The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 720: Beaver Castor Moonshine and Will Primos' Shotguns

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Will Primos, Ryan Callaghan, Cory Calkins, Randall Williams, Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics Discussed: Taking a swig of pickled castor; turkey strategy and the turkey you can't seem to kill; how you keep fish nice; sharp breasted vs. round breasted; etiquette on tipping hunting and fishing guides; Will Primos' Purdey shotguns are up for auction to benefit conservation; Will's organization, Steward Link ; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube  See 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 this is the meat eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for elk, First Light

has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at firstlight.com. F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Join today with my favorite senior citizen. By far, Will Primos is here. Will Primos joined us back on episode 593, and we talked about a gun auction that was coming up later this year where Will had over the years collected a collection of? Purdy hammer guns. Purdy. P-U-R-D-E-Y Purdy. Purdy hammer

gun shotguns. How many in the collection? Five. And they're nice guns. This is a valuable collection and Will was telling us how he is donating these guns for a auction. For a conservation fundraiser, he's just giving them up, the whole collection. And I said, man, when that happens, you should come back on the show. You can come on the show anytime you want. But I said, you should come back on the show and we'll talk about the auction and plug the auction. So we're going to get around to that and do that. Um, and talk about some other stuff you got going on and this, the organization, um, at Stuart Stuart link, oh, what am I reading? Yeah.

Stuart link.com. I'm writing to ask, yeah. Stuart, Stuart, not Stuart. I keep seeing it like a name, like a dude named Stuart. Stuart picture a guy named that. The Stuart of the land is the person who owns it and farms it or leases it and farm it. Whoever has control of the land is the steward.

Got it. And so we are the link for the steward to the NRCS offices, FSA offices, carbon sequestration companies, anything that benefits the land, anything that can help you provide income to afford land or to make it better, to conserve water, variable rate pesticide programs, variable rate fertilizer programs, equip leveling land so it can be easier to irrigate it, whatever it might be. And all this got started

because Nick Thomas, the founder, helped me with my farm and I couldn't get anybody to help me with anything on my farm. Got it. And then over a number of years, he got probably, I mean, you know, telling hundreds of thousands of dollars, I stopped the water from going into the creek and eroding the land and filling the creek in. I planted trees along the bank, stopped all that, put land back into trees, did warm season grasses, restored the quail.

So it's just tons of things you can do. And you can get the public and private people that will help you provide that money to do it. Yeah. My buddy Doug Duren is getting excited right now. Yeah. Listening. Yeah. Doug Duren needs to know about Stuart Link. Might be Doug Durin is getting excited right now. Yeah. Listening. Yeah.

Doug Durin needs to know about Stuart Link. Might be something right there. You need to know about Doug Durin. Doug Durin needs to know about Stuart Link. There you go. There you go. Uh, it's a huge shame, Ron. I got to write it on my hand.

You're talking about the senior citizen stuff. Yeah, I got it bad. Yeah, yesterday I was so proud. I had to get a haircut and I went to this place called Great Clips. That's where I go. Yeah. And the lady, what'd they stick you for that haircut? $19.

I said, how come he's so cheap? Just cause you're a senior citizen. I think she was hitting on you. You look great. Phil, I thought something's wrong with super loud, man. Oh yeah. Spencer asked me to turn up the volume on those headphones. I can turn yours down a little.

Yeah. Hey, you know what? Close your eyes a minute. Well, Corey block his eyes. Now I filter me all the way off now. Come on, man. It's a sensitive now. I want, I want to test.

I want Phil to, or what am I saying? I want Will to take a, I want you to smell something. Okay. Oh, there you go. You're on your own closing your eyes. Did you turn me? Oh no. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Okay. Don't, don't open. I got trust. You got them open. This is the most intriguing odor. Spill it. No, I'm not gonna do anything bad to you. Yeah.

It's not a bad smell. Guide them into that Cory. Well, no, I'll just put it. Put your hand out Will. Should we tell the audience what it looks like or we'll tell the audience later what it looks like? Me? Yeah, reach out with your left hand and grab this mason jar. Uh Oh, it's to the left of your microphone here. Yeah, just put it

up there. Just feel it. Yeah, this seems like a bad way of doing things. Yeah, don't spill it. Now take a whiff. What are you getting? What are you getting? Can we pass it around? Yeah. Interesting. What in the heck is this? This is my favorite thing I've ever made, man. Should we just describe this to the audience? It's got a pleasant odor to it. Isn't that something? I got something looking at it. I know what it is, just by looking at it.

Isn't that something? Well, you're familiar with medicinal marijuana, right? Oh, you don't like the smell? Oh, Corinne went deep. Oh, come on, that's an overreaction. No! Chemistry class, and teach you the waft first. Or you just smell the lid.

No, I thought it was going to be food related, but that's like chemical science class in my nostril. Chemical? Geez. I sniffed with my eyes open. The whole room smells like that. Very familiar smell. So everybody who's listening, that's like a jar of like brains sitting in soy sauce.

That's what it looks like. I'm going to put it back over in Will's zone. What is it? It's like formaldehyde soy sauce brain. Get out of here. Best thing on the planet. What is it? It's the best thing in the planet. Get out of here. The best thing in the planet. What is that? Is it really?

That right there is beaver casters soaking in moonshine. Oh. Let me, let me. I thought there was an extra kick to it. Who's taking a shot? I mean. I used to trap a lot of it. And I always said, if anybody wants to torture me, tie me up and feed me castor.

Oh no. I'll die. That's the nastiest smelling stuff. A little bit now and then is good. A lot often is not good. So I want to see you drink that. Well, I don't think I'm going to though. So here's what happened.

There's a, here's why I have this. Oh, it's an intriguing odor. It is really striking. There's a famous lure maker, still alive, won't come on the podcast. A trapping lure maker. Lid is not a, there you go. Won't come on the podcast.

Doesn't understand what you're even talking about when you bring it up to him Mike Marziata you're listening I'm about ready to pay him to come I'll be like okay listen okay don't come I just I have a job for you doesn't know what yeah I have a job and it would be that you come be on the pocket and just don't worry about it it is there's a day rate we should just call it like radio. Yeah, like whatever we give a camera guy for a day rate. Whatever we give a camera guy for a day rate, we'd give Mike Marziata as a day rate to come on the show and talk about Trapp and Lure. We don't pay guests.

He has a column in Trapper's post. He has like a lure making column in Trapper's post. And in it, he's talking about how over the years, the different ways he's experimented with preserving beaver casters for lure making. And he says like, um, you can soak them in everclear. He says you can soak them in cheap wine. And then when you later grind them up to put it, cause it's a kind of a universal animal

tractant. Yeah. I happen to have, we quit, me and my wife quit drinking booze. So now we just have booze that just lives in the house and it never goes down. Right? So I have a bottle of moonshine that I've owned since the beginning of time and I topped them off with moonshine and I cannot get over the, just how intriguing that smell is. This lure maker will pay you for that formula.

Oh, maybe that's your trade goods. You know what, Mike, if you come on, you can have that joke. Do you think that's safe to drink? Oh yeah. I mean, yeah, you'd think that it would be. It's just pickled, uh, glands. Yeah,, glands. Yeah. Pickled. But it's got this, it doesn't smell like Asher. Right. That's what, yeah. No, it's there. No, no, no, no, no, no.

It might be there, but it's something that makes it tolerable. I think it's definitely there. Just take a big old swig of that. No, no, no. You don't want to get all drunk, do you? Trying to quit, you know. It looks and smells like pickled elk nuts. Mm-hmm doesn't smell like a pickle. Dude, take another whiff. You guys are not, you guys like not, like another. You're not thinking man. Well I was thinking about elk nuts when I was smelling it. It smells like castor. Give them another whiff. Corey, take another whiff. I think it smells like castor I don't and picture picture and may picture. It's may and you're walking along a stream

Okay, do that a lot. Okay now take a whiff and you've got a glass of everclear in your hand Just like smelling the lid safer Let's get in there. Yeah, I did that the first time don't spill it will slap. Yeah Take a swig. I'd sweat I'd drink it all but I don't drink. I just smells dangerous I'll pour it through a coffee filter and drink it. Yeah, like if we can strain it a little bit what if you if you Consume castor like what? Yeah, what uh what could happen? Yeah, like what's is it like packed with vitamins and minerals? Yeah. What, uh, what could happen?

