The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 795: Exploding Deer, Counting Elk, and MeatTheater | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: November 21, 2025

Hosts Randall Williams, Seth Morris, and Cory Calkins interview Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist Franz Ingelfinger about his work monitoring elk in rural Montana, put on the inaugural performance of MeatTheater, talk with hunter Derek Demun about a particularly explosive hunt he experienced, and pit two listeners head-to-head in a Hot Tip Off. 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 I-Heart 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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First Light, FHF gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, This is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. Smell us now, lady. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivias. Meat Eater podcast.

Welcome to Meteor Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. Mountain Time. That's 9 p.m. for our friends in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Thursday, November 20th, 2025. Wish I'd written that out instead of having to go just by the numerical slash thing. You nailed it. We're live from Meteor HQ in Bozeman, Montana. I'm your host, Randall, joined today by my dear friends and colleagues, Mr. Corey Calkins, Mr. Seth Morris. Howdy, folks.

We've got a great show for you today. We're going to be talking to Franz Engelfinger, an elk researcher with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks. We've got an interview with Derek DeMun, who shot an exploding deer. More on that and a bit. We've got a hot tip off, and we're debuting a brand new segment. Very exciting stuff, folks, called Meat Theater. It's an innovative concept that I think will perform poorly. But there's a small fraction of you that will really like it.

We're all really excited about it. Yeah. First things first, we need to tell you about our big Black Friday sale happening now over at First Light, FHF Gear, Phelps, DSD, and the Meat Eaters stores. This is the time to get killer deals on gear from our family of brands for you and yours. Today, November 20th through December 1st, check it out. Pretty amazing deals, actually. Exciting. I did a little promo video yesterday for the sale,

and I think folks are going to be pretty pleased with the offerings. Good time to knock out some Christmas shopping. We just bought our first Christmas presents yesterday. There you go. A trip to the bookstore. Oh, yeah. Gift of books. It's great.

I believe we have books at the Meteor's. We do. We have cookbooks. You can also buy a digital copy of any of our Meat Eat Eaters American History audiobooks wherever you get your audiobooks and support the fine publishing team here at Meat Eater. Good folks, and they work hard. One more, one more detail here. Throughout our 12-day Black Friday sale, we have a fun little photo contest happening again. Submit your favorite hunting or fishing photos over at themeatater.com

for a chance to win a $50 or $500. That's not a typo. That's, no. $50 or a $500 first light gift card. Wow. Yeah, there's $50 daily. prizes and then there's the overall $500 gift card just by submitting a photo and somebody's gonna be we'll pick the winner sitting high on the hog there's some good photos in there already I know yeah I've heard good things I scrolled through them this morning it's gonna be tough to pick a winner but fellas I'm happy to have you here today on another Thursday happy to be here but just wondering

what you've been up to recently this is the part of the show where we discuss our what we've been up to casually I I kind of can't I can't really function mentally until I kill deer. And that's where I'm at right now. Oh, so this should be a good show. Yeah. Corey? Yeah. I killed an elk last week, which I'm pretty tickled about. Yeah. It was full. So now it's time for me to go deer hunting. Yeah, there you go. That was a weird, weird bowl. Yeah, he's funky. He's got five on one side and then just a big black club that hangs down on the other. I think his mother kicked him when he dropped out of her womb. And he's got like a real tall tine on that side as well, doesn't he? I want to call it his brow tithe. sticks up very strangely up and then the main beam just goes straight down and it's all black from

just the blood gravity falling out man he's cool that's cool he's a snowflake very unique yeah and he tastes so good been eating him up the last couple nights is he tender very yeah was he was he young i'd say he was four yeah i had to guess i'd ever asked him hmm my elk is like chewing on a damn boot oh no really i don't know why but my god goodness. You got to get out the meat mallet if you want to do any sort of steak. I did a little freezer filling of my own last night. Oh, last night? Last night? Yeah. You didn't tell us about this. Right before I went to work, our rooster was pecking one of our other chickens to death.

So I put her in solitary confinement to let the wound heal up. I see what this is going. And went home last night and stuck a, stuck a little poultry in the freezer. that's great i love to hear that yeah and we had a better rooster that i really liked and then snort killed that rooster and then when snort killed that rooster this imposter took his throne and learned to crow and do all the rooster things but i've never really felt any affection towards him well he didn't earn it he didn't he didn't the other one was like this beautiful red rooster and snort killed it unceremoniously um but no one's upset about that but yeah so that was that's the excitement over at our house did cal offered to replace the poultry population after

that or no well yeah we got three other chickens because his mom was moving yeah and so she gave us three of her chickens it just happened time the timing coincided with the untimely death of our rooster and uh yeah one of one of one of cal's mom's chickens was the one that the imposter the heir to the throne was pecking at so so now it's it's almost like another coup because the These outside chickens have now dethroned the master rooster. Wow. I don't know anything about how any of this works. All you know is that that rooster had to be in the freezer.

Yep. Yep. So now we've got two roosters in the freezer. Cal did a fine job with the first one. Oh, good. As penance for his dog's sins. So, yeah, a lot of fun. Phil, what's going on with you lately?

Oh, goodness. You really do not want to know because the most exciting thing that's happened to me in the last few days that I, I beat act three of a video game. called Hollow Night Silk Song. It's got the secret ending, which is very important to those who know. What's the internet parlets? Is it Hollow Night? I-Y-K.

Y-K. Hollow-night Silk Song. Hollow-night. Colons. Silk Song. It's a sequel to a video game that came out. It's called Hollow Night. Called Hollow Night. That's correct. I was just trying to think of, is it like an Aquarana of Time-type deal? You do acquire items that allow you to progress

to new areas, much like a Zelda game. So you're not on the wrong track. The genre is called a Metroidvania. Because it's a games like the Metroid series and the Castlevania series, they kind of made a portmanteau of that. I'm going to dig us out of this hole. You play as a character called Hornet, and you're protecting the bug kingdom of Farloom.

You want to keep, should I keep going? No, I was going to say, have we talked yet about, are you eating a deer at your house? Has that come up yet? It has not. No, my son, my 12-year-old son, shot a deer before I did and we have a freezer

full of mule deer right now speaking of family coups and impostors to the throne it says a lot about me that you asked how I was doing and instead of saying oh my God I'm so proud of my son who shot his first mule deer I said I completed a very difficult video game

yeah yes no but that's exciting it's exciting it is it's been a lot of fun because we we also signed up for this farm seat CSA from this farm that's less than a mile down the road from our house so we've been making a lot of meals

with fresh ingredients and harvested deer it's been great how's he uh he's a couple weeks out now how is he is he ready for next fall is he uh he seemed kind of just nonplussed about the whole thing like yeah I did it what's the big deal um I but now this this was his last year of being able to do it

as like an apprentice yeah he's gonna have to go through hunter safety next year and also I'll see if he has the motivation for that but um He loves going out on on grandpa's ranch and trekking about and looking for animals. So I think I think he'll do it. I think he'll go through the process. Hopefully he won't get to the point like Seth is where his brain won't function until he can kill a big buck. Because it's important to keep some perspective. It's an illness.

