The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 772: Bullwhacker, Dinky Rifle Calibers, and Whitetail Bucks | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Hosts Brody Henderson, Randall Williams, and Jordan Sillars talk with Mike Kautz of American Prairie about a recent land access victory, throwback to whitetails of their past, chat with Tyler Freel of the Tundra Talk Podcast about cartridge choice when hunting big game, and share their dream whitetail hunts. Watch the live stream on the MeatEater Podcast Network YouTube channel. Subscribe to The MeatEater Podcast Network MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. For our friends north of the border, Anex Hunt just got better in Canada. Now you can get nationwide coverage for less than a box of shells. Plus, Anex has dropped big updates to Crownland layers and added parcel boundaries where available. You still get fully functional offline maps, real-time GPS tracking, precise weather conditions,

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so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. This week only, it is whitetail week at themeatheater.com. This is our biggest whitetail gear sale of the season. It runs from now through October 6th. You can get up to 50% off on the gear we all trust in the field. talking tree saddles, trail cams, game bags, coolers, knives, an exclusive meat eater apparel. It's all marked down.

Whether you're hanging stands or breaking down your buck, this is the gear that gets it done. Head to themeatheater.com and shop White Tail Week before it ends on October 6th. Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat eater trivia. Meat eater podcast. Welcome, everybody to Meteor Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. here at Meteor HQ and Bozeman.

That's 1 p.m. in my hometown of Edinburgh, Pennsylvania, where archery white-tail season is now open for all you bow guys and crossbow guys. Yeah. Arrow guns, we call them. I'm your host, Brody. I'm joined today by the only person who occasionally threatens my total domination of mediator trivia, Randall Williams. He beat me yesterday.

Spoiler alert. What's that? Spoiler alert. Well, it's not really a spoiler. Can we cut that out, Phil? Can we cut that out? Is it a spoiler? Yeah, I'll get right on that.

I mean, not really. Yeah, if someone's expecting it already, is it really a spoiler? We've also got Jordan Sillers. He's our very own expert on all things firearms, aren't you? I do my best. Yeah, I do my best. Yeah, I do my best. I read your stuff. It's good. Yeah, thanks. This week, we've got a couple great interviews.

First is about a huge public access win here in Montana. And we're also going to be talking to, you'll like this, Jordan. We're going to be talking to someone about shooting great big game animals with little dinky rifle cartridges. And first, since this is whitetail week at Meat Eater, when we celebrate all things whitetail hunting, we're also going to share some whitetail buck stuff, a throwback Thursday and a whitetail dream hunt deal that we're going to talk about. Speaking of White Tail Week, which is brought to you by our friends at Sig Sauer, not only do we have deals across all the meat eater brands, including up to 40% off at First Light,

And there's great deals on the Mediator website, too. We're also dropping a steady supply of fresh whitetail content. We're running a real fun competition to decide which state is the best whitetail hunting state. You can go check that out at themediator.com. Go check out Firstlight.com to get yourself outfitted for all the different conditions you're going to run into during three, four months of whitetail season. so like there's something there you're going to find that you need and you don't even have to be a white till hunter to take advantage of this sale there's all there's like all kinds of all purpose stuff on sale at first light two and again discounted merch at the meat eater dot com so get on there how long does this thing go on till sunday that would be a good question i think you got like a couple few more days to take advantage of it it's all over the website if steve were here he'd go come on Randall? Yeah. He wouldn't know either though. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're busy doing this stuff. We can't keep track of everything. And we're so busy that we're going to skip the chit chat today because we have a lot we're going to cover and then plays a chit chat real quick. Jordan, you haven't been on the show that much. So introduce yourself. Sure. And tell everyone real quick about the crazy new podcast you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm Jordan Sillers. I'm a managing editor for

for the website and then i also help cow with his podcast cal's week interview um starting up a new podcast we launched a pilot episode in march um that you may have seen it's called blood trails uh it's a true crime podcast about hunters anglers uh campers hikers you know everyone sort of in our world and really excited about it uh we have eight episodes coming out in this first season um we have a story of a hunter who disappeared under very suspicious circumstances we have a story of a hunter who was found stabbed 17 times and the medical examiner ruled a suicide so that brando where were you during that time yeah i'd have to i'd have to know this is i need the details because i was not involved noted noted um there's a story of a hunter who was shot with his own

rifle and there's thoughts about whether it was someone close to him who may have done it so lots of really interesting stories we think it's you know we hope people like it and we're really excited oh man i mean of course they're going to like it like the true crime genre is like bananas these days and and i think you've already got like the hunting crowd locked in so you need to market this to like suburban soccer moms who spend their time watching true crime Relax on Netflix. Right. Listen, if you love Meat Eater content and you've always wanted to get your wife to watch or listen to Me Eater content, this is for you.

You know, you guys can do this together. I feel like I'm just bringing, you know, strengthening relationships through this. Every time I get into Sydney's car to go somewhere with her, as soon as the car is powered on, it's just immediately. Then he plunged the dagger in up to that. Yep. Yeah, and one thing I just wanted to say, so speaking of the true crime genre, a lot of it out there is, you know, it's it's someone, they read some news stories, they read Wikipedia and that's, and then they kind of chat about it. This is not that. This is original reporting. I talked to the people who were- Hard-hitting journalism. Yeah, I mean, I talked to the people who were involved, as long as they're willing to talk to me, the family of the victim, the law enforcement who investigated it. And we tell you things that no one else has reported before. And I will say, too, like the- the genre occasionally leans into like the lurid

sort of voyeuristic and this is very much not that. It's very much like straightforward empathetic reporting about pretty tragic situations. I just gave Jordan a lead today or yesterday on something that maybe someday it will end up in the podcast. We'll see. Yeah. I'm not going to say anymore about that. Yeah, we'll see. I'm looking into it. Yeah. All right. Guys, we're in a

move on because we got a bunch to talk about today. For our first interview today, we've got Mike Couts. I hope I pronounce that right. Mike is the vice president of access and infrastructure at American Prairie, which was formerly American Prairie Reserve. They recently simplified it and they're just American Prairie now. I hope I'm getting that right. Anyway, American Prairie is an organization with a goal restoring and preserving short grass prairie ecosystem. in central and northern Montana. It's a ecosystem that's kind of suffering all over the country. And these guys are doing a lot of good work here in Montana.

