The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 782: Pearl Farming, Hinge Fishing Spots, and Worst Game Agency Logos | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Hosts Spencer Neuharth, Randall Williams, and Cory Calkins interview Josh Humbert of Kamoka Pearl about pearl farming in French Polynesia, get a fresh Rut Report from Mark Kenyon, share another round of Top 3s, and chat with Michael Burton about his unique brand of catfishing. 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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front sits it manages temps stays quiet and close encounters and wicks moisture on the uphill push one light that adapts without hesitation no matter the pursuit the navigator delivers versatility in any situation shop now at first light.com that's f i r s t-l-i-te-e dot com smell us now lady welcome to meat eater trivia meat eater podcast Welcome to Me Deeder Radio live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time.

That's noon o'clock for our friends in Mitchell, South Dakota. Happy opening week of pheasant season to everyone there. On Thursday, October 23rd, and we're live from Meadeter H.Q. and Bozeman. I'm your host, Spencer, joined today by Randall and Corey. On today's show, we'll interview Josh Humbert, a pearl farmer in one of the world's most remote places. Then we have a whitetail rut report from Mark Kenyon, followed by some top three lists. And finally, we'll interview Michael Burton about using dating apps to find fishing spots. But first, we want to remind you that the Blood Trails podcast drops on October 30th on its own feed that's simply called Blood Trails.

This is a new investigative podcast from me, Dieter, hosted by journalist Jordan. and sillers. Each episode digs into true crime stories from the world of hunting and fishing. Cases where the woods and the water became the backdrop for violence and mystery, from missing hunters deep in public land to poachers turned killers and fishing trips gone fatally wrong. Blood trails uncovers the moments when outdoor life collides with homicide. Each story features original reporting, expert insight from detectives, and firsthand accounts from the people who were actually there. The trailer is out right now. You can go it on the meat eater podcast YouTube channel. And again, the first episode drops October 30th on the Blood Trails podcast feed. Very excited for that show. Also, Randall has a plug for you now. Yeah, I'd like to direct everyone's attention to the, is it on the main meat eater YouTube channel? It's as live as we are. On the main meat eater YouTube channel, there's a new video called the Great Buffalo Bread Experiment. And this is sort of a high concept. It's, uh, it's, uh,

essentially a high concept weed was involved no no just just it's elevated content um it's for a sophisticated discerning viewership okay uh essentially when we were researching uh both the mountain men audiobook and the hide hunters audio book now available for purchase shameless plug uh we kept running into descriptions and you run into descriptions of this substance in any sort of writing about the great plains in the early 19th century uh a substance called Dupui or Dupuy how you spell that D-E-P-U-I-L-E-S and you get these very vivid descriptions of it and essentially it's the cap of fat from a buffalo's shoulder and they prepare it by frying it and then smoking it for a day and they

repeatedly say that it's a substitute for bread so you're eating some meat you eat this as your bread and in fact we have one account where he says it's superior to any bread that's ever been made so Steve and I made this okay and subjected some folks in the office to a blind taste test to decide once and for all whether this is in fact superior to any bread that's ever been made so this video on the YouTube channel now is called the great buffalo bread experiment and we found a we got a buffalo from our friends at at North bridge or bison, and we cut off the requisite chunks of fat, and we followed the instructions

to a T, and you can see the results of that on YouTube now. Okay. So back in the day, they smoked these caps of fat in a dineema teepee? They used a teepee, an actual buffalo skin, Buffalo hide teepee. I was wondering if there was a subtle hint of smoked nylon or not. No, no, I don't think that was the problem. Okay. Not to give too much of it.

It's elevated content, only cool, interesting people. Yeah, I mean, you know, experimental, experimental culinary scene. Yeah, Caleb's asking, Randall, if you have any wine and cheese recommendation to pair with this elevated content. Ooh. Mmm. Um, maybe some de Pooia. I would say a tall boy of Mickey's, uh, Mickey's, uh, macky's, uh, malt liquor. Mm, yes.

And some string cheese. Or a can of cheese. That's what I got. Perfect. Cheese whiz, actually. choose whiz. I used quite a bit of that. Try to get my dogs to take a shower with me the other day. We don't need any more on that. Well, we'll get some of that in our next segment here. Yeah. So that video is live on YouTube right now, and Blood Trails will be available next week. All right, fellas,

we've been in the field lately. Let's do some hunt recaps. This would make Yanni real happy. Randall, what you've been up to? Well, last weekend, my wife, Sydney and I went antelope hunting out in eastern Montana. We did not have any antelope tags last year, so we were excited to get out there because it is our favorite wild game to eat. And so... I feel like that's a hot take. I feel like the more people you talk to,

I feel like it's more common than you'd think. Okay. Just an antelope steak, super rare. I love it. But Sydney shot this buck. We had a slow day. The first day was super cold and windy and didn't see a lot of antelope on public land.

and then we pulled into a spot the next morning. Sidney glassed this buck from the truck, and I ranged it with my rangefinder and with the Sig binos, and you can drop a pin on where you range. So we dropped a pin on him about 1,300 yards out and then hopped into this draw and kind of circled all the way around and got up on the little knob that he was on and couldn't see him. They had all bedded down.

So we crawled around on our hands and knees for probably half an hour within 200 yards of these antelope. Finally, she spotted him just his horns behind the sagebrush. And I was like, I had to tell, I had to ask her, like, pointed out to me, pointed out to me, because I couldn't see him. And then eventually I got him. We crawled around until we sort of had an angle and then waited for them to stand up. And she ended up shooting that antelope at like 100 yards, which was. is super cool and that was she basically did everything on that hunt like she spotted the animal she once we got in on it she she found him again she turned him up and then uh i was like do you

want me to try to get him to stand up you know i'll clap my hands or something and she's like no we'll wait we'll wait and uh then she stood up so other than sort of the navigating on onyx she did everything which is really cool hell yeah and uh yeah that's the dogs the dogs were waiting in the truck and uh uh on to the next photo. And then I shot this one later that day. We spotted a buck real far away that looked like a dandy and then dropped into a little draw.

And we ended up having to cross this muddy creek a couple times. And eventually I said, we're a mile and a half away. Let's just get up on the flat and book it and then jump back into the draw so we don't have to cross this creek again. And as we got up onto the flat, there's kind of a little roll in this guy and some doves were bedded there and I figured a bird in hand is whatever the saying is so I shot this one yeah and and we were close enough to the car that next slide Phil Sydney went and got the dogs while I began the processing work and you can see

there on Rosie my most prized hound she's got a little bit of antelope blood on her back because she likes to roll in things okay and so that gets me to the cheese whiz that I was describing earlier in this episode uh the dogs all needed a pretty serious bath afterwards and uh and so were you about to see a picture of you in the shower nope nope nope but you will see on the next slide uh we this is uh that was our dinner when we got back is uh beautiful two backstraps from one of the antelope uh cal and sam came over and we uh just pan fried and we made a sauce called cumberland sauce which is like a classic it's like a classic steak sauce uh it's sort of a cramping

It's almost like cranberry sauce, but it's like a drizzle, glazed type thing, and it was quite tasty. Yum. Very good. So, yeah, it was a great start to the fall season and getting ready for some more here. Good couple days of antelope. Oh, fantastic. Classic goat encounters. Oh, yeah.

