The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 765: Chain Reaction Roadkill, the Elk Rut, and Harsh Truths | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Hosts Brody Henderson, Ryan Callaghan, and Randall Williams talk with Brian DeBolt from the Wyoming Game & Fish Department about a series of cascading roadkill incidents in the state, get a wide ranging Rut Report from the elk woods, chat with Conservation Land Foundation CEO Chris Hill about the consequences of a Roadless Rule rescission, stew in some harsh truths about hunting, and get a sneak peek at the brand new MeatEater Store opening in Milwaukee. 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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Welcome to Meat-Eater trivia. Eatater Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. here in Bozeman, Montana at Meteeter HQ. My wife, who just got back from the Dolomites in Italy still thinks it's 2 in the morning, but it's 11 here. I'm your host, Brody Henderson.

I'm joined today by your favorite history buff in Frankfurter, aficionado, Randall Williams, and the world's foremost wildlife and public lands conservationist, Ryan Cali. Wow. Set the bar high. Ooh, yeah. I'll trade you for the Frankfurter.

Today we've got a couple interviews. We've got one about roadkill, be getting more roadkill. It's a pretty cool story out of Wyoming. And we're also going to talk about what's at stake at the road list rule on 45 million acres. 48 million acres of your national forest is rescinded. And since it's prime time for all the archery elk hunters out there, we've got a rut report from some hunters who are out in the field. And finally, we're going to lay down some harsh truths and we'll check in with the crew at our newest mediator retail location in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

it sounds fun eh um but first i've been i got an order from on high to make an announcement the announcement everyone's been waiting for in december you can join steve yonis clay brent and our our own doctor of history randall here for a night of laugh news opinions and free prizes on the media or live christmas tour uh they'll be visiting the following cities, Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Fayetteville, Dallas, and Austin. And you can get details at the mediator.com backslash tour and find out the dates and the venues and all that stuff. Randall Williams is going to do the entire tour in a cousin Eddie bathrobe all at Christmas vacation. So there's going to be all sorts of fun Christmas hijinks.

You don't even know what you're going to see. I've been practicing all of my carols. Even the weird ones that no one likes to sing. You're going to break out your Santa suit? I'd like to. I'd like to actually use this opportunity to invest in a real Santa suit at this company. I feel like we have the resources. Yeah, Irman. No, but Hark the Herald Angels sing. We're just going to get into the deep cuts. Going south, which is a new kind of part of the country that I've not hit on the tours before. I'm excited. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Those people were griping for a long time, so we listened to them. um guys it's starting to feel like fall around here man the leaves are starting to show some color

temperatures are cooling off days are getting shorter it's hunting season um i've been out for grouse a couple times with my boys done all right um but my first big hunt is going to be antelope season here in like what three weeks something like that we've got four tags it's gonna be crazy trying to fill four tags um what's your big first big hunt of the year randall well i actually got out uh this past weekend and we we in some areas of montana we have an early rifle oh that's right yeah yeah yeah so i went in with a buddy and uh we camp together one night and split up and kind of looped back to the truck elk or deer what we're after uh both uh elk if it's the very right opportunity because the logistics are difficult

but um saw elk saw a lot of deer actually i was surprised and uh just didn't uh yeah the logistics but amazing to get out and amazing to uh you know discover that the studs in your uh binocular tripod adapter are loose or that uh there's a hole in your tense rain fly good time you're to figure that stuff yeah shaking it all out before uh the weather gets dangerously cold it's a pretty pretty unique opportunity, but I'll carry a rifle around for deer and out. Super cool. Super cool. And yeah, like just gorgeous country.

We didn't, we saw people, but we didn't talk to anybody for four days. Nice. Saw some moose, saw some goats. Cool. Mm-hmm. Um, Cal, you're doing a pretty crazy hunt. Um, did the company take out a life insurance policy on you before this traditional bow brown bear hunt?

Well, I never thought about that, but knowing some of the. folks around here like, like I do. Uh, yeah, probably, probably there's, there's some Vegas style. Yeah, that's being placed for sure. Talk to our friends at Fanduel. First big hunt. Yeah. Yeah. It is. I mean, because that's a long hunt and then, um, tell people a little about it. It's real quick. Yeah, it's out on the Alaska Peninsula and it's brown bear. Uh, and I'll be using my bow, which, uh, if you're going to try to get a brown bear with

the bow the fall time is up close and personal time because they're in there on the salmon streams and the water's rushing and stuff and it's always windy out on the peninsula so it's good spot and stock conditions provided it's not too nasty and um so you know the the deck is as stacked in your favor as it can be yep for just getting in tight are you are you camping on the island or are you are you doing the boat thing or what how's it going to work Well, we're not into the islands. We're not on the Aleutian chain. Oh, that's right.

You're on the Keeneye. Yeah. Yeah. And it's still TBD as far as, because, you know, they're just, they're flying in and out of there all the time right now. So it's, um, we're going to figure out the best spot to be. Yep. And, and be there. And I'm going up a couple days before the season starts and hopefully, um, have all those little

that Randall just gave me a little bit of anxiety with ironed out before it's it's sneaking up on bear's time. I'm going to give you a little insider tip. Check your air mattress for any slow leaks. The old hips are a little sore. Yeah. Got to carry a tenacious tape with you, man. Yeah, I know. This is like the first time in a long time. I was certain that I had my whole repair kit with me, but for whatever reason it didn't make it in the backpack. So just a useful reminder. Yeah. But yeah, the hips are sore. Started having to dig out my little hip hole under my tent before I go to sleep.

That's a bummer when you wake up and those things are just deflated. It's also a bummer when it's been solid. I bought it used like five years ago. Patched it one time since. And I've never had an issue headed out in Yellowstone last month. No issues. I don't know really what happened. Five years you got your money's worth out of it.

Yeah, but I don't want to buy a new one. Have you seen the prices these days? They are ghastly. But the flip side of this, right? And this is the caveat of signing up for a big hunt is I have not done. This is the furthest I have ever in my entire life been into any legal hunting season without hunting a single day. Yeah. Like I've just got all this other stuff.

I've got to get done and wrapped up. There's too much going on in the world of concerts. conservation in public lands. Cal is too busy. He no longer hunts. That is a real reality that is just like so easy. It's right there. Yep. It's right there. And I've spent my entire life fighting against that type of reality. So start fighting for Cal so he can go hunting. Jeez, come on. I've got a lead on some sandhill cranes. Ooh, lovely. From the neighbor. So excellent. I've got plans this weekend if you want to join. All right. We talked about bears a little bit. bit we're going to talk about bears some more in our first interview our first guest today is

brian de bolt bryan works out of lander wyoming for the wyoming fishing game department as a large carnivore conflict coordinator um and i the the reason i came across brian is i read an article um just in the last couple of days about um multiple black bears that were killed by vehicles at the exact same location over the course of a day or two, I think, and decided to follow up with Brian and let him explain to us about why it happened. We got Brian on? Here he is. Yes. How's going, Brian? Good. Hi, guys. How are you? Good, good. Good to meet you. Thanks for you. Thanks for joining us. Before we get into this chain reaction roadkill story, can you give us just a little background on what you do for Wyoming fishing game so yeah you read my title it's a little lengthy

large carnivore conflict coordinator so um you set up the fights well i try to referee them anything so um the large carnivores in Wyoming that we deal with are black bears grizzly bears mountain lions and wolves and whenever they come into conflict with people is my role. Whether it's a bear tip and over a garbage can, bear killing livestock, you know, wolves killing livestock, or, you know, oftentimes hunters encounter bears, you know, and shoot a bear in self-defense, or maybe even a human gets injured or killed, unfortunately, that's my job. I imagine you've got to have a pretty cool demeanor for that job,

because on the one hand, you're like looking out for people and livestock and things like that, but you also need to, like, kind of keep an eye out for the best interests of these predator species as well. Well, it's, yeah, cool. I've never been termed cool. It is an interesting dynamic, and often the people are sometimes more difficult to deal with. You don't say. Yeah. As you know, so it's interesting, yeah.