And a big part of that plan, what they might be known for the best, is reestablishing wild bison populations in that part of Montana. We got Mike on the line, Phil. Here's Mike. Mike, thanks for joining us today. you're having us to start out just give folks like the real quick version of who american prairie is what they do and how they operate as far as acquiring property to build into this collection of hopefully interconnected short grass prairie landscapes sure sure so american prairie is a montana based

nonprofit. We've been around for over 20 years now. And as you mentioned, our goal is to, and our work is to buy and acquire land that we manage for public access and for wildlife habitat along the Missouri breaks and the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge so that eventually we have enough habitat to restore an intact prairie short grass ecosystem. And we work on a willing buyer willing selling willing seller model and we've done i think over 50 land transactions at this point um and how many total acres mike uh right now we're sitting at about six hundred and three thousand acres of deed and the least land just a little bit um it's it's a lot of driving yeah yeah um my favorite part of the state up there where you guys are

working. Now, you mentioned that it's a willing seller, willing buyer situations when you're acquiring these properties. But I'd kind of be remiss to, like, not address the fact that up in that part of Montana, there's like a certain group of people, like, not everyone, but like there's definitely like some pushback from some of the locals in that part of the state about what you guys are doing. And I just want to give you a chance to, like, speak to that and, and let us know what's going on with that. Yeah, absolutely. I think any big conservation project is not without controversy and we're certainly no exception to that. So when you drive in that part of the state, you'll see Save the Cowboys, Stop American Priority Signs. Those are produced by United Property

Owners of Montana, which I encourage anyone listening to this and folks who are from outside the state and trying to study up on this, you can just go to their website and see what they're, see what they're about. And some of this is, is simply, you know, a disagreement over how you, how you manage landscape. And some of it is, I think, concern over, you know, changes, you know, in the region. And some of it's just that we're new, you know, again. 20 years in Montana is an eye blink. And so some of it's just been, we had to go out there and earn trust, say what we're going to do, and then back that up with action. And so I think what you find is you go out, you talk to our over-the-fence neighbors, you talk to the more than

60 ranchers in the region that we partner with on leasing grass or working through our wild sky program together. You find that actually we, we, we have great relationships. And I think, you know, head on, we are not the enemy of Montana agriculture. Sure. Yeah, I mean. Agriculture does great. The reason that we can do this in this part of the world is because all of the good stewardship

that Montana ranchers have carried out for generations on this landscape. And often we find that we actually have the same goal, which is that we're hoping and working to have this landscape look much like it does right now. Now, slightly different methods there sometimes. But at the end of the day, we want this place to, you know, as you were saying, it is one of the most spectacular parts, not only Montana, but the entire United States. Yep. And we'll all work into make sure it stays that way.

And something I'll point out is that on, like, I'm not sure, like, what percentage of the acreage this is true on, but there's still cattle ranching going on on some of your properties. Yeah. And again, that's, you know, I think, you know, when folks say, hey, there's controversy around this. A lot of that controversy is simply coming from a lack of understanding of what we actually do. So, you know, we're sometimes get cast as like these bison folks who want wild bison everywhere. We manage our bison as livestock. So we disease test them. They're contained behind fences. They're not wild free roaming bison. They're an important part of conserving them as a species, but they're not wild and free roaming. And we have about 850 bison right now on two properties. We have over 7,000 cattle on our properties. So most of our properties, the grazer that does that role in the ecosystem, which again, is a really important one, is cattle. And again, I was listening to Cal on the Joe Rogan podcast this week while I was driving.

and it was awesome to hear him talking in front of such a huge audience about the value of prairies and that prairies globally are disappearing faster than any other ecosystem. And we have one of the best chances to set aside and protect some of our remaining grasslands anywhere in the world right here in Montana. And so hearing him talk to Joe about that was awesome. And yet even Cal, who again, I mean, he's here in Montana, you know, had. a couple of bits of misinformation about American Prairie. You know, our money doesn't come from the Dutch.

97% is from within the United States. And our bison don't come from Yellowstone. They came from Elk Island and Canada. And we've done trades with some of our tribal neighbors who have Yellowstone genetics in their herd. But again, I think that's, and not to give Cal a hard time. No, no, we'll make sure he hears this for sure. We don't let go any chance to correct Cal a hard time.

on his area. You can tell him he shanked it on that one. It was just a mess. He's a good guy. He'll acknowledge that he got wrong and make a correction. But, you know, I think it just speaks to, look, you know, here's somebody who's really well educated on conservation in Montana and around the U.S., but still had some of, you know, these sort of persistent, you know, misinformation about what we actually do. And a lot of that's on us like we got to make sure we're out here talking about saying no we're a bunch of montanans we're a montana non-profit buying land opening up to public access managing it for wildlife yeah let's let's talk about that i mean one of the great things about american prairie is that most if not i'm not sure

if it's all of your properties but most of the properties are open to public access for recreational purposes, which, you know, it could be hiking, wildlife viewing. I think you guys have a campground. There's fishing opportunities and there's hunting opportunities. American Prairie runs a lottery for several bison hunting opportunities. Randall's wife last year took advantage of that and got herself, got herself. Was it great, she sat a big bull. No, no.

She had one of the yearling. Oh, I got you. She had one of the yearling tags. But honestly, one of the cool. wildest hunting experiences of my life. You guys still eating that thing? Oh, yeah. Nice.

Yeah, we just got the hideback. So beyond the bison thing, like you can go on these properties and hunt, small game, upland birds, waterfowl, big game through Montana's block management program, which is a public access to private land program. It's like one of the best programs, and if not the best program of that type in the entire country as far as I'm concerned. So, like, I mean, if you're an outdoorsman, you should just be, like, supporting this, I think it's a very good opportunity, which leads us to kind of the latest big story that involves American Prairie. So, Mike, tell us about Bullwacker Road, the Wilkes brothers, and your latest acquisition and why it's such an important public access win.

for all kinds of outdoors enthusiasts, including hunters? Yeah, I mean, this has been one of the things we've been most excited about over the last couple of years here. We closed on a property called the Anchor Ranch that's on the north side of the Missouri River, about 70 miles southeast of Haver and the high line, and 66,000 acres of deeded and leased land. But most importantly, the deeded land includes a four-mile section of the Bullwerey. Wacker Road that was, you know, in and out of court. You know, Brett French from the Billings

Gazette has done some awesome reporting on this. Anyone who's really interested in this kind of stuff can look up his articles. But essentially, you had a four-mile section of road that was landlocking over 50,000 acres of public land, mostly BLM, a few state sections in there. And normally, when we buy a property, we take about a year to figure out all the public access and, you know, do a full review of it. We were so excited about this. We opened the road right away and said, look, you know, this one's too important to, you know, sit on for a year. We're going to open it, at least this section.

And it's just one of the most historic parts of the Northern Great Plains, too, and has a fascinating history. It's, you know, part of the Cow Creek, which runs through part of the property, it was part of the Nespers Trail. So where Chief Joseph led his people up from the Missouri River and the Ford where they crossed on foot up into the Bears Paw Mountains. The Bullwacker Road, I mean, it's named that because there were guys, you know, whipping bowls up out of the Missouri River because a lot of years the steamboats from St. Louis could only get up to about that point. So incredible history and just an incredible landscape, you know, whether it's in hunting season or whether it's in the spring, you go down in there. I mean, it's just an absolute maze of coolies and prairie canyons and, you know, an incredible place to get lost and to go explore.

And again, again, like this will now open up 50,000 acres of what was landlocked public land, correct? Yep, exactly. And so, I mean, again, a lot of your listeners have probably seen Onex and Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Party. reports on landlocked public land around the country and there's millions of acres. And, you know, one of our goals with, uh, with property purchases is to look at those ones where, you know, boy, if we bought that deeded, it opens up this amount of public land to, you know, we, a couple of years ago, we bought one on the muscle shell, uh, called the 73. That had 10,000 acres landlocked by, I mean, it was essentially a hundred feet of two track. Yeah.

across the deeded. Yeah. So wherever possible we do that. And yeah, as you mentioned, you know, the vast majority of our deeded acres are open to public access year round. And Mike, when that, when that 73 ranch sold, I mean, I know there was an attempt to, by the BLM, I believe, to acquire it, they were unable to give in the sort of strictures around federal land acquisitions.

