The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 826: Like Nuts on a Cat

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Steven Rinella talks with Kevin Murphy, Seth Morris, and Max Barta. Topics discussed: Fruit cakes; get ready for two drops per week from Steve and The MeatEater Podcast!; finding a mastadon's tusk in the shape of a penis; making a solution of fox piss, rain water, valerian root, and ore; cutting old growth; taking furs to the auction; human monogamy at the level of meerkats and beavers; how hazelnut butter could be the downfall of grey squirrels in the UK; traces of plant poison on projectile points dating back 60,000 years; join Kevin Murphy to plant cypress trees; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, before we get started with the podcast, which is a real good one, I want you to know that I'm doing. So if you watched it on YouTube, you watched our Africa series, The Professional Hunter I'm hunting with Morgan Potter. Morgan Potter and I are doing a public event

at the Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. This is happening on February 19th, Nashville people. So we're going to do a meet-and-greet at the Robin Hurt Safari's boot from 930 to 10-30. And then we're doing our actual event at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll sign any kind of books or take any pictures if anyone wants to do that. What you got to do, just go to the Safari Club International website. To go to the event, to go to the convention, you've got to join Safari Club.

So you're joining a conservation nonprofit. You join Safari Club. And as you do that, you'll see a process where you then get a ticket to go to the event that Morgan and I are putting on. All the ticket price goes to SCI. Like, this is not going to me and Morgan. We're doing it, but your money goes to support SCI, wholly and fully. Hope to see you guys there. February 19th in Nashville.

This is the Meat Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat Eater podcast. You can't predict anything. Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds, no compromise gear that. that keeps me in the field longer.

No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's f-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. By God, we're joined here by everybody's favorite, Kentucky, the madman from the L-B-L in the Clarks River Bottoms, Kevin Murphy. Don't forget that.

Cheers. Ladies and gentlemen, Kevin Murphy, joining us here in South Texas sitting with a fruit cake in front of them. Fruit cake made by my master gunsmith and duck call maker, Hambone, his daughter made that. That's a Christmas tradition at their family that she makes fruitcakes and he hands them out to his friends. So your buddy Hambone makes, fixes guns, makes fruit cake, his daughter makes fruit cakes and he makes duck calls. Hambone can do anything.

He is an oil field mechanic. It's a family business. Oil field mechanic. He made these metal reed duck calls. Metal read. This has got a metal. Handbone, where's the kid?

What is that one? Handbone made this. I call it the, uh, FFD design. Do you want to explain with that? We need to leave that to the audience and figure out. I tuned it.

I tuned it to my liking. I don't think he likes it. I wish I should go get mine. You tuned to your likens? Yeah. Let me see. That sounds good. Yeah.

Too much air coming out. You're letting too much air escape. I'm letting too much escape now. Yeah, because it's hitting your mic. That's good. That's better. Yeah, it's got a metal read in it. Handbone made that.

Yes. Okay, Kevin, you're here. We're going to get your. We're going to get your feedback on a bunch of things. I want you to tell about, and I want you to pitch your habitat restoration project. Okay. Which is,

I read it as the war against dudes that wait like wakeboarding. It's fine to call it like it is, dude. Let's call it like it is. This is what I call it. Your wake boat, your wake boat is killing Kevin's fishery. Let's call it like it is. Now, it's more than that.

It's worse than that. I'm not going to say, war it's the conflict cure against recreational boating that has destroyed our button bush habitat along

our lake shore of lake barkley i'm going to make a t-shirt that says your wakeboard is killing my fish i believe it with that yeah it's just let's call it like it is

i probably got dear friends you know like when you used like you say something bad you're like some of my best friends are wakeboarders. I think they might be actually. Well, really? It's the Marines' best friends. But I think Travis Barton

likes that stuff. Is a wakeboarder? Yeah. He's one of those guys when I'm up there on Canyon Ferry trying to have a nice, nice peaceful day. No, he goes back to Minnesota and destroys his habitat.

I might be wrong. He's a water skier, but he might not be a wakeboard, a wake boat guy. Well, the difference between a water ski boat in a wakeboarding boat, that wake is 10 times bigger. It's night and day. I'm not going to start beating up water skiers. I come from a long line of water skiers.