And you can't judge people beforehand by any means. I mean, you could run into a kind of a rough kind of redneck old looking fella. There's none of them in Wyoming. Come on. But they want to do everything they can to make sure that the bear's okay, that we don't hurt it, that we don't have to remove it, you know, letharly kill it or anything. And then next door, there's a, you know,

on that elderly lady or something in her nightgown, and she wants to make sure that bears is dead as can be. Because it tackled their bird feeder for the fifth time. Why can't that bear learn? So you just never know. It is, it's an interesting dynamic to, yeah, be in the middle. Yeah, it'd be helpful if everybody had some pointy ears on both sides of their head that either stand up or lay down. Yeah, then we could tell a little better.

Yeah. Analyze that behavior. So with that in mind, with what you're out there doing every day, I got to imagine this time of year, when bears especially are like very actively trying to put on as much weight as possible, it's got to be very busy for you. the conflict department, probably your busiest time of year? It's extremely busy. And this year is no exception. Yeah, bears are in what we call hyperphasia, just like you mentioned, trying to gain as many calories as possible before they go into the damning period. And so they are forging longer, they're active longer, and with anything they can possibly put into their gut, you know, whether it's natural or unnatural foods.

And by unnatural, I mean, yeah, like bird feeders and garbage and food and that type of stuff, garbage. So, yeah, we are extremely busy right now. Well, I'll tie that into what happened a couple weeks ago. Can you just tell us, like, initially what happened and then we'll get into why after you kind of let us let us know what happened. And if you want, like, you can do. tell us where this happened to.

Okay. So, real briefly, there's a highway. It goes over what's called South Pass. It's a very famous place. Well, among certain circles. It's a South Pass of the Oregon Trail and different things over the south end of the Wind River Mountains here. And got lots of wildlife up there. But again, long story short, an elk was struck and killed by a vehicle and in short order within a matter of a few days later a sow with two what we call cubs of the year they're born this year were struck and killed right at that roadkill elk they were yeah all three struck at the same time and lots of traffic again on this highway it's a pretty major thoroughfare um and then later that that was early early in the

morning and then later that evening uh fourth bear was struck and killed at the same location so and uh normally you wouldn't get called into any kind of like roadkill situation correct correct So if there is an animal, let's say, struck on the road and it's still alive and maybe a highway trollman or a, you know, a state trooper or a sheriff's deputy or something shows up on the scene and the animal needs to be put down, you know, because it's critically injured. They have to call us. We have to give them permission to do so because we're the authority over wildlife. But a dead critter, you know, if something's just been struck and killed, that is not our authority. That's the Wyoming Department of Transportation because then it's just a road hazard. And it's not live wildlife anymore. So we typically don't get calls like, say, unless it's still alive.

So just for people who aren't following, an elk gets killed. It attracts the sow with the young or with a year old cubs. and later that the elk still hasn't been removed and it attracts another bear which also gets killed. So what, like you got involved, I assume at that point after that fourth bear got killed and what happened after that? So actually, I did get involved a little earlier. I was aware that a bull elk had been struck and killed. I was the impression that it was going to be picked up. And I'm sure not criticizing anybody.

There's roadkill everywhere. It just happens a lot. And then I got a call early in the morning, one morning, that these three bears had been struck. So I responded, and sure enough, it's a sow again with a couple little cubs. And I gathered them up, and the elk was still there. And again, I probably would have went ahead and loaded it up, but I had three bears in the back of my truck.

And I made another wrong assumption that, well, okay, it'll be picked up now, you know. And then that evening, right at dark, I get a call that another bear, a bear was struck and killed by a vehicle, you know, mile marker 55, whatever. And I said, no, that happened this morning. I told our dispatch and they said no no the guy's sitting there right now that just hit the bear so I went back up there and sure as heck a fourth bear right there on the same spot had been struck and the elk carcass was still there so I went ahead and loaded the elk carcass that time and got it out of there so yeah it's uh you know these kind of opportunistic I would call them It's an unfortunate opportunity that these critters get struck, whether it's a coyote or, you know,

we get a lot of like ravens and magpies that are stringent on these carcasses. Yeah, I was going to ask, is this the first time you've seen that kind of like chain reaction roadkill event? Or is it fairly common? Well, maybe not with bears, but. You know, this is the biggest one I've seen. Usually it's one coyote or, you know, maybe one magpie. or you know and we have had bears struck before but not to this extent yeah not this many this is the first time i've been you know doing this for 26 years and this is the first time i've seen it

in this uh this bigger capacity but i i would imagine that you know wyoming's got a lot of desolate spots even on these major highways that this is probably something that happens more often and we just don't know about it right that does that that's true that's true um usually when it is a bear though um most folks do report that we have a few mountain lions struck in the same you know type of scenario um and often it's a passerby that reports it i think folks might be a little apprehensive oh you know especially if it's a grizzly bear right they're protected you know they're an endangered species on paper um And so they're maybe reluctant to call.

They think they did something wrong. But bottom line is it's just an accident. And so it's often a pasture by it says, hey, there's a dead bear laying on the road. And we get called to investigate that. Can you get a salvage tag for Black Bear in Wyoming? You can. Yep.

Yep. If a bear is taken legally, yeah, it can be donated. Yeah. Any donation of a grizzly bear course It'd have to be through the Fish and Wildlife Service But any other game under the jurisdiction of the game in fish You can get a salvage tag But not for roadkill?

Can you get it for roadkill? So interesting. So with roadkill, there is a new law that just passed last year And people are allowed to pick up most roadkill. I won't get into all the details, but basically deer elk and antelope, they can acquire that. They can pick it up.

There's an app. It's called Wyoming 511. And if you come across to roadkill, you want to salvage it for whatever reason. You can log on to that 511 app, and they basically give you a salvage number, and you can take that whole carcass. Again, some animals like bears. and lions are not you can't legally pick those up based on that so but other critters you can yes I would have thought I was in like a candid camera situation if I was trying to salvage yeah they're like this is this considered baiting right right yeah um Brian uh Wyoming has been

been pretty good at at building wildlife overpass in the last, I don't know, decade or more, like how successful have those been in reducing roadkill at like sites that formerly just like known like pinch points where a lot of animals were getting killed by vehicles? Like have those overpasses like drastically reduced roadkill? Yes, they really have. They've been so beneficial. And these things, as you can imagine, are multi-million dollar projects it's a huge effort between the game and fish and the you know department transportation and you know local wildlife groups the landowners it's it's a monumental effort and of course we'd like to have more but again they're huge costly projects and so right now we're

picking kind of the low-hanging fruit we spent decades you know identifying migration corridors Again, these choke points you're talking about where roadkill accidents are very common and we're focusing on those areas. But yeah, we'd sure like to expand it into other areas. Absolutely. They're great. They're wonderful.