But someone was going to buy that land, right? Like that property was for sale. someone was going to buy it. And so in this case, because American Prairie was the buyer, all that landlocked public land is now open to the public in addition to the access that you guys provide through block management. It's just a big win. Yeah. And both of those properties too are examples of, you know, large properties that were formerly owned by out-of-state owners largely as either private hunting properties or as, you know, amenity properties or investments. And so, again, we think a Montana-based nonprofit, now owning them, now managing it

for public access, the wildlife habitat. I mean, that's a net positive. I'm sitting in the Zoom, having given a presentation last week where I was showing these charts for what the growth of populations in Montana have done over the last couple of years since COVID. I mean, we're sitting here at Bozeman and see that, you know, it's grown by 86 percent in the This is supposed to be good news, Mike. So here's the other, you know, to set up the good news. This is what public land, you know, has done. It's essentially flat.

Yeah. And not only flat, but I mean, Cal has done such an incredible job. And all of you, you know, at meat eater, backcountry hunters and anglers in fighting the efforts to sell off public land recently. But so not only we not been creating more public land necessarily, you know, we've even had, you know, proposals to sell it off. So I think that's part of the bigger, bigger world in which we operate is, look, we are trying our hardest to shift that a little bit, you know, because we, as a species, we certainly are making more people, more of ourselves. We're not

necessarily, you know, doing as much to create more good publicly accessible land. And that's a big part of what gets me up every day and into the office and out in the field. yeah um so uh got asked new property is it open to hunting not this year so this is where we got to take it to uh and as you were saying you know bMA contracts generally we finalized those in may or june so it just wasn't the timing wasn't right exactly exactly so i'd say stay tuned you know we'll have a public access um you know policy i'd say by by next summer and certainly by the the next summer and certainly by the hunting season so but what about the road is open road is open okay so so folks can access all of the BLM and state land to the south and also I'll just give my usual safety plug like don't drive your

minivan down in there don't take the corolla watch the weather forecast watch the weather forecast right now I just had a meeting with some of the BLM monument folks this week and they were saying there's a there's a VWSUV rented from the Billings Airport that's been sitting down in there since about May. Nice. And they couldn't get it out. So it's rugged. You know, you've got to do your homework before you drive down in there.

Yeah, don't even try if it's going to rain or snow is good advice, I think. Mike, before we let you go, thanks for all. This really is good news. Can you pull

out your crystal ball and kind of give us an idea of what we can expect from American Prairie kind of in the near future and kind of lay out like what best case scenario and goal would be for you guys. Yeah, absolutely. So I think again, we recognize, hey, being around for 20 years, you know, we're still earning trust. And that goes for, you know, the general public. It goes for ranchers. It goes for hunters. It goes for, you know, folks who are just curious about, you know, what this thing is they've heard of. So I'd say continue to look to us to, you know, illustrate our, or to underwrite our words with deeds, you know, in terms of public access. You know, I used to get questions like, hey, are you guys, you know, is this some sort of bait and switch? Are you guys

just offering public access? And then you're going to like lock the gates up. Right. That's something I've heard. Absolutely not. Like, we buy properties that have to. conservation easements on them. This year, we donated 109 acres to the state of Montana to create a state park at Judith Landing. You know, we open previously landlocked public land across our deeded roads and then assume the costs of maintaining those roads. So I'd say continue to judge us on what we do. And, you know, I think we often say, look, you know, we're not asking for support or endorsement, you know, do your homework, come to your own conclusion, but we do ask for understanding, like just understand what we're actually doing. And in terms of public access,

yeah, I think it's probably going to look a lot like what you see right now, where, you know, we're in the top 10 largest landowners in the state enrolled in that block management access program with FWP. They're an incredible agency to work with for your listeners outside the state. I mean, Montana is truly the last best place, I think, as an outdoors person and as a hunter in particular. So it's a lot of it, you know, it's over 80,000 acres available to hunt in that program. We're building a couple more backcountry huts in our hut system over the next two years. So you'll see more of those and just more chances to explore different parts of the prairie. Those have you been up there know that, you know, some of it's like incredibly steep,

rugged Missouri breaks, ponderosa pines, kind of bickorn sheep habitat. And then you get out on other parts and it's kind of the rolling sagebrush sea and, you know, we want to create opportunities for people to go out and explore that and understand why this place is so special and so worth protecting and handing on to the next generation. Cool. What can people do to support you if they're interested in doing that? I'd say, you know, hey, from my standpoint, it's come out and visit us. Okay. Come out and see what it looks like on the ground. And you can plan a trip by just go into our website, Americanprary.org. We do have campgrounds. We have huts, but you can also just go out and load up your backpack and walk off, you know, into the prairie and spend a night. So I just

encourage people to go up there and make a visit. And put your name in the hat for the bison harvest we offer. Yeah, I've done it. So far, I haven't drawn, Mike. So, you know, just saying, just saying. Keep putting in. Yep. Thanks a lot, Mike. It was great. talking to you. We'll have to check back in with you, you know, and if something's happening, get in touch with us, and we'll talk again. We'll do. We'll do. All right, thanks, man. We'll see you guys. 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 Onex Hunt just got a serious upgrade for hunters in Canada. Now you can get nationwide coverage for

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create, and boost productivity all on one device. Our crew at Meat Eater has centuries worth of collective experience procuring and preparing meat, hunting, butchering, preserving, cooking it for ourselves and our families. I've chased it from one end of the world to the other, grilling caribou steaks in the Arctic, butchering elk in the high country of the Rockies, drying fish in the headwaters of the Amazon. The main thing I've learned is that there's nothing better

than knowing where your meat comes from. So when we set out to make jerky and sticks with our own recipes perfected on wild game, I wanted to start with the American Buffalo, an iconic North American native that's fed this continent for thousands of. of years. These are recipes I use in my own kitchen. Not meant to mimic what's already out there. They're meant to showcase everything I've learned about good meat from the wilds or from

the ranch. This ain't your typical phony gas station jerky. It's American Buffalo done right and it's just the beginning. Meat eater snacks from folks who know meat. Okay, it's time to move on some whitetail week stuff. We're going to do a throwback Thursday Whitetail edition. Throwback on a Thursday morning. Stephen Brody take me back to

19774. Throwback, I can't believe it. Did I mention Stephen Brody are old as shit? I think you have mentioned that. Yeah, several times, I think. All right, guys.

We're in a We're going to pull out the memories today and let you guys share some white till stuff with us. I think you're up first, Randall. All righty, Phil. Oh, yes. I'll point out this picture is colored very strangely. It's an archaic digital camera. It captures my skin tone and blaze orange in a really weird way.