Okay. It's an illness. Maybe I'll pull it back then. Yeah, just have a little intervention. Before it gets too bad. Well, should we move on to our first guest today? Let's do it. do it. Today, we are joined by Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Calispell Area Wildlife Biologist

Franz Engelfinger. Frans oversees wildlife monitoring across some of the most remote terrain in the lower 48, including an ongoing elk research project in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Franz, thanks for joining us today. Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for making the time to talk to me and hear about some of the work we're doing up in northwest Montana. Yeah, we're excited hear about it uh yeah hey franz cori here um when you hear about elk in montana most conversations focus on areas where herds have an air quoting over objective population but uh region one in northwest montana where i'm was born and bred uh is home which is also home to a sixth of montana's public land which should be an eye opener to a lot of folks uh region one faces a very different set of

challenges. Franz, can you lay out what makes elk management west of the continental divide unique compared to the rest of the state of Montana? Yeah, it's true, Corey. I think, first off, one of the unique things is in Region 1, we have an opportunity to grow elk on public land. And I think some of the things that make Region 1 unique is, A, abundant access, like you talked about. We have over 500 million acres of public land, as well as an additional half a million acres of private land enrolled at our bark management program. So a lot of opportunity

to get out in the woods and have a great hunt. Region 1 is also Northwest Montana forested, which makes hunting complicated. I think a lot of people come up here for the first time and they're like,

I didn't think we'd have so many trees. And so that changes how you can hunt. It also changes, you know, as biologists, how we can survey our populations in monitor Cren. You know, flying and during aerial surveys is really only effective

where you can see through the Canada, or where there are no trees. And so we have very few districts where we can actually, you know, do aerial surveys. And then finally, you know, with so much the landscape forested, our changes in our elk populations are closely tied to changes in our forest cover. And so when you look at, you know, history of forest extraction, Montana, where you had a big boom from about, you know, 50s through the 90s. And then a real drop-off after that, you know, some of those, you know, timber cuts that really provided a great habitat from a number of our ungulates have played out at this point. So you can't talk about, you know, changes in onion population without talking about

forest management, force fire. And then finally, you know, region one, we're also known for, you know, our recovered carnivore populations. We have healthy populations of wolves, bears, lions. And so that's also in the mix. Region one, you know, great white-tailed deer hunting. 20% of the state's harvest comes from northwest Montana, good black bear hunting as well. Neal deer, you know, we harvest about 3% of the state. And for elk, it's about 5% of the overall state harvest. And in region one, we kind of say, you know, we force elk to be moose. We bury their groceries in four feet of snow and make them eat shrubs. So, you know, no surprise. But again, you know, many, some of our hunting districts are under objective. And again, that's where we have this opportunity to grow elk on public land. Well, speaking of populations, you work primarily in and around the great Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex, specifically up and around the South Fork of the Flathead Drainage. What have historical elk populations been like in that area?

And what are today's most recent population estimates? Yeah, you know, the South Fork has a long history of elk numbers and elk fluctuations. I think when I think of the Bob Marshall and the South Fork, I think of three herds. You've got, which all summer within that South Fork drainage, but two of them, those that go over to the Sun River to the east and those that migrate south to the Blackwater, Clearwater, they go, they're kind of our winter birds. They bug out in the winter to better winter range conditions outside the bog. And so my research right now is focused on those hearty souls that spend the entire winter or their entire life cycle within the South Fork. And there they deal with, you know, deep snow and Econa living on the valley bottom and then those south and southwest facing slopes. So in terms of the history of that population, that winter in the South Fork, you know, back around the start, you know, 1900s, they first started to document elk overwintering in the South Fork.

And there was a series of conditions, you know, fire, isolation, limited hunting, and, you know, also limited pressure from predators that allowed. that population to balloon such that by, you know, the late 30s, we saw a high of over 3,800 elk in, you know, wittering in the South Fork. Granted, they were also becoming alarmed by the impact that these elk were having on range conditions. But again, you know, back then, you know, things blew up and it made for some of the best hunting in the country. You know, the Bob Marshall Wilderness is isolated, it's rugged, it's beautiful, and elk numbers like that really supported a wonderful hunting opportunity. Things have changed. Several things have conspired that today over the last 20 years, we've seen numbers decline. Now, when I give you population

estimates from the 30s, those are estimates based on winter track counts and walking boots on the ground in the winter. And then when I talk about our estimate stays, it's not so much estimates as they are minimum counts. These are the number of animals I see when I fly. And so it's sort of an oranges and apples comparison, but what I will say is it appears that we are, you know, at Lowe's we haven't seen in decades. And, you know, although it's orange and apples comparison, there's certainly less fruit on the table. Well, with that, what steps is FWP taking to understand what's driving this decline and in turn support the long-term herd health of these elk?

Sure. I think, you know, this comes down to the question of, you know, what drives population change or elk populations? And, you know, I tend to think of, you know, elk kind of the middle. They're supported on the bottom by forage production and little pressure on the top from predation. It's this question of, you know, is it bottom up processes, habitat and forge or as predators that are limiting populations? And I kind of like to think of, you know, elk sitting around the table playing a friendly game of poker. And every single. season is a, you know, is a hand. And I know that, you know, habitat conditions, forest production, that will moderate all things. And so if, you know, you have a wet spring and you got good forage production, that's like getting dealt a sixth or seventh card. But if you got drought, you know, fire that whips through your inner range, maybe you're playing with only four or three cards. And then if you have a big, big snowstorm, you just fold. So, you know, every season it changes. but again, Habitat is a big player that helps moderate the other factors, namely climate and pernation. In terms of what, you know, FWP is doing, you know, we use information research to inform and adapt our management.

And so in Northwest Montana, we've got a couple different projects going on. I'll briefly touch a one, and then we'll dive into the work we're doing in the South Fork. So we have the Knox and Elk Study, which is a comprehensive study looking at elk survival sources and mortality, predation, looking at forest management and how that affects forage quality and production. And there they've got about 150 collars on cow elk. They've got another 150 they put on neonates that, you know, right after birth and tracking survival, tracking sources of mortality.

That will help inform our management statewide and especially here in northwest Montana. The work I'm doing that we're going to talk about today a little more in depth is coloring elk in the South Fork to try and tease out some of the things that are causing that decline and preventing that recovery of elk in the South For. So, yeah, using resource to inform management. So this collaring project must have a lot of specific details that you have to figure out. So how are you capturing these elk? What are these collars trying to measure?

And what kind of data are you hoping to collect from this study? Yeah, thank you. Yeah. So we got two approaches to catching elk. We can do aerial captures. That's with an hired team that comes in with a helicopter and darts and immobilizes elk from the air and then goes on and slaps on the collar. That we can do when we're outside the wilderness. But wilderness designation provides with it some additional challenges. Our other option for capturing elk and we do this both in wilderness outside is ground captures where we use clover traps that are baited with. with alfalfa hay and there's a tripwire. They're basically, you know, metal cages with netting and we bait the elk in there and they set off the trap. And then once they're in there, we've got trap transmitters

that then tell us something's there and we can go and collar them. What we have is we've got GPS collars. These are collars you can program. They'll give us, you know, six to 12 locations a day and a tremendous amount of information. You know, day, night,

bad weather, as well. And if our animals stop moving, we get a mortality report. I get a text or an email that says your animal is down and it's here and I can go in very quickly if I can get there and start to look at some of the factors and causes of that mortality. What we hope to get out of this, you know, we have very limited information about elk movement and vital rates within the South Fork. So simple things like, you know, adult survival, pregnancy rates, some of the things that, you know, thought might be limiting. That's information we can tease out from this limited study, as well as some of those seasonal movements and habitat selection. Again, all this is to help

us think about ways we can help this population recover. Well, specifically, the wilderness portion of this study, being in an extremely remote setting, and correct me, if I'm wrong, you're trying to pull this off during the winter months. It sounds like a logistical nightmare. So what are some of the key challenges of this project and also what keeps your team motivated to keep pushing on? Sure, sure. I think, you know, to be clear, you know, the men and women I work with at FWP, they all work in remote settings, doing, you know, stuff in rugged terrain. So what makes this unique is that wilderness aspect. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some of our project supporters, you know, this project is funded, you know, through Pittman-Robichend Dollars.