Yeah. Like what's, is it like packed with vitamins and minerals? Yeah, it's great for you. It's no different than eating. I mean, you can eat a whole animal. Yeah, the whole beaver. There's not a lot of flavor cigarettes with it. Have you ever made that into jerk? Like what's the consistency when it's like fresh in the body? Is it more like brain? Is it more like liver? More like brain, but harder. Looks like brain, but when you open it up, it's a paste. There's a paste inside of it. There's like an oily paste and then there's like a... Should we fry castor one day? Like panko fried bread castor? Dude, there's no way I'm eating. No, I'm not eating that. The smell gets, the smell like Will's saying, the smell gets to you after a while. Your brain starts to think that it's like a,

you know, people make like apple apple they'll make moonshine with like apples and cinnamon sticks your brain apple pie your brain starts to think that it's cinnamon mm-hmm and you sort of want it take a big old swig should add some star just take a little have you have you had your brain I'm not opposed to it give me the day if you Randall, if you take a little shot, I'll take a little shot with you. Give me the jar. And then we can run in the bathroom.

No, no, you guys are pansies. Now I'm gonna be back to drinking. I'll drink it. There's a lot of floaties in there that I don't wanna pick out of my teeth. We're one day sitting there at the dinner table, and my kid knows that we used to drink, we used to drink like people people drink social, social drinking.

And I don't know where he picked up this expression, but he was 14. And he says to me, dad, how long you been sober? I'm like, what? I'm like, that like implies like a whole other level of. Your sobriety journey. I think is what they call it now. Even within the confines of my home, that was a different thing. Your sobriety journey. It wasn't you. I think is what they call it now. Even within the confines of my home,

that makes me uncomfortable, so. I was like, that's like a different thing. You're nuts. You're nuts. Tastes like it smells. Does it taste like it smells? Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Oh, it does. Oh, you're nuts. God, regret that. Yeah, you wanna rinse your mouth out with some bear grease? Cory, talk about your jar now. Whew, I. Wow. Oh, whoo. You're nuts. God, regret that. Yeah, you wanna rinse your mouth out with some bear grease? Cory, talk about your jar now. Whew, I regret that. My jar, oh, once held your guys' jars. I'm not gonna vomit, I'm gonna go grab a,

I'm gonna go grab a Sortie Pop. And wash down that caster. Wow. I believe what Steve's referring to are all the jars of bear grease that I just passed out. Freshly rendered yesterday, looks like it still needs to find a cool dark area to yeah I'm impressed that it's still liquid form here well it sat in the kitchen all night yeah I'm surprised it is too but find a cool dark pantry and it'll

solidify on you sorry did you you're explaining us yeah got a jar of bear grease I passed out to everybody that wanted one. And you got it off a spring bear which is unusual. Yeah. To get that much. Yeah, I got four gallon Ziploc baggies full of fat off of them which I always figure is each gallon Ziploc is about seven pounds. But that's because it was the biggest bear that ever was. That's not true. Second biggest bear just I just held the biggest bear that ever was hmm okay was it a boon and crock in Alaska well got to give it some time to shrink where's it sitting there right now my garage no no what what the skull oh 20 just over 20 inches make it it might shrink enough what are you are you are

you drying it in a bucket of water? No. Are you gonna have it beetled? No I've already boiled it. Oh that's a bummer. Beetles just make things prettier. Oh yeah now this is free though. I think there's less shrinkage with beetles too. Probably yeah I was always wondering if boiling would shrink it. I'm not gonna actually have it officially measured But it's it's roughly 20 inches big old bear. Mm-hmm. I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm just jealous, you know No, I mean anything over 19 inch skulls. I mean, that's a big old black. It's a good-looking bear I'm just happy on it cuz I'm jealous. But when you showed me I remember saying how big it was Yeah, I was asking if you needed the the shin bones for more halibut hooks

Well, I got two shin bones and I'm sending I got two shin bones for more halibut hooks. Well, I got two shin bones and I'm sending, I got two shin bones and I'm sending to Heather's dad who was interested in, because do you remember the one I made? Was it last year? Yeah, so- That was from my bear last year. No, yeah, yeah, so I'm saying, but did you ever see it with the finished product?

So Heather, Heather Duville, who's a Tlingit and lives in Southeast Alaska. They make a, Oh, a halibut hook called a knock. Knock white folks can't say the word. I've tried a bunch of times. You drink that moonshine. And that's the first time I think Corinne said the word earlier.

Yeah. If you drank that bottle, you'd be like, it's a knock. Come out crystal clear. They make a knock and it's, uh, they, they, and her father carves them. Um, just type up like, um, traditional cling it, halibut hook. You'll see a picture, not you, Cory, but I'm just curious. G-L-I-N-G-I-T. They use yellow cedar and like a juniper or you. You, yeah, it's you.

But anyways, they make it with a lot of traditional materials. They weighed it with just a regular rock. But her father uses stainless steel. The barb, he uses stainless rod. He was explaining to me that traditionally it was a bear's shin bone. So I got from Cory's bear last year, I got a shin bone and I made a few prongs and I took one of their knocks and took the stainless off and put the, I basically took the shin bone, took a Porter band, kind of got it roughed in

and then I ran it on a, you know what I did is I took a Benchmade belt and just slowly like boosh for like five minutes. Like your work sharpener belt. Yeah. Yeah. Shape that thing. I was quite proud of it.

Yeah. Sent it up to him. I don't know if they've used it yet, but anyways, her dad's kind of a perfectionist. So I'm guessing that he's not happy with, he probably likes the idea, but is not impressed by the gesture. He's like, I can see what he was shooting. He's probably I'm putting thoughts in his mouth, but he's probably like, I see what this kid was shooting for.

And if I had a shin bone, I would perfect. So I'm sending him shin bones to perfect. Do you need more? No, but I do think the one I made would work. I do think the shin bone I put on there would work. That'd be awesome. Yeah. But I don't think, I don't know if they've tried it out yet.

When I went out with them to set these hooks, I was skeptical. Were you there? Yeah, you were there. Yeah. Yeah. We went out and set six. We made six sets and you always fish two at a, you fish two next to each other. And that she's been on the podcast, explained that you, when you set them out, you, the, the, there's two hook, you set two hooks next to each other and you implore them to compete with one

another. So you're setting them together to, to outshine each other. And when you set them, you encourage them. You're like, go get them. And then you'd like your friends coming to fight you, you know? So you lower it down and we set out six sets. So we set 12 hooks and pulled like 370 pound plus hell. Wow. Like an hour soak. That's cool. An hour soak. That's fast. One of them had one of them was a double

Yeah, I couldn't believe it I could have done that with regular hooks And that was like not like ideal season it was late season yeah, it was What September? Was it that over? Yeah, it was a little later. It's kind of after the salmon were done. Yeah, I think it was late September and on the salmon we're done. Yeah, I think it was late September. The soft cover of Catch a Crayfish Counting Stars is out. If you haven't already picked up a soft cover copy, it's out. So that's our kids activity book. I did two books like back to back.

I did Outdoor Kids and Inside World, which is kind of a book for parents or caregivers or aunts and uncles about getting kind of the philosophy and practice of getting kids engaged with nature and then the follow-up was Catch a Crayfish Counting Stars which is like an activity book for outdoor kids to educate, inspire, make them tougher, make them more knowledgeable about nature. It's just little things they can do, projects they can do with help. You know some things

you got to have a machete or whatever so you got to help them out with some stuff, some stuff they can do safely on their own. They came out in hardcover. It was the number one New York times bestseller the soft cover is out. So, uh, what I keep saying as a joke is if you got a kid that's not good enough, I really not well behaved enough for a hardcover, like what kid in America is so bad, he can't have a soft cover.

I really liked that joke a lot. I've used it four times. It was the fourth time. How's it performing on the no feedback on it? No feedback. It might be like Cory's bear where people are jealous and so they don't say much. Right? Yeah, I'm sure that's it. No, no, I just told you I liked the joke.

I thought you're being facetious. No, no, I just told you, I liked the joke. No, I thought you're being facetious. No, no. I thought it was very clever. I liked the idea of bad kids. I think we may have lost will here. Bringing them right back in. Cause I got a question for will. No. Okay.

Picture with me here. Oh, do you know what this shirt is? You don't. I'll tell you, this is the odds of if you get within 70 yards of a Turkey and his roost tree and don't do anything, what are the odds he's going to walk within shotgun range? That's the math problem. That's pretty cool.