But that blood trail on the right shows up real nice. You can see that. Wow. this this this is uh my biggest white tail buck um i i was working construction at the time in 2008 and i was going to go down to a property in kentucky that we had permission to hunt and on friday i was at the job site had my truck all loaded up and they pulled me aside and told me i was getting let go and as soon as uh as soon as they handed me my cobra paperwork for poor performance? No, no, 2008, man. Oh, I got you. Yeah, it was a big slowdown. So they, I said,

you know, I'm 22. I think he'll be fine and I'm going deer hunting. So my buddy went down there and hunted with me. The first weekend, I just stayed through the week. And then he came down for the second weekend. And on day, there's probably like day nine. This is what, I mean, this is my idea of whitetal hunting was just, I'm going to sit in the same tree. You're right. For like, eight days, nine days in a row. I had a little crotchboard set up there. And at some point, like my buddy was just going to walk across the property at about 10 or 11 o'clock. Just do a little push. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a hilltop property that's sort of bald on top. And then, like real dense stuff going down these fingers down to the creek. So my buddy went across

and I could hear him walking. And then all of a sudden this buck, I'm basically set up on an old tractor road like an old tractor path going down this hill and this buck just crosses and so i whip around uh and shoot off the back of the tree as he's about to dive back into the woods and he turns and runs straight away from me and i got off another shot sort of ironic that we're talking to tyler here in a bit because uh that was with a 4570 shooting uh because ohio is shotguns and straight walls this is this is kentucky oh that was kentucky i got you well It's just because of the romance of the big straight wall carches the size of your finger. And it turns out that first shot missed, but that second one did the old, did the old Texas heart shot.

Very good. Entered just inside of the ham right near the anus, came out the front of that left hip. And yeah, it was. Now, normally that's not a shot that we would recommend here at Meat Eat Eater, but Randall is like such a marksman. Well, that was, like, that was a follow up.

Yeah. I know. That was a follow up. We don't really think that. Yeah. And, um, you know, we went over there and, and actually the, the landowner who was their scout master showed up like right then and he's, he's British and doesn't, I mean, he was just excited to have us hunting there and he goes, oh, you got a buck.

You got a book. Yeah. Let's see it. And he drove the tractor down and we chained it up to the, he, he like, just fixed up antique tractors then we hauled that thing up out of the bottom and that was all she wrote that's still your biggest buck to date biggest white tail buck it is yeah where where is that what's where is that thing now oh it's i've got in my home office i've got like nine deer heads just kind of scattered on the little wall above it yeah euro mount that's a homemade euro mount too nice so uh yeah nice

fun place i wish i still uh got to hunt that every year because yeah deer in the rut with a rifle speaks to me All right Jordan you're up next Let's see what you got here All right So this isn't from super long ago

This is a few years ago This was out of property Pretty near to where we live In East Texas And I really like it It's I don't own it But we have permission to hunt it And I like it because it's so close

To our house I can take the kids You know evening Sunday evening Which is when I shot this buck And And I also like remembering this hunt because it was, I don't think it was quite the last day of the season, but it was the last day that I was going to hunt.

I think it was right before the last day. And this buck came in like five minutes maybe before shooting light ended. If he'd been in the tree line I was looking at in the stand, I might not have been able to see him. But he came in across a field, and so I could see a silhouette, you know, against the sky that was still bright. And in Texas, we have antler restrictions, so it has to be 13 inches between. And I saw him, you know, silhouetted against the sky.

And I said, looks good. Yeah. Looks like it's going to be good. So shot him from maybe 50 yards. It was not a far shot with a 6-5 Creedmoor. And he went, you know, maybe 40 or 50 yards. but he ran kind of into the tree line. And so there was a little bit of tension.

And my son was with me. And he, you know, if hunting ever becomes boring or, you know, kind of a drudgery, like, take an eight-year-old boy, you know, with you. Because he was the most excited. He was high-fying. Yeah. Was that the first deer he'd been a part of? It was.

Yeah. He'd been around when I'd brought deer home to, like, you know, clean him and butcher them. but this was the first one, the first hunt that he'd been a part of. Is he, is? Is he hunting now? He is, yeah, he got a dough last year. Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so he came down with, you know, with me and, and I, like, wanted to do it right, like, find some blood, follow the trail. Yeah. But he just, like, right into the woods, you know? And of course, he found it first and just, like, so excited.

Yeah. That's okay. Well, cool. You're going to get him after a buck this year? He, yeah, he wants to. Yeah. That's for sure. Um, but we'll see. all right guess that leaves me um this is when was this like I don't know

mid 2000 a little no it was like same same camera quality as Randall's picture that's how he's similar right around the same time as would you say oh wait yeah I bet this camera ran on a double a battery yes um anyway this is back in Pennsylvania where like this is a place I grew up hunting it's my buddy

buddy's dad's land my buddy my buddy dad is now passed away but my buddy still hunts his property um and this this was the first like big nice buck i had ever shot in pennsylvania um grew up deer hunting but like when i was growing up man like there just wasn't very many big bucks around like this one they just didn't live long enough we we'd see a shit ton of deer hunting but it would be like 22 doze and a spike in a day of hunting and like you just shot whatever buck you had a chance to shoot um this picture was taken i think maybe a couple years after they the state implemented antler point restrictions and pennsylvania's antler point restrictions aren't uh like width like

texas it's um at the time it was most of the state was three on one side and this in northwestern Pennsylvania it was three on one side plus a brow time um and and a lot of guys were like very against the this new regulation at the time but it really started paying off quickly like a percentage like of those year and a half old bucks a large percentage of those year and a half but old bucks that would have gotten shot now had a chance to at least get to another year and and now in pennsylvania like they're killing big bucks which was just not a thing that happened very often when i was a kid so yeah that's my like my one and only nice big pennsylvania buck there nice the same thing happened in texas where where people were very

against the antler restrictions at first and now you talk to pretty much everyone and they say it was a good thing yeah you know we're seeing a lot more big deer it works some places it doesn't work others they've like Colorado tried it with mule deer it was just like it didn't work just like it was a failed experiment but like it's definitely worked in in Pennsylvania uh all right phil do we got some action in the chat got a lot of action oh geez look at i'm i'm being less picky about my my questions here since i've been getting so many complaints about it uh leeland i've heard you ask this question i think for a month now so i'm just going to bring it up let's get it out of the way. What are the

functional differences between alpaca and marino wool, if any, if any of you can speak to this? This question should be directed to the experts at first light. Yeah, this sounds like a first light. And that is why I have customer service. Question. Sorry, Leland. Thanks for

being here. Never tried alpaca socks. Here we go. Question for Randall and the chat regarding hot dogs. Anyone made venison hot dogs? Have you done this, Randall? Tips on doing so. I have not, Steve and I were just talking yesterday about making a video trying to make the best venison hot dog yeah close as i've come is making brats you do i mean my understanding is that you do truly to address the last

sentence there uh you do truly have to emulsify it um just make it into goo yeah the tough thing is going to be the snap so we're we're discussing that yesterday you want a good a good positive snap on the dog um but we will hopefully uh address this in a video at some point. Cool. Ian asks on the heels of the CWD podcast, how often do you guys get your deer and elk tested? I get them all tested.

No in areas or with signs on the animal cause you? I've just gone to get them all tested, man. And in some places like where I'm going to hunt in Colorado this year, it's mandatory. In other places, it's voluntary. But I've just like, I just get them all tested now.