These are excise taxes on hook and bullets. So that's provided the funding for the collaring and the helicopter captures. But it was a grant from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation that allowed us to actually extend this work into the wilderness. And so what we need is, you know, they help pay for aluminum traps that are portable enough that we could pack them in. And then, of course, partnering with the U.S. Forest Service. They have crews that go there in this area in the winter to do snow surveys. They've got the technical skills as well as, you know, they wrap their head around working remotely very well. So they've been a critical partner as well.

But again, in terms of some of the challenges, you know, access for sure. We're talking it's a two-day to three-day ski in at a minimum. And it depends on conditions. Last year, when we went in, you know, it took my crew about eight hours to get up over Gordon Pass. The next crew that was coming in or leave us, they got hit by snow. It took them over 13 hours. were getting to the halfway point at about 9 p.m. at night in the dark. So access is a challenge, and that makes also planning difficult. You know, if I forget something, I'm not running out to the

truck. We got to make do. If we have, you know, a binding break like we did last year, you got to kind of a guy over a fix. And so, you know, there's that challenge as well. Physical demands, you know, like I said, that, you know, traveling in snow, just, you know, keeping your body fed. I I lost 10 pounds. I don't have 10 pounds to lose. We were eating, you know, candy, you know, breakfast sandwiches, cooked in bacon, soaked in bacon, grease. And, you know, I just couldn't put on enough calories. And then obviously the environment. We saw temperatures from, you know, 50 degrees to negative 30. And I have a frame of reference of what, you know, negative 20 is, but you get down to negative 30 and it's just like, you know, that's new.

Everything's hard. Yeah. Sounds like an adventure. Yeah, it was an adventure. It was also, you know, hard work and I think important work. And you ask kind of what keeps me motivated. I think two things. One is, you know, I feel indebted to the sportsmen, sports women here that, you know, enjoy the Bob Marshall, you know, care about our angular populations or game populations, wildlife in general.

Curious, you know, what's going on? I feel like we owe them, you know, an answer, or at least to try and find an answer. And then I think the other thing that keeps to be motivated is, you know, biologists that came before me that did a lot of work to get some of the information we have. We had, you know, back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, there were a few collaring studies where, you know, they go out, they slap these collars on, but then they'd have to go to get locations. They'd have to fly and use VHF radios to triangulate. So took on an immense amount of effort as well as risk to get those locations.

I can sit now at my desk. I don't, but I can sit, you know, back and every morning, sip a cup of coffee and see, you know, what my elk are doing. And I can get a tremendous amount of information from these callers. And I feel sort of, you know, that it's important for me to put the effort into trying and getting them out. Wow. Fascinating. Yeah, that's cool. Well, for people who want to learn or follow along as the study progresses, where can they find updates or learn more about your work? Yeah, FWP has some, you know, FishWife and Products has some great resources. The first off is every year we put out an annual elk report that looks at harvest throughout

the region. You can just Google, you know, FWP R1 elk report, and you'll see that. That's a great resource. But in terms of the research we do, you can also just Google FWP elk research, and that will bring you to our research page. We also have that for mule deer and other species. but FWP, Elk Research, and you will see project annual reports and summaries for just about every project we're doing.

And when I get to it, you'll have one for this one, too. So that's where information will appear. Great. Well, I could talk about this all day, just as somebody who grew up and used to live and work in the wilderness. But thanks for your time and giving us just a glimpse into your work. Research like this plays a huge role in how Montana manages wildlife, and we appreciate all your hard work, dangerous work that you guys are doing to try and wrap your heads around

what's going on up there. So we thank you for that. No, thank you, Corey, Randolph. I really appreciate you having me on. And yeah, it's been fun. Thank you. Thank you. I do have one more really important question, maybe the most important. Cats or gris this Saturday? Ooh, well, my son's down in Bozeman, so go cats. Oh, fighting works for Corey. All right, well, go gris. Go gris. Thanks, Fraud.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Take care. Man, that's, that's wild stuff. Yeah. Sounds like fun. Oh, yeah, I know.

Sounds like a lot of work. Multi-day. Yeah, like a multi-day ski trip is, uh, I could count on like one hand the number of times I've skied in somewhere in camp and it's not, not very, I mean, it's fun, but it's a lot of work. Just being in ski boots for 24. I mean, you sleep a little, but, you know, he was saying how hard it is to get in there a couple days worth of just skiing in

imagine living in ski boots for those who have ever slipped their feet into them they're not comfortable those guys are living in them while they're back there yeah might make me cry yeah most people most days a lot of tears blood sweat and tears 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

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Big Country Demands Better Intel. Download on X hunt and start your seven-day trial to get dialed before your next trip. Hey folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire meat eater family of brands. First Light, FHF Gear, Dave Smith Decoys, Phelps, and. and the meat eater store. Whether you're chasing elk,

setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the meat eater Black Friday sale.

Speaking of tears, now it's time for a new segment, Meat Theater. Meat Theater is the concept that we came up with yesterday, where we take outstanding hunting literature and feed it into artificial intelligence and ask the AI to generate a short dramatic script to be performed live by untrained actors. And as we're brainstorming for today's show, we wanted to tie in the latest episode of Meat Eat Eaters Season 13, which, as we all know, captures Steve's first African safari. And what better way to do that, I thought, than perform a hasty stage adaptation. of a classic Ernest Hemingway short story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,

originally published in the September 1936 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine. You guys ready? Oh, man. Born ready. Absolutely. We just did this once yesterday to make sure that it wouldn't take 10 minutes, and it didn't, so let's give her a rip, boys. Yeah, not a lot of practice went into this, so.

Action. The short, happy life of Francis McComer. Oh, nice. Scene 1 After the Lion Oh no, that's the wrong one. I'm already screwing this up. There we go, we're live.

It is late afternoon at a hunting camp in Africa. Francis McComber has just run like a coward from a wounded lion. His wife watched it all happen. So did their pH, Robert Wilson. No one has spoken directly of it, but everyone knows. How is your drink? Mr. Wilson? Fine. Just fine.

We got that line eventually, though, didn't we? Yes, we did. We got him. How interesting. Margot, I... I'm going to clean up before dinner. You were lovely today, darling. Really impressive stuff. At the moment, Margot turns her back on her husband and walks away.

I bolted. I just bolted like a scared little boy. I've never done anything like that. before. It happens to everyone at some point. Does it happen to you? Oh, hold on. It's double-sided paper. Double-sided paper. No.

She saw it all. She'll never let me forget it. Women are difficult in these situations. Can we go out tomorrow? Go after something else. I need to. I need another chance. chance. Buffalo. We'll go after Buffalo in the morning. Yes, Buffalo.