Oh, and then the highlight probably was we were driving down a two track and bumped a little covey of sage grouse. So there were probably about 10 birds that looked like, you know, kickballs with feathers off their ashes. that trivia question wrong yesterday or were they not greater sage grouse no they were they were greater sage grouse i don't think i've ever seen one in person oh they're unbelievable they're so big yeah and they just bumped up and went about 40 yards away and put down again and then we we sat there and took a bunch of video of them and uh super cool i've seen a couple of them just you know deer and antelop hunting i don't think we got a conclusion to the cheese whiz thing well it worked at first but then they all got they all got really mad when the

water turned on. Explain me what happened. You put cheese whiz like on the shower door or what? Yeah, so we have like a walk-in shower with a glass door and so I, I put a bunch of cheese whiz on the floor and then pushed them towards it and they all attack the cheese whiz. And then I turned the water, I shut the door, turn the water on, but then cheese whiz isn't really soluble in water. Oh, okay.

So there was actually quite a bit of grout cleaning that was required afterwards. I don't recommend it. I'm working on a new solution, but we don't bathe. our dogs regularly, so I don't have that program dial. Try whipped cream. That's a good one. That's a good one. All right. That's what I got? A little up country. Corey, what have you been up to you? Man, I've had a very

exciting fall, but exciting yet unsuccessful so far. Been chasing elk all September and a little bit into October. A lot of close encounters, trying to get a few buddies into elk, but haven't flung an arrow. Okay. Archer season is come and gone. Rifle, open big game general rifle opens this Saturday so I'm excited two days from now give her hell with a rifle you're gonna be out there oh yeah okay yep got a few trips planned hopefully don't need to even go back out later in the season I just have a deer

in an elk tag in my pocket so I haven't drawn antelope in a few years so that's because you're not putting in for the right units well I also yeah what are the odds you kill kill an elk this weekend this weekend this weekend pretty low okay because everybody in their mother but it's more like 4% oh yeah but is the season drags on and it gets colder and snowier ask me in a couple weeks have you ever killed one on a rifle opener yes okay back my very first elk when i was 13 oh nice all right just in the right place the right time caught him i think he was running away from other people so sometimes that is the advantage of opener they're where they were for opening morning they're where they were the past week

and then they're just all over the place yeah running somewhere else um um yeah uh last week i was in Idaho for a bit. I had a deer tag there for their opener. I had read reports going into the hunt that the unit I was going to be in had EHD reports. I'd seen things on Facebook about that part of the state having EHD. But it's like at that point you have the tag. There's no like refunding the tag in Idaho like some other states have when this sort of thing happened. So I was like I'm committed. I'm going and I went and it was worse than I could have possibly imagined. Last year I had the same hunt and I saw, I think more deer on that hunt than my other like four hunts combined i was it was just like that plentiful with white tails uh this year on opening day i saw zero live deer and found five dead ones we've got a picture of one of them here including two bucks that would have been no doubt shooters this buck he almost made it he he got out of velvet meaning he survived into september um the season opened in in october there um but he he died of ehty at some point in that uh month prior and then i found it you know a couple doze this is like a textbook scene of e hd uh when a

deer has e hd they only make it i think it's like one or two days uh in those final hours they have a very high fever uh where they are just boiling from the inside so they seek out water uh you know hoping to feel better and so you'll find deer that just die near water or in water he were two doze, about 10 yards apart that had died in a pond. And then I found another buck that would have been a shooter as well. This guy did not make it out of velvet though. So he died probably sometime in August because his antlers were fully formed. He didn't have like the hot dog points that those deer will have in, you know, June and July.

So he seemed to almost make it as well. But it was just a real bummer. I did have a consolation prize turkey. You can kill a hen there in the fall. and I have zero turkey in the freezer and was not going to pass up a hen so I shotgun to that thing not too far from camp and then when I got home

I also had an antelope tag in eastern Montana drove out there and killed a buck and so he is in my freezer as well that is just what I've been referring to as a copy and paste antelope that's the kind of buck that's just like copy and paste it all over the prairie

in analogue country yeah he looks like every antelope I call that an antelope I call that an antelope that looks like an antelope. Yes. Which is often my target. I think the three of us could bring all of our antelope skulls in here and mix them up and try to, you know, find out who's is who's. And we'd, we'd be as successful as we would be blind, is my guess. Because that's just like, that's what an an alope buck looks like.

Yep. Yeah. It's still fun to hunt though. And especially coming out of my Idaho hunt where I saw zero deer on opening day, when you have an antelope tag, you're like just guaranteed to see anelot. Oh, yeah. It's so refreshing. that like you know you're going to see your target it's a fun hunt and you can hunt all day you're not like waking up at the crack of dawn so what a bummer in idaho though i hear it is a bummer so there's like a few silver linings um they quickly recover it's not like c wd where once you have it you just have it in most cases uh those herds can can bounce back in two to three years um they also develop an immunity to e hd that last what i've read is from like seven to ten years so that that that unit will be over Okay, the state will be fine.

But I feel bad for obviously the deer, the hunters who are local to there. And then the biologists who have to deal with the deer and the hunters who are upset about the whole situation is just like no win. I believe there's a similar situation up in north central Montana happening. Yeah. And Ohio's got a E.HD really bad right now. Yeah, we had an Ohio or an EHD report from Kip Adams a few weeks ago. And I think Ohio was the low light of the whole report because they are dominating the rest of the country right now as far as EHD. numbers go. All right, let's get on the show and do our first interview.

Joining us on the line first is Pearl Farmer, Josh Humber. He is the owner of Kamoka Pearl, which is located in one of the most remote places on Earth. Josh, welcome to the show. Hey, guys, thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here. And we appreciate you waking up so early. Can you tell us where you're speaking to us from today? so i'm actually speaking to you from uh my deck in uh in tahiti uh we we have a home in uh in the town of chopo where the the uh i was supposed to be at the farm for this but um i've come to tahiti uh a little bit early um have some t to do uh and i i i got bit by a shark uh last year who whoa i'm still doing some of the some of the rehab stuff but i also had had pearls to bring and um you know

the pearls that I'm working on right now. Wow. So, yeah, I just kind of got my hands full. And so here I am. I'm not on the atoll, which is called Ahe. And it's in the very northern, very northwest corner of the Swamutuz. So, yeah, it's kind of the last atollah

going north. Gotcha. And so what is your family, connection to this place how did you end up in that part of the world so um we arrived there on a sailboat when i was two years old um my parents built the sailboat in uh in the in the backyard of the house they were renting in uh in torrance california uh my dad's french my mom's american and so they built this this boat out of um basically like whatever they could find you know the uh it was basically made of chicken wire and rebar and concrete.

And they built this boat on complete shoestring budget. It didn't have any money at all. My dad actually pulled the coordinates from a wooden boat magazine. I know if anyone's familiar, but it was just numbers, you know, just numbers on a page. And he like, whatever, figured it all out. And together they built this boat and sailed away with, with myself and my brother who's three years older than me and and two cats,

two dogs and and three hundred dollars basically. Wow. And, and so we sailed down to, uh, to Baja, uh, lived there for, uh, almost two years. And then, um, from there, went down to French Polynesia with the intent of going to Tahiti, um, but we stopped in on this, this Atholos on the way and the locals took us in and, and, um, really treat us like, like family and so um we kind of put roots down there and my my dad uh got to the the sailboat and turned it into a uh a saline freezer basically so that um so that he could take the the fish that

the locals would catch and uh yeah should pop back in i was saying price for it yeah gotcha so basically the sorry go ahead i was going to say for listeners who might not be familiar with French Polynesia, can you talk about just how remote we're, you know, like place this on a globe, relatively speaking, and how remote your atoll is from, say, Tahiti? So we're about 200 miles north of Tahiti. And, yeah, there we are, cool. Okay, cool, you've pulled on our videos.

Yeah, so it's very remote. We're 3,500 miles from the West Coast. of the U.S. I actually sailed there last year with my dad. And, yeah, it took a month to get there. Wow. So, yeah, it's quite a ways out there. Now, so you're in the pearl farming business.