I just I test them when they're required and obviously like in Montana here we have big game checkpoints and so they sort of catch you in a funnel to track animals moving across the state and so some of those they'll test but yeah I haven't I don't think I've ever voluntarily submitted something for testing yeah if you had kids I'm not proud of that if you had kids you might look at it yeah or if I valued my own health. Well, I mean, it's not, yeah. That's a joke. That's a joke. I know. Jordan, you do any of that down? And those Texans just don't care. Yeah, I don't. Well, our CWD problem, you know, tends to be with the breeding facilities. Well, it's like that

everywhere. I mean, when you look at like the spread, a map from like the U.S. I think it's USGS, maybe it's fish and wildlife. I don't know. But you can look at a map and see where these outbreak start and it's like almost guarantee that in the center that thing yeah there's a high fence yeah can hunt operation yeah and there are i know there are areas where the wild population you know there is um a problem and there may be mandatory testing there but not where or i've been hunting so yeah uh speaking of kids question for brodie and jordan adam's taking a six-year-old daughter on her first hunt this weekend DIY blind in the woods do i let her try and shoot or just sit and watch me do it

I want to give her a good experience there's too many unknowns here like has she practiced has she put in the time um does she want to does she want to has she been exposed to it at all yet

um I what hunt I'm assuming deer but I don't know I'm assuming it's a deer from in my opinion like you see a lot of pictures of five or six years

year old kids like holding the buck up in my opinion it's a little too early simply because they don't really know what they're doing yeah they like don't understand it yet it's not that you can't set them up with a rifle that'll work and and stuff like that um so i would probably do the shooting and see how she reacts if she hasn't had any exposure to it yet Jordan you yeah no I totally agree with that and you know if you get something that's plenty of excitement for sure and walk it walk through the skin and in the gut and all like all that stuff tends to like as long as you don't be like this is going to be a little gross

like don't do any of that just like do it and they're probably going to be fascinated by it yeah Jackson asks do you think the same arguments against crossbows a.k.a. Arrow guns, according to Brody, should be applied to the use of TSS turkey loads and long-range rifles. Never used a crossbow, but I've always thought the hate was odd. I agree. I don't get the hate. What's he talking about?

Turkey loads? Yeah, like the super... No, like there's, like, no way. They're just like, like, you argue against being more effective at killing turkeys. Like, I don't agree with that. And I don't think there's, like, any possible way you could like

turn back the clock on turn back the clock and the long range rifles it's like like I don't see how you could even come up with an enforceable regulation yeah I mean the only thing the only thing that I'm familiar with is the Idaho restriction on you can't have a rifle heavier

than 16 pounds I had no idea and I do have a rifle that what doesn't mean that Idaho restriction. Yeah, you do. Oh, yeah. But no one should really own a rifle over 60. But I agree.

Like the arguments like events crossbows, like I just don't get it. Like everybody's like, oh, the sky's falling. All the deer are going to get killed. Like, you can go hunt elk with a crossbow. As far as I know in Wyoming during archery season. And like there hasn't been like any change. And there's still plenty of white tails where crossbows are legal. Like I don't get the hate, but.

whatever some some bow hunters i'd rather that they have a crossbow sure for the sake of the animals yes yeah um i know there's people other people here at meteor that probably wouldn't agree with the no i i started hunting with a crossbow um because i didn't have like an archery background my parents didn't hunt but i was they were encouraging and you could go out and get a crossbow and you know how to cite it in and yeah we're drilling deer at 50 yards and super effective yeah what do you think yeah i mean i i agree it's um you know fears of all the deer being gone definitely overblown i think if you've spent you know hours and hours trying to shoot a compound bow accurately and then someone comes in with the crossbow um i i do understand

that but you could say the same you could say this like the trad bow guys could say the same exact thing like those compound guys it's so easy they got sites and all like it's just a never ending cascade of arguments yeah method of take arguments that end up just being horse shit as far as i'm concerned yeah yeah i think the the the whatever species population that should be the first concern yeah you know and if that's not a concern it's maybe not worth getting too worked up about there you go any more phil i mean we've got a lot let's do one more and then save the rest for the end of the show and then any additional one since the publishing team is here when is meat eater going to come out with a book made for babies i don't i don't think you're

going to see that never say never uh maybe jordan will write one oh you still having babies we have a one and a two year old jordan's your man yeah uh yeah i'm like way past that point man man i don't even remember what it was like for my kids to be babies and and i'll just put it out there that we know what books we're writing until till we die 2028 at this point so yeah not something i'd count on right all right we're all done with those phil unless you want to keep going but we can we've got the end of the show too what time is it we're we're running a little long so we can all right there we go let's move on to our next interview um all right everybody our next guest is Tyler Freel, who is a writer for

Outdoor Life, and he hosts his own podcast called Tundra Talk. And if you didn't catch Tyler on the Meat Eater podcast, we had a model, I think, I don't know, a year, like, maybe more. Last hunting season, I think. Yeah, episode 506, you can check it out. And if you're not familiar with his work,

just like Jordan Sillers here, he has a wealth of knowledge about firearms and rifle cartridges in particular. and that's mostly what we're going to chat about with him today. Tyler, are you on the line, buddy? Yeah, I think so. Great. Thanks for joining us from up in Fairbanks, Alaska.

I'm in Wyoming right now. Oh, man, what are you hunting in Wyoming? Oh, you could come in person. What are you hunting in Wyoming? I shot a nice antelope yesterday. Great. I'm about to do that in a week or so. Before we get into shooting great big animals with teeny little red,

rifle cartridge. How'd your moose hunt go? It was pretty disappointing this year. That's funny because I heard the same from some other people. It was a tough hunt this year up there. Yeah, you know, I don't, people like to blame it on a lot of things. We spent 14 days hunting and the first 10 days are kind of in the prime time. And where we hunt, we have to call them. We're just in this swamp that you can't. There's a couple of spots we can see.

You hunt out of an elevated stand. don't you? Yeah, we got a big tripod so you can get up over the brush. Otherwise, you just can't see anything. Yeah. And the first 10 days, basically, you know, we hunt, you know, five, six hours in the morning and five, six hours in the evening, usually. And every time we went and called, we heard multiple bowls.

Yeah. They just would not, they just would not come. Yep. So as an Alaskan who hunts, like, like getting at moose every year is, I'm assuming kind of important. So, like, how's your winter meat supply looking and what are you going to do to make up for not getting a bull? Well, I think I'm sitting okay for now. We do depend on it, but I like having a little bit of a surplus. Just the way, you know, I usually kill a bowl every year. And so we, at least the size of my children now, we are consuming the whole thing every year.

Oh, yeah. We've got a fair bit of moose. And then I've got about three to 400 pounds. of black bear meat there you go that you know I make into various Yeah you guys really get after those bears man Yeah I I don't know what I love I love just kill bears like I'm angry out of me

I love it Well it sounds like you'll make it through the winter without starving What I really wanted to have you on today to talk about is I feel like you've got like a very real take on the effectiveness of what many hunters, not all, but a fair amount of hunters considered to be like undersized, underpowered rifle cartridges for big game animals. Like, I've kind of always found the hate from like the Magnum, the Magnum crowd for like the 6-5 Creedmoor in particular to be frankly kind of stupid.