Thank you, Wilson. Don't thank me yet. That night, Margot McComer visited Wilson's tent. Francis knew. Wilson knew that he knew. But nothing was said. In the morning, they would hunt Buffalo. Seemed to the Buffalo.

Morning. The hunt begins well. Francis shoots three buffalo For the first time in his life He is not afraid He feels it That thing he had never felt before Perhaps this is what courage is

Good shooting, Macomba Damn good! Did you see? Did you see them drop? Yes, I saw I wasn't afraid, not at all I felt God, Wilson, I felt alive You shot magnificently Did you see, Margo? I saw.

Which page? Wilson. Wilson. One of them's just one of them's just wounded. We'll have to go in after him. Good. Let's go. The bush. A wounded buff in the bush is one of the most dangerous. I don't care. I'm not afraid anymore.

Can you understand that? I'm no longer afraid. Is it safe? Nothing's safe, but we have to finish him. Then let's finish him. Margot, stay here with the gun bear. We'll be back. And there it was.

Francis Macomar had crossed over. Just 30 minutes ago, he had been a boy. And now he was a man. His wife knew it. Wilson knew it. And Macomar himself knew it most of all. He was happy, perhaps, for the first time in his life. There he is, 12 yards away.

I see him. Christ! Oh no! The cap gun's not going off. It went off, we got it. Do that liner again, Corey, quickly. Christ! Francis, oh God, Francis. Is he?

He's dead. The bullet hit him in the back of the head. I tried to hit the buffalo. I had to shoot. It was an accident. Of course it was. I thought I could kill the buffalo. You saw I was charging. That's right. The buffalo was charging. Oh, God. Oh, God. You were afraid, weren't you?

What? Just now. Just these last 30 minutes. You were afraid of him for the first time. I don't know what you mean. No, I don't suppose you do. Scene 3, epilogue. They said it was an accident, of course. A tragic accident during a buffalo hunt. These things happen in Africa.

Mrs. McComber was distraught, naturally. She had tried to save her husband from the charging animal. No one could blame her for what happened. Robert Wilson knew. He had seen that look in her eyes when Francis McComers stopped being afraid. When he became, for perhaps the first time and last time in his life, a man she could not control, a man she did not recognize. Francis McComber lived 35 years, but he was truly alive for only 30 minutes.

In those 30 minutes, he was happy. And perhaps that is longer than most men ever manage. The short, happy life of Francis McComber, emphasis on Short. Emphasis on happy. Make of it what you will. End of play. Audience goes nuts. Do we still have viewers, Phil?

Are people still watching? Who dropped off the live stream? I think, I mean, I think we're at peak viewership. Oh, sweet. We locked them in. Wow. Lights are back on. Thanks for the stage lights, Phil.

Yeah, of course. There's dried leaves everywhere back here. That filled seven minutes. That was great. I thought the computer did a really nice job with that script. I added a few touches this morning to make things clearer. I thought it left a little too much up to suggestion and innuendo. But I really liked what the computer did with that.

Yeah, the power that it took for the AI to create that, it only drained late Lake Mead like a couple of inches. Wow. I think it was worth it. Hopefully Hemingway is not rolling over in his grave in Ketcham, Idaho, directly across from the old first light age two. We have 45 new live chat comments that I'm too scared to look at. Well, Phil, unfortunately, it's time to take a break for some list of feedback.

Well, I haven't read the new one, so let's just look at the old ones that I've seen. Let's see here. This is, you know, it's almost Thanksgiving, and we have more news about the next Thursday's show that Randall will talk about at the end of the show. But Kenneth would like to know favorite turkey preps. Smoked, fried, or oven-baked? Oh, man, you can't beat a fried turkey. Fried's pretty good. I'm usually a traditional oven-baked guy.

Yeah, just an oven roast. Brian and oven roast. Yeah, I got to, Brian. I feel like the taste of a smoked or fried turkey is soured by how often people like to talk about how good they are. That's true. You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with a good old-fashioned turkey. Nothing's wrong with it. Just the last couple years, I've brined and fried, and, oh, it's hard to beat that crispy skin.

It's not easy, though. Yeah. A lot of accidents can happen. A lot of house fires. It's dangerous. Yeah, yeah. Be careful out there, kids. Be careful.

Thanksgiving is coming up. Never a bad idea to refresh yourself on fire safety. Make sure those extinguishers are where they should be, et cetera, et cetera. Don't fry it in your garage. That's for Rick Hutton. He'll tell you all about fires. I'm going to bring this up live just to hold everyone responsible, accountable. Mowgore says that he still hasn't received any news about his cookbooks

So oh So me, Jake Corey I'm in on that Whoever we need to get this man his cookbooks I don't have the backstory on this do we owe him we owe more Mogore won a a silly what was it like a like sort of a caption contest thing I don't remember what that But Brody picked him as one of the winners and oh this is embarrassing to receive he's he's supposed to receive signed cookbooks. As much as I want

Mogore to get his cookbooks, I think we should have swept this under the rug because it's a bad book for our podcast team. We did that. We did that a couple weeks ago. I refuse. I respect the man too much. Moguer, you'll get those cookbooks if I have to fly over to Hungary myself and deliver them. Morgor, just to put water under the fridge

here, I am replying to your email with the tracking number of your cookbooks. Oh. That's some CS right there. Wonderful. There you go, Mogore. Hopefully that clears everything up. Apologies, Mogore. Let's see.

Holiday hunting traditions on either Christmas or Thanksgiving. What do you guys do? If anything. That's from Trey. We don't have traditions. We'll probably go out this Thanksgiving morning to shoot a... Sydney's still looking for a deer. And, yeah, shot my first bowl the day after Thanksgiving.

I actually don't really like how many people are in the woods around Thanksgiving. Not that it's a bad thing, but for my own enjoyment. It's a big tradition. I feel like around Montana, it's a big people just go out in huge numbers right around Thanksgiving. Yeah. Yeah, I usually, if I'm in Montana for Thanksgiving, I usually do some sort of hunt Thanksgiving Day or, yeah, Thanksgiving Day morning, whether it's like a Doe hunt or an upland hunt or something. But this year, I'm going to be back in Pennsylvania, and the rifle season opens the Saturday after Thanksgiving there. Oh, that seems like Thanksgiving, then Friday, go to deer camp, and then Saturday wake up and deer hunt.

Beautiful. I love it. Yeah. All lined up. Right on. This is sort of a call to action. This is from Ben, and I was unaware of this, mostly because I edit Cal's podcast, and I don't think he's talked about it, but he probably will on Monday's podcast. But Ben says, any of my fellow Wisconsin nights in the chat, please be sure and call, email your reps for the Sand Hill Crane Hunting Bill.

Apparently, there were lots of opponents at the public hearing yesterday, and I looked it up, and apparently in 2010, there was a management plan developed by the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway councils that would call for a potential crane hunt once numbers exceeded a range between 30,000 and 60,000 birds, and estimates are now in the 100,000 range. So get out there. Wisconsinites. Let them know that you want a Sand Hill crane hunt. Nobody's going to stand up and advocate for hunting seasons if hunters themselves don't do it. So get out there, gang. Thank you, Ben, for bringing this to our attention. I haven't looked at all the comments regarding meat theater yet, but this is from Afro Man. I don't know about this, boys.