Can you walk us through the basics of pearl farming? What does the process actually look like? So basically you have to collect your oyster when it's still like at its a planktonic stage, basically. You set out what we call collectors at a certain time of year, and they swim in. You know, they start life as swimming larva, and they seek out a good place to colonize, and they grow up there. So once we do that, the oysters grow up, basically, to a certain size.

takes about almost three years to get them to to to the size of which you can do what you see here in the video which is the the the implanting and the harvesting the first pearl takes about 12 months to harvest wow that's what you see there so it's it's it's quite a it's quite a process it's it's kind of a labor of love it's it's a lot of work it's it's a lot of physical physical labor but yeah we we love it so who are your primary buyers are you selling to to consumers directly or jewelers or collectors or what's the structure of the the market there um we sell to people all around the world i mean we probably sell more in the in the u.s than than anywhere because that's kind of what our marketing targets um but we literally sell pearls to any

country that's safe to send stuff too um so yeah i mean the the primary market would be the u.s but that's probably because you know we we focus a lot of our our ad spend on on uh on on the u.s market uh you know our our videos are all all in english and um and that's definitely like the the market that that we focus on most gotcha i imagine that there's a sort of a romantic notion of a Pearl Farming in a tropical paradise here, but what are the day-to-day challenges of your operation? Probably our biggest challenge would be just keeping our oysters safe. We have to keep them safe from fish.

You can see in our videos, you'll see the oysters hanging in these long baskets. And basically the triggerfish, they're kind of our enemy number one. They're really smart. And I don't know if you guys know what trigger fish are, but it's a fish about about 10 pounds or so. And it has a jaw that's so powerful. I think the bite force is like 300 PSI. Wow. So they can, yeah, they can just rip through just by anything.

And they can break an oyster, which is pretty impressive because you can take a hammer and it's hard to break an oyster. Like they have so much integrity like this way. Sorry, we got some I thought I saw a wrist rocket What are we doing there? What just happened? There's roosters around and I keep some

Some like shit pearls on hand You might be the only man in the world that's loading his wrist rocket with pearls this is fantastic yeah for those listening josh just loaded a slingshot and shot it during the interview at a rooster who was encroaching on his audio good on you josh so so sorry go ahead go ahead no i was just saying that there's too many of them around and uh yeah we need to do a little rooster call and uh have some uh coco event i don't know if you guys are oh yeah or uh or except or not but yeah you're sure you know So as far as like protecting your oysters, are you guys doing a lot of diving and fishing or spearfishing? I mean, what's the, what's that look like? So we do do a lot of spearfishing. That's basically how we feed ourselves.

We, you know, it's remote. And we do get stuff on like a weekly or every other week. But we definitely, we like to eat fish. We are meat eaters, more fish than land meat. But, yeah, we eat fish literally every single day. And, yeah, we usually go spearfishing. That's kind of our go-to. And it's generally pretty safe.

Like I said, I got bit last November, which I don't recommend. Yeah, I was going to ask about that. Was that a spear fishing encounter? Yeah, yeah, I was superfishing with friends and the shark came straight up on me and grabbed my, my, my, my calf and, uh, kind of like, hold me down. Um, and I, I got a, so we, we put, we put two turnicets on it, but we put the turnicates right on the, the peronial nerve, which I don't know, um, if your audience knows or not, but that, that's the, the big nerve that services your whole lower leg. And, uh, it's, it's, the one of the few places where you're not supposed to put a tourniquet and uh and so my my whole lower leg was offline for uh for about uh three months oh yeah i wasn't sure if i if i'd walk again it was uh it was all pretty uh pretty scary but i'm i'm walking now and uh i'm pretty good for the most part i'm back at about 90 percent but um but yeah i'm sorry i did not mean to get

derailed uh we're talking about pearls um yeah so it's just I mean, that's spearfishing, it's part of our life, and it's what we do. It's how we feed ourselves. But as far as the oysters, they need to be kept safe from the triggerfish, from the sea turtles, and the big leopard rays. And we do that by keeping them in baskets. And we've actually had some really interesting developments with that recently. So for years now, we take our fish to shallow water where there's, I'm sorry, we take our oysters to shallow water where there's lots of fish and, and the fish come around and clean all the stuff that grows on them. And that's really cool because that's basically like it's a way to get the oysters clean and it's also a way to support our local ecology.

We've been doing that for 30 years now and there's more fish, more. more life in our area than anywhere in the whole the whole atoll and so that that's been a real source of pride for us just to see that like our work can actually be regenerative to the to the lagooning ecology um but recently we've kind of uh taken that to another level where um we we keep our oysters in zones that are relatively shallow and um the uh um we we we we we what everyone does, they close the basket so that figurefish can't get in and pull the oysters out. But what we did, we kind of took a risk on it about a year ago and we started opening the baskets and just like attaching the first, the first oysters a little bit deeper down in the basket. And the thinking is that if it was a little bit deeper down, the trigger fish wouldn't be able to pull them out.

And it works. And so it's basically like, cut our labor by about 50%, which is a lot, you know. Significant. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of your audience are farmers, and I'm sure they could really appreciate what that means. And it also increased our productivity, basically, the rate at which the oysters grow by about 30%, which is massive.

And so anyway, yeah, it's really exciting. and um we basically consider all this stuff open source like we we want other people to be doing this like we're you know we communicate on it through our channeled instagram facebook TikTok uh youtube and the whole you know the best thing that we can do is share what we're doing with other people and the hope that that other farmers do it too because the more the more farmers do this the more the lagoon ecology um will prosper basically the the number one fish that that cleans their oysters are parrot fish. And so by supporting the parrotfish, you're actually supporting the coral as well. What parrotfish do is they go around

and they graze on, I mean, they, you know, they eat different things, but one thing that they do is they graze on the algae that grows on dead coral. So what that does is it enables the coral. to keep growing. Like if the coral gets colonized by algae, it can't, it can't grow. So when the pearfish come by and clean it up, then the coral prospers. So basically by supporting the, yeah, by supporting the parrotfish, we're supporting the reef and the reef supports this whole other, you know, there's all these other downstream effects from it. And basically like, we're basically figured this out like like i i like to think in terms of permaculture um you know that the the first kind of permaculture is that before you do anything you you observe you know you watch and um i just

i i had this moment years ago when we were you know a lot of years ago i've been doing this for uh yeah 30 30 some years now um but i had this moment where we were we brought a bunch of oysters in they were dirty to the farm to the temporary platform that's there and uh we're you know we hung all the oysters in the morning and then throughout the morning we went through them and and and uh you know it's really it's really labor intensive you're you're scraping all the stuff off the oyster and you got like like stuff splattering in your face and stuff some of the itches and things and it's just it's it's not it's not fun work at all yeah and um and then at noon like we we stopped for lunch and then we went back out and we started working again and I went to go get

a string and I pulled it out of the water and I'm like it's clean you know like and it was something that we've noticed before but I just have this this epiphany that's like this real the classic aha moment where I was like wait a minute what are we doing like why are we scraping these oysters when the fish are there and they're they're ready and willing to do this work for us and so from then on And we just kind of went all in with the whole concept of fish cleaning. And we built out all these structures underwater in shallow zones where there's lots of fish that were like kind of like big like spider webs. And we'd hang all the baskets from from those platforms. And the fish would come around and and clean them all up.