Yeah. Cool. I guess the last thing is if someone's involved and hitting an animal or there's a, you know, maybe a big bull elk like on the road dead, Like, who do they call? Who should they be calling? Yeah. So now that this 5-1-1 app is available, that's probably the best thing. You can even just, if you don't want to harvest that, you know, pick up that road deal,

you can just report it. And it goes to the Department of Transportation. And then the maintenance crew can, you know, knows there's a carcass there and they can get that scavenged and eliminate that road hazard. So you don't have this. chain reaction thing going on. So that's a great cool. Yeah, a great tool to do that or just called YDOT, whatever. Yep, yep.

But one thing I feel kind of compelled to mention too is especially with bears, because that's what I deal with more often than anything. You know, we have some highways and everybody's familiar probably with

Bear 399 that was struck and killed on the highway. Wyoming and she's darn sure not the first bear um there's been multiple grizzly bears these roadside i call them habituated roadside grizzly bears that have been killed along these highways um and part of what contributes to that is is frankly people feeding these bears um and it's not good like say um a roadkill that maybe is being scavenged by a bear and then unfortunately a driver comes along and yeah they don't see this dark black bear in the middle of the road in the middle of the night and they strike it that's an accident but when when people are actively feeding

these bears and and oftentimes it's just to get a photograph of them yep they don't realize how they're habituating these bears to the roadside and increasing that opportunity for them to get struck and killed or a person or a person yeah yeah you know family um you know somebody vacationing from a you know different location and they come through Wyoming or Montana and oh there's a bear off the road and they clammer out they pull over and clamor out to get a picture and you know there could be a semi truck or a delivery truck zipping down the road at you know high speeds not looking for wildlife they got a job to do and yeah it could cause a traffic accident or even hit a human so yeah um that's that's another

big part of this and and and that 399 bear and others do live a considerable amount of their life roadside and that's not good they're just not living the wild natural life and um it was just a matter of time you know before she was struck and killed on the highway yeah because yeah that happens. Yeah, but if she didn't live there, you couldn't take pictures of her. Yep, and you couldn't make the money and post it on your social media. It's all about money. That's right. Yeah, and just to doggie pile on here, it's not the bear's fault. It's eating your bird seed. It's your fault for leaving the bird's seed out to get eight. So put it away. That's right. Exactly. That's a good point. I appreciate that. You know, we work so hard with not only this,

roadkill stuff to try to prevent the accident from happening in the first place. So much of our work is trying to show people how to, yeah, you can feed birds, have it at your house, but there's ways to do it that the bears can't get to it. You know, if you're going to have chickens, you know, electric fences, you know, your grain, horse grain and stuff, put it away at night, garbage, put, you know, secure it all the way from a bear. So we work so hard to prevent all these unnecessarily deaths in the first place. Yeah, and if you leave a dirty campsite, even if it's all that biodegradable material,

watermelon rinds, stuff like that, you're just letting bears know that people leave good things behind. So pack it out with you. Free meal, yep. Okay, Brian, thanks a lot for joining us. It was a great talk, interesting stuff. Maybe we'll check back in with you about this kind of same issue or something else that you're involved with at a later time. Excellent.

No. Yeah, I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much. Thanks. Have a good season. Neither.

Well, I guess Randall's been out Alcutton, but poor Cal hasn't. But we're going to move on to our rut report. I remember that sound.

Oh, it's beautiful. Okay. This is the week in September. pretty much every archery elk hunter who hasn't tagged out has been waiting for it's the peak breeding period for elk and the ideally you know the bulls should be screaming their heads off and you hit the call and they come running in it's not always the way it works but um we're going to check

in with with some hunters we know who are out there hunting now we're out hunting recently just to see if the action's been hot where they're hunting hunting. Hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart. You got steep ground, long distances, and miles of crown land that aren't always easy to navigate. That's why Anex Hunt just got a serious upgrade for hunters in Canada. Now you can get nationwide coverage for less than the cost of a box of shells with major updates to crown land layers and new parcel boundaries where available. Scout access boundaries and terrain with confidence before you even lace up your boots. Whether you're chasing elk in the mountains, spotting mule deer and the coolies or looking for big woods white tails,

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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. Hey, guys, it's Corey Culkin's coming at you with a Montana rut report for Wednesday, September 17th, hopefully.

Close. I'm in Southwest Montana. This is day five of an eight-day elk hunt, and it's been pretty slow, to say the least, the rut activity, that is. elk have been pretty quiet very nocturnal hearing them in the dark moving in and out of our little hunting area but uh it's also been pretty crowded too hearing a lot of dug flutty bugles from the ridgetops everywhere and i don't know if that's keeping the elk quiet but few people that i've ran into have agreed that it's been pretty slow excuse me pretty slow so um i don't think it's just me uh hunted numerous different locations, different drainages, driven an hour each direction from my camp, trying to find hot cows and bugling elk, and it's been quiet in the general vicinity that I'm in.

But the weather's been inconsistent. It's been raining every other day. It hasn't froze yet either, which I've always found that first frost of the year really gets them going, and it still hasn't gotten that cold yet, at least here. So we got pretty consistent weather the next few days. days really hoping things pick up starting this afternoon because we only have two and a half more days on this little journey and I won't be able to hunt again until October so hoping we can pull it off and yeah good luck to everybody out there and back to you guys in the studio that was real downer. Dirk Durham here with Phelps game calls just wrapping up an elk hunt from last week. Man we faced tough conditions with full moon and warm weather

And then it kind of turned. We got a bunch of storms that kind of rolled in. And that was really nice, got a big cool down. But then we still had that full moon we were fighting. And it seemed like bulls were just pretty tight lips still. But around the 10th, things kind of turned. Bulls started piping off a little bit in the mornings. And on the 11th, my son, Austin, killed a nice bull, called him right in.

And then the 12th, 13th, 14th, things are really starting to pick up. So I feel like we might have missed the really good calling action because it was kind of tough there early. So anyway, everybody get out there, take advantage of this time. I think the bulls should be ripping here for the next week and a half, two weeks, and should be some big bulls hitting the dirt. Good luck out there. Hey guys. Coming to you from central Colorado, right in the middle of muzzleloader season. We're out here looking for some elk the past few days.

checking out another zone today if you might be able to hear it behind me there's a spring with some running water you can kind of see the Aspins are starting to turn had some good sign did hear some bugles a couple days ago but haven't gotten close yet the weather's been good, good fall weather

plenty of rain and we actually had some snow at about 11,000 feet as well and it got down to about 40 degrees the last couple nights so we're hoping that gets them fired up so it's been fun checking out these zones this time of year it's a nice time to be out so looking forward to the rest of the week and we'll keep you posted good luck everybody hey what's up guys this is logan here with the rut report coming out of southwest Montana things are definitely shaping up to be a great couple weeks at elk hunting as we head into the