Well, they're part of the problem, too. It's recreational boers and marinas. There used to be a Corps of Engineer plan that after July the 4th, they would start drawing the lake down because Barclay Lake is a flood storage lake. That's what it was built. After the 37 flood. If we're just going to get into this right now, let's get into this in a minute

because I need to tell the full story I just wanted to blame those guys I thought we was into it I was gonna wage war on stand up paddle boarders but I realized I don't have any reason to They don't make a wake My only gripe with them was I don't when people start doing a thing

That didn't used to exist I always wonder what they were doing Before it existed Because I don't do The stuff I do people have been doing Since the beginning of time Mm-hmm Yeah

Recreationally So when stand up paddle boarding Became a thing All I could think about was What were you doing before. The only thing What were you doing before

pickleball? Tennis? Tennis. Table tennis? No. What do you mean? No. I don't think that those people

that are playing pickleball, I don't think that a few years ago they were playing table tennis. Or tennis in general. I think they were watching TV. Listen, my, not that I'm for stand-up paddle boring, but just play devil's advocate.

The very controversial act of stand-up Back, I mean, it's not my thing, but whatever. Back in the day when logging was heavy and they were floating logs down rivers. There was always a guy up there with a pole. The original sup. That stood on the logs and made sure they all. So that's an argument for it. Just to irritate me.

Back in the day they were doing it. Just to irritate me, I think, just to irritate me, my wife went and bought our kids two stand-up paddleboard. Just to stick it to me. Nice. And now I got to like store them and get them out and blow them up and move them around and tie them down to stuff. He's like, and I got to use them every once in a while. So you've never paddleboarded this?

No. So what if you did it and like it turns out you like that? Well, I got to tie them on top of the car all time for my kids. That might be your thing when you retire. Now people are going to see me out my yard and be like, what a hypocrite. I saw him. I'm going to see you on a lake just paddling around and enjoying yourself. and I'm going to say,

I wonder what he did before paddleboard. Yeah, what that guy used to do? Watch TV all day long? Here's a deal. Here's a deal to cha on. We have long talked about at the podcast here, which has been airing for a century.

We've long talked about splitting we've long talked about splitting the show into news and commentary and interview. because now I don't know we'll have an interview guest on the show and he'll have to sit there, he doesn't know what they. Let's say some anthropologist never listened to the show in his life. And he's here to talk about like Clovis research and he's got to sit there while we talk about the news

and talk about stand-up paddle boarding and Kevin Murphy's fruitcake. So the guy's just sitting there like, do you know, he doesn't know what's going on. Twittling his thumbs. He feels like he's not in on the joke, whatever. So we talked about splitting the show. We're officially splitting the show starting in March. starting in March, you're going to see two versions of the Meat Eater podcast pop up. You're going to see a meat eater podcast is going to be the news show, which is like news and commentary.

We're going to cover your news. We're going to cover our news. We're going to cover the news. The second drop is going to be the interview show, where we have on biologists, researchers, archaeologists, authors. Now and then, I know everybody hates it. Now and then a politician will come on the interview show. that'll be a weekly show. The interview show, the normal podcast where we interview experts in various fields of the outdoors, that'll be Mondays. Okay, that's the Monday, that's the regular

Monday drop that you know and love. Recently we had on a guy talking about his book about the Edmund Fitzgerald, okay? For instance, that, which is called the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, that's the interview show. That's Mondays as normal. The news show, okay, the news show, which again, it covers your news. So listener feedback, corrections, our news, what we've been up to you, making fruit cakes, whatever. And the news, national news, local news, any news that would influence your thinking, influence your actions as a hunter and angler. That's the news show. The news show drops fresh. You've heard us talk about flopps where I'm like, why can't we just make an episode and flop?

There it comes out. As fast as Phil the engineer can get it ready to go, it will drop. so that if we say, hey, in the news yesterday, that's what we're talking about. It just drops. It comes out when it's ready. The news show hits. It's just going to be, it hits when it hits. So watch for it.

