The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 759: It's September! (Again!) | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

Hosts Randall Williams, Ryan Callaghan, and Seth Morris talk with Mark Kenyon about the Roadless Rule rollback, find out which pair of underwear Cal brings to Show-and-Tell, throw a listener submitted Hot Tip-Off, chat with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's Ben Batten about their conservation work in the Mississippi Basin, and choose a winner of the Moultrie Trail Cam Contest. 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.

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Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat-Eater trivia. Meat-eater podcast. Welcome to Meteor Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 1 p.m. for our friends in beautiful Ashtabula, Ohio on this Thursday, September 4th. And we are live from Meteor HQ in Bozeman, Monaster. Montana. I'm your host, Randall Williams, and I have the distinct pleasure today of being

joined by my two friends, Ryan Callahan and Seth Morris. It's good to be here. On today's show, we're talking to Ben Batten. I don't think you sent me the script for this week, so I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Am I genuinely supposed to say hello? No, no. That's in a minute here. I will send you the script right now. Do you know how to check Slack? Oh. Or email is better. That's going to be a speed bump. We should have went over this a little bit ago, but... I'm dicking with you, Randall. Let's continue.

Oh, you're good? Yes. All right. Never can tell around here. On today's show, we're talking to Ben Batten. We've got a hot, hot, hot tip off. We're going to do a little show and tell. We're going to talk to Mark Kenyon about the latest public land controversy. And finally, you, our faithful audience, will choose the winner of the trail cam photo contest brought to you

by Moultrie. Sounds like another fantastic episode. Ryan, Seth, how are you guys doing today? Fantastic. Real good. Real good. I'm high anxiety. Because of the script thing?

Hunting season started. Yeah. And I have lots to do before I can like really get serious about hunting season. What's your first big trip? Brown Bear in Alaska, which is a big trip for anybody. trip. Yeah. Yeah. And truly a trip I never thought I would go on. Um, so I mean, it's, it's huge. And I'm just trying to get in a mental place with all the adult responsibilities where I can just focus on nothing but that. Sure. And it's hard. Yeah. Yeah. Did you, did you ever guide a brown bear hunt before? I worked as a packer for one season, uh, up on the peninsula. So it'll be super cool to come back. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. That'll be awesome. You know, like, any ultra low paid position in the outdoor world

you just do everything when you're up there and you never dream about being the guy sitting on the other side of the boat oh yeah never never and just like at that point in my life too I was like how much did the tag cause

no sir who would ever do this geez incredibly indulgent yeah Seth how are you I'm great I'm uh I got to say I'm more excited for fall fishing than picking up the bow at this point in my life

got out this weekend for a little bit yep but I am chasing just big brown trout running after streamers that's what you're thinking about no oh yeah just drowning a worm next to a lazy I'm thinking about big wall eyes and small mouth putting on the feed bag for winter that's what that's what gets me

excited that and then just the thought of rifle season coming I like shooting things at further distances with center fire cartridges Oh, you're speaking my language How's your trip out to the pecker? It was a lot of shit happened That it's a long story

That wasn't conducive thing It's a long story We got one solid day in But the weekend ended sooner than I expected So we'll just end it there I got back You need a do over

I got back to my old stomping grounds In the little Miami River And I drowned four night crawlers cut one fish that probably put you back in a certain place in time my god just the the bugs landing on me just listening to the water

was it after dark no because uh much to my disappointment all of my childhood fishing areas now are extremely well signed with uh this area closes at sundown or dusk yeah like it used to be the case that this is before onyx we're just like do you think anybody owns this can we fish here

and then we sort of verify that yes it was owned by the county or whatever owned by the town but there was no actual like signage and and so everywhere i pulled up i was like like i came back from the tailgate tour literally on my way home from columbus bought a big old can of cores light and 12 night crawlers ripped down with like 10 minutes before sunset got to the spot i wanted the first thing i see when i get out of my car is a big sign. It says closed at dusk, which I'm just like, we used to have fight club down there, you know? It used to be the Wild West. I am, I'm advocating heavily with my buddy and his wife, who's also my buddy, to allow their oldest boy who's nine. This is a real

like Western Montana family, float fish, fly fishing for trout all the time. but I'm trying to get them to allow the nine-year-old out for antelope camp this year with the intention of getting that kid on some catfish, too. So much one. Introducing the joy of sitting next to a rod that's just stuck in a mudbank. I did bring a bell. I got to listen to the bell jingle. Excellent.

Stuck my rod butt in a tangled root ball and just, oh, it's like old times. But I didn't get a catfish. I just caught a little striper. Oh, that's fun. And then I broke my rod. I set the hook in that striper, and I heard this little tick. And I kind of like pushed all the sections back together, thinking that maybe they jiggled loose. And then I got the fish in, cast out again, went to set the hook on another fish, and the thing just snapped off like five inches above the cork.

So that's why I only drowned four of the 12 worms. The eight of them are probably still living rich lives alongside the beautiful banks of Little Miami. Well, at least you got out there and got a couple. All it made you want to do is go back immediately. Yeah. And just float that thing again and again and again. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that nobody can properly celebrate, right, is failure. Mm-hmm.

Just really makes you be like, like your weekend, right? I'm sure you're like, I need to go back. Oh, God. I just... And put a big W on the board. All I think about every day since then is I just got to get back. Yeah, I wasted my weekend. It failed.

Yeah, exactly. Gotta get back. Well, speaking of doing things right. Well, speaking of doing things right, join us on the line next is Mark Kenyon. most beautiful cast member. Mark, welcome to the show, sir. There he is. Look at that. Oh, stunning.

Oh, Cal, Cal, you're too kind. You're too kind. It's good to be here, though, guys. Thanks for having me. Mark, there's been a lot of news recently about something called the roadless rule. And for those listening to this podcast are watching us on YouTube here,

if they're not familiar with the roadless rule, can you explain what the roadless rule is? Yeah. So the 2001 roadless rule was enacted by the National Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture back in 2001, as the title would tell you. In response to a couple different things going on at that time, you had one, which was a serious backlog in maintenance of the Forest Service road system. So the U.S. Forest Service has nearly 400,000 miles of roads. running across our public lands. That's a lot of work to try to keep that, you know, in good working conditions so that people can access their public lands so that folks can access these different places to do whatever kind of use they might be undertaking. So at this time in the late 90s, they realized, wow, we have a massive maintenance backlog. These roads that have been subsidized by taxpayers are now not providing the return. We're having serious budget issues. At the same time,

we have also, as one person put it, cut the face off our forests in many places, and now we are left with just, you know, fragments of habitat that has not been roaded, that has not been developed. And so maybe we should think about what the long-term future of these last places should be. You know, long story short, what that led to was the roadless rule. It was a very long process, you know, almost two years, hundreds of public meetings, 1.6 million public comments put in from the public in regards to whether or not this is a good idea and how we should go about it. All that led to this rule being created, enacted, and it protected

about 58.5 million acres of our national forest system in a relatively unroated way. So there were exceptions baked into this rule that allowed for some roads to be built in these places. If there was need for wildfire mitigation and management, there were exceptions put into this rule that would allow some new road building in the case of wildlife habitat improvement projects being needed. But in general, this 58.5 million acres of national forest would not be the home for new roads. So it would leave this area in a relatively undeveloped, relatively intact, relatively unfragmented state. and it has been in that state for, you know, 24 years now, and these places are some of our, you know, our best, our last best, backcountry elk hunting spots, meal deer hunting spots, you know, high country trout spots. I went on my two kids, at the time they were four and six, I think, was their first backpacking trip with both of them, or maybe the three and five.