What happened to one minute fishing? That's a fair point. Yep. That is a fair point. I'll be honest. I'm sure this is the only negative one and all the other ones are possible. I'll be honest, Mr. Mann, we're well aware that this would be a polarizing segment. Adam says, is it safe to return yet? Yes, Adam, we're now in the listener feedback section. If you dipped out, please come back.

But Derek says it's going to be nominated for an Emmy, so I'm excited to put that on my mantle. Yeah, I mean, even if we don't win an award, I hope it inspires some audience members to go out and read The Short Happy Life of Francis Baccomber. It's a great story. If you like gunshot accidents or maybe not accidents, cuckleded marriages and hunting in Africa so highly recommend some of Hemingway's finest work Dan is asking what the weirdest thing you guys have ever found inside a critter is Broadheads

yeah I shut a bowl one time that had a broadhead that had gone through the spinal what he calls the little bone the ridge that goes along the back of the spine What's it called? And it had gone through and then lodged in the opposite side backstrap, poking out. So when I was cutting down, my knife hit the, like where you'd threaded on to the shaft, into the shaft. I shot a turkey this spring that had an air rifle pellet in it.

Really? I, we ate rabbit. I can say this because the restaurant's closed. Fabulous restaurant in Missoula. And we got a rabbit that had an air rifle pellet in it at the restaurant. Really? Yeah. And we called the restaurant.

And they were like, these are raised in the bitter root, like in an open, not, I mean, it was not like open range, but they're like some kid might have driven by and plunked one. Jeez. Wow. Corey, weird stuff in animals. Let's see. I had a client catch a cutthroat that had a snake coming out of its anus. Ooh. I believe it was a garter snake.

I couldn't help myself. And I pulled it out and it just kept coming and coming and coming. Was it digested like it had gone in the front end or was it still thrashed around like it had gone in the back end? The snake was very much alive, but it was the tail of the snake was already coming out of the fish. So I just couldn't help and pull it out. He was still hungry too. Phil still play with the cap gun over there. He'll just burnt my finger.

Oh no. I think the critics. Phil just AD the cap gun back there. I think the critics of that performance should know that Phil brought in a cap gun. that would have really added a lot of... I'm still on the fade mode. Yeah, the gunshots would have been far more realistic had the cap gun functioned.

And also, Phil, in practicing for his match strike, when Wilson lights his cigarette, Phil burned one of the microphones in the studio just before we went live here. I didn't hold the match close enough to the mic so it wasn't as impactful. I'll do it again here. Oh.

Yeah, that's sizzle. That sounds good. That sounds nice. Anything else in the chat there, Phil? Yeah, I think we can move on and tackle things at the end of the show. Mm-hmm. All righty. Art.

Is it a Christmas ornament? It is. A Wiffel ball. A gnome Christmas ornament. Oh, are we supposed to talk about that? Shameless plug. Oh, we kind of are. It's hanging right here.

Yeah. Oh, great. At the Meteor.com. Our next guest today is Derek DeMun, a hunter photographer and the host of the T8 Outdoors podcast. You might know him from the viral video where a routine deer hunt turns surreal after his bullet hit a collared deer and made the collar. explode on impact.

What? Yeah. Derek, welcome to the show. Hey guys, thanks for having me. So for folks who may not know you yet, can you give us a little background on your story? Yeah, my name's Derek. I'm a T-8 paraplegic. It's out in Utah on a CWMU hunt.

That's a tag that they give out in Utah for landowners who have more than like 5,000 acres because I'm like tax revenue and stuff like that but um yeah it was a it was a couple-day hunt and we're going for known giants in the area so we're going for a giant but yeah I didn't expect the smallest deer I've ever shot to be the most popular deer I've ever shot so tell us about we're going to pull up the video here in a second but tell us about how as you mentioned your paraplegic, how are you hunting? What's the, what's sort of the, the style or sort of adaptive equipment that you use to hunt? So on, I'll hear my local mountains, I like to mountain bike in. We'll strap a little, made a little McGiver to trailer and we'll

throw gear and stuff on the trailer and me and a buddy will smash out on the mountain bikes and get as deep as we can. Here they're that, and I got one of those action tractures. It's the wheelchair that looks like a tank. And so those work well, although the battery dies pretty quick, and you want to get stuck up on the backcountry with a 500-pound wheelchair. Yeah, that's not ideal. Not at all.

But on this particular hunt, I was a... able to, so since I'm a paraplegic and I'm in a wheelchair, I have a license through the state of Utah DNR to hunt from a vehicle, any four-wheel drive vehicle. So that's what this hunt was able to accomplish. So you guys are out looking for deer in the morning and you're hunting from the vehicle. What did this deer, did you know it had a collar on? I mean, just sort of walk us through like what you were thinking up until the moment of the shot. Okay, so it was actually the very last day, last afternoon of the hunt. So it was, and there was probably 20 minutes of legal shooting light left.

We're driving back down the lodge. And at this point, I just told the landowner, he was driving. I was like, hey, you know, anything with antlers, I would like to at least put some meat in the freezer because I was, I like taking my old man on hunts with me. So just anything we could munch on. But we're coming around the corner and it's absolutely pouring rain. You can't really, you can't hear it in the, in the video that I posted, just microphone-wise wasn't working out well.

But we come around the corner and this little forky just pops up out of his bed and is staring at us because like I said, it was pouring rain and we weren't expecting to see anything. So this guy popped up and just staring at us probably about 10 yards off the road. and landowners like here's your chance i was like all right cool um got got my rifle set up and he had he had glass on it he had his binos on it and i got it in the optic i was like it's got a collar he's all good you can you know take it at will and so he wanted me to shoot it where the neck meets the body since it was raining so hard the you know if you would hit it somewhere else the blood trail would have probably been washed away pretty fast It was raining, raining really hard that day.

So I aimed right where the neck meets the chest right there in the brisket area. Saw the collar, try to aim underneath of it. And I hit the lithium battery on the collar. And, yeah, the... Yeah, let's let the video... It was a big, big explosion. I thought the deer went sky high and there's a million. Phil, can you pull up that video?

Yes. And I told Derek before we got started, like I, someone set this to us and said, have you seen this video of a deer exploding when the collar gets hit? And I thought, oh, we're going to get like a little sizzle, you know, or like a couple sparks. But the video is, uh, is something. You can see here the, the, the, yeah, getting set up for the shot. So apologies. takes aim

kaboom and it's it's like a yeah i mean it's like tanner right for folks that aren't are watching excuse me for the folks who are listening and not watching yeah it looks like a tannerite went off so derrick what what's the first thing in your mind that i mean

it's crazy so insane so you pull the trigger and there's one big boom and then another big boom what's the first thing goes through your mind uh well It was funny because there was a good 15 seconds of silence in the truck. Like, we all just sat there and just stared at a 15-foot tall pile of smoke. And we all just literally just sat there.