I've killed a pile of deer and out with a 6-5 Creedmoor and I have nothing but good things to say about its effectiveness what you know a lot of white tail and antelope hunters are that they aren't strangers

to use in smaller rifle cartridges but you know you've taken it a step further and proven that these smaller cartridges are capable of like cleanly killing everything from from bears to moose so like talk through how you got to that point like how and why you became kind of like whatever you want to

call a small cartridge evangelist yeah and uh whether whether it's by my own choice or not to that's i guess i guess where i'm at i uh i grew up in southern colorado for the most part and you know it was a lot of 25 ot six stuff but even after i moved to alaska um you know i i started out with a 30 ot six I'd bought and killed just about everything with it. And then I quickly got really into sheep hunting and bought a 25-od-6. So I just started shooting everything with that. And, you know, my family over, over many years of hunting up there, you know, my uncle always swore that a 243 Winchester's one of the best black bear guns. And it just killed piles and piles of black bears with it. And it was just kind of something that I just took as a matter of fact, you know, kill a moose with my 25-0-6 or

or, you know, whatever, whatever I was using. And, you know, on the 6-5 Creedmoor is kind of its own thing. I was shooting competitively across the course of doing service rifle when that was introduced. And I kind of thought, that sounds like it'd be a good sheep cartridge. Right. A couple of years later when the first rifle, the first hunting rifle was released in it by Ruger, I got one and shot a sheep with it and with a match bullet. And that's cool.

Shot some blacktailed deer and kind of moved on. and it was you know once this six five creed more got popular you know then there was this kind of vitriol and responsive hate to it which i i understand a lot of it that a lot of the annoyance um because there are you know quite have been quite a few fairly ignorant opinions on you know saying that it can do things it can't do right or shouldn't really be used for um now i mean that's kind of where i got to where i'm at and then you know over the last, you know, we've all seen over the last few years just the advancement in some of these smaller caliber, you know, heavy for, heavy for caliber projectiles that are super

efficient, buck the wind really well. And, uh, so I've started kind of getting further and further. And I'm not afraid if I, if I'm, if I'm, do my research and him convince something will work okay. I'm not afraid to try it. Right. So far, the results have been like really, really pleasing. And, And since starting, you know, since working full time for outdoor life, I mean, my, I shoot, I shoot a ridiculous amount. And it's just kind of just solidified a lot of points that I think a lot of times, you know, we focus on things like cartridge when, when there are a lot more important things that are going to contribute to our success. Hunting big country isn't for the faint of heart. You got steep ground, long distances, and miles of crown land that aren't. aren't always easy to navigate.

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audiobooks and you'll be ready to dig in when it's available to listen on October 14 one thing I wanted to ask you like I'm kind of curious how you feel like when you're using say a six five creed more even smaller cartridge and you're shooting like larger game animals maybe not like white tails or you know antelope or something like that like how big of a role do you feel like bullet selection is playing like to be effective and and and and like has like advancement and bullet technology like really made it possible for these newer smaller caliber cartridges to play a role in big game hunting yeah i think it plays a role i think it's kind of raised the i think it's kind of raised the bar over you know the capability overall has increased they've always been effective in in some ways i mean even in the early 1900s you know frank frank blazer was killing moose with a 220 swift and claimed it was the killed everything you know with just these super crappy 40 8 grain bullets yep um and so i i think that that bullet manufacturer has or bullet technology has really

contributed to that and also it's it's it's made it easier to hit, you know, it's made it easier to shoot accurately. Yeah. And, yeah, we're past the days of like round-nosed Remington core locks that everybody used to use. Yeah. And one thing, like the heavier for caliber bullets are so much longer. I don't play into sectional density too much, but, you know, you get a much longer core of lead, even in these expanding bullets that you'll get better penetrates.

than say, you know, an older, or like a larger caliber bullet of the same weight that's a lot shorter. And that's just one little factor. I'll try not to get too far in the weeds on. Sure. Yeah, we want to keep it simple. Do you guys have any questions for Tyler? Yeah, I guess you're shooting primarily match bullets or real frangible bullets out of these lighter? Sometimes.

I've been shooting more. particularly like the Hornity ELDM bullets. But I mean, honestly, like if I had to just pick, you know, one of my favorite bullets overall, it's that ELDX, which is it's not quite as, and even saying frangible is, I don't know that that's, I wouldn't say that that's a really, really accurate, but it is a more rigidly constructed bullet, heavier jacket, and there's a lockingery in the jacket,

that they are going to tend to hold together a little better, but you still get really good rapid expansion and, performance um so i mean i would say that that that style of bullet is probably my favorite yeah still yeah i always get um i i'm always confused or i guess i don't know it strikes me as sort of strange that people talk so much about cartridges and then they don't talk about bullets and bullet construction yeah because yeah the only thing when you're killing an animal the question is like what work that bullet does on that animal's tissue and that's like what is the bullet made out of how fast does it hit it and does it hit it where you're

you want to hit it right and like none of that is really you can do it like depending on whatever the head stamp is you can do a lot um you can do a lot of different things and end up with a lot of different wounds on an animal but the bullet is really like to my mind the most important part of the equation yeah and i think i think you hit the nail on the head i mean that's we are kind of you know as a whole a lot of hunters tend to me whether it's just the way we're brought up in it We think cartridge, power, kinetic energy, where, you know, your bullet construction and what's your impact velocity going to be, you know, because there are people that have done stuff that's, you know, kind of stupid with the 6-5 creed more. But if you stay within a reasonable impact velocity range, you know, where you could still shoot really well and hit what you need to, they, like, it shouldn't surprise anyone that it works. Right.

You poke a couple holes through their lungs that are going to die pretty quick. Jordan, you got anything for Tyler? Yeah, I guess one of the things you hear from, you know, the folks who want to use the more powerful magnum cartridges is, you know, I want to dump as much energy into the animal as possible, maybe induce hydrostatic shock. So it just kind of falls down right there. What do you, what is, where do you stand on that sort of argument? I would say that it's, it's kind of a misconception or not like a poor understanding of, a, you know, what you should expect. expect when you shoot an animal and, you know, just the capabilities or like terminal ballistics itself because animals react totally differently. And I've heard this and whether it's framed

is I want more margin for error. But what does that, what does that really mean? Yeah. And I, you know, I've heard people, you know, because talking about shoot, even shooting moose, it's a well, if they soak this up, then this other cartridge isn't going to work. Well, that's just a poor understanding of what we should expect from the animal. because there's a variety of reactions. And the only thing you can really control is putting, you know, using a bullet's going to put a, you know, an adequate sized hole through that thing's vitals and placing it accurately. And the animal is going to die.

It might drop in its, you know, the antelope I shot yesterday folded like a lawn chair. And then I watched another one with a bullet that was, did some, you know, more damage to it shot perfectly and it didn't fall over for 15 or 20 seconds. Yeah. You know, and both were both were perfect shots. You know, it's just the result results will vary. And, you know, a lot of times we have, you know, a spectacular result or what we interpret is that. And we don't, you know, it's a small sample size that kind of falls within a wide range of possibilities.

All right. Let's, let's, um, speaking to results. Um, if any of you are still doubting, like what Tyler is saying, um, about the capabilities of some of these, these smaller bore cartridges. I want you to check out a video that he made last year when he killed. You know, in Alaska, you come, Bull Moose is probably like 1,600 pounds with, it was with a 22 arc, Tyler. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, 22 arc.