And then we'd take them back out to the line like a couple days later. Cool stuff. And then so now like we basically like took that idea and then and then. went further with it by opening the baskets and it sounds so stupid like oh it just open the baskets but you know like when you lose so much uh money um from the from the predation of the fish you get really kind of shy of doing uh things like that so sure that's what we've been doing and it's been working really well and i don't know hopefully i'm not i'm not uh not talking too much no that's great josh you mentioned earlier uh that you run an instagram and you do some some communication

education and outreach. If folks want to learn more about Kamoka Pearl and your work, where can they find you? Just Kamoka Pearl. We're on all socials. And yeah, just look us up anywhere. My son and I monitor all the socials. He does most of the posting and I answer the comments

and respond to questions and stuff. So we're there. We're very easy to find. And so if people reach out to us, most of the time we'll be able to respond unless we're in a place where we can't do that or like sometimes we have stuff that goes viral and we just get inundated. I'm sure you guys know what that's like. Sure.

Well, Josh, thank you for waking up early again. I know it's early there and joining us on the show and sharing with folks about your world. We appreciate it. Great to meet you. Thanks, Josh. Awesome. Nice to meet you guys. Thank you very much.

No, no. No. What was that? That's how you say goodbye. Did you know that or did you Google it? I had time to Google it. It's a great contribution to the show, Corey. Sharp.

I'm glad you thought of doing that. Sharp, Corey. I want some of those pearls did. All in and around in a slingshot. I just want to see that. I just want to see that place. Yeah. It sounds wild.

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with enhanced overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Big news, folks. The third volume in our Meat Eaters American History audiobook series is available right now wherever you get your audio books. That's right, it's available now. It's called

Meat Eaters American History, the hide hunters, 1865 to 1883. It tells the story of the commercial buffalo hunters who drove North America's most iconic large land mammal to the brink of extinction in the years after the Civil War. You'll learn all about how these guys, with nicknames like Dirty Face Jones, skunk Johnson, and Squirrel Eye Emery, did what they did, how they organized their hunting expeditions, what they took with them, what guns they shot, how they hunted, how they processed their kills, why they did it in the first place, and how they died. 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, we included wild stories and bizarre details from this era, and we didn't leave out any of the gory bits. Check out Meat Eaters American History, the hide hunters, 1865 to 1883, wherever you get your audiobooks. All right, next step up, we have a rut report. Well, we should provide the tail run. Can't believe it's already here.

Kenyon's going to tell you what you should do. Think about the decks you'll buy. Cause your wife and kids goodbye. I hope they don't decide to desert you. Here is Mark Kenyon with your whitetail update for this weekend. Take it away, Phil. Hey guys, Mark Kenyon here with Wired to Hunt. And I'm coming at you with another one of our rut reports here for October 23rd.

And I'm reporting from the windy, blustery, and quickly cooling cornfields of southern Michigan. What I'm experiencing here is something that many hunters across the country are, which is this cold front, it's moving across the country. And that's good news for hunters because deer are definitely on their feet, getting a lot of reports of even daylight activity from mature bucks right now. So take advantage of this weather system, if you can. I've also been getting reports of a couple early doze coming into here. heat. This is earlier than usual for most parts of the country. I wouldn't expect that to be a trend, but it is something to just keep an eye out. You know, the rut is a bell curve. So there's

a few that are going to come into heat early and then most come in that mid-November time period and then a few off in the back end too. So that's all beginning to rise right now. Scraping activity is peaking right now at this time of the year. So scrap's going to have more daylight activity than at almost any other time of the year. So keep an eye on scrapes. Keep an eye out for that early dough that maybe can get the bucks in your area really feeling ruddy and otherwise count on more daylight activity right now from your local deer than maybe you've seen over the last three weeks but they will likely still be in their home turf sticking relatively close to the patterns you've been observing over the last few weeks so it's a great time to be in the woods

I wish you luck and I will be back in two weeks for another rut report that's a pretty good camo pattern for that cornfield blends right in dry earth yeah oh maybe that's walnut Either way, it looks good on you, Mark. Yeah, it disappears. Feeling inspired after Mark's little report there. I love this time of year because it's like, it is very good hunting right now, but the best is still yet to come. You've like got, you've got weeks of really good movement to look forward to you, and it's like just starting at this moment. That's just going to be goosebumps.

Just you hear and you say that. Yeah. For the best up-to-date white tail movement information, go listen to Rutt Fresh on the Wired to Hunt podcast feed. New episodes drop every week and have Rutt reports from hunters across. the country also mark is really excited about his newest episode of wired hunt that's episode nine six three featuring a deep dive into the lessons of roger rothar mark calls him the influencer of today's white tail influencers again that's episode nine sixty three on the wired hunt feed and let's not forget about white tail edu every wednesday on the meteor clips

channel nice mark and uh tony mark tony and uh what is it white tail week What's going on? They're answering all the white tail questions. You didn't know you had and the ones you do have. All right. Our next segment is top threes. We're just hitting all the drops, back to back. You're right.

Good. camera work by Bill as well. Yeah, yeah. We make do with what we have in this room. All right, this week, we have all brought our own top three lists. Corey, start us off. What are you ranking today? Okay, I had a lot of help last evening with my beautiful wife, Sarah,

after a couple glasses of wine. So this one's for you, honey. This is the top three hypocritical complaints hunters with families make in the fall. Okay. So that's very specific. Let's think about those honey-dews or stuff. stuff your spouse may ask you to do in the fall all the while, all you're thinking about is hunting. Sure.

So number three, fall decorations. Okay. That might annoy the crap out of some. Mm-hmm. You know, some spouses might go a little over the top with fall decorations, but hunters are awfully hypocritical about it because, boy, they go decorate trees with stands and ladders and trail cameras, gearing yourself up for your fall hunting season. Yeah.

Kind of the same. I just punt on Halloween and Thanksgiving and then we just go all in on Christmas. Oh boy. That's an easy compromise for us. I just recommend living someplace where no one trick or treats at your house. Oh, that's so easy though.

Yeah, you just turn it on the lights, put a bowl of candy outside. Not if you have three dogs. Oh. Oh, yeah. That's probably why you moved there. It's kind of miserable, yeah. Well, number two, consumerism in the fall. So who else rolls their eyes when they hear

any excitement about pumpkin spice lattes flannel pajamas, scarves, holiday hallmark TV shows. Okay. But we as hunters are fed the same outdoor gear commercials, and we all could admit we buy unnecessary gear all the time. We watch silly videos about eating bison bread, stuff like that. Just consumed. And number one, which I do have a photo for, fall family photos that might get up in the way.

Oh, I was wondering how this one fit in. Us as hunters were out there with their grip and grins with the boys. yeah this is like uh you know probably 80% of my camera role is just uh used up between October and December yeah it was a photo of uh Spencer's awesome bull elk that he shot last year opening day a rifle season with us good buddies of his including myself in the back uh yeah what a beautiful fall family portrait that would be right imagine if it was you and your wife and kids there instead imagine this is if this were if this were a boy band which one of you would be the hot one and which one of you would be the badass. Oh, we're all the hot, badass. I think the one that's

totally washed out by the sun would be the one that got kicked out of the band. It's like a bad airbrush job. That's Ben, sorry Ben. You've been booted from the band. That was a fun day. Boy, this was a deep, this is a deep sort of top three. Yeah, very sophisticated. I like when we are specific and niche things. Thanks, y'all. Well done, Corey. All right. I am ranking the top three worst state game agency logos. If you listen to this show, you'll know that I did the three best a few months ago. Now I am going to do the three worst.

There are 11 states who flat out have not tried with their logo. It'd be one thing if it was bad design, but it's not even that because these logos just simply have no design. It actually made me angry looking at these because the outdoors are so beautiful and aesthetic and inspiring

and that should be represented in these logos, but it's not. They just simply have no personality at all. So let's see the list here. Number three, we start with number three, Phil. I just want to make sure

because it's kind of confusing because usually when we have an order in the slideshow, you label it one, two, three. But for top threes, you want to start with three? Let's start with three. Why don't you just tell me the state

and make sure I got the right one? Number three is the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. I'm just trying to clarify things. Did I sound angry? Was that rude of nope, nope, nope. Wisconsin's logo is not only really bad, but it's really weird.

