching with your daughters, and I don't I don't know if you went through with it or not I did, but we started a little late last night which means two things one You recording the idea of watching with your daughters and I don't know if you went through with it or not. I did, but we started a little late last night, which means two things. One, we couldn't finish it. Kids had to get to bed for school and I fell asleep for many parts of the first half. Been a long day, short night the night before,

a little sauna. You know, I wasn't, it wasn't really, like, I wasn't set up to make it through a movie. But I kept waking up at giggles. So every time I wake up, I'm like, oh, it can't be too bad. That your giggles or your daughter's giggles? No, my daughters are giggling at these,

at the jokes that, you know, are slapstick funny. I did finish, I probably watched maybe 70 minutes of it this morning, so I got to pick it up at the important part. You know, I got the gist of it. You guys are, we're all saying the same thing, but you have to give it almost 30 minutes just to sort of be like, oh okay, I get it. I'm immersed in this. I'm in now, because at first you're just like, wait minute What I thought the first 30 minutes could have been a five minute setup sure and then it just begins with him Well, you could truncate the whole movie. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the movie should be 25 minutes Yeah, but I mean the beaver the man the giant man made out of beavers. That's great

The beaver show trial was fantastic the the I Beavers. That's great. The Beaver show trial was fantastic. I also liked when she's skinning the animals. Like she has a legit little kit there of big curved flushing knives and stuff like that. And then the one, I think it's the raccoon that she skins. She begins, I think she does something to its head, but then she takes the arm and like breaks the joint Mm-hmm. I thought that was hilarious. This was filmed in Wisconsin and Michigan I think so I assumed they're from that part of the world. Yeah, so they like have some familiarity

Yeah, I mean it didn't see like it seemed like people that knew what they were Talking about. Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm just gonna say like they don't give up on the slapstick But just when you think like they can't come up with something, you're like, oh! He just sneezed and this giant snot thing turned into an icicle and then killed something. And the caster, the caster mounds and stuff? Yeah, but they also don't give up on keeping like the trapping aspect legitimate. Yeah. Like the scene where where he's I think he first gets his The leg holds and he's like chucking them out on the ice and he chucks it one time

It's not proper and then it's upside down and he has to do it three times To you know do it properly you could have just as easily. Yeah chucked it out once and The trap could have caught any animal, no matter how it came out there, but they were like, oh no, it has to flow out to this fake beaver right side up, because otherwise, you know, the viewers are going to get mad that the trap caught this fake beaver when the trap was upside down. I know there's like, there's like attention to detail in it that I was won over by the end of it. I still, if I had a director's cut,

shave about 61 minutes off it. Yeah. But yeah, you gotta appreciate just going for it. A couple other things I liked is they obviously did their own stunts and there's at one point where he's like pushing a wooden box and then he falls into the wooden box and he gets out and he falls into it again.

And he nailed that part like that was done Uh really well. I also like the idea of the beaver dam is like A dam that is run by the army corps of engineers. Yeah, a massive hydroelectric dam Things I didn't like. Um Yeah, too long. I checked my phone a lot and I was like it's got to be about over and it wasn't the other thing this isn't necessarily something I didn't like about the movie, maybe just like the indie movie industry,

is that this movie was showered with awards. And I'm like, really? This was worthy of being nominated, I don't know, like 50 times and winning 20 times. This could not have been one of the greatest things that humans produced in cinema in 2022, even in the niche indie scene. I was like mildly turned off by that when I saw afterwards. I was like, I can't

believe that people felt like this was one of the best things from that year. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the movie didn't affect me in any way. I went through it. I walked away and I was like, that's what I watched for an hour. Yeah I think I was marveling at the creativity more than more than anything. I think I think that was unparalleled Yeah, yeah, I respect it. I respect it. I mean a strange strange concept, but is there is there a message? I think their message was just like look at the limitless weird that we can do Yeah, that's ours and we can we can revive a form of of comedy that has been lost with audio Because it was it was like three stooges. I had I had another line in here and it was basically just this was more an

Experiment to see if they could do this, like incorporate these different elements. Like, what if we did this? What if we did this? And then they just made the whole film without asking if it was something they should actually do. This is like a classic hero's journey. I also cut another line out of this.

This guy had an arc. The parent company for Bennigan's also owned Ponderosa Ste steakhouse, which explains where Ponderosa steakhouse or as we called it when we used to go there for the lunch buffet sweet lady pea Did you love Bennegan's? I've never been to one. Not really. I remember going to one There's a South Park episode where Butters really wants to go to Bennegan's. But I was I was episode where Butters really wants to go to Bennegan's. But I was, I was, uh, doing the thing about the, the dogs playing poker. And I was trying to come up with another, like few casual chains.