3rd week of September. In the place that we've been hunting, the opening weekend, things were pretty slow. We didn't hear too many elk bugling. We saw a lot of cows, but most of the bulls seemed to be in their summer range and hadn't came down to try to breed cows yet. You know, this past weekend, things were starting to pick up. We heard a lot more elk vocalizations. Elk were bugling at night. Later into the morning, we were able to call bulls in. on saturday and we heard him talking all sunday um so this this next week should be even better the fall equinox is on september 22nd this year which is typically corresponds with the peak rut and cows are coming into heat around that time period so typically the five or 10 days before

and after the fall equinox or the peak rut you're going to have a lot of rut which will make elk much more susceptible to calling. Bulls are going to be fired up. You know, it's just a great experience to be in the woods and hear elk bugling. So this is the perfect time of year to do that, especially these next couple weeks. So, you know, in Southwest Montana, we've got some cooler weather. It's not too hot. The new moon's approaching. So the nights are going to be dark. The days are going to be relatively cool. And those are all the perfect conditions for elk hunting. So I am very much looking forward to getting back out there. I hope you guys are too. I've got a hunting trip plans. You're in for a good,

however long you're going to be out there for. And yeah, can't wait to get back out. Hope you guys are having fun. And good luck out there. Jason Phelps-Felps game calls calling in for a quick Elk Woods rut report. I've been in northern Utah hunting since the 8th of September. it's now the 13th of september and kind of what we've seen we've had some good days um but it's just not quite cranking yet um some of the bigger bowls are still leaving their cows uh you know in the morning to go bed separately still so it just kind of lets you know that that things aren't really happening we have got on some herds where some cows have been in estrus and you've heard bulls glunkin and really trailing you know specific cows but overall i feel like it's it's just kind

of getting going i would say in the next day or two um you know maybe some cold weather snap in there but I would say by the 15th, 16th, things are heating up to really be going. But that's my rut report from northern Utah. Things are just getting ready to be going. And I would, if I had to guess, the 15th to the 30th is going to be on fire. Take care. Good luck to all you out there. And good luck in the Oakwoods.

Our audience here has to decide if any of those people are, you know, worth listening to in the first place. Or they're full of shit. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Corey looks like he was on day five of an eight-day hunt. Did those reports just make you even angrier that you're not out there right now, Cal? Oh, no, no. I would love to be out there, but I always, I have always done a heck of a lot better if I didn't listen to any of that type of stuff.

And you just went hunting. You just got to go hunting. Yeah. I agree with that. I mean, they're pretty consistent reports, you know. Right now is the time. For sure. I do the throwing out the equinox as fact.

Right. Well, it's like, you know, fall equinox happens. And the activity has to peek around that, you know, because some people would say that about the moon, too. Yeah. Although I'm inclined to listen to Logan because he filled every single tag that he had in Montana last year. Yeah, man. I think the only guy in the office who did that. I think Logan is fantastic.

He's a fellow third floor office mate. Last year was his first out. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, oh, come on. Don't throw them into the bus. I'm not. I'm just saying.

Context. All right. It's time for some listener feedback. Give us some juicy, juicy stuff, Phil. Important questions, hot takes, grumpy people, happy people laid on us. Sure. This is from spicy nachos. I have an ethical question for you.

I was out elk hunting last week and came across a cow with a severely broken leg. The kicker is that she had a calf with her in a wolf dense area would to take the cow. Well, there's some typos in there, but I don't know if you guys can put together a, like, I don't know that that's, like, it's not ethical. I don't think it's unethical to not shoot her. I don't know about you guys, but I also think there's no problem with shooting her. Yeah. Yeah, you know, there's, you can't assume with wild life. Yeah.

I've seen, uh, way back when, the first dude I guided with, he, uh, had a three-legged dough that had a, you know, a noticeable limb. And every set of clients who had a dough tag was like, well, it'd probably be better if I had killed her. And, um, you know, we'd be like, yeah, cool, make a stock. And this, this old gal was cagey. Um, but the truth. was I mean she was there for five years with three legs and having twins every single year there was this dough that lived like near my buddy's house where we used to hunt there was a dough we called peggy and she was around for almost three years because she reminded you of your

aunt because she was missing a leg oh yeah i i will say this past weekend at our first camp on the glassy knob the first thing we saw was a bull move and we're like that's not what I thought the first thing we see on this trip would be and that that moose had I don't know if it was a broken leg or some kind of growth but it's back left leg was swollen up like the size of a basketball and it's kind of dragging it and it fell or almost fell a couple times just trying to step over things and God it was hard to watch but I you know it's like if it's it's one thing if you have a tag right and it's like that's an animal Well, if you're after a cow elk, it's got a broken leg.

I think that calf is going to be fine. Well, I mean, the opposite of that, right, is like that cow has proven to be a successful adult breeding animal. She is expending energy to keep that calf around. If you're really thinking about herd health, I'd kill the calf. That way, mom gets to focus on herself. and she's got the survival instincts. Mathematically, that calf is voted the most likely to die for being an idiot. And listen, if you're going to decide to shoot an animal that's injured like that,

you're, you know, you got to own up to it if you cut that thing open and that whole hind quarter is green and smelly, right? Yeah, that's your tag. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer for that. Like if it makes you feel good to kill her, killer. If not, like, go fill your tag with another animal. And don't assume. Logan came in to clarify that he killed those elk with a bow, so he just wants to.

He also says he's killed elk before that, but I don't know what he's referring. I got your back, Logan. Last year was his first archery elk, but he's killed other elk. This is a big question, but I don't think it's something we've tackled before on any podcast. I've been a part of it. Oh, geez. This is from Ethan Blair. what was your worst hunting or fishing trip and why if anything the first thing that pops into your head

i'll just tell you like bad attitudes in camp we used to call them the camp cancer and the you can be on for all reasonable people it would be like the worst trip ever but if everybody on the worst trip ever has a good attitude, it's still like an enjoyable time at the end of the day. I'm trying, I'm trying really hard to think about a trip where I was like, God, in hindsight, that was horrible. But a lot of times the horrible trips, you look back and you're like, yeah, that was okay. That was fun. Right.

Like, exactly. It's an adventure. I have a bad one for my dad when we went to the boundary waters. Oh, one of the times we went to the boundary waters. Oh, is this a trip he died on? Well, he got the treble hook. He got a treble hook, one hook in each finger, and we busted that out. Then he was throwing a bear bag or a bear hang over a limb, sort of standing on a steep cut bank.

And he fell down the cup bank, you know, his momentum from throwing the rock, took him down the cup bank. And that was the same day as the fishing hook. And then the next day, he and the other guy that was in his canoe capsized in the middle of a giant lake. Yeah, but now it's a great story. Oh, and he got bit by a spider. And when we got back to Ely, they took him into Duluth because they thought it might have been a brown recluse.

And it was like, uh, the wound was opening up. And I was just like, man, that's a rough day. That's a rough, that's a rough little trip for one guy, but that was a great trip for me. Yeah. I would rather be on a bad trip with great attitudes and a great trip with bad attitudes. Totally. Totally.

Completely. I'll do a couple more here. That was from Ethan, by the way. This one's, this one's fun, I think. This is from Michael. Question for the crew. What co-worker would each of you pick to hunt with for White Tail, Elk, and Black Bear? And I encourage hurting each other's feelings, too.

Um, I'd hunt with, like, the whole crew for any of those things. No, I can't say that. You got to pick one. Yeah. Pick one for each species? Sure, yeah. For White Tail, I would say either, uh, Mark or Spencer?