That wasn't one of our inventoried roadless areas. I killed my first elk on an inventoried roadless area. So long story short, these are really, really special places, and they're in the news right now because the administration has proposed removing that rule entirely, rolling back all of those protections. So that's the high-level scoop. That's what the roadless rule is. That's why it's in the news right now. Gotcha. And so what are the, I guess, what are the main arguments on both sides of the issue?

What's the rationale for, you've laid out a bit about the benefits of these roadless areas for hunters and anglers, but what's the rationale for rolling it back? Yeah, so in the proposal, in all of the press releases and comments from the administration from the Secretary of Agriculture, the reason for rolling back the roadless rule has supposedly been to help, you know, move forward with President Trump's executive order to expand timber production and then also to better manage our forests. There's been a lot of talk about the fact that, you know, our forests have been undermined. They have, you know, too much fuel for wildfire. So wildfire risk is high. The habitat isn't as good for wildlife. We're not producing as much timber as maybe we have in the past. And so the argument is that we roll back the roadless rule, that will fix all of that.

That's why they say they should roll this rule back. On the flip side, advocates for the rule, which include most all environmental and conservation groups, most hunting and fishing groups that I've seen, have all been coming out very strongly in support of the rule. The reason why we think the roadless rule should stick around is because, as I mentioned, this is protecting some of our last best hunting and fishing places. This is protecting some of our last unfragmented wildlife habitat for so many species, whether it be species we hunt and fish or endangered and threatened species. We do not have very many of these places that are not already broken up and separated and bifurcated by roads.

open to develop. So this is something that is pretty rare these days. As I mentioned, there are exceptions already for wildfire management and for habitat management. Trout Unlimited has done a great job of starting to quantify this. If you go to their website, they've got an interactive map that showcases where these inventory road list areas are and what kinds of management efforts have been happening there. So significant wildfire mitigation efforts have been underway in these places. So it's false to say that these places have not had any management or any worked on them. But certainly, you know, there's an argument to be made that our national forest absolutely can and should be managed better. We do need to manage for fire risk. We do

need to manage for wildlife habitat. And I think there's, you know, two things to consider. One, a lot of that should be happening not in our backcountry roadless areas, but up in the wildland urban interface where there already are roads. Something like 80 or 85% of all of our wildfires are started by humans, first off. And I think it's 90% of the fires on our national forests start within a half mile of a road. So roads typically are what leads to wildfires igniting and start it. That's where this stuff's happening a lot of the time. And the places that we want to protect from fire, homes, human development, you know, that stuff's not in these roadless areas.

It's up on that, what they call it, the wildland urban interface, so the wooie. think is what people refer to that as who could forget that what's that who could forget that the wooey yeah the wooey um so yeah we need to have management that can be done these places that are not in our inventory roadless areas it should be we there's plenty of challenges to that that can be addressed um and maybe there are ways we can improve the roleless rule i think there's room for enhancing it fixing it finding more ways for more of these exceptions to be created for temporary roads to do more of this careful management in the right ways. I think there's a conversation to be had there

and a lot of conservation and hunting and fishing organizations I think would be happy to engage in that. But this wholesale rollback of all of it that would eliminate all of these, carefully managed and protected places that benefit a lot of folks and a lot of wildlife and a lot of user bases, that seems the wrong way to go about this.

At least my two cents on the matter. Sure. Are there specific regions or forests where this debate is particularly heated? Like areas in the country that are going to be affected more than others? Yeah. So there are inventoryed roadless areas, which are what we call these places that the roadless rule applies to. There are IRAs, inventory of roadless areas in 39 different states from west coast to east.

But the vast majority of these spots are in the 10 western states. And Alaska, in particular, with the Tongass National. forest has probably the largest impacted zone. The Tongass has about just over 9 million acres of roadless area there. So that would make a huge, this would be a really big deal if the roadless rule was rescinded, especially up there in the Tongass where you have, you know, there were a lot of roads built back in the day to start developing the Tongass. And that has, you know, for example, really, really impacted salmon and steelhead runs up there

because every one of these roads has culverts crossing hundreds and hundreds of different streams. And that's a major issue now that I know that Trout Unlimited has been working on for years, trying to fix culverts and open up passageway for fish through these many, many different roadways. So there's a lot to be discussed there in Alaska. I know, for example, in Wyoming and Montana, some of my favorite places that I've spent time in, those could possibly be impacted. So if you live in the West, especially, this is something you should be paying attention to. But I know in New Hampshire, in North Carolina, in Michigan, all of those states have roadless areas that could be impacted as well.

Gotcha. And what should people who care about public lands access and conservation be watching for as this issue develops? Where do things stand right now? And if they want to weigh in, how can hunters and anglers make a difference on this? Yeah, so this past Friday. five, six days ago, the administration officially proposed this rollback and opened up a comment period. The comment period is a 21-day window that we the public have to submit to the administration our thoughts on this proposal. And so any hunter and angler who cares about these last roadless places and who would like to see them protected in this way should absolutely go and submit a comment explaining.

you know, why these wild places, why these roadless areas are important, why the careful management of them in such a way is important for hunting and fishing and wildlife and whatever else it is that you love to do. If you go to backcountryhunters.org, there's an action center there that has an opportunity for you to send a letter to your elected officials and then also instructions for how to access the federal register, which is where you submit your official comments. So what I'd ask everyone to do is to go there, follow the action items there on that document, which would be sending the note and then submitting an actual comment to the federal register. We have until September 19th to do so. And so, you know, this is this is the democratic process. This is our opportunity to get in there and submit our thoughts to share our perspectives and to ask our elected officials and those who are appointed by them to do what's best for the public. and the long-term future of these places and the wildlife that live on them.

And we got to speak up. Appreciate it, Mark. Thanks for helping us better understand this issue and for everything you're doing for public lands. I know you've got some groceries to unload and you've got some deer to hunt this afternoon. So with that, we'll let you go. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Mark. Good luck. Thanks, Mark. Boy, he's got a good deal. Oh, great delivery there. Oh, great delivery. Good to have advocates like that on our side. Yeah. On that note, too, Rashad commented and said, Mark, just got out of the grocery store and remembered he was supposed to go live today. I will say, Mark, the reason for that is that Mark is that technically off the clock today. Yeah, he's out of the office. So he did us a big favor jumping in. So he's on a little family hunting and fishing trip. And he took time out of his busy time off. Can I throw in a little color on roadless? Sure. Because, um, so we call it roadless.

But there's about 20 million acres out there that have pre-existing road networks. Mark covered that at the very beginning. But then at the end, he kind of went back to roadless, which it is roadless designated. But there are pre-existing roads out there that people walk and hike and used to access deeper into these areas. But sometimes that gets thrown around as like the, oh, yeah. We're locked out. Well, yeah, there's that too. But they're like, oh, yeah, your roadless has.

roads on it. How is it roadless, right? And the, you know, the big thing here is that there is a history of litigation by certain groups when the roadless rule is used as it should be to try to build roads for the purposes of habitat and things like that. Like there's a lot of suing that goes on stop all a road building, even though it's written into the roadless rule. And some of those feelings have very much come to the surface to say get rid of the roadless rule. But the flip side of this is that... You see the same thing with the Endangered Species Act.