And it's not weird in a good way. It's got black land with blue water, clouds that don't really make sense. Then it's got trees that are identical to your mouse cursor. And within those trees, there's a giant red W, which is the only thing that's even remotely Wisconsin about this logo.

Wisconsin has the sixth most anglers, the fifth most hunters, and no one is more proud of their big giant bucks, but you wouldn't know any of that by looking at this dreadful logo. They deserve something better. uh than this which when i looked at this it looks like the thumbnail for a super mario level to me that's what i see i mean it it's not at all reflective of the midwestern

sensibility that i would expect from the wisconsin dnr no you know i feel like i feel like i feel like Wisconsin as a state i so associate with some sort of traditional yeah values you know the aldo leopold right like what are we doing here yeah they just they have so much to work with and they have used none of it. And the giant red W, that's like even more Mario adjacent. That looks like a Wario logo to me. I just don't get what Wisconsin was doing.

Get out of my game boy. Oh, no. That's my Mario. Thank you. All right. Number two is the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. This logo looks like the designer waited until 10 minutes before the deadline to even start,

because they couldn't have possibly put in any less effort. It's just text that says Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks in Times New Roman or something that looks like Times New Roman. And then they have some stars in their state motto. What's that state motto say, Phil? Add Astra per aspera. Okay. To the stars from the mud.

To the stars through hardships. Very good. I think it can be interpreted. Well, yeah, that's the literal Latin. And it's also the tagline of Palm All Cigarettes. Really? Did you smoke those? I've smoked a couple of palm all cigarettes.

Yes, and I always was tickled when I looked at a pack of pall malls. Because they take you to the start. Astra for Astra. That is great marketing by that. I love that. Did it have the translation on the pack, or did it just have the Latin? I don't remember Latin in English reads the same to me. That is some good bar room wisdom.

You can drop it anybody. I can't believe I got to pull that one today. Very nice. Now, Kansas is known for its bison. White tails, it's prairies. The world record flathead catfish was caught there, but instead of showing any of that cool stuff, they just have this sterile, lame-ass logo. Come on, Kansas.

Such a, such a disappointment. And number one is the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. New York has a Roundel logo, which just means that it's a circle, like Target or Pepsi or Starbucks. Usually roundels have less personality to begin with, but then New York's is just an absolute dud. It's got flat blue water, green mountains, and then a white sky that turns to a blue sky for some reason. If you remove the words New York Department of Environmental Conservation from this logo, you'd have

no idea what it is. Now, I don't even think you would know the orientation of the logo. If it's, like, supposed to be upside down or sideways or what's going on? It's like a bouncy ball. You get out of a vending machine. There you go. That's just how ambiguous this is. New York has the finger legs, all kinds of game animals.

Plus, they have the availability of all the aquatic creatures. features, whales, sharks, Atlantic sturgeon, and they ignore all of that for this sad depiction of nature. Shame on you, New York. You have so much potential for a badass logo, but instead you have the worst one in the country. And then I've got a bunch of honorable mentions here. Phil, let's pull those up. We have the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. Their logo is awful. And they even did a redesign in 2022, and that's the best they could come up with. Illinois,

Jazeera character looks like the logo for a publishing agency or maybe an orange juice brand. I don't know. Just really terrible stuff. Indiana, their DNR logo is maybe the worst in the country. They do have a brand specifically

for the fish and wildlife management. That does have a logo of a fish and a duck, but it still sucks. Iowa, no personality. I actually don't hate Iowa's. I kind of like the colors and the font, but it's still a bad,

ugly logo. Michigan bad logo also a weird choice to include three great lakes in their logo Superior Michigan and Huron even though the state touches a fourth great lake Lake Erie I'd be pissed if I was Lake Erie you know what I think Lake Erie is too good for Michigan This this logo tells me that they don't appreciate it enough so I'm gonna take Lake Erie away from Michigan and give it all to Ohio they they don't deserve it they deserve better because they can't even get shown in the logo with the other three Great Lakes that touch the state.

Then we have North Carolina and Texas. These logos are similar. It's text only. Honestly, I don't hate them quite as much as the others. They look outdoorsy, at least. And then we have Minnesota. Terrible logo created in 2016 as part of a statewide program.

It's lame and boring. But I want to share this. I went to their Facebook page to see what people were saying when the logo change happened because these groups always have to change their profile picture. And when their profile picture,

change happened. There was only one single comment on that photo. Please show it, Phil. It was Jeff Dale. He asked three years ago, are hot dogs legal to use for ice fishing? And sadly, nobody has responded to Jeff. So if you know the answer for Jeff, please go to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Facebook page, look at the post from when they changed their profile picture in 2021, and let Jeff know if hot dogs are legal or not for ice fishing. Those are the three worst logos, and then eight honorable mentions. And here's, here's like my suggestion to these 11 states, hold a contest for a logo redesign. You could be open to the general public. It could be for an arts program at a college. It could be a local school. States do this all the time with flag redesigns.

That's how Minnesota and Alaska have wound up with two of the best state flags. You don't have to be like Oklahoma and paying agency $100,000, which is what they did in 2022. There are cheap, even free alternatives that could fix this problem. Wow. Did you ever read the column on page two of ESPN.com called UniWatch? I read it a little bit. I had less familiarity with that than when it became a Twitter account. Because they have great tweets covering all of the uniforms that happen in pro sports and

amateur. This is very reminiscent of UniWatch. I like looking at these things. It's powerful emotions about something that most people. People don't think twice about. Vexology is studying flag design. I really enjoy that as well. And I've always been disappointed that I've lived in states that usually have really crappy flags.

Like Montana's is just the state seal, which unless if you're like 16 inches away from it, you have no idea what you're looking at. So I love Montana if they would fix that state flag. Yeah. All right. Let's do our next top three. I think we are going to do who, Phil next? Yeah, I think it's my turn. Phil.

Yeah, yeah. Again, well, not again, but I mean, again, I'm bringing something stupid and weird, but, you know, it's, it's the holiday season, the spooky Halloween season. I'm wearing, I'm wearing my Jack Lantern sweater. Corey got mad at me for wearing it a week early. Not mad. So I decided to make my top three list of horror villain, horror movie villains I would want to go hunting with. Oh, great. This is coming from someone who can count the number of animals he's shot on. one hand, but I think I can still bring a lot to the table here. Okay, yes. Thank you. So the first one that we have here

is Sam from Trick or Treat. Oh, not familiar. The horror anthology. Oh, he's big at Spirit Halloween. Pros of Sam are that he's small. How small? Oh, he's a child, you know, I'd say like three and a half, four feet tall.

Hard for wildlife to spot. He comes with Hunter's Orange already and a game bag, so he's prepared. Cons, his descent control might be a little difficult, with the weird fleshy pumpkin head that's under his sack which is not pictured here but I'm sure it smells terrible

number two we have Freddie Kruger pros he brings his own set of knives cons he can only kill animals in their dreams might be a problem but it could be an interesting hunting trip something new a new experience for you

he may not be able to possess a gun because of the whole child predator and serial killer thing this one comes with an asterisk though because he's never been convicted That's the thing. He was killed by a vigilante mob before he was ever convicted.

So there's no legal record of him not being able, like being, you know, convicted of a crime. And do both hands have the knives, or is it just one hand? Spencer, you put me on the spot here. I'm trying to picture it. I can't. I'm just like trying to logistically, can he draw a bow back here? I just know my friend had a glove that had the knives on it, and he only had one. It wasn't a set.