As part of this, we're drawing in all the brain power. We're drawing in all the brain power and all the, the storymaking power of the guys you know from Radio Live. But in order to do this more, this more urgent news show, which comes out when news happens every week and it comes out when it comes out, we're sunsetsing in March radio live

so that we're not held to it being at a specific time. Was it 11 o'clock on Thursdays? Yeah. Yeah. We'll no longer be beholden to being like, it's live at 11 on Thursdays. So the guys from, the guys you know in the driver's chair at Radio Live

are coming over to the news show. and we're taking many aspects of that format and bringing it to the news show, which is quicker response time. So Radio Live will sunset in favor of creating the news show, the news, okay? Stay tuned for all that. All the stuff you love.

Corrections. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I think a lot of people are going to really enjoy that. I think so. People will be pissed. People will like it. It's like everything.

Yeah, just like everything. We had on a guy, speak about the, you know, you can't please. Yeah, you can't make everyone happy. We had a guy on there a day. He killed a big, huge buck downtown, but he's also running for governor of Ohio. Rob, right?

Rob saying, yeah, right? He's like, hey, did you, what was the audience response to the interview? And I said, man, I don't look. This is going to sound terrible. I don't look at comments. I told him I don't look at comments because I don't want to be captured. There's a thing called being captured by an audience.

Yeah. Right? Like you hear people bitching about stuff And then you change your ways Yeah you change your perception Your opinions Yeah Your actions

Wish I could pull I'm gonna pull this up He was talking about the hazard Of listening to people complaining Um Let me find this This is interesting Someone talk about something real quick

But not for too long What about our dog art here boys Right on the head shoulder In March I'm gonna be right behind Those three dogs right there Okay check this out I don't get why they're saying that.

You know you get certain dudes to just complain about everything all the time? Well, one guy was saying, one guy commented on the Rob Sand episode. Rob San is, he was discussing his faith as a Christian. And he's also discussing how he's running for governor of Iowa as a Democrat.

And a guy in the comments section was like, a Democrat can't be a Christian. I'm like, did you read that in the Bible? So we're talking about people to complain all the time. He sent me this. In 2015, Okay, there were 8,760 formal complaints submitted to the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport about noise pollution. Okay.

So 2015, 8,760 formal complaints about noise pollution at Ronald Reagan Airport. 6,852 of them came from a single house in an affluent neighborhood in Washington, D.C. In 2015, that house, members of that household submitted 19 formal complaints per day. Wow. Geez. Someone has some time. Okay. They need to pick up paddleboard. The U.S.

Listen to this. The U.S. Department of Education has an office. for civil rights. Okay. And they enforce civil rights laws related to education funding. In

2023, they received 5,0.59 sexual discrimination complaints from a single person. So they had a total of 8,151 formal sexual discrimination

complaints, of which 5,059 came from one person. So one person accounted for 68.5% of all sexual discrimination complaints in that year. Point being you got watch out. Yeah. Where was I going with that? Oh, anyways, we're launching. When the new news show launches, we're going to launch a contest called Corrections of the Week.

You can win Correction of the Week by catching us being wrong about something. And it can be that we're wrong or it can be an error by omission. right an error by omission and I explained what that means at a previous episode so here's some corrections from the recent episode I'm going to skip once we already kind of covered it

and the guy's wrong and the guy's wrong from our most recent episode what was this one called we had a recent episode and we had a segment on there called skunks ruin of marriage and I was talking about a guy

whose wife wants to divorce him or his marriage is getting rocky because he's taking up skunk trapping because the skunk prices are so high. His wife can't handle the constant smell of skunks around. I comment that I think he just needs to tell her, baby, trapping season don't last all year long. And some smart aleck thinks he's got a correction. He looks up, I'm going to let Seth explain why I'm going to correct his correction. He corrects it and says, hey, I caught you.

Oklahoma's list skunks as being open year round. No daily season, no possession limit, no bag limit. So ha, you're wrong. Trapping season is all year. Seth. Their hides are only prime for a certain part of the year. Yeah. Turn to correction right back on.

Only worth money for a certain period of time. When they're prime. When they're prime. So correction in your face, buddy. What are you going to call it corrected? That's one. I don't know. Then I win something. I win.