Do nothing, do nothing. There's a 13% chance he'll be within shotgun range when he leaves. That, that leads into my question. If you, like, if you just take an average turkey hunter's lifetime, and he hears a gobble and calls to a bird, the bird doesn't come. What percent of the time, in your view, after a lifetime of turkey hunting and being a master turkey hunter, in your view, what percent of the time is the turkey not interested versus the turkey's thinking, I don't buy it, something's up?

It's pretty much, he don't trust it. Oh, you think so? Yeah. Because he's, he's there's been some association with hearing a yell, hearing it come from, he knows it's on the ground. He's in the tree. That's always a bad deal. We never, we never say nothing to his feet on the ground, but I have a friend who had one of those

turkeys and one of what turkeys, one of them turkeys. And one of what turkeys? One of them turkeys you couldn't kill that he would gobble, you'd yelp him and he wouldn't come. He'd always go the other way. And he didn't eventually gobble going the other way. So he took his son in there and he said, let's flip a coin and decide who's going to yelp. And they did.

And the dad lost. So they got on both sides of the tree, about a hundred yards apart from the tree. So now they got a 26% chance that they do nothing. Well, they know this turkey, they know he's going to go. They're going to go straight, no matter if they knew. Straight away. Daddy yelped. Little David sat there with his gun up.

Five minutes later, he gone. So you think that they're like, because you remember, Little David sat there with his gun up five minutes later. He come So you think that they're like you remember, you know, you know the great famous turkey book Tenth Legion. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like a masterpiece right like no one will ever write a better turkey. No Nobody's got nobody's got Tom Kelly's brain. He's unbelievable Yeah, I who, what, when, no one's gonna ever write a better turkey book. If you're writing a turkey book, stop. That's right. Write a different book, write a beaver book, I don't know.

Yeah. Tom Kelly has the thing where he has like a, he doesn't describe it as an epiphany, but one day he's talking about, he's watching some time, like it's spring turkey season. He's watching some gobblers going about their business, and here comes a real live hen. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. They never looked at her. He says they never lift their head up. And he's like, in that moment was, you know, maybe it's not that they're, right?

But that's a real hen real hand dude and they don't care. You're talking about these turkey hunters who think they know it all and they think there's God's gift to Colin and they're gonna yell and they're gonna and so the turkey ends up associating so much with what you're doing and the stimuli that he's getting he learns to stay away from it. Hmm. So you've gotten where you don't make a peep till they hit the ground. And the stimuli that he's getting, he learns to stay away from it. Hmm. So you've gotten where you don't make a peep till they hit the ground.

Oh, never. That is, that's a cardinal rule. Really? You don't do it. Why you telling everybody that? The best thing you can do to get him interested. Don't bleep all that out. Even if you hear other hens yell before,

before they're, they hit the ground. He just knows where the sound is coming from. That's usually in the tree. Mm hmm. So if, they hit the ground? He just knows that where they're usually in the tree. So if you're on the ground, I mean, more times than not, depending on the terrain, he knows you're down there. Right. Yep. And so what, what's supposed to happen?

You're supposed to walk to his tree. That's why he stays in the tree goblin. You're supposed to walk to his tree. That's why he stays in the tree goblin. You're supposed to walk to his tree. And then he flies down. So you got to break that. So you got to make him think he's losing something. You know, you had said a word. So what we do, we take a wing, we take a dried wing. Usually it's a hen wing because they bend easier. They're not as stiff as a Jake's wing or a goblin's wing. So you got to go out and poach a hen. Huh?

Well, bearded hen, buddy. Okay. Sure. I think I had to get that hen thing. Like you're telling everybody to go poaching now. No, you just hunt in the fall. You have fall seasons and you break them up and whistle them back in. Okay.

But anyway, you fly down. Disregard the poaching. You fly down and you never say a word. You do the fly down noise? With that wean. It's tied to a string to my back. Cause they kept leaving, losing them in the woods. It stays in the back of my vest.

So is that an, like you're cutting the air or you're hitting the ground with it? You're touching the tree. Cause when those, when those turkeys leave the limb, leave the roost, they're hitting limbs and coming down and then you go f**k and you hit the ground. Okay. And then don't yell.

Wait, maybe two and a half minutes scratching the leaves. Yep. Don't, don't, don't, don't open your mouth. No, take the guy's call away. He's going to screw it up. This is, then he tries to yell better. Man, I've never used AI in my life, but I'm going to use it right now. Well, no, I have, cause I use the Merlin app, but I'm gonna use it right now Well, no, I have cuz I use the Merlin app

But I'm gonna use AI to make him say all the opposite and then I'm gonna be the only one that knows the truth So we had a similar question yesterday on When we did the the meat eater live we had somebody ask about using a predator Call or fawn and distress call. I think I brought up the fawn and distress call for black bears. And I'm very much of the opinion that if it's

kind of a two-sided thing, if you just want to kill a bear, then you risk use, you risk not getting a bear by using a fawn and distress call in my opinion. How so? Because small bears will go the opposite direction from, yep. They're like, don't just not worth the risk.

Got it. Um, but big bears either care or they don't care, but they don't leave the country cause they're using a, a fond and distress call. It's might not. I've watched many of them not pick their head up and then one in 10 goes ballistic. Yep.

It was 90 degree turn and their head up. Right. And then one in 10 goes ballistic. Yep. It goes 90 degree turning. He's coming. Yep. We should probably make a t-shirt out of that. Like what are the mathematical odds of a bear coming to your predator call? 10%. If you're close, maybe I'll be in his lap. That's the finest t-shirt I've ever seen.

Well, you want to see something that's going to really impress you. Yeah, it's outside. Go out that door. Cause we had a little different engineers. Hey, hang tight a minute. Boy, it's show and tell day here on the old meat eater podcast. Uncle Will's in town. Steve's getting all the stuff out.

Pulling out his toys. That's it. Yeah, that's it! That's another version. Another version. Therefore, QED B equals zero over 360 times a hundred and sin one quarter. I don't know who Paul Knack is, but he's good.

That is crazy. No, it's a good little formula. 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 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 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. A guy wrote in, we got a listener question. The guy wrote in, he's been struggling with some beavers and then he's saying he thinks that beavers attacked his canoe. I disagree. That's a bite.

It is. Porcupine. His canoe got attacked his canoe? I disagree. That's a bite. Porcupine. He's his canoe got attacked by a porcupine. His canoe got attacked by a porcupine. That ain't a beaver. I don't think beavers just chew on random stuff. You need to qualify where the, where the canoe got attacked. Southwest Wisconsin. You want to see the picture?

Yeah. Yeah. I got you. But, but, but if you were from Mississippi, it was not a porky Country yeah porky pines will eat Tree stands they like treated plywood they like, you know They like axe handles because you just sweat from your Hands getting on the axe handle wooden axe and no no porkies in Mississippi They just don't exist down there Really?

When you say accent one of my favorite saying is I'm as scared of her as a possum is axe and awesome is an axe handle. That's what I think. I'm gonna start using that. Yeah. I've had them chew on my fly rod cork handles. Yup. Sweat in the wilderness. My dad had a cabin.

He's telling me that they had a cabin. He said, you kind of like people would walk out the door to take a leak and there was a stump and you would naturally, it was just like a human fire hydrant. Like anyone that like, like went out the door, they'd go slightly left and pee on a stump. And he said the porcupines were always out there gnawing on that stump, just from the minerals and stuff in the mountain goats. Uh, the guy wrote in, but that's really complicated. Battle with Beaver covered that.

Oh, here's a good one for you, Will. Opinions on keeping freshwater fish in a small boat. Let's say you're out fishing, what do you guys call them down where you're from? Brim? You say bluegills or do you say brim? Brim, bluegills. Okay, you're out on a small boat. He's like, how do you keep fish nice? You know. Like ice or a string?

You don't have a big old ice chest. He's wanting, no, he's just asking, how do you keep. You put them in a basket in the water, you keep them breathing and alive. You like the basket. Same way you do an alligator, you catch an alligator, you don't kill him. No, clearly. You take his mouth up and you tie his arms up behind his back. You keep him alive till you get him to the butcher room.