Yeah, exactly, exactly, is the roadless rule is really working for a lot of people in a lot of areas and so obviously there's middle ground here for roadless rule reform where it's needed and this idea of it's got to be all one way or all the other way is just not accurate and so this is just really lazy management to say okay get rid of the whole thing yeah and also to classify this as only a timber play is completely wrong timber is the thing that gets absolutely talked about the most, both in fire fuel reduction, which nobody's come out to say how we're going to pay for reducing, you know, low growth that is not marketable by and large, unless it's extremely close to like a pellet facility or, you know, a pulp

situation that makes it something you would get paid to do versus something you pay for. Um, obviously right now, like we're not talking about paying for a lot of things, right? Right. Um, that's why I bring that up. So, um, the other thing that's not getting talked a lot about here is this would provide the ability to build roads to areas for mineral withdrawal. And when we talk about mineral withdrawal, we're talking about something with large footprints and long-term impacts that instead of,

our friend Seth here having to wait for a logging operation to get done over the course of a couple of seasons and then going in and hunting that stuff that now provides early successional growth that animals love to come in and eat and can be really good hunting if that cut is done in the correct way we're talking about an area that Seth does not go back into for his entire lifetime because it takes a long time to run these mineral extraction operations and obviously like we need stuff that comes out of the ground too but is that a situation where we have to roll back this entire thing or can we identify these areas right and say hey this is really important right now we need to reform the road list rule to accommodate

these yes specific things yeah so like i for one very sick and tired of a Democrat administration coming in swinging the pendulum extremely one way and then a conservative administration coming in swinging it completely the opposite way when I feel like most Americans are like, oh, this thing in the middle makes sense. Yeah.

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Download Anex hunt and start your seven-day trial to get dialed before your next trip. Mega important announcement, in fact, the most important announcement you ever heard, The third volume in our Meat Eaters American History audiobook series is available for pre-order right now. Meat Eaters American History, the hide hunters, 1865 to 1883, tells the story of the commercial buffalo hunters who drove North America's most iconic large mammal to the brink of extinction in the years after the Civil War. You'll learn all about these guys, guys like Dirty Face Jones, skunk Johnson, and Charles Squirrel Eye Emery, how they organized their hunting expeditions, what they took with them, how they hunted, what rifles they shot, how they processed their kills, how they

suffered and died in the field, and the true stories of what drove them to do it in the first place. You'll also learn about the economic factors that made this a viable profession and what happened to those millions of buffalo skins once they were shipped east. And like we do in all of our Meat Eaters American History projects, you'll hear a ton of wild stories and bizarre details from this era. And don't worry, we didn't leave out any of the gory details. Pre-order Meat Eaters American History, The Hide Hunters, 1865 to 1883, wherever you get your audiobooks. And you'll be ready to dig in when it's available to listen on October 14. Our next segment is show and tell.

Me need a show and down. Me need a show and down. Oh, those sweet tones. Is the song better or feel dancing to his own song better? What else did you expect? probably oh this is like his morning shower routine the stink face is good the stink face is good can you see him putting gel in his hair to that song oh yeah that cut Seth let's start with you yeah what did you bring to share with the class today

I brought a thing that I found um out on the prairie one time when I was hunting deer um boy that's neat this is a bison skull that I uh found sticking out of a bank in Montana it's an eater size bison yeah not a big one where are you hunting deer in Montana and uh

like county I'm just joking um so my wife had just killed a pretty cool cactus buck and um we were several miles from our vehicle at this point

in time and it was starting to get dark and uh I just pulled up the old on-necks and noticed that there was a two track that got us a little closer so i kept her there to work on the deer um she needed some experience and breaking critters down by herself anyway opportunity yeah yeah so plus then you don't have to be there during that process yep um and i was like i'm gonna go back and get the get the truck and make a loop and we'll get a little closer for the pack out um so i did that and on my way there

i just happened to uh catch out of the corner of my eye a little bit of white sticking out of a bank that was wasn't even like a exposed type bank that has like you know a bunch of soil and stuff it was just like completely covered in grass and in little woody shrub and settled yeah yeah i just saw a little piece of white and i kind of got the digging around and it just kept getting bigger and bigger and ended up digging that thing out that's cool which was cool yeah i should i was in a hurry so i kind of there was a lot more to it than this yeah I should have taken my time and got the whole thing. Yeah, but then you got the misses back there being like,

you know, just abandoned me. How did the deer go? Yeah. The butchering went all right? Well, I got back and she had just stopped and was like, I got to a point where I just didn't know all I was doing, so I figured I'd wait for you. Gotcha.

But, yeah. Very cool. I've never found one. I'd love to. You know, there's a lot of them out there. You just got to find them. A lot of them are buried. Yeah.

Um, but a cool story about the, the buck she killed. I found that deer like 12 miles away the day before. Oh, cool. Yeah. And we woke up that morning and we're like, yeah, we're just going to go hunt a different area. And for whatever reason, that deer overnight, he was trying to get killed, moved a lot. So, yeah, that's cool. That's really cool.

Yeah. Cal, what did you bring the class here? So I actually thought about this First time here Meteor Radio Live. Nate says who wants to place odds on what Cal takes off the wall for his show until? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, um... Take off the nightstand, I think. So this is the first real good book I've read in a while here. And it's by this dude, Nate Schweber, who was actually, I think we were actually classmates or maybe we didn't overlap, but he's a Hellgate Knight,

is a little Montana just like I am this america of ours bernard navus devoto and it is a great conservation history book it's got a lot of relevance for this time in uh in space right now there's a healthy helping of super cute love story there's all sorts of i would call them like celebrity cameos in here that are are real interesting as well well um but uh really it tackles a lot of like land theft public land theft and uh it's like the he's really engaged in like the late 40s and 50s right to voter yeah yeah i mean earlier earlier in that too um taken before his time yeah big a little um heart attack yeah cut him down but uh so when you're looking to forget about your day to day stresses pick up

up a book about public land theft and uh the pillaging of our shared resources yeah and uh the reality is is just like today the reason that folks were trying to take all this awesome stuff away from us is because folks were paying attention yeah and it took old bernard nevis here to shine a little light on the situation so uh great book highly recommend um very cool yeah appreciate it well i brought I brought two things One I was the first idea And I thought it was a good PSA So I was looking at the gear shelf

And Oh bless your heart This is the deuce number three It's a a trow for burying your waist When you need to defecate in the woods Which I hope to be doing plenty of this fall If my work commitments allow This probably weighs

Like Ways like a couple credit cards. I mean, it's nothing. Slide it right there next to your water bottle. Well, maybe not next to your water bottle, but it fits almost anywhere. It's flat. And bury your Duke, folks. Cal had an unfortunate incident

recently. The whole weekend. The whole weekend. Was just marked by human feces. On dogs, in dogs. Surface pooping. Yep. Human surface pooping. Yep. The woods around Boz Angeles are heavily loved by humans.

And they're not burying their waist. So if you're going out to the woods this fall And I hope you are Imagine a long-haired border collie Be prepared Rolling in your feces Yeah And then running back

And wanting to jump in the vehicle So this is This actually says on here It's bad It's 0.97 ounces Snort 8 human boot Yeah And we make out

Think of that It's horrifying It is horrifying Randall why is that the deuce number three They have different sizes Oh gotcha I think that's a great adult size. Great question.

Yeah, there's different sizes. I mean, Mama bear, baby bear. I used to not be a trowel guy. I used to be like, oh, there's plenty of sticks in the woods. But you don't, when you got to go, you don't want to have to dig around for something to dig around with. Yeah. Just grab that rock to flip over. Just grab the deuce and release the deuce, as I like to say.