We give him a prize and then take it back. Take it back. This guy says, I was saying, he says, he was a guy I was saying, they was like saying, now I'm no Jeremiah Johnson, but I'm a pretty good trapper. And I said, Jeremiah Johnson isn't held out as a good trapper. He doesn't put up big numbers. And I was telling him, if you were like, hey, I'm no John Graham.

I'm no Mercer Lawing. I'm no Craig O'Gorman. I'm no Slim Peterson. I'm no Mike Marziata. They're good trappers. He was saying I'm no famous trapper. Yeah. He said, I'm no Jeremiah Johnson.

But there's no reason to believe Jeremiah Johnson was ever good at trapping. He catches like, he comes in with a beaver one day and his wife acts, his wife looks surprised. It was around that time when he shaved his beard and it was giving her like he had to shave his beard because he irritated her face. He comes in with a beaver and she looks like, oh my God, he got one. I'm not

making this up. I know the same. There's another scene where they're out of food and he tells Caleb, his boy, the boy he takes under his wing. He says, take note of where I place those traps and go fetch us some real food.

That's it. You don't see him, he don't have a big barn full of 300 beavers he caught. Yeah. You know what? There's no reason to believe he's a good trapper. It's true. I think she might have been serving him up some soft keep. Yep. No, she was always making a flat bread out of cornmeal.

He didn't like it. So then this guy comes back. Steve, you are mistaken. There is a scene depicting Jeremiah Johnson as a successful trapper. If you have watched it nearly a thousand times like myself, you would know it's not narrated but clearly depicted.

good luck on future screw-ups. Wow. Man, this guy like really wants to stick it to you. Yeah, you can't wait with it. There is no, I'm a Jeremy, I'm Jeremy Johnson through and through, dude.

It's a great movie. There is no reason to believe that Jeremiah Johnson is a good trapper. That's just an opinion he formed. Did he say where in the movie? No. I don't see. He has no facts to back it up. So in your face.

buddy. Good luck on prize withdrawn. Prize revoked. Good luck on future corrections. Yep. Join today by Seth Morris. Howdy.

Max Bardaum and Chili Piccante. Not Chili Piccante. Chili. Chilli, Chille Piccine. Chilly nickname. New nickname. Here's a real correction.

This is a real, flat out, good correction. This guy wins correction of the week. And this is one I deserve, and it's, He's right. It comes in from Texas Parks and Wildlife Law Enforcement. From State H.Q. All the way from the top. Means business.

He says, I was listening to the latest podcast this morning. This is an old one. We've been sitting on this one because I wanted to do the correction from Texas, so it felt real. I made a comment in a past episode saying that Texas has a law that allows you to cross property lines to retrieve game if you're unarmed. Okay. Common law.

Where I got that was. I remember we were hunting Sand Hill cranes up in the panhandle. And I remember I hit a crane and it sailed off but went down across property lines. My buddy said, go ahead and get it, but leave your shotgun

on this side of the fence. A warden rode in. He says, I'm not telling you that didn't happen. and maybe your buddy had an understanding with the neighbor, but it was just like a permission we got. So maybe my buddy was wrong. So I'm not telling you your buddy didn't say that, but that's not true in Texas.

You would have to secure permission from that neighbor, armed or unarmed to cross his fence to do retrieval. That is not, you do not have that right in Texas. There's not a retrieval right in Texas. Can you do that in South Dakota? You can. You have to just leave your shotgun or whatever on. Like you're hunting ditch chickens,

like hunting the ditches in South Dakota, which is legal. If it gets up, flies over, shoot it over someone's property. You can go get it. You can cross that boundary, but you have to leave your gun, like, in a public spot. In what state is that? South Dakota.

Can you bring your dog with you too? You know, that's a great question. I don't know if the dog, is allowed. I'd rather bring my dog over than a buddy. Yep.

Yeah, I'd be curious to know if you could like just send your, like send Ruby out there to go get it. Well, the reason you probably can because in most places if a dog,

a dog doesn't get cited for trespassing. And a dog isn't armed either. Yeah. Well, mine is. Well, but, uh, yeah, yeah.

So just for, for folks to keep mind, um, this is a real state-by-state issue. Retrieval. There's, There's places where retrieval is allowed. I can't even think of one of the states, but I remember a guy saying that he lived in a state where retrieval is allowed, but he was saying out of courtesy, he would never do it.