That might have just been because he lost. Lost it. Hold on. No, it's just one hand. Just one hand. Okay, you can figure it out then. Yep, okay. Number one.

That's number, uh, you have a hard time pulling a bow back. Yeah. Number one, we've got the Blair Witch. Oh, yes. The Blair Witch is not pictured here. That is one of her victims, uh, in timeout. Pros.

She remains completely unseen. She's never been seen. Uh, she's very familiar with the Maryland woods specifically. So this kind of, you know, you're limited to a one geographical area. Okay. Um, but I think you can make a lot out of it. Uh, another pro. leaves crafts hanging from tree so you won't get lost.

There's another asterisk here that didn't really help the kids that were in the film. They got very lost. But I think that's because she was being antagonistic towards them. I think if she were aligned, we had similar goals of trying to get a deer. I think it could help. Another pro has her own cabin. Yep, that's true. It's out there in the woods already.

Khan makes you face the wall while she does all the processing. Another asterisk here. Maybe, I mean, she's kind. She's doing all the work. But, you know, you kind of want to help out. Like, she invited you along. She helped you get the deer. Phil, how old are you when that movie came out?

That was 99, I believe. So I was eight. Was that impactful on you or was it not on your radar? I didn't see it until college. No, no, no. How about you, Randall? How old were you in 1999? 99.

I was 13 years old. Did you watch the Blair Witch Project? Not until later. And it's a movie. It's a movie that I forgot about for decades. And then it popped onto my mental radar again a couple years ago. And, uh, and I just thought what a weird thing that was. Yeah, but it like kind of crushed it.

Well, yeah, but it was like people, people didn't know if it was real. Oh yeah, they, they marketed it that way. They shot up for like 12,000 bucks and it made, yeah, tens of millions of the bucks. I have, I do have some honorable mentions here. Yeah, I was going to say, uh, we've got, uh, there's an obvious one. We've got leather face, just sheer enthusiasm from that guy. And he might, you know, he's, he's, he's got a lot of, um, experience skinning. Uh, Edward Cullen, not a, from a horror movie, not a villain, not a villain,

but a vampire who is who hunts who kills deer and sucks deer blood because he's trying he doesn't want to kill humans doesn't the werewolf guy in that one the you know the yeah Jacob yeah he doesn't he kill a deer in that

actually I've only seen the films once like I don't recall and they move incredibly fast oh they're very fast like you blink and yeah their skin's kind of sparkly which might be a problem fast like my top three yeah and then we've got we've got Hannibal Lecter

probably not much of a hunter but we've seen Anthony Hopkins skills in the edge and so if he can any of those transfer over to any of his other characters we've seen how how quickly he can skin out a what animal was that was it a bear he's a great cook too you know that's a thing he'll be able to pair your game meat with the perfect wine anyway those that's my top three in honorable mentions very good yeah fantastic he likes that tiger meat there you go raw means it's raw all right uh we have our last top three is from randall randall Take it away. Oh, well, I was going to do a top three, a top three with my top three ideas for top three.

For a peek behind the curtain, Randall was working on this at 11, or excuse me, 1055. Very Calihan. Ryan Callaghan coded. Yep. Yeah. I'm going to go with my top three things to eat after I get out of the Elk Woods. Okay. That's a good one.

Yeah. Yeah, the way home. Number three, and it could be higher except for one complication. Number three is chicken wings. because you can eat as many as you want and not feel bad about it and it's just a gluttonous experience the catch is that you eat them with your hands

so if you've been successful hunting you know even even one wash after you cut up an elk one hand wash isn't sufficient so you really it's only for the the sort of consolation post hunt meal unsuccessful yeah but just a great just a great food you can sit there at the bar watch the game

you know and and uh typically the spice encourages you to hydrate uh or imbibe can i guess one of your next two that you're going to say sure is it going to be a taco bell like a cruncher oh okay well you didn't have to say oh it's right go ahead sorry i thought you're going to make a funny guess not like poking holes in my battleship guess no go for it number two is a burger and a beer just at a bar uh roadside tavern preferably not a chain although you can get a nice burger at Chili's. When have you ever walked into a Chili's after a hunt? Never?

You're poking holes in all my bits. Sorry. Sorry. I did eat at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Great Falls three times in a row during the hunt. Three nights in a row. The guy was sweet. Were they like the usual by the time you came in? Yeah, yeah. The guy was, he wasn't from Great Falls, but he used to work.

at a buffalo wild wings in New Jersey and I was asking what happened to the buffalo chips and cheese and he was so pissed but then he he sold us on a couple menu items that we hadn't tried yet. What what uh sauces do you get? Um, I typically just go

for hot buffalo. Um, if I'm in a, if I'm in a sort of feeling bad about myself mood, it's, it's typically like a like a honey barbecue. Oh, I didn't know this could be emotion. Dee Gordon is asking for your, your, your preferred flat to drummy ratio and yes they use the term drummy fitty fitty perfect i would

take all drummies oh all flats yeah i like i like the flats i like to i turn my flats there's more work and number one is taco bell okay um who could have seen that coming taco bell's great because it it comes to you quickly uh there's one right by my house on the way back from my elk cunning spots um you can order in volume without feeling guilty or breaking the bank. And typically, when I'm out in the woods, I'm sweating a lot. And there's nothing better to put in your body when you're sweating than Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew in the original flavor or Baja Blast is one of nature's finest revitalizing substances.

And, you know, I've developed a pretty serious habit back in my deck staining days. You know, you get a big 64 ounce from the convenience store, 64 ounce mountain dew on tap. Big gulps. Oh, yeah, big gulps. But I don't, they don't call them that at Speedway. But, yeah, Taco Bell is just, you can't go wrong. I typically order a crunch wrap or two, a couple soft tacos, and then maybe like one of the value burritos. Okay.

Randall, we talked to, it's not like this show is going long or anything, but Randall, we talked about this briefly in Nashville of Mountain Dew Varietals. Yeah. Could we do a sub-top three of Mountain Dew Varietals? I bet Randall is not a purest. I would bet he's the, goes to the, other way on the spectrum, and he's like making Mountain Dew suicides. No, no, I am a purist.

Oh, wow. I think the original, the original, uh, the original mixture is, is the only Mountain Dew one should drink unless you're at a Taco Bell to get Baja Blast. And I really the only one that I can speak to is Code Red. Yeah. Um, but Phil is actually quite a connoisseur of yeah. Back in high school, I drank, I drank too much Mountain Dew blast. I've had to quit soda, cold turkey.

because it was such a problem. When did that happen? In college. Okay. Yeah. I would say Baja blast, number one. Original, number two. Number three, Mountain Dew Game Fuel, which was the license tie-in to Halo 3 when that came

back back in like 2009 or something. We don't know, whatever Halo 3 came out, 2007. They stopped making it. They tried to turn it and do an energy drink. It tasted like ass. And then they remade it with the original formula as just a normal soda a few years ago, but just it's kind of like a limited release thing, and I bought a lot,

and I relapsed for a week. Oh, when did that happen? A year or two ago. Okay. But it's like a cherry citrus flavor. Very good. I saw that Swamp Donkey wanted to know top three embarrassing hunting mistakes.

And I will point out that one of my other top threes was most embarrassing moments in my fishing guide career. So we'll save that one for another day. My correct guess of your Taco Bell order was based on Randall and I had to host a company event a few years ago where we had to make a game for folks attending. And it was all it was all guessing based. You look at this elk shed and you guess its score. You'd lift this cooler and guess its weight. One of them was we had, you guess the calories of these three things. One of them was like two smores. One of the things you had to guess the calories for was Randall's post-hunt meal. And I told Randall, I said, Randall, I said, Randall, really use your imagination here. What would you have after hunt? And he selected two two tall boy Coors banquets.