And I was like, kind of deer, you guys got out here, you know? And landowners, like, I've been hunting my land for 50 years, and I have never, ever seen that. and weird yeah it was just mind-blowing and wasn't expecting it and honestly going going up to the deer i thought there was going to be a lot of damage but there was absolutely no damage to the deer it was literally just the battery exploded and you could see where my bullet went through the went through the neck dropped it right in its right in its track so it was a good yeah you'd hope so with that impact yeah it was shooting a 243 and it hit the yeah hit that battery and it

it's crazy you can slow it down and there's a giant flash of light sparks flying 10 15 feet in the air and then that smoke got a good 15 20 feet in that wow up in the force there so Derek we got a question from Seth who asked how far did it run after that about two inches luckily it was a clean ethical shots so he dropped right right in his track yeah no uh no blood trailing needed um did did wildlife i mean you so you posted this on your instagram channel and or on your instagram feed and then it went viral can you tell us like did wildlife officials reach out to it all or what was sort of the reaction that you got after you posted this so we were driving down to the lodge when this happened before we got to the lodge after we threw the deer in the truck we were already

on the phone with utah dnr and and uh they they they can congratulated me. They said, you know, great shock. Congratulations. And they asked what condition the caller was in. And it, you know, we explained it. And they're like, oh, you go ahead, keep the collar. It's no use to us. And they even emailed me the migration charts. Oh, cool. Oh, nice. So I got to see where the summer range, it's winter range, and it's year round range. And that deer specifically migrates 21 miles round trip from it

summer ground to the winter grounds that's amazing that was pretty cool that deer put on some miles yeah whenever I shoot a deer I always like wonder what its individual story is and it's like you're never going to get

the chance to know that unless it's like unless it has an exploding collar unless it's an exploding collar yeah so is that going to go on the you're going to do a euro mount and hang the collar on it or what's the plan there? I have a euro mount and I have the collar hanging from it. Yeah, I do. So it was cool.

I got, you know, and you asked about like the, like what people said about it afterwards, but I got a lot of people who don't read the captions because I listed what happened in the entire hunt, why I was shooting from a vehicle. Right. Why it exploded XYZ because they got a lot of hate from shooting from a vehicle. but people that are a special situation. Yeah. Yeah, Derek, I know you use your platform to advocate for hunters with disabilities,

and it's an important message, and I think what you just brought up there, like there's a lot of, you know, ignorance out there, not only in the hunting community, but outside of the hunting community about folks getting outdoors in different ways. Can you share some of your, like, advocacy message with our audience and kind of what What would you want other hunters to understand about what it takes to get, you know, for example, a paraplegic like yourself outside? Yeah, it's, you know, every state out there offers a shoot from a vehicle. It doesn't have to be a car. It can be any wheeled vehicle from the road.

You can go out. You can get those. It's, you know, it's tough. Like, I wasn't born. paraplegic you know i got got into a bad accident and um just just trying to fill the freezer like anybody else you know and there's there's a lot less of us in this position than people tend to think people tend to think oh you know and i don't know shooting from a car does get abused by a lot of people but um in reality like there's no really other way to do certain types

the hunts like i still like to hop hop in the blind you know choke points food plots water sources all that that that's a lot funer but sometimes when you're hunting big steep rugged mountain terrain you know you're obviously not going to be rolling your wheelchair through that so yeah hopping in a side by or a car really yeah so maybe it really helps you know just trying to fill the freezer if folks see someone shooting from a vehicle don't rush to judgment about who's doing that and why, right? Exactly, yeah. Some disabilities are super visible, you know, and some aren't.

If you see me rolling down the street, you're like, this guy's in a wheelchair, you know. But there's a lot of disabilities out there that you can apply for a shoot from a vehicle car that you couldn't tell just by looking at somebody. You know, you'd have to dive deep into their story here. what they're all about. So, yeah, don't rush to judgment. We're all out here just trying to feed our families. Well, Derek, if folks want to hear more about your story and learn more about your work,

where can they find you? Yeah, so I do a lot of video logging about my hunts and stuff on Instagram. The T8 underscore Outdoorsman. And it's the same for my YouTube channel, T8 underscore Outdoorsman. And if anyone has a chance to hop on or would like to listen to T8 Outdoors podcast, the podcast I started for people with disabilities who go out there and hunt and just their extraordinary stories and how differently logistics apply to their certain hunts about, I got buddies and shooting big old elk, dragging them out with chairs.

And so just, yeah, if you hop on and give it a check out and see what we have to do, it'd be cool just to bring awareness yeah well Derek thanks thanks for sharing your story thanks for chatting with us and uh appreciate the work you're doing and yeah hopefully the uh next year you pull the trigger on will be a little less uh eventful surprising combustible combustible yeah it was the the most popular forky there on the internet for probably about two weeks well Derek hope you're having a good fall and uh maybe we'll chat with you to get here soon. Appreciate it, guys.

Thank you. Thank you. Man, every time I watch that video, it doesn't get old. It still shocks me. It's so crazy. I encourage everybody, if you're just listening, go either check this out on YouTube

or check out Derek's Instagram page because it's a wild, wild visual. Wild video. 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 less than the cost of a box of shells with major updates to crown land layers and new parcel boundaries where available scout access boundaries and terrain with confidence before you even lace up your boots whether you're chasing elk in the mountains spotting mule deer in the coolies or looking for big woods white tails onex gives you the tools to plan smarter and hunt harder You'll still get fully functional offline maps, precise weather conditions, real-time GPS tracking,

and customizable markups to share with your crew. Big Country demands better intel. Download on X hunt and start your seven-day trial to get dialed before your next trip. Hey folks, Steve Ronella here. It's that time again, the Meat Eater Black Friday sale. From November 20 through December 1, you can save up to 50% across the entire Meat Eater family. of brands. First Light, F-H-F-F-Gear, Dave Smith decoys, Phelps, and the Meat-Eater store. Whether you're chasing elk, setting decoys, or just gearing up for camp, this is the time to

upgrade the kit that carries you through the season. Visit your favorite brand site to find your deal, and don't miss the Meat-Eater Black Friday sale. Which brings us to our next segment, and that's a hot tip-off. Let's all do a hot tip off H-O-T-I-P-R Let's all do a hot tip-off Love it Hot Tip-off is where two listeners go head to head

with competing pieces of advice And after we hear each tip We'll declare which one is better And that will be By wheel, I mean the audience We'll choose which one's best better. I will throw up a poll in the live chat after we watch the hot tips. Yes. If you don't mind, Phil, please do that. And if you have a hot tip, take a one-minute

video on your phone and email it to radio at the meat eater.com with the subject line hop tip-off. This segment is brought to you by our good friends at Case Knives, hand crafting high-quality knives since 1889. And the winner of this showdown will receive a Meat-Eater-branded Case Trapper Knife. that Uncle Brent will be very pleased with that Uncle Brent will like it All right Phil

Let's hear this week's hot tips Ethan Hey this is Ethan from Fonleck, Wisconsin And my hot tip is As we all know We need a lot of room to do our cutting When a lot of times

Big cutting boards aren't cheap So what we like to do is we go down to the local home improvement store and for $30 you can get a whole four-foot piece of scrap cut off clearance laminate countertop that works great as a cutting board and we have three of them so we get 12 feet of counter space for cutting and butchering so for 120 bucks we have 12 whole feet of basically cutting board thanks bye Nice. Yeah. Billy Shaw!