There you go. And then I also, I lost my bipod hunting last fall. And it fell off my rod. rifle. It's got like a little arc of clamp and I was in a I was in an unfortunate situation of trying to get a shot off at an animal and lost my bipod, didn't realize it until I got back home. Followed my onyx track and grabbed it last week. So a little once over with the wire wheel on the Dremel and she's good to go.

Nice. Ready for another season. Getting ready for the fall. I couldn't make up my mind when I visited the gear bench. I like it. So you just just casually strolled in, just grabbed something. Didn't even think about it. Yeah. There you go, audience. So what's chat saying? Hey, listen to your feedback. We got some good questions this week. This might be a good one for Cal.

I don't know, but Leland asks, what are everyone's favorite dove recipes? Mmm. Yeah, don't cook them too long. Yeah, kind of medium rareish and just gnaw them off the bone. I've also ground them into sausage. My favorite thing that I've ever done probably is you take. your dove breast and throw some

cotia cheese and cilantro and salt and a little cumin and run that stuff through the grinder and use the soft sausage stuffing attachment and just shoot it right into jalapinos and then just roast the jalapinos on the top deck of the pellet grill. It's kind of like a twist on the classic popper. Oh, people, yeah, it's a killer.

That's real good. Nice. A little classier than the... I've always done like a classic popper or just throw them on the grill real quick and eat them rare. Yeah. We used to fillet the meat off the breast

and throw it in spaghetti sauce. Oh. And it was like, instead of spaghetti and meatballs, it was like spaghetti and dove breasts. Yeah, that's perfect size. Yeah. That's good. Randall, Ethan says,

did you pick up some skyline while you were home? And follow up for me. How was the tailgate tour? Your stop? Well, I can answer the first question pretty quickly. Yes, immediately after the Ohio State Buckeyes vanquished the deplorable Texas longhorns. I celebrated with four cheese conies onion mustard in a small three-way. And then when the guy came back and he said, with the check and he said, you guys good?

I said, no, bring me another cheese coney, please. Just one onion and mustard. So I had five plus three-way. And the next day, I went to the Reds game. And on the way to the Reds game, I had four cheese conies, onion and mustard. And I wanted to get more, but time didn't allow it. I was on sort of a, you know, I had to cram a lot in.

I think you did great. Going to the zoo, going to the baseball game, catching a fish. I did it all. But the tailgate tour was good. I met some delightful folks. I saw there was a question in there about E.H.D. in Ohio. and I heard a lot about E.H.D. in Ohio, sounds like it's pretty bad at the moment.

And actually, when I was driving back from the airport to my folks' house, there's a guy that, you know, like the houses that, like, will write something on plywood and stick it out by the road with their thoughts on the world. And this guy had written, postponed deer hunting 2025, let the herd recover. Whoa. And that was like a half an hour after I got off the plane.

I was like, whoa, this is pretty serious. And then sure enough, that's, sort of piqued my curiosity in the next day I heard a lot about EHD so but all at all fabulous to be in the Buckeye State and got to see Ohio State win got to see the Reds win

and got to see some gorillas so and that was Mason asking about E.H.D. in Ohio this is from Stephen question for Seth I'm trying to beat 12 pounds four ounces for wall eyes. Is Fort Peck a consideration or should I just be considering eerie?

I think you're narrowly You're narrowing in too much. There's lots of places where you can be 12 pounds, 4 ounces. The whole Missouri River system as a whole is pretty fantastic. A lot of places in the Midwest. I'd recommend looking at survey data from local or from state fishing game agencies. A lot of times you can go on there and see. When they surveyed different lakes, they'll do some netting.

What was that fish app that has all the survey data and the I-fish? What is the Onyx? The Onyx one, yeah. Yeah, Onex Fish. On X-Fish app has, I think they have Wisconsin and Minnesota, and I think they just dropped Ohio recently. But yeah, you can go on there and look at different lakes and see trophy potential. but I mean

Fort Peck and Erie are both great fisheries but I'm not sure where you live but there might be places a lot closer to home great good luck

I hope you you beat it hey Jamie your Amber would your Amber your wife Amber would like us to say hi to you hi thanks for being a watcher and a listener shout out Jamie Tibido there you go

Assuming you have the same last name as your wife. Ralph asks, Cal, a couple of months ago you were on and talking about boots, you said, always get a good pair of insoles. I am in the market for some insoles and would love a recommendation if you have any. Thanks. Boy, yeah, go someplace where you can kind of get an idea of what your in-step is. And then you, like, you know, I don't know what they call a little footboard things. any like kind of nice boot shop has something like this

and they oftentimes have an assortment of all the insoles out there too and the difference between the insoles is like cushion but also how it fits the arch of your foot and um you know like all good things in life it takes a little little doing little time invested on your part but yeah find one that feels comfy

and eliminates that foot slide and you'll be in good shape If Ralfa lives in central Pennsylvania A little shameless plug for the family Piz Center boot company They'll get you squared away Cool

Let's do one more Before the next segment here This is from Mad Sean Question for the crew For mid-October hunts How do you adjust calling an approach When Hunting Elk He specifically says Roosevelt Elk, but in dense coastal forest compared to Rocky Mountain environs.

Sounds like a question for old Ryan Callahan. Boy, let's call Jason Phelps. Boy, yeah, I don't know much about Roosevelt Elk. I would love to go over there and hunt those things. They're super cool. I do know that calling works. It's just hard to hear them because the foliage is something. dense.

Late or sorry, early to mid-October around here is typically when the herds are built up and they're bigger and that means they're more vocal. So you have a good chance of locating elk because they're more talkative. And then cow calls, cow-calf calls and combo can bring in satellite and raghorn bowls on the fringe, which most of the time when I'm hunting elk, I'm hunting broadside elk. Not, I don't need to go find the big herd bowl.

Because I want to put that sucker in my freezer and then just worry about mule deer. I agree. I can agree more. Thank you, Phil. And for those of you in the chat, keep them coming. Please do. Keep you coming. We'll hit it again.

Our next segment is Hot Tip-Off. Let's all do a hot tip off H-O-T-T-I-T-I-T-R Let's all do a hot tip-off Hot Tip-off is where two listeners go head to head with competing pieces of advice and after we hear each tip

we'll declare which one is hotter. I think we should change that to read and after we hear both tips. If you have a hot tip, make a one-minute video on your phone and email it to radio at the meat eater.com with the subject line, Hot Tip-Off. This week, Hot Tip-Off is brought to you by Mountain Ops. Mountain Ops supports your daily journey from mountain training to overall well-being,

optimizing performance, enhancing recovery, and bolstering health, preparing you for any challenge. Today's competitors are Chad and Corvia from Eagle, Idaho, and Nick Maroldi from Craigsmoor, New York, and they're competing for the meat eater classic bison hoodie. Folks in the chat, please chime in. Let's see those hot tips, Phil. Nick Baroldi. Hey guys, this is Nick coming with a hot tip. So, good way to start training for your season

and get your kids outdoors at the same time. See here, I got my little guy in the chest carrier. I got my little girl in the Osprey backpack. This is a great workout. That's self-progressing. So I started with just the one. Progress to two. It's going to have to get a little creative if we have three

or as this one gets too big for the chest carrier. But again, self-progressing workout. Gets your kids excited to be outside. And it gets you some points with the wife because she's got a couple hours to not have anybody hanging off of her. All right, hope you enjoyed. Take care. Chad, Encorvi up.