I didn't know that. Everybody knows that. I've never taken that. Everybody knows that. I've never taken that. Everybody knows that. This guy's going to be delighted that he's getting, um, he just thought he's going to get advice from us guys, but he's getting advice from Will Premus. If you want it, if you want it fresh, keep it alive. Makes sense to me. Totally.

If you guys have any thoughts on if my stringer and home, what's he got going on now? Sorry. Our, our, uh, brim game up here is pretty weak. I would love some easy access to like throwing some slip bobbers for, for like. Bluegills. Big bluegills. I just got, I just got back from the wind river Canyon and this guy was using a balloon as an indicator and it looked just like a cork.

And I kept saying, do you see my cork move? And he goes, do what? So I, I went on the internet and I searched definition of a fishing cork. And after he left that day, I sent it, sent it to him, he it to him. He wouldn't reply. You're like, let's get on the same page. I got a couple of additional thoughts now that I've read it more carefully.

He's using a stringer combo, stringer fish basket combo. He's putting them on a stringer out in the water. Then he's throwing them in a fish basket when he's back. And he's also fishing for Northeast, Northern, so he's dealing with some larger fish. He needs to go with... A nice chest for the northern, for the bigger ones, to keep them nice and fresh. But the small ones, keep them in a basket. If you use the stringer, you're going to bust their lips, and they're going to break off,

or you put it through the gills, you're going to kill them. That's what I was going to include for him is I remember when we were little, we used to use stringers and we didn't know. So we'd always run it under the gill cover. And then you got a bunch of dead fish and then later learned to prick them with it. But you know, that's like, for bluegills, that doesn't really work. We would put them on stringers, but the last time a water mox had wrapped around that stringer, done. My kid recently, he was down fishing in the creek down the road from our house, and they caught some trout and he had them on a string. And then he looks down there and there's a big old crayfish messing with his trout. So him and his bodies came home and they fried

their trout up and boiled that little crayfish. It was a nice crayfish. They had nice little... Surf and turf. Yeah, whatever that was. Yeah, fish fry. Fish boil. There you go. Yeah, boil. They had a nice little boil. Okay, here's one. I curious to get your thoughts on this. A guy was at a turkey hunting, like a turkey derby.

North Carolina strut masters or something like that. He was dismayed by the the field care he witnessed, where you're weighing birds and so people got their birds hung up with the guts in them, out in the sun, not chilled. And then he was saying that he saw a tremendous amount, like some people not even taking the breasts, but a lot of people not taking the, most people not taking the thighs and legs. What do you think about that? Wild turkey is just so great. The breast, the legs, the thighs make the greatest soup.

It's just great if you just learn it. You just gotta deal with it. But leaving the guts in, I usually, I draw them, you know, that's what you call it. Yeah. I draw them, instant I kill them, before they're hardly finished flopping. Yeah, because that stuff smells, man.

That stuff goes bad. You cut a slice there at the bottom of the breast and you stick your hand there and grab the biggest thing you can find, which is going to be the gizzard. That's going to be the gizzard. I mean, if you can grab hold of it and get it, it's all coming out. Got it. Now, if you got to weigh them for cause I'm not interested in winning some turkey weight contest, so I like the meat better than that. So I'm drawing them.

You know, I lost the Turkey contest in, uh, in, uh, Elroy, I think it was called Elroy, Wisconsin, is there a place called Elroy, Wisconsin? Um, yeah. Sure. I lost. I joined a Turkey Derby, but I got in my bird and brought it down and I was leader on the board and then a guy beat me by a few ounces and

All the old guys in the bar Were just thought I was the dumbest guy on the planet My buddy says he go his dad goes back in there a couple days later and you sit in there and you're still in there He got in the bird Good for you But I know this this audience member was kind of appalled that there would be so many dead turkeys just pinned to a board and it was that no one was really taking the meat out of them.

So it was about salvage laws. I'm wondering how many states have? I don't know. His final question is, my question to the crew is what is the best way to get North Carolina to create legislation on the salvage law? Yeah, start showing up at your fishing game committee meetings and introduce it. And then eventually if, if you feel like you're not getting any traction, you can write into your state reps and get somebody interested in that.

Uh, the people that you need to target in that case are the people who sit on the, uh, fish and game committee at the state level. I'm a big believer in, I love salvage laws. Um, I understand like arguments that like, Oh, it's a big brother telling you what to do, but I like, I like them. I like how detailed they are. I like salvage laws. Are they per species? Yeah. I like how detailed they are. I like salvage laws. Are they per species?

I see. Or they'll spell it out like ducks up to the size of a mallard. Right? An interesting little thing here and it's still, even though they rolled, Montana rolled back some salvage laws, but in Montana, is it Montana? You still like, I think the wing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You got to keep the wing meat.

In Montana you got to retain the wing meat, which that is strict. I guess we love our wings up here. That is strict. I think for this turkey contest, there is a lot of meat on the wings. For this turkey contest, if you want to just make everybody happy and not feel like they're

wasting good stuff is you got a contract out with like some sort of a mobile food truck cooking service. He said they do that. That's what they do. And then. It's just an extra fee and people aren't paying the fee. Oh, people can't just jerk the hide off their turkey and, and throw the carcasses and at least make stock.

I put up a ton of stock every year. And, and, and that definitely is part of why I like killing a bunch of turkeys. Um, but yeah, turkey stock is amazing. And if you want, as long as it's fresh, you, you don't have to clean those birds well. You just dump it all. Cowdels boils the whole bird.

I do. I mean, I pull the meat, pull all the meat off, take the thighs. Everything but the gobble. He throws into a pot. So I, I like to see a turkey baked, roasted whole. Like you do now. Yeah. And the, and the wild turkey, of course, the breast button is just stick straight up.

It's just, you know, it's not big round like the swift butterball. But you boil some water and you dip him. Of course you've already drawed him. So the hot water, you don't want to leave it too much. You don't want to cook the meat, but you get it just right. And that those feathers would just come off in that you're leaving the hide on skin. So then are you brining your bird and then roasting it?

You can. I've done it that way. It's not necessary. Oh, really? Yeah. You just flat clean it good, pick all the feathers off, all the wing, everything. Yeah. Make it look like you can stuff it if you want.

I like oyster dressing the best. Cool. Oyster. Oysters. Oysters. I want people to know that we know that it's not turkey season anymore. Oh, it depends on who's watching. This is the last weekend in Montana. It's wrapping up. It's wrapping up. Yeah, but I don't know I could talk turkeys anytime. Oh, no, I love talking turkeys. You got the little like a turkey man here

You know, I had a guy one time who was in the poultry business described to me He lumped turkeys into two categories, sharp-breasted and round-breasted. And he would say a turkey, a wild turkey, he said that's a sharp-breasted bird. It's sharp. Yeah, that's a good way of describing it. And they can be pretty dry, so you can inject them with butter when you bake them. While meat can be very, very dry. I would use oven bags and oven.

I thought the oven bag with brining a bird. You never got a dry bird. Great. They were, they were fantastic. But I'd take, I'd take the legs off because they were just one. They wouldn't, they wouldn't cook to the same degree. The, the. Yeah.

You got to, you got to cook them slower and more. Put the legs in a crock pot and it falls off the bone. Or our buddy Jesse Griffiths just taught me, you basically turn your turkey leg into a smoked ham hock. And so I just did four turkey legs like that. So I throw them into something. I brined them in like a cure style brine, smoked them, and then I just did four turkey legs like that. So I throw them into something. I brined them in like a cure style brine Smoked them and then I just vac sealed them for doing like big things of collard greens or something like that throw them in there for

Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah, I'm getting that castor taste out How long has it been I got here's another another advice thing from another guy wrote in looking for advice. We're going to put it to you. Okay. This is like a complex put your thinking cap on. Okay. It's like a math problem. Oh, okay.

Okay. He's wondering about how to tip a guide. So tipping a guide. Okay. ready? We got former guides in the room. You guys will have an opinion about this. Oh, always. Okay.

Put yourself in the hunters. Don't put you guys, so Cal, Corey, you're in the hunter's perspective. And Randall, Randall's fishing guide. Oh, you've done, yeah, you've done some guiding. Okay, you're in the angler's perspective, not the guide's perspective. Yanni said when he used to guide

and the clients would come in, he goes, you're always looking for subtle cues about who's got the most money. So you can get paired with them. That doesn't always work out that way. No. I had a guy one time spent the whole week, I fished him for like six days and he'd won the trip.