And I saw Bennegan's and I was like, what the hell happened to Bennegan's? Now we know. And now we know. And it does seem like there's a very committed couple in Texas who now own it. There's been some restructuring and they're committed to restoring the brand Which is cool because I think it's a real legacy brand in the world of American restaurants. Mm-hmm Hmm, I'd never heard of it until today never been to one. I know that I've ever been in the same city as one well

May not ponderosa next time you go to the Middle East man. You'll be surrounded by him Not my big takeaway. This would be the perfect movie if you're still in a college kid to watch on a Thursday night, I wouldn't, wouldn't cancel weekend plans. I don't think this is a, you know, something you dedicate a Friday or Saturday to, but if, if you're still in a college kid, do what's donor college kids do and then put this on tonight and you'll have like a wonderful two hours. Yeah.

I think. Yeah. Anything else? That's all I hours. Yeah, I think yeah Yeah Anything else? That's all I got Thanks again to mogor Good call mogor. I feel like this segment ran too long and I played a role in that so I apologize. I I really enjoyed it Spencer can I suggest us a switch around we're gonna skip ahead to one minute fishing Yeah, all right. Our next segment is one minute fishing

Well, do you punk go ahead make my cast One minute fishing is where we go live to someone who's fishing and they have one minute to catch a fish and if they're successful We'll make a $500 donation to a conservation group. This week our angler is Christine Fisher who you'll remember from last week's episode. She's on Chickamauga Lake in Tennessee and fishing for a donation to the first Wisconsin chapter of Muskees Inc. Christine, welcome to the show. Hey guys, how's it going? Doing good. Last week, Christine, you joined us. You were in Oklahoma pre-fishing for the 2025 Bassmaster Kayak Series at Lake Tenkiller.

There were 137 anglers in the field. Tell folks how you did. Well, y'all, I don't know if it was that meat eater luck, but I ended up taking the big W, my first Bassmaster win, and it was the first win by a female in that's not the history. Hell Yeah, first place nicely done. Congratulations Christine first place among 137 anglers That's awesome. Now explain how a bassmaster how many other females Christine were in this tournament? I think I think this one was one of our highest attended for females and I think there were six of them

Out of 137. That's great Explain how a Bassmaster kayak series tournament is set up I may be different from other tournaments because the first thing that jumps out to me when I look at the results is that a Fish's value is measured by length instead of weight No, haven't lost issues with Christine. Be a, be a length. We have certified measuring boards that we use now.

Let's have the clothes and then we have an identifier that it has to be in the picture for every single one of our fish. So their GPS time stamps. We have a first pass and a last pass and it's a pretty, the pretty techie little setup setup how they do it. And I love it because there are, you know, this has been around for 10 years and early on, there were a lot of people that tried to kind of

cheat the system by various ways. And it's dang near impossible to do that now. It's awesome. Give me an example of how people would try to cheat the system. So we had a guy, I mean two things, we had a guy about six, seven years ago that was cutting boards in half and then kind of pulling them together so his fish looked like they were two or three inches shorter than they were.

It was absolutely insane. There's been a couple of people that would take a sharpie and try to mark up fish to where they had different marks on them but they are the same fish. They would make the tail, you know, not hit a quarter inch. But now the app has people look for the same fish because every fish has very unique markings and lateral lines. So they can't get away with that. And we had a guy in Texas actually that was cutting tails and kept the tail of a fish in his pocket and would lay it over, this was a long time ago,

would lay it over the fish, put his hand over it so you couldn't, and the tail looked like it was this long. That was in a local tournament, so it was a little, you know, local ones aren't as rigid as I would think the big national ones are, but we've learned a lot in the last decade. That's amazing. Every time I think tournament anglers can't cheat they figure out a new way to cheat so

I'm very amused to hear that. Now how far are tournament kayak anglers traveling in a day? You know honestly this is gonna surprise a lot of people because it's anywhere you know you'll have people that'll stick within a mile but I've covered up to 15- 20 miles in one day. That's crazy. I would say the average is probably five to seven. What's your top speed? If you just got to get from point A to point B,

what's your top speed in that thing? About six and a half. Very, a lot slower than my Ranger goes. Now Lake Tenkiller offers smallmouth and largemouth, and the upper portion lake is very different from the lower portion lake. So anglers have a lot of different ways that they can find success or failure and approaches fishery. Tell us about your winning strategy.