80-80-L-D-Ms? And, um, yep, 88. And all right, nothing nerd and out, Randall. I'm an ELDM man myself. Before, uh, before you chime in to like talk trash about how this plays out, I want you to first think about this I killed an Alaska bull moose last year with a 300 wind mag

and it took three good hits to put that bull down so like keep that in mind as you're watching what this this video Phil you can go ahead and roll the tape here okay I'm ready whenever if you got a clear shot a lot of brush you're going to want to do it

he's done sounds like my boys hunting squirrels he's down or no he's standing now like this is kind of what I'm talking about like before you you chime in talking trash he's getting woozy and there he goes wow um so uh no matter what you or me say Tyler like there's gonna be some grumpy haters that would be like you had to shoot him three

times it took forever for him to tip over um but like with a big bull moose that's not unusual with a great big caliber because it's a huge animal and it just takes them a long time to bleed out right so I've got to believe that like part of the

advantage in the situation you were just in is that you were able to like bear like stay on target and like get real quick accurate follow up shots because you're just like not dealing with recoil right yeah no and it you know

and that was a that was a gas gun and the first shot and the funny thing is like say if if you shoot something more than once with a small cartridge you know it was it wasn't enough gun but if you shoot them more than once with a big cartridge they're tough right you know like the first shot the first shot was perfectly through both lungs and that you know it may it's only it's all speculation he may have gone another 50 yards right you know but just based on as one of the reasons i chose to do that is because I've quite a bit of experience with how moose die. Yeah. You know, the situations that were shooting him in there

and felt, you know, obviously confident enough to try it. And you know, and actually getting the second shot where he turned it hit him, unfortunately, in the hind quarter, but, you know, all, you know, making lemonade out of lemons, it was pretty like that bullet went through 10 inches

of meat and then completely shattered the femur and was, ended up somewhere in the guts. Yeah. but the first and third shot were both, both through the lungs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was impressive, man. All right, we're going to have to move on to our next segment, Tyler.

But thanks for joining us, stay in touch. It's like probably almost winter up there in Fairbanks. I'd imagine it's getting close. So have a great fall and winter up there, and we'll talk to you another time. That sounds great. all right thanks a lot man thanks Tyler yeah thank you okay our next section next segment um again if you didn't realize it's whitetail week here at meat eater and since everyone loves just kicking

back and talking hunting shooting a breeze about hunting which is something i think we should do more of on this show and so does so does the honest i think um we're gonna have a little chat about uh what our dream white tail hunt would be would be um so boys do you You got, like, do you already have, like, a bucketless white-tail hunt in mind, or is this something you had to, like, really stop and think about? I mean, I feel like I'm still trying to figure it out in East Texas a little bit, but I would love to go do a Western white-tail hunt. I grew up in Virginia and now in East Texas. Well, West is big, man. You've got to pick a spot.

Well, what would you recommend for that? Montana, if you like white tails. There you go. Yeah, I'd love to do that. Just getting out of the tree stand, you know, it's, it's what you got to do. There's plenty of opportunity for that here. I mean, Wyoming's got some good whitetail hunting. Colorado has some giant white tail bucks, but they're most, they're almost all in the eastern half of the state and it's almost all private land.

Right, right. Like, if you want to do a public land hunt, it'd be hard for me to pick somewhere other than Montana. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that just sounds great getting to see that landscape, walk around, do a rifle hunt. It would be a lot of fun. I had to think about this a little bit. I don't necessarily know that they're bucket list. It's a bucket list hunt.

A bucket list hunt for me would be like going to the most exclusive whitetail property that has the biggest bucks and shooting it. But the one hunt I've always wanted to do, just been fascinated by, is doing like a Northwood's track. in the snow like like yeah like in main you know you see some of those like i just think that's that would be sort of the coolest most yeah mind expanding the adorondacks in like new york would be super cool i think like low deer densities yeah like track and a buck yeah wear a wool hat carry a lever gun yeah yeah yeah very cool yeah i like that idea um mine would be something like it's like totally out of my my comfort zone and like hunting style um i would like this is something i would like mentally have a tough time with but i'd still want to do it which is uh one of those Saskatchewan

hunts where you're sitting in a blind and it's like minus 10 degrees but you're hunting during the rut and like you're hunting for these like 300 plus pound white tails like they'll have like a 150 inch rack and it looks small because the deer just so giant, I think that would be a super cool experience. It would like be miserable, but it would be cool too. Yeah. No, I think one of the cool things about white tails is there's just so many different ways. Yeah. You can do it. That's like, yeah, like pick a spot. Stans, drives. I've also been really intriguing. Whenever I see an image of a white tail deer and a canoe. Mm-hmm. It always gets me a little excited. Tickle something in my brain yeah definitely definitely a water based hunt would be real cool okay um Phil let's let's jump

back into the chat is everyone talking about white tails or guns or what uh there's a lot of gun talk during the uh the Tyler real conversation not a lot of questions though there's there you know I love this chat because they just talk amongst themselves and share info and opinions and they're all very kind about it you guys rock but we do have a lot a lot of questions still this from Harrison And he says, question for the crew, do you use a packable game sled for deer and elk? If so, which one do you recommend? He's rifle elk hunting this year and wants to use one. Funny, you should ask that.

Like, I'm going to be trying one out this year. Hopefully, I'll get the opportunity to try out a packable sled. I've used sleds in the past mostly for elk, but like the ice fish and sled type things. Like where you shoot it, then go back to get the sled and then bring it out and use it to pack the animal out the quarters out or whether we had to do that with my kids elk last year um so i'm like i'm definitely interested in the the roll up sleds or packable sleds yeah i've for sidney's bison we used like a pelican sled um like a big ice fishing sled i've used an orange it's it's like a burlier kid sled yeah um and the roll up ones or like

No, like an actual, like, like, yeah, tabog and yeah, and that has been, I had one miserable experience with it and one experience where it was helpful. That's the thing, man, it's like, when you're running that kind of sled, like the snow condition's got to be just right for it to work well. I feel like if you, if you count on packing it out in a sled, you're kind of setting yourself up for, like, it's a nice thing to have if the conditions are right, but like, there's, there's something that's really straightforward about i'll put this on my back and carry it right right because because oftentimes i feel like the sled can be way more work than just carrying it out

yeah and in certain snow conditions for sure i agree good luck to you harrison you imagine you're not using a sled too much in texas man i'm not even sure what a sled is to be honest or snow i've never heard of this either i do like i do like using for like a winter backpack hunt i'll i'll pull a sled behind me and I do like if you just if you're putting like 30 pounds in it that you're not going to have in your backpack that's that's nice but yeah and I think there are situations where it doesn't even with some of these packable sleds you could probably pull it off without snow in the right like landscape you could still use a sled we're going to slide it yeah so hopefully that answers the question this one's very funny to me and I don't know if it means anything we can just move on if it doesn't uh Rashad says last week I did an expensive fishing charter. Is there cheap fishing charters? That's a good point. We limited out and the captain told me to leave one of our fish.