Hi, meat eater. I wanted to submit a hot tip. I'm preparing to head down to Utah for an elk hunt. And in putting my kill kit together, I got my meat hanging string. This is waxed nine-strand string used for a lot of commercial purposes, has a weight rating of about 140 pounds. I'll hang an elk quarter off one strand of that. You see it's waxed, so it holds a. it's shaped pretty good, makes it easy to tie knots.

This 12-foot piece I just weighed is about 4.5 grams or 0.16 ounces. To show you how strong it is, I have a piece hanging up here in my makeshift pull-up part. I weigh about 230 pounds, and you can see just a couple strands. It carries it well. No problem. So, instead of paracord or other heavy ropes, grab yourself some waxed nine strand. Cool. Thanks.

That's fine. Based off his garage there, he has some experience. Yeah, that guy. It's killed some of milk. That guy looks like a killer. Yeah, he borrowed a lot of elk. Yeah. The poll is live in the chat.

You guys are picking the winners of two different contests today. I feel like we're giving you too much power, but I enjoy it while it lasts. Yeah, I wanted to strip some of this power from them and appropriate it to ourselves. But, yeah, get in there and vote. be honest I liked the joke about this being a self what did he call

how did he describe his workout self progressing self progressing workout it's very clever yeah plus he probably gets to eat a lot of like Cheerios and stuff that they drop on the ground yeah also seems nice apple sauce pouches

the one worry I have though is that whenever I see someone with baby on their back or on their chest I'm like okay that's good they know if they fall they can go that way or that way opposite the baby, right? Oh, yeah. When you've got babies on all sides.

You can either go left or right. Yeah, you've got to go left or right. That's not good for the old rotator cuff. Nope. You guys doing any... So too dangerous. Two dangerous. Is why you won't be doing that particular training exercise.

Precisely. Precisely. Yeah. It seems like... And also, I'm far behind this man in his development of his equipment. So you guys doing any hiking, doing any... getting prepped for the old season? I've been so short on time.

I have been just trying to like bust out on trail runs. I mean as much as possible, daily if possible. But I put the short in time there because I'm trying to make myself feel as poorly as possible with the least amount of time. Good, good. Otherwise, hiking would be good. I do some running a couple times a week and then hit the weights a couple of times. a week. I see you in here. It's not like a season prep.

It's just like general maintenance for my entire life. So this poll could not be closer. Really? So if you have not voted, you can tip the scales. So get in there. Get in there. I think I'm going to end it in about 30 seconds here. If there are fewer than 300 votes out of our audience of 353, I'll be sorely disappointed. Voting is you're right as an American. and it's unconscionable that people don't participate

when given the option. Yeah, what are the voting statistics? It's like 30-something percent. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I just think it's embarrassing. Like people, you know, vote. 361. Come on, get in there.

I'd like to see 320 votes. Yeah, I like the guy mentions, he carries it well. That was one of my, I thought that guy, 230 pounds, that guy stacked. Looks great. That guy stacked. Yeah. All right, we'll give this 10 more seconds.

I have not been doing much preparation or training. I've been on a real downhill slide since visiting Germany two months ago. Just gotten a lot of bad habits in terms of what I'm putting in my body. And I feel it every day when I wake up. I mean, the Ohio trip, I didn't want to say anything. On that note, I was going to ask if you wanted a Guta Lounan a trip after the recording. Oh, I could be talked into that. I could be talking about it.

Yeah, I actually didn't, I mean, thankfully, I didn't drink that much in Ohio. Just ate a lot of cheese cones. I feel like I can't end this poll. It's so close. Oh. A couple more. Oh, my God. Amount of cheese is just a lot.

You haven't even seen the vids yet. And then the saltiness of the. Oh. I feel like it's so good. You're just entering one into your heart. It's so good. I don't pride myself on like overly healthful eating. Yeah.

But that, that's tough. And Seth, as the spouse of an artist, you'll appreciate this. I found a painting that I'd like to buy a print of. And it's a Skyline Chili parlor with a man Dishing out Skyline Chili, and Pete Rose is sitting there eating with him. Joe Burrow. Oh, man. Barry Larkin, Ken Griffey, Sr., all the Cincinnati, like, classic athletes.

And they're just all enjoying a nice three-way. Phil, how are we doing on this poll? I got it. Okay. I'm describing artwork that I saw in a fast food restaurant, so we should probably wrap it up. I'm hoping you'll have another Instagram reel about your time in Ohio eating these dogs. Yeah, yeah, I got to figure out. I forgot how to do voiceovers, how to do the voice change on voiceovers.

Oh, just YouTube it. I got, I got a real coming of our Costco hot dog run. I got a real coming of my Cincinnati trip. It's going to be some hot stuff. With just over 50% of the vote, like 50 and a decimal point, the winner is Chad, the waxed string for hanging. Whoa. I wasn't expecting it. In Corvia.

It was back and forth. But congrats for a while here. I am interested in that wax string. That's what you're going. I end up carrying so much paracord. I've got my paracord to hang my food. I got my paracord to hang some meat. I got the paracord for just having paracord.

You could just cut a little bit of that out. Paracord for hanging your paracord. Yeah, just cut a little bit of that out with this wax nine strand. We'll be running. And Chad, for winning the. the hot tip off, you will be receiving this wonderful meat eater hoodie, bison hoodie. Look at that. Producer will be getting a hold of you to get your size and address information.

Yeah, thank. Yeah. If you would like to submit a tip and win something like this wonderful bison hoodie, please submit your hot tips. Radio at the meat eater.com with the subject line, hot tip off. I thought you were actually asking me, Phil, because I don't own that. Twitter and I was like well I could but I actually do own that one it's one of my favorites it's it's thick hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart you got steep ground long

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better intel. Download on X hunt and start your seven-day trial to get dialed before your next trip. Mega important announcement. In fact, the most important announcement you ever heard. The third volume in our Meat Eater's American History audiobook series

is available for pre-order right now. Meat Eater's American History The Hide Hunters, 1865 to 1883, tells the story of the commercial buffalo hunters who drove North America's most iconic large mammal to the brink of extinction in the years after the Civil War.

You'll learn all about these guys, guys like Dirty Face Jones, Skunk Johnson, and Charles Squirrel Eye Emery, how they organized their hunting expeditions, what they took with them, how they hunted, what rifles they shot, how they processed their kills, how they suffered and died in the field, and the true stories of what drove them to do it in the first place. You'll also learn about the economic factors that made this a viable profession and what happened to those millions of buffalo skins once they were shipped east. And like we do in all of our Meat Eaters American History projects, you'll hear a ton of wild stories and bizarre details from this era.