So it was a free trip. And he kept asking me all week, he's like, so, you know, Walter takes care of you, right? Walter takes care of you, right? And I was like, man, it's really thoughtful of him that he's so concerned that I'm being fed and housed and that my summer's going well. And at the end of the week, he got on the plane and he stuck his head out the plane and he said, Walter's taking care of you, right? And it finally clicked that he was checking to see whether or not he needed to tip me. Yeah, cause it was a free trip.

It was too late. He quick threw a rock through the windshield of the plane. Hold on a second. Okay, ready for this? Pocket knife. So, you gotta, no, think we're giving you the hit numbers here. You're a businessman.

Six day bear turkey combo hunt. All right, the price is, the price is 4,600 per hunter. The Outfitter website recommends 15 to 20% tip for the guide plus $100 to $200 for the camp cook. The Outfitter notified us we will have a guide for Turkey and a separate guide for Bear. My friend wants to tip 20%, so $920, plus $200 to the Cook, but he thinks we need to tip 20%

to each guide for a total of $1,840 worth of tips comes out to a 44% increase per Hunter. I'd say you do whatever you want and give me your friend's number and I'll guide them anytime. Yeah. Well, I agree that we should tip for our trip. I think 44% of the total trip price is excessive for each individual hunter. I have two tip recommendations. Then he goes on with his recommendations.

He wants to split it up. We're going to tip 20%. He wants to split it up We're gonna tip 20% So if it's six days of okay, if it's if it's three days of turkey three days of bear or however you slice it you take the 20% amount and Go like okay you get half of 20% and then the turkey you get half of 20% and then the turkey guide gets half of 20%.

What would you do? To me, it's really simple. Okay. It's the cost of a hunt. If the hunt cost you $5,000, whether it was three days or six days, I'd tip a minimum of 20%. And they can do how they can divide it up how they want. How they want, now, I also tip the cook. Like I just left on from a trip on the wind river

Canyon and I checked in because I wanted to know kind of what the average, the typical tip is a hundred dollars per person per day. There's two people in the boat. Cause $200 a day for three days at $600. Okay. But I gave him 800. I just think guides. Now if the guides, if he's a, if he's an

S O B he's got a bad attitude and every other word out of his mouth is profanity, which I don't like that explains a lot. In other words, if you were my guide, you'd get zero. Dang it, Steven. You don't want Steve guide you. Yeah.

So anyway, I just, I just think 20% for a tip. He guided me once Yeah, that's true. Were you cursing all the time? No That's good. Maybe maybe under my under my mustache Yeah, and it was a heck of a tip I quit any kind of booze I'm gonna quit any kind of swearing next there you go Good luck. Tip your guys 20%. So these guys, the guy that wrote in 20% of the bill and then divide it to the guides, how you think I think that your friend thinking to each guide gets 20%

is not, does not the way to think about it. Yeah. If I'm eating at a restaurant and my server, I get a new server halfway through the meal or whatever. Someone clocked out. I'm not all of a sudden tipping 40% on that meal. That's a great way of looking at it. Another way to look at it. Let's say you're going out. Like we did a guy did a hunt one time, um, for mule deer with, uh, with, um, crooked sky outfitters, wonderful guys, but you might be with

Stuart one day might be a land in one day, you know what I mean? Yeah. They might be like, well, today go with so-and-so because he wants to go up and check. You're not in the end going like, 20% of the trip to him, 20% of the trip to him, 20% of the trip to him. Yeah, it wouldn't be how you'd look at it. So we had a lady that cleaned the lodge in the room every day. I gave her $100 for the three days and it wasn't asked for.

And then the chef was great. He had a great personality and he was five star. I gave him 600 bucks. Starting to think if I host this show just right. Pour him a glass of that. Will's gonna leave a couple of hundos. When you go on these trips and these people, I mean, guiding is a great life.

If you don't weaken, it can be, it can be hard. If you don't do what? Weaken. I don't understand what you mean. Weaken. You mean if the guide doesn't. If the guide doesn't weaken. Oh, I see.

Yeah, I got you. I mean, it's hard. I got you. And, and, you know, and, and they're dealing with, some of these guides get some pretty bad clients. Oh my gosh. They know it all. They want to tell you how to hunt.

You got to remember, don't guide the guide. You, you, you bought a hunt, you, you hired a guide and you got to go with the flow. Yeah. Compliment him and give him the opportunity to do good for you. You know, I've been developing a piece of life advice that I've been using and I use it with contractors. When I, if I'm having a problem with like in my mechanical room, I explained this on the show recently.

Like let's say I'm having, we have in-floor heating, you open my mechanical room up, you can't tell what's going on in there. Too complicated, it's not like the old days. like a pipe coming in and a pipe going out. You look at you like, who knows? It's like open up a NAS control room. So what I do when I have a guy over, I don't do that. Well, you know, I'm thinking it might be whatever, you know, and I

tried a couple of things, but you know, I'm too busy fixing other stuff. So I need you to take a quick look and I'd probably be able to figure it out. Like I don't do any of that garbage. I come in and go, man, I'm an idiot. I don't know anything about, I look in here and it's just, I don't get it. That opens up like that opens up a level of rapport. And you, you, you just dispense with all the trying to save face. And you just come in and be like, dude, I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it. I'd love to understand it. I can't understand it.

And it just creates a different dynamic because a guy's impulse is to try to establish his bona fides. Right? Good. Yeah. impulse is to try to establish his bona fides. Right. Good. Yeah. So Nate Mason, who we work with recently went to a dog training thing. And he said, the first words out of my mouth, he knows a thing or two, but first words out of his mouth, man, I'm an idiot. I don't know anything about any of this.

So it's just completely changed the whole dynamic. People all day trying to help him out. So he said like everybody's real nice to him. You got a lot more for his money. Instead of coming in and being like, wow, I've trained a few dogs in my day. You know, none of that. It's like a fishing guide.

You're hiring a guide. We were on the wind river. That guy has been fishing that river every day. He's watching the river change. He's watching the levels. He's watching the temperature. He's watching different spots. He's watching the temperature. He's watching different spots. He's figuring it out.

And so I come in, I'm a big fly fisherman. I go all the time. I know what I'm doing. And I try to tell the guide what to do. It changes the dynamics of the whole trip. Instead, at first I said, look, anything I do, tell me not to, if you need to. And if you need to tell me twice, tell me twice. Got it. Tell me what to do. And I not to, if you need to. And if you need to tell me twice, tell me twice.

Got it. Tell me what to do. And I want to play his game and it was so much more fun and he taught me, I learned stuff that I didn't know. Yup. It was great. Yup. And then you tip good and you're welcome back.

So do the guides in this room like this? I love everything Will's saying. Yeah. Yeah. I need to know more specifics about this bear hunt. Is it a baited bear hunt? Is it spot and stock? Are there hounds involved?

It sounds like- You wanna talk shop about bear hunting. Yeah, this is- You wanna talk tips. This isn't enough information here. Okay, Will, I got one more for you. You ready for this? Guys, no gents. Sorry for the title. The title is turkeys versus grouse mortal enemies. He said sorry for the title I wanted to grab your attention.

In all seriousness however this has been on my mind quite a few years now. Maybe you folks have heard of this discussion before, and maybe you guys think it's nuts, but I'm telling you, there's a good amount of Northern Minnesota outdoorsmen who keep repeating what I believe to be a rural myth. That myth is that turkeys target and kill grouse, and grouse nest eggs.

He says he has had over 15 people tell him that turkeys are killing the grouse. Are they all from the same family? That's a large family. I don't know about that. Do they suspiciously have a freezer full of grouse? No, I mean, if you watch domestic turkeys, um, not like in your, uh, high density facilities, right, but like your normal barnyard, uh, I don't know, vanity

turkeys, we'll call them, scratching around. I mean, they'll get, they'll get into anything curiosity stuff. And, um, it's not uncommon to like throw eggshells out there for a little added calcium. It's a great point. Cause when I put my compost on my garden, the magpies, every bird in town is walking around and they're picking the eggshells out during nesting season.

So it wouldn't surprise me if, if a handful of turkeys take advantage of something like that, but I don't think it's going to be a primary food source or. It would be, I mean, it'd be really interesting, right? If, if they're there, uh, it'd be like a fisheries biology study, right? It's like how much mass can that landscape support and by killing off the grouse, the turkey population will grow somehow.