Yeah. And I think a CrunchRap Supreme with a couple packets of hot sauce. Yeah. That was Randall's Guilty is charged.

Guilty is charged. But I will point out that there were backup CrunchRap Supremes in the fridge and I expensed them all and I took them all home. We've got people in the live chat sharing their talk about orders with us.

This is the best, this is the best time I've ever had running this show. Oh, very good. I love reading this. Good, because we're running late. 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

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overclocking. Win the tech search. Power up at Lenovo.com. Big news, folks. The third volume in our Meat Eaters American History audiobook series is available right now wherever you get your audio books. That's right. It's available now. It's called Meat Eaters American History, the hide hunters, 1865 to 1883. It tells the story of the commercial buffalo hunters who drove North America's most iconic large land mammal to the brink of extinction in the years after the Civil War. You'll learn all about how these guys, with nicknames like Dirty Face Jones, Skunk Johnson, and Squirrel Eye Emery, did what they did, how they

organized their hunting expeditions, what they took with them, what guns they shot, how they hunted, how they processed their kills, why they did it in the first place, and how they died. 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, we included wild stories and bizarre details from this era, and we didn't leave out any of the gory bits. Check out Meat Eaters American History, the Hide Hunters, 1865 to 1883,

wherever you get your audiobooks. All right, we are going to wrap. it up now with our final interview of the day joining us on the line next is michael burton michael has developed the most unique way in the country of finding new fishing spots michael welcome to the show hello uh michael has gained hundreds of thousands of social media followers for his approach to getting people to tell him about their secret honeyholes michael explain to folks what you do so i make uh i make videos primarily on tick talk now, I used to make them on Instagram, and by far my most successful series is catfishing

people, stealing their fishing spots, and then ranking their fishing spots to see how well it does compared to the other spots I've stolen from people. Yeah, it's great content. It is what got you on my radar, why we're talking to you today. So this fake, the fake account that you have, are those pictures of a girl you know, or is this just a stranger? So those are all real pictures of my girlfriend, Brooke. Oh. And yeah, I use this as kind of the introduction to the series. But whenever I make a new account, it is pretty much the same pictures.

It is always the name B with the B emoji. And if you see somebody else asking for fishing spots, they probably are a catfish, but it's not going to be me. I know there's lots of other people doing this now. Okay. So in your bio, I noticed it said some stuff like, what I enjoy doing, fishing, a goal of mine, catching my first steelhead. That is how Michael gets these guys to tell him his spots. Now, are you portraying someone who really loves fishing or someone who's new to fishing, someone

who wants to go on a fishing date? Tell us about this character you've created. So essentially, I try to make it as obvious as possible that I am who I am, especially to people who have seen the content before. And then when people match with me, I don't like string them along or get them invested in me as a person. I feel that's a little bit mean. I just straight up asked them, like, tell me where you caught this fish, fishing spots now. For whatever reason, that works really well for guys. Oh, okay. Some desperate men out there holding fish on dating apps. For the locations guys give you, how often are they actual secret spots versus just community holes that everybody knows about? They're almost always community holes, especially in the beginning when I

wasn't famous for this. I get a lot of people who clearly just Googled fishing spots near bend. And because of that, if you look at the early content, it's a lot of like C-tier spots. As I got a little bit better at catfishing people, people would occasionally give me like less well-known spots. But again, it's spots you could easily find on Google. It's very rare. I get a suggestion that's like an actually good suggestion that I haven't known about prior.

Okay. So tell us about some of the highlights, the best days of fishing you've had, thanks to Hinge. Awesome. So I like it when I match with a fan and they prank me. Like they pretend to be somebody who is like falling for the scam and then they send me somewhere. So probably the funniest prank spot I've been sent to is it looks like it's this lake that's going to be super good on Google Earth. You know, it's off elk lake. It's nice and secluded. But it's where the crammerants nest or cormer ants i forget how you pronounce it so there's no fish in the lake like at all yeah that spot exactly so because there's like literally hundreds of fishing birds there's absolutely no fish they're squawking the whole time and yelling and just pooping in the

water it's absolutely disgusting so i brought my brother thinking it would be like a fire secret spot and no we just got pranked hard okay what about like real good days of fishing though that you've had What about some, like, highlights that you've had? Yeah. So the best spot I've been recommended was also a prank. Somebody found these giant cliffs along the Deschutes River where there's just, like, no way to get down. And they said, oh, this is the spot. And I'm a rock climber.

So I'm like, okay, giant cliffs, let's go. So I get down to the river and I caught close to 30 fish in an hour because nobody has been there before. And that's actually now, like, my go-to spot whenever I want brown trout, I'll just stop at that specific spot on the way home, throw on a rainbow Rapala, catch like five brown trout that are keeper size, and then just climb back out and have dinner. Wonderful. How about low lights besides the, uh, the cormorant lake? Where, where have you wound up where the fishing was just dreadful?

There's actually been a lot of spots I've been to, especially on the coast where I'm not familiar with, where it looks really good on Google. And then you get there and it's just kelp, like kelp all around. You can't throw a high, low rig anywhere because it's just going to get stuck. You can't use a jig because it's just going to get stuck. And like, whenever I get to these spots, I know like I've been got and I just wasted a couple hours of driving. And then I'll try to find a nearby spot so I can actually make a video. Those spots tend not to make it into the series because I don't want to post a video where it's just like, yeah, I got screwed over by Kelp for two hours straight.

I notice in all your videos, you say that you use hinge. Why Hinge over the other dating apps, like Tinder or Bumble? Yeah, so Hinge has the benefit where people can match with you and send you a message. And as the girl, you can read the message. So the vast majority of matches I get with people are not fishermen. They're just random people. They like, hey, nice jacket. Or they'll just send you a like with no context.

And if I had to sift through all of those matches, it would be borderline. impossible. I would also have to swipe right on pretty much everybody, which would be a big red flag in the system and I'd get banned a lot faster. I still get banned all the time, but I assume if I was on Tinder just like gnashing right with every single person, my accounts would only last like a day or two. Okay, a lot of strategy I didn't suspect there. Now, you've done this experiment in Oregon and Hawaii. How did men in those two states differ when it comes to telling you about fishing spots? In Hawaii, I didn't really get any good fishing spots. I don't know if it's because at that point my series had like not to brag, but like millions

of views and people just knew about me. But people would just tell me to go to like the same exact spot on Waikiki, which is where all the tourists hang out. And then in Oregon, I would get, I assume quite a few real suggestions of like actual fishing spots. Okay. Now by this point, you have seen thousands of dating profiles of guys. Tell us about some of the trends you've noticed with fishing pictures on dating apps. Everybody has the same pose with the fish where they hold it out slightly in front of them and they're smiling behind it. I don't know if that's a good strategy or a bad strategy, but I've also seen like some really creative pictures of people posing with fish. And again, I'm not a girl. I can't say like what is sexier or more attractive or

what works better. But those people who like, you know, are standing somewhere cool with a fish like a fish in their hand and you can see the fish relative to the person's body and they're smiling. Like, you know, to me that is like, oh, this person actually knows where to fish. Let me go match with them and see if I can get that spot. How is the catfishing been today? Have you been on hinge yet this morning? I'm currently between accounts. The last time I made it count, It was almost entirely fans of the show trying to prank me. So I don't know if I have to retire the series or just keep it going as like an inside joke. I still have a list of approximately 150 spots I've catfish prior that I need to get through.

So I can at least keep the series going for another year or two. But I am looking at like, you know, alternative like heel content where I'm slightly the bad guy, but I'm not being mean to anybody. and, you know, again, focused on, like, fishing and outdoorsy stuff. Wonderful. Okay, I'm very excited for season two. If people want to see your hinge cat fishing and other fishing content, where should they go to do that? So I'm on TikTok only right now.