Hey everybody, Billy here in Minnesota with a hot tip for you. In response to Spencer's question about the best type of gas tank to use, I've got a better solution. Buy a siphon hose anywhere on the internet or maybe at a hardware store. It's got a check valve on this side. You put your fuel tank anywhere above the fuel fill on your vehicle. put it in the vehicle and then you take this end and you just jam it down like this and that gets the fuel flowing from the tank into your vehicle this way if you don't have a fuel gauge you can look inside and see how full it is so you're not going to spill everywhere if you're using a regular tank there's no leaking from the tank and then when you're done you just pull it up from the fuel tank and the rest of it siphons down into your vehicle much better solution for filling things like snowmobiles, four-wheelers, and side-by-sides. Amen.

Very familiar with that device. Keep that clean. Yeah, good thing to have in your truck. Yeah. Get one at Harbor Freight. I wonder if, uh, pole is live. Poles live, gang. Get in there.

I wonder if Chester knows Ethan from Fondalach. Fondalai. Fondal. Because that's where Chester's from. Get out. Fondalai. Man. A lot of great hot tips coming from the upper Midwest.

I mean, how many people could possibly live in Fondalak? I don't know. I don't know what the population is. Do you like the counter talk? trick I do yeah when we redid our counters I saved two big sections just for that very thing so I do that you know it's funny when we read it our counters when we redid our counters when we redid our counters I saved all of the butcher block and I just cut it into weird shapes yeah I've got a piece of butcher block with a with a barrel vice on it so I can pull barrels

and stuff on my truck bed and I can also put a reloading I can put a press on there and and reload cases at the range if I'm doing some experimenting with seating depth, things like that. But I have all this countertop just leaning up against the walls in my barn. Yeah. I just like that.

I mean, you could go to, you don't even have to go to Home Depot. You just go to like the home salvage store. Yeah, I did the same thing. Where I like to find all my weird stuff. We did butcher block as well. And yeah, my leftover chunk is a cutting board now. Yeah.

I love any hot tip that involves recycling stuff. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. But I also feel like, Anything we can do to get at big gas can. You know, to fight the man. Fight the man and his few mitigating gas cans.

Yeah. I like that. It's kind of tight. So I'm going to give you another 30 seconds to get these last votes in. Maybe you can sway the tide here. How many votes total do we have, Phil? Right now we have 88 votes. Oh, but there's 300 people watching.

300 people watching. Come on. Democracy is the right. Yeah. Even if you're driving. Get on it. Poor turnout is an embarrassment. This is, this does kind of match up with the American electoral as far as population to people who actually vote.

I was going to say we're probably higher. Yeah. We're probably outperforming. So you take that back. You guys are doing great. Let's give it another five seconds and then we'll call it because that's how they do elections. Too close to call. Sorry, that's, that's it.

Oh, okay. Pulls over. I was going to say, I've, uh, the, which Steve has one of these now but we first saw it from the guys that do some flying for us when we moose on up in Alaska but they have one of those siphon hoses

with in the middle of it they have a shutoff valve oh yeah so when you know when it gets full they can just hit that shut off valve that's smart yeah which is like a hot tip with 59% of the vote the winner is

Ethan with the Laminate Countertop Congrats Ethan I also think my favorite part about Ethan's video is just the inside of that shop or barn or whatever it is It's like that guy is deadly serious

About cutting up deer Yeah I mean the folks in the upper Midwest Take their shop serious I think yeah good shop culture They like to hang out in the shops Which I enjoy Well Ethan

Should he email email radio at the meteor com Our producer will We should probably email him Ethan our producer will reach out to you and get you that

Meteeter branded Case Trapper Knife Congrats on your victory And thanks for submitting your tip And thanks to our good friends At Case Knives For sponsoring this week's hot tip off All right Phil

Let's get back in the chat See what people are saying I've been I've been kind of absent From the chat for a little bit Turn in knobs back here Yeah Steve were here

He'd be acting the exact same way He'd talk about How he's already posted The job listing Looking for a new podcast But Randall I think you're gonna like this one This is a question from Mason

I need some gun selling advice I am trying to sell my grand prize 25th anniversary Christensen's Arms Traverson 300 Winmag Serial yeah okay serial number He says he says it's been on gun broker for a while And I'm not getting much traction I live in Northeast Ohio

oh hey and thought about shipping it to a gun shop out west do you have anything to add here um it's a good question it's a good question i would be i mean i'd get it on gunbroker i don't know what you what you'd get for that um if it's not getting much traction on gunbroker yeah i mean you might reach out to some gun shops out west that do a lot of i mean there's there's services and shops that'll list your stuff on gunbroker and do like a very high-end bespoke auction page to maybe get some eyeballs. But I mean, I always sell stuff just by plugging it into different forums. And this may not be what you want to hear. But when I'm trying to sell a gun, I lowball myself. So I don't, I lower my standards so that I just sell it quickly. I don't have a lot of

experience like selling high value items for what they're worth or more. Typically, I just am moving something to move on to the next thing. So, Seth, you have thoughts on that? I mean, my gun selling advice is don't sell guns. Just keep them, hoard them. Put them in a safe. Get ready for the apocalypse. Yeah.

That's a beautiful rifle. Oh, yeah. Phil, what else we got here? Good luck to you, Mason. I picked this question because it's incredibly vague, but I think it could open up um a discussion of what this actually means but cisc grant 26 asks what's what is the most admirable non game animal i think you could yeah admirable could mean different things to different people i think it's pretty subjective so so if you guys want to hash that out i think that'd be fun

probably a grizzly bear for me yeah i guess in the lower 48 yeah i guess depends on where you're I think that's cheating I would say if we're going globally I would have to say it's one of the great apes either a gorilla chimpanzee or an orangutan

you have a lot of respect for those creatures I like the Wolverine but you can get them in Alaska sure yeah not down here though Canada wild animal yeah Yeah, I don't know

I'm wondering about things like possums You can get them Yeah All over the place But I wouldn't call it like a game It's a fur bear Yeah that's fair Armadillo

Yeah you're talking to the trapper here Armadillo Yeah Nah Cheating with that shell No I think I think the great apes I'm going to plant my flag

And these guys don't have good answers So that's it Great, we locked it down Phil, did we get it? Did we squeeze enough juice out of that? You know, I thought you guys might squeeze a little bit more But hey, we'll work with it I think there's a lot of good questions in there

It's cord asked I think I know the answer that sets answer What is the weirdest health condition Slash diagnosis? Y'all have contracted from the outdoor lifestyle This includes friends or pets Just mostly diarrhea Okay

Just a lot of diarrhea. Oh, yeah. Jardia. Mm. Yeah, I've kept it pretty safe and healthy out there. I don't know. Seth's mental breakdown here, not shooting a deer, kind of got me concerned, but... Oh, yeah. It's... That'll get fixed here. It's something I've got to work through myself. Don't worry about it. You know what I mean? There's cuts. There's... I don't have any

trichinosis stories. Yeah. Um, weird insect bites and bee stings. Including pets. Um, we had one of our dogs this past winter uh i wish i could remember the name of it but essentially what she did was poke a hole in her abdomen with a stick and then it filled up with air because her body was working like a bellows and it sucked all this air up under the skin and it was like she had bubble wrap under her oh wow which i always think it's fun when there's something weird with your dog's body and you like google what could this possibly be and then you figure it out but yeah it was a bizarre one i wish i could remember what that was.

And then we told a doctor friend of ours about it and he was like, oh yeah, bubble rat, and we're like, yeah. And he's like, that happens all the time when he gives people chest tubes. I was like, all right. Drain the air. Yeah. So. Wild.