Right. Yeah. But I say, look at the science. Somebody. Well, who's on science on this? I don't know. Let's look at the science. I mean, uh, what's the, what's the Turkey

biologist name from Georgia? Um, Chamberlain. Yeah. So if I'm mistaken, if I remember right, he's the one who figured out that the great horned owl was killing the gobblers, knocking them off the limb and flying down and eating their head and all the entrails from the neck.

And that's it. But he documented it. He figured it out and documented it scientifically. So that's what needs to be done. I don't think. I know you don't understand how the game of BS is played here.

Yeah, I do. I do. And I'm telling you that's BS. So I'm using the science and saying, I'm going to science. Well, there is a parallel because we had a woman on the show. I think she was sitting right where you're sitting right now and they do cameras on turkey nests. Right? So all you gotta do is you gotta somehow, it's probably not hard to do, um, do cameras on Turkey Nests, right? So all you gotta do is you gotta have somehow, it's probably not hard to do.

You could design a study. You got to catch grouse, find the females, put a marker on them at the right time of year, find where they're hanging out, go there. She was concerned that she explained us. She was concerned that, that, um, what's that thing in astronomy? Like just you watching it changes it. Hmm. Oh, um, what's that thing in astronomy? Like just you watching it changes it. Oh, not high as a highs. No, it's not. High.

Yeah. Heisenberg's principle. Heisenberg's principle. There's a bit of Heisenberg's principle at play. Cause she feels that your, she feels that your presence at the nest changes a dynamic and she has noticed that when she goes to a nest site and does the work and sets the camera up, she feels that very quickly thereafter,

there's a bobcat present. And a much higher likelihood that a bobcat will be present right away than later. And somehow that activity and human order and messing around is somehow attractive. Wow. She was speculating. She doesn't know, but she has it.

She's like, why is it that we place a camera and so quickly there's a bobcat there and then no bobcats? No, who knows? Is this a study of Miriam's? Kansas. Okay. So whatever that would be in. Rio's or Eastern's.

Okay, studying that. But yeah, it'd be an interesting thing. But you know, I'll tell you one thing that changed my life and how I view wildlife is you remember long, it must, maybe it was a decade ago. Someone had a trail cam image of a, of a white tail deer that walked up to a Robin nest and ate some of the chicks and I'm like, Hey, all bets are off. Like all bets are off, you know. I can't remember where we were, but somebody

was, Oh, it was, um, it was over in, in, uh, Wyoming the other day, but, um, there's a bunch of town pheasants basically in all the green areas and, uh, this friend of mine, his folks had just moved to town and had asked him is there anything they can do about these pheasants because they're cackling so early in the morning. Get up earlier and go to work. Yeah maybe that's what that white-tailed deer was doing.

He was just talking to those bird noises early in the morning. You know, I watched a, we were watching me, my boy were watching some turkeys, you know, as turkeys often are on the wrong side of the fence. So I was watching them and like trying to call them into a place. They'd never want to go in a million years, you know, and like this bird, we watched him for an hour, you know, and he never made a peep and then a while later just this pheasant gets up And he's doing those low flying like flying cackles and gets over that turkeys head and Hit it hit like a good shot gobble off that rooster

You searched for your informant Who disappeared without a trace? shot gobble off that rooster. 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, Will, tell us about the gun auction. Well, these are... If people want to see what they look like, what can they type into their phone? The truth about conservation.com. Oh, just to see the actual things. Yeah, just to see what they look like what can they type in to their phone the truth about conservation calm oh this to see the actual things yeah okay see the guns yeah truth about conservation calm so as he will talking since you probably have your phone with you truth about conservation calm then

the gun auction you can you can behold the purdy shotguns that will will now explain the history of and what's happening with them. Yeah, so I've always loved my first my first gun ever shot was a Fox Model B side-by-side Double-trigger my dad when he got out of World War two. He was alive. He got home went to hardware store He was gonna go hunting bought him that gun for $10 used It's now one of my favorite guns hardware store, he was going to go hunting, and bought him that gun for $10 used. And it's now one of my favorite guns. Um, and so he then bought some bamboo fly rods and, uh, that's kind of the story of my, my daddy after world war two and hunting and fishing, but as time went on,

didn't have any money and I just loved the marriage of metal to wood. And, uh, I went hunting with a guy and he had Holland and Holland hammer guns. And he handed me one and we'd been hunting and it's just so much fun to cock those hammers. So before they figured out how to put the hammers internally and to cock them when you open the gun open, cock them, the hammers were on the outside.

And so you cocked the hammers and you had a safety and just like any normal gun. So the hammers are cocked and it was just so much fun shooting it. You don't see the hammers when you shoulder the gun, when you mount it. And so the first gun that I ordered was a 16 gauge and Purdy was happened to be in town I asked him to meet with me. They took me to dinner Told him I wanted to order the 16 and I wanted to reserve the 410 the 28 the 20 Having the 16 made and the 12 the serial number consecutive I was going to order all of them over time But how would the serial number be consecutive? They reserved them. Oh, okay. So they reserved the serial numbers.

I see. So those were going to be my serial numbers when I ordered the gun. So I ordered the 16 and that was the 16 gauge like my daddy's Fox. And so I just loved hunting with a gun. I killed a whitetail with it, turkeys, squirrels, um, killing the limited gray squirrels and holding up a $200,000 shotgun is kind of funny. That's one of my favorite pictures.

But anyway, so I started ordering the other guns, but they told me, they said, Will, we don't have plans to ever make a 410 or a 28 in a hammer gun with ejectors. We just don't even have the plans for it. And I said, well, start working because I'm going to order them if you want the money. I'm going to order them. And so over time, they finally decided to build a 410. They built 10. They only built 10. Gordy's in Houston bought five of them.

Four of them were bought at the SCI show and one of them is mine. Mine's the only one that's different. I have modified beaver tail and mine have a special bird engraved on each gun. And so I ordered that gun and then I ordered the 28, the 28 is the only 28 in existence. It's a 28 gauge hammer gun with ejectors.

It's, it's my favorite upland gun. And the four 10 costs $295,000. God. And it is there and they're beautiful and they're exquisite. And when you close them, they go, so tight. So I was in Arizona hunting with my 28th and I don't

know how, but all of a sudden shot, reloaded the gun and it wouldn't close. And I went, oh my gosh, what is going on? The gun would not close. And I didn't want to force it. So I'm looking at it. A piece of sand had gotten in the breach. That's how tight it is.

That's how tight it is. I blew out that sand. Ding. And so I just, the guns were just a joy to shoot. There's joy to handle. Of course they're all fit to me. You know, made measurements for me. Um, but when we, when we did the initial

gathering of information, all these conservation groups, the congressional sportsman's foundation, DU, RMEF, NWTF, and Coil and Pheasants came to my home in Mississippi. And we took them out to a real nice sporting range that has HALICE, H-E-L-I-C-E. Some people call them ZZ Bird targets. They're, I'm not tracking what you mean by that.

Yeah. Hallease is a, as a, is a target with two fan blades on it. And so it's out in a box and you, it starts spinning when you, when you say, I'm ready. The target, there are five of them. So there's five boxes with five spinning fans with a target in the center. And so when you say pull, one of those is going to go and you don't know which one. Oh, I got you. And one of them was going to, a clay pigeon is going to drop into one of those fans and spit it out.

Well, it's already there. It's not a clay pigeon. It's a plastic pigeon. It's a plastic pigeon. It's a plastic clay toy. And it's made to mimic box pigeon shooting, which started in Europe when they used to, that was the big shooting event. I'm back to not understanding. What's it called?

Helice, H-E-L-I-C-E or ZZ birds. Is it dumb that I don't know this? No. Okay. A lot of people don't know about it. Okay. I mean, it's a specialized discipline of shooting. Okay.

And it's a big competition. The, the world championship this year is in Italy. Um, uh, last year I think it was in Cyprus, Greece. Um, so anyway, you say pull and one of those five targets is going to go, it's, it's gonna that it, you don't know whether it's going to go straight up with a fan. It, the, the, the, the machine is oscillating, so it might go straight up, straight away, straight

left, straight right. It's crazy what it can do. Got it. And so you're sitting there ready and your eyes have to be blended over the five targets. So when one of them goes, you've got to go to it and kill it. So we lined up all five of the conservation groups, 410, 28, 20, 16 and 12. And we made all the targets go one at one at the time, one, two, three, four, five, nobody missed. And it was just beautiful.