Well, you know, my strategy, I really wanted to fish for points. You know, we have an angler of the Year series not qualifies you for the championship and I only get to fish three and I didn't get a drop of that. And so I was just going to go, you know, I went and caught some giant smallmouth down south, had a really good pattern and caught a kind of four and a half pound smallmouth couple, three pounds smallmouth, you know, really good fish for that lake, but they were fairly obvious offshore spots. And I knew with the big boat tournament and 137 kayak ganglers I actually did not touch

my what I would call my A my best water one time during the tournament I went to an area that I didn't I thought was gonna get very overlooked had some quality fish had to work a lot harder for him and there were only four people at my ramp so I thought I made a huge mistake that day I got there, but it ended up working out, fishing less pressured water. And it was cool, because I got to lock a big swim bay in my hands basically both days, and did a little bit of late flipping,

onto some steeper banks, leading back to the creeks on the first day as well. But fishing that overlapped water was key. That's great. I read you say that your two biggest fish of the tournament did not get in the boat. What happened there? Well anytime, if you got any listeners that are swim bait people, you know when you're swim bait fishing sometimes they just don't make it to the boat. I had on three casts my first cast down this little spot at the spot about the creek jumped off about a three and a half pound smallmouth two casts later i jumped off a large mouth that would have

been big bass for tournament it was just over five pounds and the cameraman was on me so he had a segment of photos from start to finish and it was agonizing i had to kind of relive that um you know in those tournaments you think you lose one of those big fish, and you're just like, well, you know, that was the one. That was the one I knew that I needed to probably get this thing done. So that, you know, it's really tough to stay in it mentally after jumping off two big fish. But you know what? When it's your time, it's your time. And I guess that was my time to get it done anyway.

Yeah. Now, before we do one minute fishing today, tell folks what happened after our one minute fishing segment ended last week. Well, I caught three white bass in a row. I swear it was y'all's music. Like that was the most intense minute of my life. Like did we all get mania or something just a little bit more chill because I was freaking out with that minute. I caught three fish in a row after that. So I felt pretty discouraged. Damn.

All right. I have a question though, Spencer, before we go there. Christine, if you keep on winning and keep getting these big checks and you also know you have enough money to buy one of those big fancy boats, Are you gonna switch from kayak angling to just regular angling out of a fancy bass boat? Or I'm asking what's the draw for kayak angling and would you switch over to regular boat fishing? Well, I actually did make the switch last year. I have a Ranger Alpha 2 away and I'm fishing

in the most competitive boat trail in the country, the Bassmaster Opens. So I do do that and I'm fishing in the most competitive boat trail in the country, the Bassmaster Opens. So I do do that and I fished two this year and I fished a couple women's only boat tournaments. I won my first one earlier this year just to kind of learn it because honestly the boat was pretty intimidating for me but you know I'll always be a kayak angler. I always will. I'm doing the boat thing to hopefully inspire more women to get into fishing out of the boat But I'm a kayak angler because it just fosters such a deeper more intimate experience on the water We're right next to the water. It's quiet I can get back in these creeks and these things where boats can't get and it's a lot more affordable

You know when I was 21 years old, I wasn't buying a 60 70 thousand dollar boat. I couldn't afford it I was working three jobs. So I got into kayak fishing because for me, you know, that was accessible for me. All right, tell us about the body of water you're on today, what you're fishing for and how you're doing it. Well, I started the morning at a little pond and I told y'all I had bluegill on every single cast,

but I had no service. So I ended up loading up and falling down to Lake Chickamauga. I do have some experience here, but it's the midsummer. It's pretty stinky. I have one little stretch of riprap right now that I got here in my first three casts in a row again. I say y'all a picture.

I caught a decent smallmouth. I caught a largemouth and a spotted bass. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do that on the first cast of this, but I feel like it's my best bet and it's where I got to in the time that I had. We're just gonna little paddle tail, write down that rip rap and see what we can do. All right, well your one minute of fishing starts when you make that first cast. Christine is now, I don't know if she's gonna stand up today or not.

Christine, how often are you standing when you're fishing out of your kayak? Probably 90% of the time, but I'm gonna sit just because I don't think y'all will be able to see me if I stand. Okay. And tell us about the riprap that you're tossing this swimbait at. Well, there's actually a little spring

that comes in right here. And it's way while I was in the shade about a half an hour ago. Oh, my movie review went wrong. Went too long. That's really, really big. So we're going to see. I'm getting ready to make that first cast already. We're ready.

Go for it. Okay, here we go. She's made her first cast. She just told us that she caught three already in this spot. Tell me when I'm at 30 seconds. Okay, you're 10 seconds in. Well, hopefully with that big win under her belt, the music doesn't affect her as much as it did last week. It is dead calm out there today in Tennessee.

You are 30 seconds down. She is furiously paddling and reeling. Switching spots a little bit. She's backing up off the location. 20 seconds to go. She just made her third cast. 20 seconds to go. She just made her third cast.