And don't worry, we didn't leave out any of the gory details. Pre-order Meat Eaters American History, the hide hunters. 1865 to 1883 wherever you get your audiobooks and you'll be ready to dig in when it's available to listen on October 14. Joining us on the line next

is Ben Batten, Deputy Director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, who is coming to us live from Bozeman, Montana at a meeting of the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association. Ben, welcome to the show. So Ben was in the waiting room.

as you said his name, I think he might have picked up his phone to get ready and then accidentally left. So we're going to wait here for Ben to rejoin. Oh, no. I'm sure he's fine. I don't think it was anything like a kidnapping or something. He was very excited for this. He was. He was in the opposite. It would be surprising if he'd abandoned us. No, he was, I think he just accidentally left the room. This is unexpected. I was going to say, we just saw him. Yeah, I just saw him. He was right. there well we couldn't do the uh the trail cam contest while we yeah we just gave something why don't we give some oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh there he is here we bring him in hey oh ben how are you

sir all right guys you're not going to believe this i got one for you here is the ultimate hot tip i was sitting out for you all and two seconds before i go on i get your phone's too hot Oh, yeah, that always seems to hit it the wrong time. I'm at a hatchery, you're in Bozeman, and I went to dunk my phone in a pond. That's commitment. That's commitment to the show. We appreciate that. Ben, can you tell our listeners who might not be familiar with the Mississippi Interstate Cooperative Resource Association? I can guarantee that it's most of them. Can you explain what the organization is, is and who participates? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again, guys, for having me on. I really appreciate it. So, Micra is the leadership for fisheries managers throughout the Mississippi River basin. And so

there's 31 states in the basin. We currently have 28 folks. And this is going to be what's called the chief of fisheries. Every state fishing game agency has, you know, some number of employees, but the head is usually called the chief. So it's those folks. We also have federal agency. like U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Army Corps, Tennessee Valley Authority, folks like that. And then, of course, all the tribes within the basin are welcome. And basically, in short, the purpose of Micra is to do a better job we can coordinating interjurisdictional fish species. Gotcha. What are some of the challenges or projects that you're currently working on as an organization? All right. Well, I think what makes them.

Mississippi River Basin, awesome, is also some of the biggest challenges. I mean, huge. 1.2 million square miles, 320 million acres. You know, the Mississippi River Basin, every drop of water that goes from the east side of the Rockies to the west side of the Appalachians ends up in the Gulf. So it's just gigantic. It's the fourth largest basin in the planet after the Amazon Congo and the Nile. So scale here is a challenge. Also neat is that, you know, a fish can swim from the island.

The Gulf, 1,200 miles without ever running into anything, take a left and head up the Missouri all the way to Gavin's Point, South Dakota, another 800 miles. So 2,000 miles of fish can swim before ever hitting a dam. But that's the best case in the area. I mean, there's dams and things like that that, you know, mess with fish passage and fish being able to move. We love working on a positive native fish species, you know, big cool things like cattlefish and sturgeon and things like that, catfish, etc. But probably our biggest

drain on our energy is the invasive carp issue that is most of the basin. Gotcha. Now, I understand that the micro is currently working towards being recognized by Congress. What does that recognition mean? And what does that process involve? Yeah, that's great. I appreciate you guys checking on. So the goal of this, it's an association. So we just all exist by a bunch of signatures of, you know, fisheries group leadership. But our goal since 1991 at establishment was to become a commission. And basically that recognition would give us one, just more stature and influence. So, you know, a letter to Congress or somebody from this association doesn't carry near as much weight as it does from the Mississippi River Basin Fishery Commission. And then the biggest probably

is funding and resource. I think, you know, you guys talk all the time. I don't think you'd find anybody that's a manager across the country that would say they have enough resource for the challenges. And so this draft legislation that we have right now asks for in years two through five of existing $30 million a year for the basin and then $50 million on after that. So a significant amount of resource that would help us out. Kind of you ask where, you know, what does it take? So we currently have draft bills, both the House and the Senate. On the Senate side, it's Bill 1078 with sponsors from Senator Wicker in Mississippi, Bozeman in Arkansas, and Baldwin in Wisconsin. And then on the House side, 1514, the companion bill with Congressman Ezell from Mississippi

and Carter of Louisiana. And we're currently looking for more sponsors. So if you are somebody out there that has connections there, and we work with Coalition, which is something you do on these bills. And so there will be groups, y'all are very. familiar with like BHA, Teddy Roselle Conservation Partnership, National Wildlife Federation, and American Sport Fish Association are all working with us to get this thing going. Good deal. And are there other interstate conservation partnerships that serve as a model for this approach? And what have you learned from them? Yeah, great question. So there's four existing fishery commissions. There's Gulf States, Pacific

States, Atlantic States, and then the Great Lakes. And those have all been around since somewhere between the late 40s and the late 50s, and we visited with each of their leadership as we were doing this for kind of some, hey, what would you do differently? What worked great, that kind of thing. And so that was super helpful. And we mostly patterned ours off the Great Lakes Commission. And then probably the best known information without doubt is the Flyway Council system that manages waterfowl here in North America. Looking forward, what's on the horizon? Obviously, you're working towards recognition, but sort of what is the, what's the discussion there about what's in the future for the, for Micra?

Yeah, we'll continue to operate as we have for 34 years, again, coordinating and doing our best to manage, you know, inter-jurisdictional fisheries. But we're going to continue to go to the hill a couple times a year, D.C. and, you know, beat the offices and try to get in there and get this bill across the line. Great. Well, Ben, on a final note here, Arkansas was just in the news for its first bear attack in what I understand to be some 25 years. Can you tell us any bit about the facts of the incident and how, if in any way, Arkansas Game and Fish is responding? Yeah, sure. So yesterday in west central Arkansas, there was an older gentleman working on a gravel road on a tractor doing some work. and he was working with his son who was a little bit out of eyesight. Son comes back, finds the dad on the ground and there's a bear attacking.

Able to stop that and Game Fish was obviously immediately called. They're heading up and about 20 minutes later they get there and they end up dispatching the bear. You know, it was a young bear, which is really rare. They said it was a yearling. They did 80 to 100 pounds. And, you know, just want to emphasize,

this really rare deal and especially for a young bear and of course, you know, all of our thoughts are with the family of the victim and everything else and hope that he makes a successful recovery. Yeah, same here. Ben, thanks

so much for taking the time to speak with us today and best of luck to you in the work of Mikera here. I appreciate the time. Thanks, guys. Yep, we'll see you. I hear that stuff happens all the time Arkansas from clay yeah

cougars bear attacks big foot black panthers yeah I get the impression from clay that Arkansas is like the wild west yeah sorry Randall I didn't mean to cut you out there

I was trying to sneak in before just we have an update from our winner Chad he referenced a hunt that he was about to go on and this was the outcome nope not that clever where did it go is it not working

Too bad he did. There it is. Oh, hey. Nice. Chad, you're even wearing the right stuff. Good for you, buddy. Man. That's probably why you killed it, you know?

Oh. That's exciting. Just, why are we sitting here? I know. September 4th. That is September. Beautiful. And I bet that wax nine strand

handled those quarters nicely. Yeah, Chad, if I were you, I'd just roll around on that underside of that bowl so you can take that smell home with you for months. Oh, love it. I love it. Thanks for sharing, Phil. That really added to the depth and richness of this program.

Yeah, Jake, our producer reminded me about that. Oh, good job. Teamwork behind the bench there. Oh, yeah. It's now time for our trail cam photo contest presented by our friends at Moultry. Speaking of Maltry, you really should check out their new Edge 3. We recently got to learn about this latest and greatest Maltry camera, and it is super impressive. Plus, they've got even more exciting cameras coming soon.

for this second round we asked you folks to send us your big bull elk photos captured from your trail cameras we got loads of submissions on the meat eater website so choosing these top four contenders was difficult to say the least

there are a lot of fighting bowls impressive racks and bachelor herds to wet your appetite for fall hunting the winner will receive two edge two first light spectre camo edition multery cameras with 10 watt

That's a watt 10 watt solar power pack bundles And a $250 gift card to the meat eater store And a $250 gift card to first light And a case knives Brent Reeves signature mini trapper knife We got Brent Reeves in the chat today My goodness

How many watts? Wats 10? 10 dubs Great Scott 1.21 gigawatts Phil is sleeping on that I mean, that's a gimmy. I just saw 10W, and I second-guessed myself in the moment. You know, electricity.