Really? Yeah. Seeing everybody shoot those guns and enjoy them. Um, and so that, that was kind of a, one of the scenes you'll, you probably can see that on that, the truth about conservation sites. Probably, that's probably a video of that on there. Got it.

But the whole effort here was to engage these conservation groups. Well, you got to back up. I'm not done hearing about the whole thing. When you were accumulating them, were you thinking to yourself, and someday I'll give them all away? I didn't know what I was going to do. away? I didn't know what I was going to do. I felt like I could find some way to help raise money for the hunting and fishing community. I just didn't know what it was going to be.

And so as I would attend the Exile Limited Convention or the National Wild Turkey Federation Convention, I would find the philanthropy organized people who accept money and all that kind of stuff. And I say, look, I got these set of guns. I would like to give them away to conservation. I'm trying to figure out how to do that. And I want these groups to share in the money. These are people who have been a part of my life. The RMEF is such an incredible organization and has done so much for my life. And the National Wild Turkey Federation and D the Limit and Quail and Pheasants. They're just incredible organizations and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation who protects our hunting and fishing and trapping rights at the local, state, and federal level. How can I do something to give back and thank them for what they've done to help protect

those rights and to help grow other people being associated with hunting and fishing and trapping. And so one day, uh, this congressional sportsman foundation called me and they said, look, we got this campaign. It's not hunt fish. Listen, it's a hunt, a fish, I vote. Go. And they said, we want you to be a part of this campaign. I said, look, that's fine. I'll do that. I'll do it here with me too. I'm not really interested in being a poster boy, but I will. I said, but I've got these guns.

How can we leverage these guns? How can I cause a ripple effect? How can I throw a little pebble into a perfectly still body of water and have it become a wave? As those are my words. And I was talking to a lady named Corinne Johan. She was the director of marketing.

She's no longer there. But she says, let's think about it. Let me talk to Jeff Crane, the head of Congressional Sportsman and to Kevin Perry. Let me see, what do we come with? She called him back and she goes, so you wanna give us these guns and then we think we can auction them.

And all the money and the proceeds, and you have to have them appraised, and anything over appraised value can be written off because they're gonna go to all 501 C for the public company. And so that's how it all came about. And that's what we did. We created the campaign articles in all these magazines

alerting everybody so some hopefully some guy that's got a Real nice nest egg who wants to give back to conservation will pay more than their than their appraised value Are you guys being public about the appraised value? Is there a minimum? I? Are you guys being public about the appraised value? Is there a minimum? I don't know how, Rock Island is the auction house. They auction off the finest guns in the world. Okay. And we chose them because there is a-

That's where we bought that, that punk gun from. Yeah. Rock Island, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We met those guys at, at Pheasant Fest this year and her Quail Classic. And, um, yeah, we ran through the whole- In Kansas City?

Yeah. Did you see the Pr whole. In Kansas City. Yeah. Did you see the Primos guns? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. I was telling you earlier, I personally just enjoy the fact that the 16 gauge is noticeably well worn. I'm guilty.

Yeah. Yeah. The 16 has a little more wear on it than the other ones. Well, I, to me, it makes it all more valuable. Cause you're, you know, just like anything these days, if you can buy whatever, but if that thing has a story, it can be a lot more valuable. And, and so the whole set kind of has that, like it is like fine, fine stuff. Anybody can see that you're like, this is something that is set apart by like fine, fine stuff. Anybody can see that. You're like, this is

something that is set apart by craftsmanship. And there's a couple of those guns don't look like they've been touched at all, but I'm sure they've been cleaned. But the 16 has been, because I think you put extra swivel studs in there and stuff like that. Yeah. So I had swivel studs put on the 16 because it's my duck gun. When I'm putting out the decoys, I sling it on my shoulder. A little did I know I'm scratching it back there with suspenders, suspender buckles and all that stuff. You know, anyway, I had to have it, you know, kind of touched up.

But yeah, the Rock Island folks, they have a whole, uh, it's online. I'm sure I haven't looked at it online, but I have a big catalog of the whole collection and, and there is, we should look it up right now, but there is an appraisal price that has been posted. So the guns cost about a million one and they appraised for 800 because they are they are used. Oh, I see. So anything, anything that's paid over the appraised value can be written off.

Right. But those guns, no matter who they belong to, typically go for over appraised value. Yeah. Yeah. Those, those purties do. Cause I mean, they're major. Yeah. But they'll never ever be another set.

So, yeah, Rock Island went to London and interviewed Nick Harlow, who is the curator of the London guns world. And he sits right there and says, this will never ever be never been done. And it'll never be done. Not again. Yeah. One of a kind. One of a guy.

Yeah. So anyway, um, so, you know, you, you go and you, you think about what, what somebody can do. So what I want is for other people also to think, other people have things that they've acquired in life that are valuable. I'm touching one right here, buddy. Nobody wants your castor moonshine. I may want some for some bait. I may want that.

No telling what you'd catch. But anyway, so other people, hopefully we'll start a ripple effect in that way. Other people can say, well, you know, I've got this beautiful painting or I've got this gun or I got this and I'd like to give it to Congressional. I mean, they are working their butts off, like the Colorado Initiative, to stop all the anti-hunting stuff. And if they don't get on the front end of it and provide the money and the resources and tap into all the people that they have access to, to tell the story, we're going to lose. Hit me with a couple more details just for folks listening.

The auction, what are the, is it a specific, sorry I'm having a hard time communicating, is it like a specific moment? December 5th to December 7th. Okay. The parties, like you gotta have, like, so it's not like open for a long bid process, it like, it's a 48 hour bid. Yeah. It's going to start and then it probably be the fifth, the fifth, sixth and seventh. It'll probably be the fifth and sixth. They haven't narrowed that window down.

I'll be there for the auction. Oh, you will? In Dallas, yeah. My wife and I will. Well, man, I gotta check what I got going on. Seventh is Pearl Harbor. It's an auspicious day. Yeah, really.

That's pretty exciting, man. It is, and I just can't say enough about these organizations and what they've gone to bat for us, and all of us hunters and fishermen and trappers, and if we can do something, we should. That's generous of you, man. That's, that's real admirable. Sounds like such a cool collection too.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, after I got the 28, you know, my wife was looking at the order, you know, it's real expensive and, um, we were, she says, I'm going to go to Juniper's. That's a real fancy jewelry store in town. I went, I said, okay. And she goes, I'm really looking at a really nice ring. I said, you can't catch me.

Okay. So December is coming up. We'll remind people as we go along, but in December, the collection called the Primos guns, like what's this? What's the sort of slang? Will Primos Purdy collection, I guess. I like that. The Will Primos Purdy collection. The Will Primos Purdy collection will go, and then that money will be divided by five conservation organizations that Will Primos has identified as having changed his life and helped his life. Changed many of our lives. Changed many of our lives.

And Rock Island, there is a Buyers Commission and a Sellers Commission. And they have forgiven the Sellers Commission, which is going to's commission and a seller's commission, and they have forgiven the seller's commission, which is going to be hundreds of thousand dollars. They've given that back already. So we're already on a, a role here, raising money with this deal. Has anyone reached out to you yet to tell you like

I'm going to be there and I'm bidding? I've had several people say I'm really interested. Okay. You think they're serious? No one's tried to preempt? Not that I know of, but I don't know how they do that. Yeah, got it. Got it. Lastly, Stuart Link. I hadn't heard about this Yeah, so Stuart link is Stuart link calm. It is a group of Tremendous agrotomist Foresters people that have all the degrees and all the certifications for writing conservation programs A lot of these people are former

National Resource Conservation Service, NRCS, part of the US Department of Agriculture's office. That have come together just like a CPA represents you to the IRS. The people at Stuart Link represent the steward of the land, the person who owns the land and farmers it, or the person who leases it and farms it. They're the steward, whoever controls the land. Okay. And they represent them and help them

access the government programs. Okay. Which is probably like a Byzantine structure that's hard to navigate. And there's all kind of issues with it. Everything's ranked. So when you, the Conservation Stewardship Program, CSP program, if you apply for the,

for the Conservation Stewardship Program, CSP program, if you apply for the, for the Conservation Stewardship Program and you apply, everybody in here applies. We all have 500 acres, 1,000 acres, 250 acres. We get ranked. Who has the most opportunity to put the most conservation on the ground? But I hired Stuart Link and Stuart Link knew that if they would write certain plans, these are, these are activity plans, the conservation activity plans, cat conservation activity, CAP cap plan. And I think the name that I can, it may have changed recently with the, they're changing stuff all the time.