I'm central.orgian.fishing. I would encourage people not to follow the account unless you actually like the content because I have a very odd sense of humor. Really? Yeah, I'd rather have people who actually appreciate that sense of humor. and like watch the whole videos as opposed to people who just follow me for support and then don't watch the videos and kind of ruin the algorithm for me. It's very good stuff, Michael. I like watching your content. I think folks will enjoy seeing your videos, very creative edits, very

creative series. Thanks for joining us and good luck on the dating apps. All right. Thank you for having me. Bye now. Hmm. I'm speechless. I wonder how we would do in other parts of the country. I feel like Oregon... I don't know, Phil, you're from that part of the world. I was going to say, Phil, you're used to catfishing people online. What do you think?

One of my favorite pastimes. I mean, central Oregon's an incredible place, so there'd be plenty of opportunities down there, I would guess. But again, I'm not much of a fisherman, so I couldn't speak to that. I feel like you do really well around here because nobody's from here.

And everybody's already ruined their friend's spot. Everybody's always open to sharing all their hot spots. I'm surprised I didn't know about this because one of my favorite TV shows of all time was to catch a predator. Oh, I thought you're going to say...

I have a picture with Chris Hansen. Really? Yeah. I met him. He signed a book for me. What was the occasion? Oh, I was... My best friend was the ASB president and he was doing something with our schools. He was like, we had sort of a...

We would watch To Catch a Predator together. It's like, Chris Hanson's coming. I can get you in. So, yeah, it was good. Why don't you have a seat, Phil? I got a six-pack of my cards I need to be I thought you're gonna say your favorite show Was it Catfish with neat

What's the MTV show? It was Catfish Yeah Or cheaters, Cheaters the old Was that HBO? I love cheaters The host of that show got stabbed I think on a boat

Yeah What a good tie-in for this show Wow, we did it All right that brings us to the end of the episode Phil let's get some feedback from the chat We've had a very active chat But not a lot of questions I think people are enjoying the show

but like a very popular one has been gas cans. Is Spencer going to reveal the gas cans this week? Not this week, but it's coming. I'm still going through all the emails. Very passionate folks wrote in about their favorite gas cans. There are, I think, two that stand out above the rest. So I will get listeners that list very soon. I'll be waiting.

Mike is wondering, Randall, have you ever read the book, The Long Rifle? By Stuart Edward White. I don't think that I have. And I can't answer for Steve. but I'll check it out Steve hasn't now Actually one of my other top threes was gonna be best books about shooting

Oh very good Mike also has another question That might be dumb I don't know I don't know I'm saying this about me Because I'm dumb and I don't know If this is a good question or not

Why do I always see What do I always see in the meat eater videos On the gun muzzles to protect them Like a muzzle condom or electrical tape Sometimes it's maybe literally a condom That folks will put on there And what's that doing Randall Uh, it's keeping debris and moisture out of your barrel.

Um, I typically use electrical tape, um, but then I was reading, uh, I was, I don't like where this is going. Well, I've always been to the impression that, that does nothing for your ballistics. Oh, no, it doesn't. Okay. But if you're using a high volume suppressor, like a suppressor that, that can catch a lot of gas, uh, there is the potential for complications using the electrical tape method. Because your bullet, if enough gas goes into your suppressor by the time that bullet is at your muzzle, it could. But I don't know, but it's just got me second guessing myself a little bit.

Well, if you have a suppressor, make sure you get the FHF suppressor cover. That's right. That'll keep the debris out for you. Next, we have a question from Mogore. Explain to a European guy how long it takes you to get to work. Apparently Randall lives way out in the middle of nowhere too. Mm-hmm. Way out. Well, I also...

What's the commute like, Randall? 38 minutes if things are good. Okay. 38. Yeah, 38. Well, because my truck knows where I'm going, so it tells me. Oh. So that's how I...

I usually like to leave 45 minutes early. Just a lot of that is cutting through Bozeman. We're approaching long commute season. 24, yeah, 24 miles on the interstate, but... Through a mountain pass. Yeah, through a mountain pass. But again, I am only, I think, three miles from a Taco Bell. Very good.

I think my commute is probably like 18 minutes. What do you got, Corey? It takes about six minutes. Okay. I could ride a bike here. You must drive fast. You're winning. No, I'm very close.

Phil, what's your commute? I'm like 20, 25, depending. Yeah, see, I'm 38. I'm on the other side of the pass. It just shows you how bad the infrastructure is here for motor vehicle traffic. our producer who lives in Missoula just said three hours yeah the average commute I just Google it

for Americans as of 2023 is 27 minutes which I feel like we've found close to that meeting yeah yeah Chad is asking any tips for handling game meat with trauma after being shot I shot a buck and both front shoulders had a decent amount of trauma on the insides of them cut it out Chad I don't know that there's a trick yeah you don't want bloodshot meat

with even if you're doing the thing lowest on the totem pole and like turning it into ground meat, just keep that blood shots down. Yeah, there's no secret secret sauce there. Phil, what is the process for how I pick a song to parody

for a drop? There actually is a process. I will open up a Spotify playlist like based on a decade. So if I'm, I kind of try to, you know, span from 60s through current steps. I'll feel like a 70s song today and I'll go through, I'll scroll through all the biggest hits from the 70s.

And then I'll be repeating the segment name in my mind while I'm reading the list to try to find, you know, some alliteration or rhyming or syllables that match. Sometimes it's easier. Like hot, hot to go for hot tips was obvious. But like doing lose yourself for fake news. That one was a stretch, but I was pretty proud of kind of making that work. That's a good. But yeah, that's how it goes. Phil also, he doesn't want to go too obvious.

When we have, when we do the Let's Talk About Sex segment, it would have been very easy to do Salt and Peppers. No, I ended up using. that song for sure a different segment which yeah it's been a while keeping guessing yeah let's do uh two more Phil you got two more two more uh no let's well it's there's another one for me but that seems

yeah come on we'll feed back we just won't count it against the two specifically for this one man because no one's gonna know what the hell he's talking about he's asking if I've played arc Raiders which is the new hotness in gaming right now uh no no I'm not it's a competitive sort of competitive multiplayer game when I've retired from those I'm too old

I have kids I can't, I can't do, and I've been, I'm a lapsed PC gamer. I haven't had a good PC in years, so I'm, I strictly stick to, to console gaming for the most part now. Spencer, Spencer, 2.0, was just at the meat eater flagship store, and he just wanted to give a shout out for, for the crew there. Shout out to the store boys. We love the store boys.

They have managed to just fill that place with college age fellas, and they do a great job running it. Yep, yep, whenever I need someone to go. drink a cold one with store boys are there for real then we'll close out shout out Alex Zimmer store manager

Braden says moving from Iowa to southern Idaho what versatile caliber rifle would you buy to hunt elk slash deer slash other large game if you would only pick one only pick one in Idaho with elk deer and other large game

what do you got Randall I don't think you need to overthink this my my question to you would be how experienced are you shooting center fire rifles I think

choosing the right bullet and knowing how that bullet performs and what range is... Give him an answer. 65 Creedmoor? There we go. I think I would say a 30-odd-6 or a 270 if you're recoil conscious

maybe a 308 or a 65 Creedmoor. Corey? 300 win mag is a new one kids. Oh, Corey's going the other end of the spectrum. Yeah, I mean I shot everything with a 300 win mag for a while. It's nothing wrong with it I just can't quit All these new hot cartridges are so

lame to me 300 win mag all the way He asked for one suggestion I think we gave him five Good luck Good luck Braden All right that's the end of this week's show We'll be back here next week

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