Oh, it was the guy that has that little postage stamp piece of ground? What state was he in? Oklahoma? You found his property? No, Dr. Randall found the property. Yeah, on Onyx. Somehow Randall found the property. What state was that guy in Oklahoma?

I think it was a lot of remember. Either way, it was a state where retrieval is allowed. So you shoot a deer, deer runs across fence. In this state, you could go get it. So there are states where retrievals allowed. There are states where unarmed retrievals allowed. There are states where retrieval is not allowed. In states where retrieval is not allowed,

I would recommend if you had that situation, you might step one ask for permission for retrieval. if you are denied retrieval permission I would do a step two and you're not calling up to complain but a step two would be call your local game warden explained to your local game warden

here's what happened maybe the game warden if he's got time would have better luck having a conversation with the neighbor to say I will accompany the hunter or will you allow me to go over and drag it back over that might be a good step to take

so let me chime in here a little bit please you remember amish jason yeah went rabbi out with us yep so his family well he looks homage his family uh got into a little scuffle the the 16 year old son shot a decent buck uh it it uh ran over to the neighbor's property that was leased to some dudes from out of state okay and it died and before they could get it those guys uh they scooped it up the landowner

the land the the the rental guys the out of state hunters scooped it up and then it's like they kind of had the picture of the deer on the trail camera and then all of a sudden they meet them at the like at the gas station they've got the deer in the back of the of the truck and are taking pictures and stuff of it they see it then they get the game warden involved and then that's when they find out that in Kentucky there's no you've got to have landowner permission when that deer goes over there

and dies it becomes that landowner's deer got it in Kentucky yep so what wound up happening uh the never gave his deer back I think eventually got his deer back because the out of state hunters here anyways it's like man picture the world in which you'd have it stuffed down the wall be like oh sweet where'd you get that buck well the neighbor kid got it but I took it from them yeah The dudes pour in from out of state here in Kentucky now, and they pay absorbent prices for land and like $3,000 or $4,000 a weekend to hunt to shoot a 125 light tail. And they do not want to go home without something.

All the money that they've invested, feeding deer. I worked on a project over in Crittany County, and I was amazed that come in August, September, all the trucks from out of state that would come in with just a damn pickup load of Deer feed and deer feeders on there. Start feeding the deer and doing that. So it's a huge industry in Kentucky that everybody is like, it's under the radar.

Nobody wants to talk about it. Nothing worse than a dude hunting out of his own state. You can't say that. Should be illegal. You can't say that. Tony, that's straight from Texas. You cannot say it. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast.

Listen up. If you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series, we're hunting in Tanzania. Well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hurts Safari's. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention.

Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. we're going to do two things. From 930 to 10.30, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth. Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down.

To get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to the convention. Once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation group. all ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to me and Morgan. But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs.

Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville, Safari Club International Convention. Oh, a guy had this a little bit. Just to circle back on this skunk situation. Then we're going to put the skunk situation to bed. I think this is a wives tale. It's like water witching.

Kevin and I had a long argument. Kevin believes in water witching. I do. I do not. My friend David Johnson, he is a Supreme. Waterwitcher. Don't take the bait. He's going to be on a play new podcast too.

You're taking the bait. I was trying to rage bait you. He did out to me the other day. I deal with facts. I deal with facts. Yeah, facts. You watch the guy of Waterwich. He's written several.

Me and him, we went out there and there's zones of concentration. Got them. Zones of concentration. And that's where the first American hunters, the first Americans, they would build their campsites a lot of times on zones of concentrated water. Sure. Underground. Not flowing.

What's that I have to do with water witching? Once he finds, goes out in that, like the mega complex that we're working on, he went in and water itched it, and that's where we're concentrating our digs, and that's where we found the bottom tusk of a mastodon in the shape of a penis. Can't argue that. playing that truck car, baby. Dude, I'll tell you. I believe everything everybody tells me.

So now until someone tells me it's fake, I'm going to tell them it's real. Craig, you know, Craig, what I'm saying? Craig. Clay, Clay don't like any kind of thing that has to do is sorcery. You know?