I'm like a medieval peasant when it comes to talking about watts and amps. I do not enjoy the use of trail cameras other than the fun stuff. Like, you know, it's like it takes some of the mystery out of the woods. But at the same time, I also am jealous of not getting constant email updates of cool stuff, walking around the woods. Yeah. It's a real conundrum. Oh, yeah.

Phil, would you show us our top contenders, please? I'd love to. This is number one. This is from at 716-307. What would you title that, Phil? Well, luckily, we've got a title. It's called Brothers. Oh, it's beautiful.

I don't know if Jake titled these ones or the people who sent them in, I would guess. Brothers. I'm just Jake. I don't know if everyone's titled. It's cousins. God, we should have had a guest spot with Kelsey Morris in here. Yeah, this actually is... What would you title this?

Framed beautifully. She's good at that stuff. What do we got number two here, Phil? That's number one here. I will start a poll after we view all of these. Yeah, remember, folks, you are choosing the winner. That hefty, hefty prize package. Insane prize package.

Okay. Number two, is this from Brock 2319? Wade Boggs. Wade Boggs. Oh, that's great. Wow, that's a sick bull. Yeah, all's crowny out. Yeah.

Yeah. He's not going to be like that for long. Better stick him fast. Yeah. Too many points. The surface of the water is really beautiful. You can see the reflection of some of the trees. There's water in that photo?

All right. Number three. This is from Heath Myers. Got budding heads. Action pack. And there's stuff going on in the background, too. Yeah. Another raghorn back there to the left.

These guys are putting on a real show. show. Yeah, I feel like budding heads is kind of lazy. We can do better than that. What else we got? Well, our producer Jake said that he titled all these.

So good, good job, Jake. Jake, you fell off. Yeah, do better. Let's see. All right. So that's number three. All tangled up. Number four.

Ooh. Winter wonder. I cut off the, the borders cutting these titles off. That's, that's on me. Winter wonder. This is from Cage Rosen. That's a, that's a.

Or K.D. Rosen. I don't know. A stark image. That's a good, looking bull. Silhouetted nicely. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to start this poll and then I will go through all of the photos again. You guys talk about them while I type up this poll here.

Well, to me there's a clear winner. Yes. Same. Really? Yeah. For sure. Say it at the same time. Two. The brothers. Oh, there's disagreement. Yeah, I'd call it before the rain. Oh, my goodness. That'd be my title. Before the rain.

I like that. After the rain. waiting out there in that pond Wade Boggs Brothers is really I mean if I took that photo with a handheld camera I'd show everybody

it's beautiful plus yeah the back it is beautiful yeah all right I'm starting to pull and we'll go through the pictures again

but there's something haunting about that last image I do like the last one like look at the backdrop yeah the fact that you're not staring at a big muddy waterhole

is nice because you can get wild animals like looking wild on this whereas I can really appreciate the the gate of these bowls too yeah

can't get wild animals looking wild in a pond no they just you know it's like looks like it looks like there should be

some turkeys there Sam comments that he votes for Encorvia the big the big uh incorvia the big one that our guy Chad got

we kind of we kind of popped this balloon already with the big dead bull yeah Phil, let me get through Let me get number two again All right, so that's number one

So I can Wade Boggs Number two That's the one in the water here Ooh Oh yeah And then we've got number three Budding heads

And that's a pretty picture That's just fun That's just darn fun October 20th It's where the kids Hang out right there Yeah And then

Winter Wonder number four Mm Yeah It's a good looking I mean it's an amazing elk It is It is 29 degrees

No 29 Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, 29 Fahrenheit. I was looking at the Celsius. The only thing that I just noticed about number two, the one that I voted for is, is it a trail cam photo? It's got the quality of a trail cam photo. Yeah, and that's not the border.

I don't think the original photo had any timestamp. Seth, you can't accuse one of our contestants of... Sure, you can. I like number one. Okay, Cal's vote is for brothers, number one. That says adventure. But what's really important is what the audience thinks this number is the winner.

It doesn't matter what we think. It's not up to us. Remember, you guys need to get in that poll. Only I can see the results right now. We've got, I don't think this is going to swing. We've got a pretty clear winner. But I'll let this run for another minute if you guys want to get some last minute votes in here. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I feel like. Randall, do you have a preference? Boy, I just think number one is very tough to, if those bowls were a little more impressive, it would just do it for me. Well, this is the last thing I'm going to say. None of these animals are guaranteed to be there when you show up, right? So number one's like, man, could be anywhere.

Look at this country, but I know they're here somewhere. And then if we go to number two, like, I'm going to be stuck staring at this mud hole all day. Yeah, you can just go there and get them. Go there and get them. I like getting them Yeah this This just speaks to my heart I think

But again We've got several people in the chat Saying that number one Looks fake And I don't know if it's just the stream You guys are seeing But this looks like a pretty legitimate Trail Camp picture to me

It does look legit That's just what Montana looks like everywhere Or wherever this is All right I'm putting an end to the poll Because one of these photos ran away with it Oh let's do the

CNN is now calling Yep, that's right We are prepared to call Maricopa County The results are in The voting And the winner with 49% of the

Almost half of the vote Yeah Clear winner Number one Brothers I hope we didn't taint I hope we didn't taint the vote I thought the whole point was to

Was to taint Yeah I think tainting is encouraged All right All right Well congratulations to at 716 underscore 307 So it probably is a Wyoming And just so everybody knows, anything discussed on this podcast is our right to make it a T-shirt.

So Tainting is encouraged. Yeah. That's ours. We encourage Taint is on a T-shirt. Is encouraged. Oh, man. Well, gang, you know, congratulations to 716307. You've got a heck of a prize package coming your way.

Please say thanks to the audience if you find yourself in the chat in the future because, boy, you're, you've got some trail. cams, you've got some gift cards, you've got a Brent Reeve's signature knife headed your way. And I just closed out my script accidentally. We got listener feedbacks, guy. I think feedback's the only thing we've got left. Yeah. I've been missing some of the chat for the last few minutes since I've been running other stuff. You've been busy today, Phil. I hope you're doing all right. Let's start with just a fun recreational one. Nate asks, what's the crew's favorite non-game or non-target animal to just watch, observe while hunting? Gray squirrels.

they do weird stuff sometimes it's kind of fun to watch easily distracted and happily distracted bugs horn toads birds doesn't matter I'm gonna we're gonna call this a non-target

animal rather than non-game animal I'm to say a bear watching bears do stuff yeah that's cool half the fun of bear hunting is just watching little bears fall off things tip things over do things for no reason at all

We had a crew of Swainson's hawks migrating through, and for whatever reason, they're very social. So kind of curious. I think they took note of the fact that I was aggressively observing their behavior. This is very urban, you know, greater fringe Beaux Angeles region here. And they came down and ripped apart a squirrel on top of the fence. Oh, that's cool. I mean, like, 20-yard viewing. It was fantastic.

Wow. Got the stabilized binoes out, and it was great. That's awesome. Eating right there with them. Three of them, really, really, really awesome. Merlin app had to, it was great. Super fun. Isaac is stoked about both seasons starting in Missouri in 11 days.