Sure, yeah. Based on improving my odds of success. Yeah, I'd want Jason Feltz to guide me for elk. Yep. And then Black Bear, maybe Corey Culkins. Yeah, he kills a nice one every year. Wouldn't be honest. This is kind of a...

Well, I mean, see, he seems to have a lot of long, lonely hikes in the spring. Yes. This is a ruthless, ruthless. I would love to... radio live hour. With a dirk because I haven't got an elk hunt with him. Jason Phelps is very fun dude to hunt with. Like just just fun.

And when we hunted together, neither was killed anything. It was a fantastic trip. And I would rather go white tail hunting with Mark Kenyon over Tony Peterson, purely for... God, I don't think about Tony. You know what? Maybe I retract that.

You know what we still haven't said is clay for Black Bear? I'm going to say Spencer Newhart for White Tail. Yeah. Because I know I would just bug the living shit out of him and it would be very entertaining the whole time. He'd be like, ah, forget these white tails. I'm going to go look for a mule deer. I've gone to, well, I guess I have

Black Bear hunted with Clay, but I'd love to sit in a tree stand over bait with clay just to see him watch bears because I've gone to the zoo with clay and watched bears at the zoo with clay and that was fun. Yeah. He's just like, ah, look at him. Yeah, that would be very entertaining.

Okay, uh, save the rest for later. No, Phil, you're doing great. Okay, thanks. We'll do one more. Is this from Noah? A question for Randall, on a skill from one to ten, how bummed are you that you missed the D&D session? Honestly, I'm sick to my stomach. I was too. I was devastated when I thought you were going to be there. I can't believe Spencer lined it up in that way.

I made my availability clear. And, yeah, it's just an unfortunate. I asked him why you weren't there, and he said you weren't available. Yeah, I wasn't. I was in the back country. Yeah, I saw Randall declined the invite, and I sent him a text saying, oh, you're going to miss the session? I was trying to keep it a secret.

Well, I didn't even realize it was D&D. I thought it was just going to be Phil Trivia. The only two people that knew it was happening were my wife and Spencer's wife. I still don't think I understand what D&D is, but it seemed fun. Oh, you would if you'd have been there. Yeah. I hopefully, Phil, you were, you were pleased with our ability to adapt. It was hard, Edford.

I was like, I was so confused as to what was going on. I tried to ease you into it, and you guys did so well. There were even people that messaged me saying, I'm so glad Brody and Cal were game to play because I thought they would just turn their nose up at it. And I had that worry, too, which is why I invited Shelby to bring some enthusiasm into the room in case you guys just walked out on me. I just didn't understand. I was like, I was waiting for like a formal, like rule thing.

Okay, and now this is how you play the game. I was like, I, yeah. You guys didn't need that. It was hard. You got it. You did great. It was a lot of fun. In any event, I'm crushed.

You'll have to develop a new campaign. Campaign's what it's called, right, Phil? That's right, Brody. We'll do a new campaign sometime. Sounds good. Cool. All right. That's it for now, Phil.

For now, we got to save some more for the end of the show. So keep sending them in. We've got another interview coming up. Next up, we've got Chris Hill, who's the CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. She'll be joining us from Alaska. CLF is the only organization dedicated to the conservation and expansion of national conservation lands, which she'll have to explain a little bit, which currently total about 38 million acres. And I'm going to let Cal handle this one because he'll do a better job than me.

Yeah, Chris and I are internet friends. Yeah. Welcome, Chris. I just say that because we haven't met in person ever as this world goes. Yes. How are you, Chris Hill? I'm great. How are you guys doing?

Thanks for having me. Where are you today? I am in Haines, Alaska, which is southeast Alaska. And it's the first day in four days that it hasn't rained. So it's really nice out. Do you, would you mind hitting us with a quick? a southeast Alaska hunt fish report. Have you been doing anything fun?

Oh, yeah. So, you know, this is the best time I think to be in southeast Alaska because it's coho season. So, and coho is probably one of my favorite fish to fish for. So they're here. The derby started. I got to keep my championship up and win the derby again this year. Oh, wow.

You're the returning champ. I am the returning champ on the fly. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Still, nonetheless. Yeah, it's fun. It's a lot. It's really fun. And we just got back from a trip to Yakutat to go surfing and fishing.

And we did a little fish, a couple days on the sea tuck to fish for Coho, and it was just fantastic. And Yakut has a good steelhead fishery, too, right? They do. Yeah. So the sea took. The Cetook is a really awesome river. It's in the Tongass, and it's home to all five species of Pacific salmon and has a healthy steelhead run. So it's, it was, it was really amazing.

Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, since you said the magic word Tongass, would you like to really, this is your time, Chris, but we have lots of things happening all at once in the conservation landscape. What are you and CLF working on the most? What's your number one item to tackle? Oh, that's a hard one. So because there's just so many things.

So Contraged and Lands Foundation represents this broad, nonpartisan national network of community leaders that are solely focused on the lands from BLM. We're focused on expanding, protecting, and restoring. those lands at BLM. And, you know, as you guys know, BLM is the, has the largest amount of the country's public lands at 245 million acres. And just in comparison, that's larger than the Forest Service and probably three times larger the National Park Service. So these are all those lands in between the National Park Service. And we work with over 80 community-led land

conservation organizations across the West and really do it in this sort of community-based advocacy model where investing in local leaders to protect their lands has really proven to be one of the most effective strategies. So, you know, really as we look at sort of the onslaught of all of the things that are happening and all of the attacks that are happening on public lands, the idea that we want to privatize these places is still incredibly unpopular opinion in the communities. And we'll continue to see, you know, we as a community did a really great job at the sell-off of public lands during the reconciliation fight, but we're going to continue to see the onslaught of more and more things that are going to come from the administration and Congress to try

to continue to privatize those lands. So right now what we're working on, and I would say there's probably two big issues at the moment, the repeal of resource management plans within Congress. And then on the administration side, it's opening up drilling in the Western Arctic and the repeal of the public lands rule. And we have not talked a lot about Western Arctic here recently. Do you want to give us a quick snapshot of what the conversation is,

Western Arctic? Obviously, huge caribou area, and our Western Arctic herd is not historically healthy right now from a population standpoint. And Western Arctic has some calving areas and obviously a huge migration route for our migratory birds. absolutely and it's one of the last remaining intact ecosystems we have on the planet right i think i think you went this summer to did you go to the western arctic or well we would have been like we would been east of west yeah we were so we were we were we were still quite a ways east to like prudo okay okay we're closer to canada okay gotcha gotcha but that whole entire system right is super important. And so right now, we're kind of an holding pattern at the moment. So in June,

the Interior Department proposed to rescind the current integrated activities plan. So it's like a management plan for the Western Arctic. And that plan limited oil and gas development from expanding into the special areas, which is some of what you've been talking about within the Western Arctic. The important piece of that plan is that it really did balance energy production with the protection of this ecosystem. They opened it up to rescind it. They proposed to rescind it. They had a comment period. That comment period has since closed.

And during that comment period, we really saw the communities rise up and have a steady jump beat of opposition. So right now we're waiting for the administration. to release its final plan during there. At the same time, if you remember during the congressional reconciliation fight, the Senate added back in provisions that directed DOI to resume the oil and gas leasing program in the Western Arctic. So that provision sort of went back to the Trump era plan that requires at least 4 million acres to be leased for drilling.