So he don't like it when you call it witchen. I was telling you this. He calls a dowson. Because he thinks witching makes it seem like a black art, a dark art. Anyhow, skunks. Guy writes in to say that,

This isn't a correction. It's a hot tip. He says, My dad trapped skunks during World War II for the government. He'd sell them to the government, he says, to make parkah hoods. That could be true. They had a skin and shed off the barn, and they'd have a fire burning in a barrel. It would throw a wet slice of, I'm going to read this verbatim,

because he's got some clever punctuation in here, which is proper. He says, and would throw a wet slice of, I'm pretty sure, alfalfa hay on the fire to make it smoky. Continuing the quote, that would kill the skunk smell in the skin and shed off the equipment

as well as the skins. I don't think so. I think it would... Mask the scent a little bit? It would complexify the odor. Yeah. I think it would complexify the order.

I don't know that it would neutralize the odor. We were just mixing different smells together. Yeah, you're mixing smells. That's all you're really doing. There's some good. When I was a kid,

the lore was tomato juice. Now the hot money, and I think it's legit. The hot money is like hydrogen peroxide. Dawn dish detergent. Don dish detergent. And there's a third bacon soda. And you make a frothy shampoo

and skunk trappers. When they get one that'll spray, you'll legit. they'll make up that little concoction. I've tried it. And I thought it was like, it didn't eradicate the smell, but they'll make up that concoction

and no joke, give that skunk a little bath. And it's frothy. You scrub them down in it. Interesting. So, well, maybe you should try that.

Save his marriage. I got sprayed by skunk one time and just left my clothes outside for months until they smelled out of it. Eric? Yeah, eventually just went away. I had a guy telling me a story.

You might have been there when he told us the story. He threw some clothes out in a yard because it got sprayed by a skunk and waited so long that the upward facing part of the clothes had begun to bleach. So that he said when he lifted it up, you could tell the parts of the clumpled up, crumpled up clothes. You could tell the parts that had it got sunbleached and the parts that hadn't because it got like a tie-dye appearance to it. And he said he smelled that son of a bitch and still smelled like skunk.

Oh, really? It's what he said. It's what he said. I've got a good skunk story. I'm sure you do with all your dogs. It's probably like 1980, 79, maybe 81. Bird prices were up pretty high and everybody was trapping and had some kind of mongrel dog and stuff. And I had a dog named RT and we'd go out at night and you could get $6 for a big possum then.

So we had got out one night and roamed around and he loved to catch a skunk. He'd got into the skunk and I'd come back home and it was probably like 11, 30, 12 o'clock at night. I'm creeping in the door, open up the door, still living with my mom and dad. And we got a pretty good size house. They're on the like very back in and like I know more than get like 10 feet in the house there. And my dad's screaming at me to tell me to take my clothes off that he can smell that skunk on me. I'll go back outside drip my clothes off and go in and take a shower

but I mean it was that quick just as soon as I hit the door they got in the back of the house they could smell that. It is it is just I have immense respect for that solution that liquid

in a skunk that I mean I don't think a human could make I don't think in a lab you could make as pugnacious or resilient of an odor in a laboratory. That stuff too, like when you smell skunk at 100 yards, it smells like skunk, but when you really get in there, it turns into something different.

My dream is to get real mad at someone and skunkum. Well, I just want to take a hypodermic needle of skunk and just give a little and put that and inject it into their car seat. Gosh. Can you imagine? They would look and look and look and look and look. And couldn't find it. Right?

Oh, yeah. They would never stop looking. And they'd never find it. What's that liquid even called? Skunk scent. They call it. If you went to buy it, if you went to buy it,

you'd be buying some skunk essence. Okay. Right now, I'm making a thing called... I'm not in the market. Well, I am. We've had it. For traffic.

Well, we sold it in the auction house of oddities. What did it go for? I don't remember. I'm making a thing right now called the Nelson formula. It's a coyote bait formula I'm making. And the first step is you grind bobcat meat and you put it out to taint. You put a taint on it.

Chili thought that, Chile literally put his taint on it. Not realizing that what I meant was you put it. What the fuck? He thought it was, he thought it was taint. When I said, we're going to put a taint on it. I'm just out there,

spread eagle. Turned around and there was chilly. Then I said, no, no, Chilly. We're going to rot it ever so slightly.