Anyway, that's what I got. So far, so good. Great. Hitting these out of the park, huh, Phil? Yeah, you guys are doing great. On the note of diarrhea, Friday Arrows asked Randall, would you rather give a pot pot dogs or bruskees? now that's a question

Randall's getting real serious I think I think the honest answer well there's two answers if I could give up beer I would That's a big if

I don't But I don't think I can I've I've never been able to make that commitment to myself and my loved ones Um, so I think the honest answer is I would have to give up hot dogs, but if you were going to like, you know, brainwash me somehow, like office space, uh, hypnotize me, I'd probably say get rid of the drinking. Hmm. Because the drinking actually leads to more hot dog eating.

Yeah, but he says bruskies. Could you, you could, you could, you could resort to like, become a wino? Brown liquor or something, you know. Oh, I can't drink the spirits. Oh, yeah. That's an early great. I get out of control. I get out of control.

well yeah before we i mean yeah it's a good question i wish i had a better answer for you if yeah if it was like someone said you have to give up one or the other and it's all on you and your self-control otherwise i'll find you and you know put a bullet in your head i'd probably say hot dogs it would be easier to do wow but if i could hypnotize myself i'd say beer because it's probably the healthier choice great question um knocked another one out of the park keep him coming phil Here's one, here's a question that I can contribute a little something to. This is from Wally Blumer. Not sure what size Brooks Down sweater to buy.

Oh, there you go. I wear a large sweatshirt and a medium t-shirt. Which way would you go? Large. Yes, I would say large because I wear a large t-shirt. So I'm guessing I'm like a slightly bigger than you. And my large Brooks-down sweater is like just barely smaller than what I would want. So I think it would fit you pretty well.

Then again, I brought, but mine's, I think mine's like a different. I bought mine years ago, so it might be a different sort of cut or something that they do now. But I would say large for sure. It should be about the same. Yeah, I'm kind of in that same boat there, wearing large items and medium items. I'd go big because the brooks down, you can still wear it just a tad big. If it's too small, you're not going to... And you might want to layer under it.

Yeah, you can layer under it. And they're so light, you're not going to feel the difference if you're worried about packability. The difference between a medium and a large is... Yeah, minimal. I like to wear that... I like to wear the brooks down with like a fleece hood. underneath so put it on over your bino harness if it's a little bit too i like to wear with that hoodie underneath the furnace man i've been wearing this one a lot yeah yeah and uh i got another one

for like a nice looking one and now this one's just like mucking around hoodie yeah are you mucking around right now i will be later yeah this is my mucking around hoodie cool let's do one more here and this is going to be kind of like this is going to be a double plug question since we just did a very practical but first light question um row says phil i have a question most weeks i stream the live show as a podcast the next day do y'all see that a lot that is how we see it most of the time row uh like only you know sub 1,000 people will dip in and out live but then you know it gets thousands of views as it goes on and that's only on youtube the podcast gets tens of thousands of downloads. after that. So, um, so like you're, you're, you're, you're not alone. But I will say, because since we don't do this enough in my opinion, we never plug our own YouTube channels or the podcast one, really. Um, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we think we said, hey, you should go subscribe to it. Yeah. Uh, when it first launched years ago. But, um, please subscribe to the mediaeater podcast network YouTube channel. If you have not done so, I, I think most of the people here live probably have, but if you're a podcast listener, dip on over there and hit that subscribe button. Yeah, the meat eater podcast,

Is it Meteor Podcast Network? Yes, I believe so. Meteor Podcast Network YouTube channel. It's a separate channel from the just standard Mediator channel. And you'll, if you'd ever wondered what Corey looks like and you don't have social media, you'll want to check that out. Yeah, get up on that. Get a look at him. Yeah, get a good look at this guy.

You won't regret it. He said he's a large. Sometimes a medium, though. Sometimes a medium. That should explain it all. Phil, we got any more? Well, how long do you want to keep? We've got some more questions.

Oh, yeah. I see we're going to drift. I lost track of it. There are just some. It's hard because a lot of people come in with good intentions and ask pretty good questions, but it's a question that we answered a week ago or a couple weeks ago, and I don't want it to be too repetitive.

But we can just keep digging through some of these questions if you want. Some of them are kind of are vague, like for some reason, or for examples from Jordan. We're heading to Kentucky today to hunt for three days on public with no one. information, what is the best plan to start or hunting white tail deer? Because this is kind of open-ended, right? Like, do me scouting. Yeah, I would say scout

for a day and a half and hunt for a day and a half. That's good advice. I'd say... You'd spend three days sitting in a spot where there's no deer. Yeah. But if you scout, you can really narrow it in and execute. Make half your trip real productive. Yep. That's a great idea.

That's pretty good. Because if you double your productivity of a day and a half, by scouting for a day and a half, you essentially get those scouting hours back by the doubled productivity. So it's like you get to hunt for three days and scout for a day and a half

because you're doubling the productivity of those day and a half. Absolutely. That's a great point. That pencils out. I can't top that tip. Oh, here's a question for Seth. Photography question.

Do you prefer faster, lightweight prime lenses or heavier, slower zooms when out in the field? Well, I typically go with the zooms because I can cover a lot of things with just one lens

but I prefer a prime specifically a 50 primes are just cooler they look better but you know you can't always get the shot with a prime especially in hunting situations

where things happen quickly and you know it's nice to have the range Phil is that it well we can keep going It's your show, Randall. Tell me what you want to do.

Let's call that it. I'm looking at the clock. I realize we're keeping people late here. We do have one last item, and that is a bit of housekeeping. Before we go today, we've got to address the elephant in the room. Next Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, so none of us will be here in studio for our weekly Thursday broadcast. But the show must go on. So this time next week, we'll be airing a pre-recorded podcast episode with Steve and some of the crew.

As always, please tune in. especially if you already need a break from the kitchen or your family. But please know that the chat will be unsupervised. And so if you have a pressing question that you'd like addressed on the show. Well, actually, I need to interrupt you here. It is not a radio live episode. This is a, it's going to, it's a meat eater podcast episode, crew episode. I don't think we're going to be live streaming it.

It's just going to drop. It's going to drop. Randall, you really do this. You've got some bad information. Yeah. Can we redo this? Well, you should have told me that before we went, we're live now. Should we just end it now?

Hey, Randall, if you have a problem with the way I run the show back, you can we just, I don't want you to talk about it behind the mic. It's embarrassing for me. Okay. So if you have a pressing question for... Pull it together. If you have a pressing question for the crew, Randall, save it until our next Meteor live on December 4th.

December. This is a really bad look for you. Thursday, December. I think it's a bad look for you. I mean... No, I'm fine. I was told to address this. I was told to address this.

address this and prepare the audience for next week's schedule, but I was given incomplete information, and so now I look like a fool. You're right. I think you guys should hash this out a little later. As always... Do you want to grab a beer after this? Yeah. As always. And a hot dog?

As always, thanks for tuning in, guys. I hope you enjoyed the show. We'll review some of the feedback and decide whether there will be another segment of meat theater. I'm thinking it's likely doubtful. No, it's happening. But appreciate you. I hope you have a great falls and, uh, and, uh, enjoy the hunting this time of year.

Happy Thanksgiving early. Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving. Oh, oh, oh. All right, Phil. Play the cut music. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Hey, folks, Steve Ronella here.

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