So there's more to come here. I think it'll start to unravel itself again, and we're probably going to see this in the courts. And then, I guess, real quick, what from that community level that you spoke about, what's the community response in regards to rescinding roadless in the Tongass? Tongus and roadless typically go hand in hand.

You can't talk about roadless act without talking about Tongass. Yeah, that's for sure. You know, so Tongass is National Forest, and it's dear to my heart because it is in my backyard. This is where I recreate all the time. And the Tongass National Forest is particularly going to be affected by the rescission of the roadless rule because it's, you know, the roadless areas in the Tongass is almost 92% of

all of the forest. And, you know, as you guys know, the Tongass is the largest national forest in the United States. It's the world's last remaining temperate rainforest. It's called the climate forest or the lungs of the north of North America because of its old growth trees and the ability for those trees to really like breathe in carbon and use it as a carbon sink for the rest of the earth. It's completely and just beautifully biologically diverse. It's home to brown bears and black bears and wolves and all sorts of Sitka blacktailed deer, which, by the way, that hunt is starting soon too. So I'm super excited about that.

And it's like, it's one of the most important habitats for all five species of Pacific salmon. So it's super important. It's culturally important for indigenous folks who have steward and lived on the land since time and memorial. and it's a tourism powerhouse. You have all of the things, right, for the Tongass that just make it a really important place. And because of all of those things, those communities are the ones that are really standing up and saying, no, we want to keep the Roadless Rule intact, and it's important to do so. You know, the Roadless Rule has been around since 2001.

It's 9 million acres of the Tongass that are designated as roadless, and it's important for us to continue that. not just the Tongass at the Roadless Rule helps, right? It's across the West and probably a lot of areas where your folks are listening from as well. So I think we have one more day. I think the comment period ends tomorrow. I know Trout Unlimited, if you go on to T.U.org, that you can submit a comment on their portal. Yeah, TU's got a good map to the wilderness. Society's got a good map up, BHA's got a good map up. If you've got Onex, you can see,

you can put on your roadless area layer and see you real quick. Speaking out of Boz Angeles here, our entire watershed for the Gallatin Valley is in a roadless area and highly, highly accessible for all you casual dog walkers even. So, yeah, well, well used. well-loved stuff. Yeah, darn right. Well, how do folks learn more about CLF, Chris? Oh, great question. So we're on all the socials, right?

You can find us on Instagram and all of the social medias. And then you also can go to conservationlans.org. That's our website. You can get involved there. We also, as I said, we work with over 80 local. nonprofits, and I would imagine that a lot of folks can be connected to some of those local nonprofits to really do some of the work on the ground and get to know the folks in the communities. And I will add that you just mentioned T.U's action page. I went on there and just

submitted a comment now, and I even personalized it. So everybody in the chat, it doesn't take that long to go and make your voice heard on on these public lands issues. That's right. And, you know, we've seen time and time again, it's, it's those comments that make a difference. Some people are like, ah, what is, what is my comment going to do? But it actually makes a different and creates that record to show that either the public is for or against an issue. And, you know, when we're looking at it from the agency perspective, but also from the congressional perspective, Congresspeople want to hear from their constituencies. And when we band together and have that voice become, you know, very large and big, things happen and things

change. And we saw that with the public land sell-off fight. That's right. And if you folks at home want to think about it in a very tangible way, do you act differently when people are paying attention to you? Exactly. Our representatives and our senators, they can darn sure act differently when they know a lot of people are paying attention to them. So that's part of getting your comment in. Chris Hill, thank you so much, Conservation Lands Foundation. We'll have to have you back on.

And where do folks go to find you again? Conservationlands.org or any social channels. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. And we or I will see you in the heart of the cold, cold city next week. when we're going to talk about climate and conservation and public lands in Manhattan. Ooh, an actual island. Big apple. There's not any elk running around there.

No. No. We might see some rats, though. Yeah. Thanks, Chris. Yeah, thank you all, and I'll see you soon. Thank you. Thanks, Chris.

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Like I just, Otis Reddress. I always screw that out. I just came up with a segment a couple days ago. And you just like, oh, my God. We should just make up new segments all the time. Oh, please don't. It's the highlight of this show. Three Harsh Truce is where our panel of experts, self-appointed experts,

we're going to share some things that most people might not want to believe, but they're certainly true, at least according to us. And I thought about calling it hot takes, but it's like overused and hot takes are typically opinions that are expressed without any real evidence, and we wouldn't do that to you. So we're going to share ours with you. In order, Cal,

lay it on us. What's the harsh truth? Buying your hunting and fishing license is not enough. You have got to, if you want to be a responsible hunter or angler, you have got to participate in our system of wildlife management,

which some Sometimes you would feel like is being political, but fill out your surveys, go to in-person, go to your Fish and Game Committee meetings, participate in the comment periods, and write your senators and congresspeople. It makes a huge difference. I love filling out those surveys. Yeah. And showing up to meetings, too, is like. you feel so much more involved and you have you have such a greater awareness of what's happening in different parts of the state you're going to like learn a bunch of stuff you otherwise would never know sometimes it feels like cheating in terms of just like being aware of what's happening with wildlife in your state yep yep um do we want to like round robin this thing or do you want me to go do all three well we decided you can lay another one on us we ranel and i could we should have told you um we're just going to do one each oh okay great um um But if you've got another quick one, lay it on us.

Antelope, jump fences. I've seen it. They can do it. I've also seen them standing around for 15 minutes wondering what to do when they hit a fence. That dovetails with, this isn't my harsh truth, but one of my harsh truths is like, all the stuff you've heard isn't right. You don't say. Yeah. All right, Randall.

my harsh truth is this uh there's there's a lot of like a discourse online about social media and hunting and and like is social media ruining hunting and and a lot of it focuses specifically on um like what's unique about hunting and social media my harsh truth is social media is ruining everything if you have any hobby it's being it's being ruined by social media And I would just, like, if you look at, like, all the problems, I feel like a lot of the problems that people complain about in the hunting world are just problems about the modern world. Like, permits in national parks are hard to get. Like, everything's getting too expensive. And so I just feel like there's a lot of, like, finger pointing within the hunting community about what's ruining, who's ruining what?

Drones, infrared. I mean, there is that, too, but it's like. Thermals. it's like if you want to go backpacking somewhere someone's already you could watch a video of someone with a GoPro on their head walking that trail they're ruining that trail like I went down

a social like I've been running more and more lately and I went down a running social media trail tragically the other day and it's like social media is ruining running I'm like really like because it's not ruining it for me it's like whether you choose to allow it to ruin it

for you or not like no one's holding the gun to your head telling you to like believe or follow what's on every social media page yeah and i think that like now i i had a lot of thoughts about this and they sort of sprawled the one is you haven't everything you've heard isn't true the other is like just decide what you want and you'll get it out of hunting right like like oh do you want to go somewhere and see no see see no other hunters you can do that or you can decide to let social media ruin it for you yeah exactly like like it's it's all about um keeping it in perspective and just recognizing that like the finger pointing and the x y z shit talking yeah like that's all uh it's not unique to our community not at all and it

there's a lot of breath and and ink wasted on it yeah if you're going to do social media do DIY woodworking, plumbing, electrical. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then, man, that's who I'm watching. Oh, I know.