Any sort of last-minute rituals or things you guys do in the last days before going into season. Get all of the stuff done at home that is, expected of you to get done. 11 days before, you usually start shooting my bow about that time. No, I'm kidding. Hopefully you've been shooting for a long time. You've got a good week and a half to get your affairs in order

so that you don't get a phone call saying that, you know, you need to come home to do this, do that, you know, find yourself in the good graces of your family unit and look forward to the season. Yeah. In Missouri,

you're probably starting your, permethrine treatment right now, which I think would be a crucial step to your game. This is from Jay. He says, as we are closing in on many hunting seasons, if one makes a bad shot on large game and it takes longer than ideal to find said game, how do you determine what meat needs to be cut out or lost when you finally harvested? Smell.

Stank. Smell test it. Yeah, and there's portions that can smell. and if those portions smell strong enough remove them from the rest of the situation so the smell of that stuff doesn't contaminate your sniffer because there's

typically it's not all bad and you need to salvage every edible thing that you can this is one that I don't think we've gotten before but favorite wild game meat pizza topping Russell says his is duck bacon and goose salami. Wow.

You guys put a game on pizza? Yeah, just sauce. Yeah. We don't do a whole lot of homemade pizzas, but yeah. I don't know. Elk nachos. It's almost pizza. Joe asks Cal, scent cover, yay or nay?

Walk into the wind. If you're stuck in a tree like my friend Mark Kenyon, just face into the wind. I yeah I used to mess around with all that stuff and it just it's just more complicates life we should make a t-shirt of Mark

in a tree and just says help I'm stuck in a tree I'm Mark Kenyon the host of Wired on a podcast David asked Randall Pete Rose yay or nay yeah I mean he's a slime ball but he's our slime ball yeah Clifford

how does the crew store their food in black bear mountain lion country lives in Arizona so brown bear isn't an issue do you suggest putting food in a bag away from camp I think the general thing to do is to hang it right yeah hanging will just it's just going to solve issues because if you leave let's say you have a like a dry bag or a stuff sack that you put all your all your food in once you get to camp so you're organized and you're not packing around all your food and you're in your hunting bag every day. A squirrel's going to chew through that thing on the ground. And then you got a mess to clean up and you lose stuff. And then you're in that situation of like, well, now I got to eat something that a squirrel half chewed on and hana virus and all that's fun stuff. So hang your food. Even if you're not worried, it's just going to prevent other things from happening.

And as I like to say, I'm totally fine if a bear kills me. that's but I don't I'm not fine if in the article it says didn't hang his food yeah and then I get lumped in like somebody who didn't know what was going on in the woods yep it's just a wherever you can prevent a headache like having something chew through your backpack or whatever else like prevent those headaches because something else is going to go wrong inevitably yeah Seth I wouldn't worry about mountain lions What do you got, Phil? What do you got, Phil? Here we go. I feel like we're on a roll now. Yeah, real quick one for me. We get this question a lot.

Videos on Spotify. We have no plan. It's not going to happen anytime soon, specifically just because of other agreements we've made regarding video stuff. You can put videos on Spotify? You can. Oh, yeah. It's a pretty slick interface.

Cutting edge. So when you just start the audio, the video, the video just plays automatically, and you can choose to turn that on or off. Christopher, Cal, what do you? carry in the field for your doggy first aid kit and where do you find any non-typical items that you pack up boy you know feed stores or your murdox or um what are the like the farm what is it tacking for rocky mountain supply rocky mountain supply feed stores always have a really awesome what is the tractor one tractor supply yeah uh yeah that's hard place the tractor supplies yeah yeah uh anyway

Anyway, they always have a good vet section. It's typically around, like, livestock. Um, but hot tip for you. Uh, you can go get doggy supplies there for, uh, boy, like a fifth of what they're going to charge you at the vet. Uh, so that's where I go. Hmm. And I always have, uh, EMT gel, which is like a liquid suture that can get you through

some tough time. gauze I find a good tape that will stick to fur for holding gauze in place or you know like you get these big co-band stuff

yeah you get this like zipper like 90 degree tears in in dog hide from running into fence or corrugated metal when they're going nuts after roosters and stuff in that in that thick cover and so you need something that's going to hold that flap down

and then I use just good old fashion iodine uh beta dine works well too and I just carry like a small container that um this sounds like a lot of stuff but it's really not you can pack it down nice and tight and then um uh pseudofed pseudofed is good not

it's an antihistamine but it is something just like it makes us drowsy it can put a little chill into the dog when you need it to get relaxed. Like if you are in a rattlesnake bite scenario because you're not going to suck the venom out like in an old John Ford film.

Eye wash. A little bit of eye wash. You know, you're over-the-counter stuff that folks with bad eyesight used to flush their eyeballs out. That's like part of our routine. to keep dog's eyes looking good because they pack a lot of seeds in there during hunting season, especially when it's hot and dry, which unfortunately it often is during bird season these days. So that little kit right there will definitely get you through the hard times,

and you'll be able to package up your best buddy and get them someplace pro or get them into a good enough situation where they can keep hunting or walk themselves out. That's about really what you need. Great. I've got a couple questions about the new Wisconsin Meat Eater Store. I don't think there's a specific opening date yet, but I think one update is that I think we're still hiring. So, you know, if you're in the area.

I believe we're still hiring. Check out. Isn't there a... There's going to be a little opening celebration coordinating with our... tailgate tour stop in Madison with Chester Floyd and Spencer Newhart. Nice. So take a look at the tailgate tour schedule, and I think the event page for that will have some mention of the event in Brookfield.

I would, uh, I'd love to make it over there myself. I was a younger fella. I used to, or I had several good times in Milwaukee. Nice people, good food, lots of good beer. The best beer. Yeah. So let's do one more. You guys have had some great questions this week. Thanks.

Really appreciate it. It makes my job easier. But the most important one for last, Randall, top three zoos. This is from Jackson. Boy, I feel like this episode got way too Randall-centric. You are the host, my friend. Live it up. Drink it in.

It's all about you, Randall. Well, let's see. You were just at one. Yeah, I was just at the Cincinnati Zoo. It's a world-class, phenomenal institution. The guerrilla world is above and beyond what I want when I go to. look at primates, specifically great apes. Probably my most favorite zoo visit in recent memory

was the Schoengarten Zoo in Vienna, Austria. If you'd never been to a zoo in a foreign country, I highly recommend it because you'll read things in a foreign language and all of a sudden it feels a lot more sophisticated than when you're just in some suburban neighborhood drinking a beer and looking at a tiger. Finally, gosh. Had some good visits to the San Francisco Zoo.

I don't know if it's strongly in my top three, but I've had some great visits there again, some really world-class ape encounters. And it's just been there for me when I needed it at a few key points in my life. So I'll leave it at that. Fantastic. Thanks, Jackson.

Your interest in zoological gardens is much appreciated. Well, gang, that brings us to the end of today's show. It was another fun one. thanks to Mark and Ben for joining us and with that we'll see you here next week oh hey I got one more thing for the audience if you're going to be in the Manhattan area or ideally if you live there

Montana or not Montana the New York City Manhattan I am participating in a conservation event at the end of the month at the Patagonia store with Conservation Lands Foundation and my God I just got to looking at the prices of hotel rooms.

If you need somebody to crash on your couch, house sit. He'll tell you some stories. Yeah. And he actually does a great job cleaning up after himself. My barn has never looked better since Cal's been on a little trailer work and tear.

Yeah, there you go. Delightful guest. All right, folks. We'll see you next week. Thanks for tuning in. Oh, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech,

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