I thought he was joking, but he took one out of my bag, never discussed beforehand. Thoughts? That's not cool. I mean, it's not, he should have, Captain Price should have said something in advance. But like, if you're walking out of there with just like, I don't know what they're fishing for, what the limit was. um you know i i don't got a problem with leaving the guy a fish necessarily if it was like done in a rude way we're like give me one of those things or if he i mean i think like it comes down to if you really if it was a question yeah and he's like i'd appreciate a fish you're not stepping

off my boat yeah yeah i mean i had people i had people give me some of their fish if they didn't want to take it home and but I didn't ask people for it there's also situations where the captain's gonna fish and give you his fish right right so I mean I again like I don't know the details here I don't like it thanks for shot great uh Jordan says Phil if you don't bring up uh Rand Randall's DIY chili dogs at the football game it will be a travesty uh I told so this is about a new real Randall Postman it on Instagram where he's one of the new real he brought a Ziploc bag full of

chili I don't know you guys okay if you have not seen this just go to Randall's Instagram it is it is obscene behavior from Randall it's missing I was really hoping because I looked up all the regs on getting stuff in there I was kind of thinking I was going to have to stash it

you know like a like a keep it warm in your pocket bring it into the movies you know like a gatorade bottle of liquor tucked into your pants like we used to do at the Bengals games were but Um, no, if you have food that you want to bring in, it's totally fine. And, uh, it abides by the NFL's bag policy. Uh, you just fit it in a gallon size baggy. And so I was really hoping that I would have a confrontation and then I could pull out my phone where I'd screenshot of the rules and said, I know my rights. But that didn't happen. The, the, the, the infiltration was actually very anticlimatic. Um, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. I tickled myself with that. Collins wondering, what a, what piece of first light gear is the crew's favorite for cold late, midwestern, late season archery hunts? You got a guy from Texas who hunts when it's never cold and really got two other guys who don't hunt cold late season archery hunts.

I don't like sitting still and I don't hunt from tree stands too much, but I would imagine like going with a bib system is the way to go for that situation. I got to look up the name of this jacket Yeah, as a bad Yeah, insulated bibs As a bad person And some great big warm jacket That you can still draw a bow with Yeah, there's a fleece

Oh geez, this is embarrassing They just didn't pick the right Like whitetail experts for this show, Randall No, I know, I know There's a fleece jacket that's got Like a windbreak layer in it and I can't find it at the moment but that thing is incredibly warm and yeah it's fleece so it's very quiet like it's shockingly warm it's probably one of my favorite jackets that I just wear

out go on first light's website and just go to like the white tail section and they'll have like cold weather gear you'll find some good stuff there yep sorry I'm bad at this selling Cody this is I guess general just traveling with meat tips and things to keep in mind for getting my access your cape and meet home from hawaii humble brag but i guess if you guys have any sort of uh tips about flying with i've not flown with a cape but uh like you probably gonna want to like get it frozen and keep it frozen um that's a good question i don't know would you salt a cape before traveling with it to i possibly i don't have a kind of experience phil you're just picking really bad like difficult questions for us today the meeting

It's easy. Freeze it and keep it cold. I would think the same thing for the cape. And there might be like call it taxidermis and they'll tell you like if you want to salt it or whatever. Yeah, I don't know that when I flew back from Alaska with my bear hide, I don't know that we salted it. And you couldn't freeze it because they had to check it. Yeah. Well, you froze it, let it thaw. And then we threw it in the freezer again at the hotel. But yeah. Brody, it's either these questions or will the ones about video games in D&D. I'm trying to see. spare you from the questions I want to ask. I feel like we're like just not like these people are going to be disappointed with our answer. Well, that sounds like a you problem. Oh, let's see here. You're picking them. Um, oh yeah, I'm some Brad. I'm late, a late in life first time hunter at 35. I've listened and watched you guys for years and read a bunch. A huge part of me wants to test myself and go alone versus going with anyone else. Go alone. Yeah. Like you will learn so much by hunting alone. You might fail where you otherwise might succeed if you had someone who knows more than you, but like, go hunt alone. It's all I'm to say.

It depends on what you're doing. I think like if you're doing a, if you're doing a wilderness type hunt, you have to, or anything, I guess, like, it depends on how you do being by yourself doing something. It can be tough fast in an entire day. sure if you're going to struggle without someone and not be able to keep your head in the game uh you know find a buddy or or find a mentor um but if you're if you're you know yourself and you know that you can handle that sort of thing uh go for it yeah like i i mean i don't know if he's saying go alone for the first first it does say late in life yeah i think the implication is that it would be his first time going out oh that i retract my

answer go with someone else the first couple times but don't be afraid to go out hunting by yourself the chalice jacket there you go the chalice jacket to sort of clean up one of our earlier misses there feel like we're back on track jrp fellow bob cratchett over here i'd give you the secret bob cratchett handshake but you're uh you're not in the room with sick um you want to do one more one more okay i think we've talked we've talked about stuff like this before chester's not here, but I'll ask it anyways. It's from Jair, maybe Jerry. Here's an etiquette question for y'all. Do you get a deer on private land? You are given permission to hunt. How much meat would be appropriate to give the landowner as a thank you. I'd try to clear that up before the hunt and just say, look, if I get one, do you want some? Yeah. And go from there. I made tamales, venison tamales. Yeah, bringing something like prepared. That's a great idea. I think, you know, it's going to depend on the person, but a lot of times they may not even want any. Yeah.

Yeah. That's good to offer. Yeah. Cool. Phil? Anything else? I mean, we can do more, but. No, let's move on.

I'm about to, I got a frog in my throat. Sounds good. I'm going to try and get through this. Do you want me to do this? Yeah, you can let a rip. Hey, everyone, in case you haven't heard, this December, meat eater is doing a big Christmas live tour through. six cities in the southeast.

You can get all the info on locations and venues on our website, but here's the catch. Tickets are going fast. In fact, Fadeville, Arkansas is already sold out. So if you want to catch a fun evening with Steve, Janice, Clay, Randall, and some very special guests, you better buy your tickets ASAP. I forgot Brent. He's going to be there too. And Brent Reeves, everybody.

Yeah, those tickets are going fast. Fayetteville sold out. I think, like, overall, a majority of tickets, like, if you look at the collective body of tickets, a majority are gone. So, uh, don't wait too long. It's nice to get some Christmas shopping out of the way. So if you've got a friend, a family member who would appreciate a fun evening of laughs and outdoor themed entertainment, I want you hop on to, uh, the meat eater.com slash tour, I believe.

Yep. And go to our events page. You, they'll be easy to find. Yep. Um, so, get on that um and one last thing uh next week show is going to be a pre-recorded episode because randall and phil are going out of town to play video games in nashville but you guys aren't going to believe this steve and ranella is going to be on radio live which

i don't know how long has been phil since he's done that um a few months for sure yeah so you don't want to miss it and um that's it man that's it for today's show thanks for listening and tune in next week thanks everybody yeah thank you Oh, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, ultra-light, ultra-powerful, and built for serious productivity.

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so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. This week only, it is Whitetail Week at themeatheater.com. This is our biggest whitetail gear sale of the season. It runs from now through October 6. You can get up to 50% off on the gear we all trust in the field. We're talking tree saddles, trail cams, game bags, coolers, knives, an exclusive meat eater apparel.

It's all marked down. Whether you're hanging stands or breaking down your buck, this is the gear that gets it done. Head to themeatater.com and shop White Tail Week before it ends on October 6th. This is an iHeart podcast.