But anyway, these plans, we are, the plans were written for me, for mine. I was going to do a nutrient plan. written for me, for mine. I was going to do a nutrient plan. I was going to do a, a water conservation plan, a variable rate pesticide plan, a variable rate, uh, fertilizer plan. And I had all these plans written and didn't cost me a penny.

And that's part of my application. And I ranked the highest and I got the $400,000. Hmm. I mean, a400,000. Hmm. I mean, a big, big problem, right? Is you have producers, farmers, ranchers that are working 16 hour days. And then in order to understand this stuff, apply for it, have the back and forth, that takes a hell of a lot of time too, at the back end of that day. And there's huge, huge bottlenecks in these systems.

And the NRCS employees, there's right here on Main Street, in Bozeman, there's an NRCS office. Those people are great, but there's only so many hours in the day. And there's so many, there's these plans. Mississippi, because we're in Mississippi, that's where we started. It's number one in CSP.

It's the number one state in all the country. We went to California, the whole state of California had only four CSP brands that had ever been approved. So now we're going to New York, Indiana, Ohio. We've got employees in those states and we're constantly meeting with farmers and helping them understand what's available. Let's say, just help me out. So I'm a farmer in, give me a state where you guys were. Wisconsin. And I have a thousand acres. And I wanna know even just what is available for conservation funding for my land.

That's correct. That's the first step is call and be like, I'm managing a thousand acres for my family. It's located in this county. Here's my farm number. We can access all that and look at everything and give you the information. And you don't have to hire us. If we can help you, we will help you. That's that. That's,

that's, that'd be like questions like, should I put stuff in CRP? Is there a way that I should be categorizing portions of my land for different tax structures or whatever? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's just a tremendous amount of opportunities for instance. Let's say you've got a piece of land and next to you is a piece of land that's got WRE, Waterfowl Reserve Eastman on it. Okay. Which was a former, you know, wetlands protection plan and it was planted in trees and you, it borders you and you want to put it on yours. Well, guess what?

You already rank higher than most because you border a part that already has it. Oh, got it. So we know that. So we were, oh, we need to focus on this. And then there's Equip. There's Equip. You've got a piece of land.

You're, you're in Montana and it's a little bit rolling and you don't have any money. You're barely making it, trying to grow weed or whatever you're doing familiar but You need to level that land if you could level it and you could irrigate it a different way and so that all the water would flow correctly slowly and Maximize the water that you have some water, but you need more.

Da da da da. We can write you an equip plan and the government will come in and give you money to level that land, to move the dirt and to make it. And then, so, uh, on the implementation side of things, is that, is that where folks start cutting, cutting checks to steward link? Steward link does you don't, you don't pay steward link a dime unless you get approved for a program. Nice.

And then you don't pay, you don't pay steward link a dime until you get the money. Let's say you qualify and you might, you've qualified for a 400,000 dollar program. You get the, you get the program, you've paid steward link dollar program. You get the you get the program. You pay Stuart Link typically 20 percent. You get the money, then you write them a check. Yeah. Cool.

So you don't you don't spend anything. I don't want to get too far into the details here, but does that 20 percent? That's got to come out of pocket, though, because you got to put the grant on the ground. You're not paying the 20 percent until you get the money. That means you've got it and it's happening. But let's say I apply and I get $100. And the assumption is I'm gonna take the $100 and put the $100 onto the land, to the program.

Well, they're gonna pay the money. It's all under, you've gotta do what's supposed to be done. Yes, I'm saying. So I got to go find the $20 because I've taken a hundred. I got to go find $20 somewhere else for steward money. Be the vatter, you take it out of that. Oh, so that's what I'm saying. There is a way to get it out of that. Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Because that was part of implementation.

Yeah, it's part of the plan to implement all the things and we will help Monitor to make sure you're doing your part of the game because you're not just going to get this money and not do it No, you've got to spend the money in the right place. Um, you talk about like implementation. There's a funny story where I Got a body that had a he's got his land in CRP, the CRP program. And it's, you know, it's strict, right? What you do and don't do. Well, they had a deer blind set on a hay wagon. And one day he was told to, Hey, you got farm equipment on the CRP.

He's like, no, we don't. And he realized it was a blind on a hay wagon. And they were just looked when they did, they like drive by and look. And he's like, oh wow, you're right. They moved the hay wagon. You gotta do what you're doing. So he's like, dudes come by and they like see what's going on.

That's right. Yeah, you can get dinged. You gotta do what you're supposed to do to implement the program properly, to put conservation on the ground. Yeah. Everything flows downstream. If we use less fertilizer, if we variable rate it rather than just broadcast it everywhere, then we're sending less nitrogen, less nutrients downstream, which overblooms stuff and screws up the creeks. So there's a reason for it. Yeah.

Excellent, man. And anything else you want to, anything else you need to tell us about from, from, uh, Will Premo's land? Something that's kind of funny. So, um, that's this, this place in Virginia called homestead. Okay. So old, oh, the first U S open sporting clay championship was Um, that's this, this place in Virginia called the homestead. Okay. So old, oh, the first U S open sporting clay championship was hell there.

It's in hot Springs, Virginia. If I got the city correct. And they contacted me about the gun giveaway. Okay. And they said, we want to do something to help you with that deal. We want to attract more people. And I said, okay, what you want to do is we want to have a shoot and we want to call it the help you with that deal. We want to attract more people. And I said, okay, what you want to do? He said, we want to have a shoot and we want to

call it the Will Primos Invitational. Oh, that kind of made me laugh. I said, okay, do you have to shoot very good if you enter this thing? So that's happening. That's coming up in July. Okay. And it's going to be an exclusive set of people who are interested in bidding on the guns

that are coming. Can people go get on the list? You get, yeah, you pay and so much of the proceeds to be a part of this exclusive Omni Resort dinner, meals, shooting goes to the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation. Okay. So if someone is kicking the idea around of getting ready for a bid in December, and they want to experience the guns. Here's an opportunity.

The guns are going to be there. Yeah. So here's an opportunity to show up and here's an opportunity to show up and handle. We'll give you the hard sell personally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yep. All right. I might even let somebody shoot one of the guns if that, if that, if insurance will cover it. Are they already out of your name? They're not in your name anymore? They're in the congressional sports hotel of the nation's name. Gotcha. Gotcha.

And Rock Island carries the insurance. Where do they sit right now? Right now they're in Baltimore, Maryland at the DU presidents convention. Okay. They're being shown right. So they're on the road. Yeah. Yeah.

Just like they were at Kansas city. Yeah. Cause I know the rock Island boys were telling me that, um, the part of the reason for going to Purdy and talking with was to figure out what the insurance price needs to be, uh, what, what type of coverage they need to have to have, and it's a heck of a lot more than 800,000. The Rock Island Boys sounds like something if you read about the Civil War. It's like someone that took the backside of the hill at Antietam or something. Kevin Hogan is one of the owners of Rock Island. They're incredible people. They're great conservations. Is that right? Yeah. Kevin Hogan is one of the owners of Rock Out. They're incredible people.

They're great conservations. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, okay. That's good and all. They're for us. Good. All right, man. Well, thanks for coming on. I appreciate you taking the time.

Man, it's awesome to be with you. You are nuts. I'm gonna tell you what, that castor in moonshine. Oh, I regret it. You know what? I've often said I got a problem where like, I bring this up all the time, but like if someone's telling me about a health problem,

I'll start feeling like I got the health problem. Do you know what I mean? If someone's like, oh, you know, my uncle had testicular cancer, I'll get like a terrible ache. Right? Oh, no. It's just, and now I've gotten my head like,

I'm like, well, what would happen if you drank a little bit of that? I thought you were going to say now if you just take a finger moonshine caster, it cures wet ails you. I'm telling you that stuff has such a unique, you need to, I mean, you need to patent it or something. Yeah.

There's some commercial application. I'm not sure what it is. Well, I was wondering if the lights went out, if we could just light it on fire and then burn forever. That would be a great candle, man. Yeah. Next time you come out, we'll have a plan for that job. Phil, cover your ears, Phil. Y'all are awesome. Thank you for having me.

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