Like, there's, I'm sure there's plumbers out there like social media is ruined plumbing. Exactly. I don't make as much money as I used to. Damn it. Randall can replace the light switch now. Anybody can ruin the electric electrician's trade. Yeah, exactly. Nice, Randall.

I like that one. mine's kind of mine's a little longer i'll get through it though um there's a quote from a hunting writer and i don't call who it is but it's stuck with me over the years and it goes something like anyone can take a 500 yard shot at an animal but it takes a really good hunter to sneak in and kill one at 50 yards and the reason i'm telling you that quote is i strongly believe based on years of experience that it's a mistake to encourage or allow you young or novice hunters to take long-ass rifle shots at big game animals and like long as relative like right like it's this there's not one specific distance um but and i'll get i'll get

further into that later but the reason why is even if a new hunter is practiced and they're capable of making four 500 yards shots at the range shooting at animals like in the heat of the moment is just way different than shooting at paper targets and for every hunter but especially inexperienced hunter the goal should always be to get as close as possible to minimize the chance for a poor shot a miss or a wounded animal whatever um but i think just as important that that's the reason you always hear but just as important um long range shooting at animals is not how you learn to be a good hunter it just like not has nothing to do with it um becoming a good hunter comes from reading like things like reading sign watching the behavior and

body language of animals learning how to like pick a route that keeps you out of sight on a stock being quiet paying attention to the wind direction like those are the things that that's how you become a good hunter um and i like personally i'm gonna i'm gonna get up on the soapbox like i I held to a strict, no shots over 200 yards rule with my older son for his first three big game seasons. And I know he's like a better hunter for it because he was learning along the way. And it taught me a lot because it didn't hamper his success one bit. And his first three hunting seasons, he killed three mule deer bucks and an antelope buck, like following that 200 yard rule.

And then like now he's a little older and I'll let him, he's shot more. shot at animal he's shot at targets more and i'll let him stretch that range out a little bit yeah yeah i this is just like a funny observational story but uh my good buddy jim like i'm old old old old gym down in idaho he's three olds he's yeah yeah i think well he's always the oldest of our hunting group oh um and he bought uh a super fancy sheep rifle ultra light thing and And that's the thing is those types of long-range systems are, like, so prevalent now that it's just like, they are, you know. They are, but here's the fun thing. Like, he's got a, you can shoot like a mile on his own property, like step out the door and he shoots all the time and has the ability to do it and he's very capable.

And about three seasons after getting this rifle, he's like the furthest shot I have ever made with this expletive, expletive. rifle is 150 yards. Yeah. And because when you grow up and you've put the time in to become that good hunter, your interactions with animals are much tighter. They're also more fun and exciting. They are, but you are just naturally putting yourself in a tighter distance. And the reality is, is like, the closer you can get, the fewer variables you are going to encounter.

yep um and you know your ability to see what could be blocking your shot no matter what scope you have at 450 yards is not as good as it's going to be at 150 years i like i'm not i don't want this seem like i'm trashing long range shooting i i just think it's a disservice to like young and new hunters to be like there's a bucket 500 yards lay down shoot you know like it's just like they're not learning much oh man I watched some folks. I watched these guys shoot this buck last year. And it wasn't all that far.

But this is like a dense grizzly bear area. And, you know, they charged up the hill. They probably shot it at like 450 yards, which is a long shot, but not crazy far when you're talking about long range shooting. And I watched those guys walk around. Looking for it. Trying to find this deer that dropped in its tracks. for 40 minutes to the point where I was like

I better help bird dog these people into where the deer drop. And there's just things like that that people don't consider. And if you don't know you whack that thing, a lot of people are going to give up on it and be like, oh, God, maybe I miss. The doubt starts creeping in.

And there's, the state of Wyoming, they had a conversation in the and game regulation process about trying to address long range shooting. Yep. And there's ways that, um, all of which would be high, you know, it's, it's regulating morality, which is not something we can do, uh, effectively, but, um, a limitation on the amount of ammunition you can pack with you. Make you think twice about.

That's great. That's great. And I think, I'm like, what would the effect be? If it's like, how many tags do you have? You got one valid tag, you get five rounds. Right. That's three shots. Five rounds each day, right?

And two extra in case you think the rifle got knocked off a zero and you need to prove you're still on. That's a tough one. I've never heard that. Yeah. The round limitation. Yeah. Because they do it on like WMAs for waterfowl. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. Just try to limit skybusting. um anyway that's what i think so harsh truth take it or not take that sound effect phil harsh truth yeah well there should be when this segment started out there should be some sort of music bed playing underneath it just like a very you know kind of forepoding intense you could have a little button you push and it just goes ooh that's harsh yeah throughout the segments it's mouth down whenever one of us makes a good point you go ooh that's harsh Phil do we got any reactions to those

harsh truth or maybe some of the listeners have some of their own? There were some happening throughout the thing. I don't remember there are timestamps, but I couldn't tell you exactly what they were in Well, give us something interesting. What do we got in reference to here? Let's do

a general chat. Oh, there's Hefflefinger. What's he want? Oh, Hefflefinger. He said one thing, you should use your woodsmanship, not marksmanship. See, I don't know what he's referring to here. That's the problem. What we just talked about. Great.

Jim, this, if you're still on there, this moose that I saw with the busted up leg, the leg was on the left side and the right antler had grown in all kinds of funky. I'll send you a picture. You told us about that at some point. It's mostly people asking Mowgore questions about Hungary and people talking about Steve on Theo Vaugh. Shout out Mowgore. Well, if nobody's got anything interesting to say or ask them. See, this is a this is a me problem. I screwed up. I should have. been on it putting these comments up as it was happening. Damn it, Phil. So I'm so sorry. You're having such a big week with the D&D. You can find something good. Come on, this is my favorite part.

No, no, I've got listener feedback. I'm just thinking of stuff in directs. Oh, it doesn't have to be a response to the three harsh truths. Let's get listener feedback. Yeah, yeah. I knew you didn't drop the ball. No. Cal, this is from Ethan.

When you kill your monster gris, what is your plan with it? Rug, mount, soft hand, sausage, roasts? Do you think this far ahead or is that bad, bad, uh, juju? If you, do you feel like you're, is there any superstition around? I, I, well, it's, it's part of logistical planning that you do, you need to plan for being successful. And then if you're unsuccessful, you're just carrying extra stuff, right? Um, so yeah, I am planning the big negative of a coastal bear in the fall specifically is, they are feeding on salmon.

And I have friends that take a chunk of meat off every single bear and cook it. And I believe them because they have the largest database, data set that they're working with. Can I interrupt you for a sense? In Alaska, there's no salvage rule for those fall bears, is there? Correct. Yeah, you don't leave where you have to take the meat. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah. My plan is to ideally do some cooking up there if I am successful and come up with a game plan for what I'm going to do with some big old grizzar bear meat. The other thing I have tags for because I've purchased them in advance are wolves. And in this area, you know, it's an area where the caribou population is of concern and they're encouraging people to harvest wood. wolves and they feel like there's a very high population of wolves and i have always wanted to cook wolves so um ideally we'll we'll have like a big old grizzly bear ham and a big old wolf ham and we'll do some fun uh cooking down here in the meat eater studio too so and then as far as like rug mount soft tan stuff like i have not thought that far

Like, I, um, it will be utilized. I guarantee you. Great. Uh, this is just an update from Kyle who asked a question about differences between spring and fall turkey. And he's happy to report based on that advice. He got his first turkey ever yesterday. I saw that. I saw that on the damned social media that's ruining everything.