She, uh, it seems like she only finds a little part of this area productive because she reels a few times and then brings it in 10 seconds. She just made her final cast. Last cast. Five seconds. Come on, Christine. Oh, didn't happen today. That's it for your one minute. I have a feeling though, we'll have you back on because the competitive spirit is clearly there. Yeah. Christine, you take this more serious

than any of our other anglers. I love it. Oh, she just set the hook. If only it were two minute fishing and she had loaded a 12 inch largemouth. Just 30 seconds too late. Oh, that's great. Is that a largemouth or a spotted bass? That's actually a little baby largemouth. Little baby largemouth. Oh, just too late. That fish didn't have to fall very far in the water.

I am not okay right now. One minute. It's a lot of pressure. In the history of this segment. I think we've had three or four successful anglers So it's tough And you're welcome back anytime. That's right Before we go any other sign to the mythical ten killer lake octopus You didn't see anything strange on your sonarar nothing tried grabbing your kayak while you were out there hold on I didn't hear that last little part it was not important thank you for joining us Christine we'll have you back on one minute fishing some other time

we have one segment left I think we're just gonna punt on it though until our next episode yeah it'll be prepped for whatever it'll be saved for then that means we're at the end of the show We're gonna do some final Phil feedback. What do you know? The the viewers are chomping at the bit to hear some of this Phil. What's your favorite class to play in D&D? I think sorcerers are a lot of fun Let's see Dan the outdoor man favorite TV drink? I think he meant Tiki drink.

I've said it before, it's the Navy Grog. It's classic. Favorite song to sing in karaoke. The most fun song, most fun time I've had singing at karaoke was the Dixie Chicks. Now the Chicks, Goodbye Earl. I thought that was- He does it well.

It was really fun. See what kind of preamp interface do you use with those SM7Bs? We got a Fethead, uh, you know, providing a little extra, extra boost. And then it goes into an Allen and Heath CQ12T digital mixer. Perfect. Um, uh, question for Phil, do you actually have to work to come up with ideas for segment drops or does the stuff just come to you naturally?

Um, I, I mean mean I want to say it just comes to me naturally but that's mostly because I'm lazy. I think of like the first idea I have and it's usually like good enough. I think a couple of times I've made like the last call like, oh this song would be better so I'll do that. Phil you'll be on the theater stage again soon this Christmas at the Ellen Theater in Bowen Montana. I'll be playing Bob Cratchit in a Christmas carol so come on down and I'm looking forward to it, because my son will also be in the show,

so that'll be a little fun. Do we know what part he has yet? We do not yet, no. I think he's too old for Tiny Tim. And so that's, he was really hoping for it, but I had to talk him down. I'll be there. Phil, favorite film of all time, Fill Us In,

for those listeners, he spelled everything with a P-H. Hell yeah. This is not the greatest film of all time. Fill us in for those listeners. He spelled everything with a P H. Hell yeah. Um, this is not the greatest film of all time, but it is my favorite film of all time and that is the Tom Hanks directed 1996 movie, that thing you do. Uh, I love that movie. I think it's near perfect and even the stuff that isn't perfect. I love so much. Uh, Randall, what do you think of that movie?

It's been a long while. I remember enjoying it when it came out. I was 10 at the time, but original score. Am I right, Phil? I think it's most known for its original song, which is just a perfect pop song written by one of the guys from Fountains of Wayne. It was also like Stacy's mom. I mean, it's like a perfect power pop song.

Yeah. What else you got, Phil? A couple more? I'll do one more. I'll do two more. Why is why Phil and Clay not made a collab? It's from Mattias. Clay and I have made multiple collabs. One of them is the Bear Grease podcast. Oh, wow. That's a big one. Which I no longer work on, but Clay and I,

I mean, it's mostly Clay's show, but I helped him out with kind of like the format and what to do with it and our other collab was that we were in a band together and we opened the meat eater life to it. That was amazing. So if you if you I don't think there's video official video that exists of that performance. Did that have a name? Your band? We didn't have a name no we should we should uh retroactively give ourselves a name. Last one Phil ah the Red Dead Redemption livestream it It is happening. It's just, it's probably happening in the fall. We're trying to lock down our goals for the land access initiative for the year and make sure that when we do

do some sort of fundraiser, you guys will all know exactly where your money's going and you'll feel good about donating to a good cause. Well done. Very, very entertained by the Phil questions. Great. Thanks for that Spencer. Thank you, Ianne. Thank you, Randall. Thanks, Spencer. See you everyone back here next week. Same time, same place. Thanks, Phil.

Bye now. 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. 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 Meat Eater 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.