Terrible. Congratulations. Yeah. Congrats, Kyle. Uh, Charles says his meteor roast still happening. Haven't seen a new episode in a while it is. Yanni's gearing up to film. on the next batch of episode, so stay tuned.

Yeah, it requires coordinating a lot of schedules. Caleb, because you were mean to me and yelled, I will ask your question. If you need vision assistance, do you prefer glasses or contacts in the field? I wear contacts. I can tell you what Sidney preferred because my vision is perfect.

She preferred laser eye surgery. There you go, option C. Contacts here. Yeah, I've seen people have issues with both. Yeah. but I do feel very poorly for one of my good friends who I won't know name used to call him the pot-bellied stallion looking at that dude with his glasses all fogged up when he's sucking wind trying to get up the hill fast yeah and it's like looking

through binos in a spot and scope with glasses is kind of a pain but but do you feel like you, like I feel like you should have like a little eyeball kit if you're going to go the contact route. Oh yeah, that's sure. Like you need your solution and stuff. Sidney always did contacts and it was like contacts in the tent was just like a nightmare. Well, dailies are way easier.

I mean, they're a little more trash to deal with, but I mean, I just bring twice as many dailies as I think I'm going to need because like dust gets in there. At one point we pulled some dailies out of the. trash and washed them to put them back in her eyes. Interesting.

Improvised adapt and overcome. Yeah. The laser. I will say, Aden, thank you for watching the show live for the first time. I appreciate it. I have seen your question that you have submitted literally nine times about getting a young hunter into it.

I haven't picked your question because that's, we've talked about that a lot. And also, Brody's the only dad on the panel. But my parents didn't hunt. Randall How did you get into hunting And how would you encourage other young hunters

To get into hunting Get your friends into it Find friends who have We had like a group of friends And one of our dads hunted Yeah there's ways to do it And we all transmitted it through osmosis There's mentorship programs

With fishing game departments Um Buy our book Catch a Cary Fish Count the Stars There's a great plug There's a big section in there on how to do it Like there's ways to do it for sure Yeah I'll tell you

If you're interested in it and you're not just actively figuring it out, you're probably not cut out for the hunting game. I say that that sounds like a harsh truth. Harsh truth. Harsh truth. But I'll tell you, like, I was surrounded by very casual hunters, and it wasn't like anything near the way people live in this office.

and I bugged the hell out of people to facilitate my obsession with hunting without having anybody directly there to be a mentor, right? Like, I just, there was something about it. I was very interested in it. And I pushed and pushed and pushed and people kept throwing footballs and basketballs and baseballs at me saying like, here, play with this. And you spat at them. Exactly. So you'll figure it out. Like if it, if you're interested in it, you just got to make it happen and don't let stuff hold you back. Yeah. Great. Sorry to do that to you, Phil. Well, Jordan says Phil's getting a little stern since his big trivia podcast. Jordan, shut up. That's not the reason. I'm just a little prickly after that misunderstanding about the feedback with the three harsh truths and everyone got mad at me. And also, I carry a little small amount of insecurity about being a non-hunter who has to pick hunting questions for a bunch of hunters to answer.

It's a hard job back here. Harsh true. There you go. There you go. Phil laying down the law. All right. We're going to move on from that, Phil. Oh, let's do it, please.

Next time you'll do better. Thanks, Brody. So we got a couple announcements to make before we sign off. And the first one is we're opening our. our newest media to retail location in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And they got some events going on, grand opening and some tailgate tour events. Who's going to that tailgate tour? Spencer,

Spencer, Mark Kenyon, and Chester, Floyd. And they'll be at the store, but that'll probably all get covered. And this announcement that Phil is going to play right now. All right, Milwaukee Hunters, this Friday, September 19th from 4 until 7 p.m. We'll be having our grand opening of this brand new meat eater store right here in Brookville, Wisconsin. It's a family-friendly event, so be sure to bring your kids, bring your spouse. And no matter where your adventure is taking you this season, we got you covered. From Western Big Game to Phelps game calls to FHF gear, we got everything you need to get you going further and staying longer.

We also have brand new Milwaukee meat eater logo wear. Behind me we got Whitetail Wear for the season, from cold weather to early season. We also have waterfall clothing right behind me. The event's going to be joined by the backcountry hunters and anglers. The National Deer Association. The Meat Eater Tailgate Tour will also be here. I've gotten to make some of the meat eater personalities. With all that being said, we're happy to be a part of this community.

So come on by this Friday, grab a beer, tell us some of your hunting stories, and be prepared for lots of fun. Thanks for all your support. Well, I want to go now. Yeah. I don't like that. I would have, you remember Wayne's world when they're talking with Alice Cooper, Miliwake. There should be a corner of the store dedicated just to that.

Yeah. And cheese curds. Try some of that. Oh. What do you got there? I'm going to talk with my mouth. Besides opening our new store, we got a whole bunch of new products and content coming out soon. Randall, show that to the camera.

That's the new jerky. We got, I think, three different flavors, maybe. Hmm. That's delightful. It was great. This is the Hawaiian Terriaki Bison jerky. So if you're lame and you don't know how to make your own jerky out of deer elk or whatever you got in the freezer, that stuff's real good. It's Buffalo.

We've also got, after a long wait, you see that, Phil? There it is. It's here. Releases next week. the effed up old trucks calendar um i'm not going to show you what's inside you got to buy it it looks good oh it turned out great ma'am um uh i you know what i i learned a word misophonia you guys know what that is that's when a sound really bugs you real bad you know people are chewing into a microphone you've got it oh my bad my bad masticated i mean i i support it because

we are meat eater harsh truths harsh truths it's jerky you got to chew it yeah the working hard to make the jerky a super cool project so this round um is sort of saying uh you know american buffalo um and then we're working on a bunch of other uh like sustainable um projects that that support ranchers that are doing really good things for wildlife and their way of living. That's right. And by the way, if you don't know, this sucker here, if you buy it, it's not expensive,

but if you buy it, two bucks from the sale of every calendar, we're going to donate to backcountry hunters and anglers so they can keep fighting the public lands fight. So you'd be doing a great thing for, for BHA and anyone who enjoys public lands if you buy that calendar darn right thank you in advance yeah and then real quick as far as content heather de ville's new series our way of life is coming out i think i don't know i don't know the date but it's coming out soon and i think it's like one of the coolest things we've done in a really long time like for video content it is awesome

so check that out and meat eater season 13 is going to be available real soon as well and randall has a final announcement for everyone yes on next next week's show we will once again be circling up the meat eater movie club and the title we'll be discussing is uh the 2010 documentary elephant in the living room which is available for free on pluto and amazon prime it's one of my all time favorite documentaries and i was delighted to see that It's now available to stream for free. And so I'm excited to revisit that rich, rich text about exotic pet ownership. Excellent. Yes. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. And tune in next week.

Be kind. Be courteous. Be safe out there. Enjoy your season. Be cool. Pars trues. First Lights Navigator hoodie was built and tested where plans fall apart and weather doesn't ask permission. It's built to perform, built to last, breathable insulation that dumps heat fast on the hike-in,

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That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. This is an I-Hart podcast.