We're not going to put it. We're going to let it taint. We're not going to put a taint. Good initiative, bad judgment right there. But that's a guy. He's quick. You know,

you tell me to do something he doesn't. I'm putting a taint on it, right? this is part of a broader project this is part of a book project this is part of a book project on beginning about the the the history of and characters involved in the american fur trade through time right since the beginning of time when they established manhattan it was a beaver they established manhattan it was like a beaver trading outpost right so as a As part of this thing, just like a fun little bit, I'm making this very famous bait formula called the Nelson formula. Step one is you take some bobcat meat, chunk it up or grind it down and then rot it in your garage for a long time. You take a glass jar, fill it, glass gallon jar, fill it two thirds full and start rotting it down. The idea is making my daughter and her friend smell it.

They want me to make, oh, Yanni's daughter, Mabel and Rosie, they wanted me to make smash burgers for dinner. And I told him I was going to make cat smash burgers out of that day. Smash burgers. I'm making them smell it. My daughter would do, she wouldn't go near that jar and Rionni's daughter stuck her nose right in there. What else is in the bait?

So then, once you get, you make a solution. So you grind up the cat meat and let it taint. Then you make a solution in another jar. And the solution is comprised

of pure rain water. Fine. Red Fox Piss Valerian root Some other route called like Afeita Some people say it gives you the shits And some people say it cures the shits

A fetus I wouldn't want to try it up Yeah Want to clarify that before you A feta I ordered some It was hard to find I'm sure

A tincture So it's been a word I don't like Tincture a tincture of this root that goes in there and in the Nelson formula it was real smudge and I couldn't tell if it meant 12 ounces or a half ounce

and Mercer Long told me definitely a half ounce you know put 12 ounces of that stuff in there fox so I said fox skunk essence beaver caster valerian root this other root what else is in it that's it and I took a bunch of beaver

casters and cured them in moonshine Seth's seen that. I took a sip of it. It took me eight hours to get that taste out of my mouth. I can imagine. But you haven't had that moonshine, Kevin. Dude, you. I bet he has.

Yeah. If someone had it in him to drink the hydrometer on it to test it to see where it goes. They were it ranks. Yeah. If someone had it in them to drink enough of that moonshine to get drunk off that Beavercaster moonshine, I would have a lot of respect for that individual. Yeah, you might even grow a tail. Yep.

So that's the Nelson. Why am I even talking about this? The Nelson formula? What the hell is I talking about? Talking about screed. Oh, skunk. The one part I don't have is the skunk essence. I got to go secure me some skunk essence.

We've had years where we couldn't get away from skunk. I know. Thicker thin. Not this year. Rich and poor. Yeah. Speaking of Bobcass, I got two other observations about bobcats.

Doug Duren introduced me to my favorite saying he was talking about two guys being real good friends and Doug said they're like nuts on a dog yeah a true friendship would be like nuts on a cat

that is a tight true friendship that's real tight yeah yeah that's a true that's a true friendship the nuts on a dog yeah they're just always

yeah yeah two guys that are very close with one another they're not like the bulls that that's out here. No.

Or the pig. Like nuts on a bowl? I mean, they're friendly. Sometimes they separate a little bit, but they always come back together. Yeah, I always bind each other. Nuts on a cat. Yeah, like nuts on a bighorn sheep. They're like, oh, so they're in touch.

They're in contact. They text now and then. They have each other's email. But like nuts on a cat is your like, last thing on Bobcats. How much have we talked about this whole Bobcat situation? Down here? No, no, no, not so much what we're doing down here, but just like, I feel like I've been like living.

I've been like very, I've got to move away from it. I've been too obsessed with Bobcats lately. It's starting to interfere with my marriage, my professional. It's kind of all we... I know, but I got... Basically, everything we've texted about in the last three months has been Bobcats. After... The auction.

After the fur auction, I'm setting all, I can't go on. Like, I can't. Until next year. Yeah, it's just like, it's interfering with my personal life. It's interfering with my family. It's interfering with my job. So I should stop sending you trail can pictures. I don't want nothing to do with Bobcats after the auction.

It's just been very interesting to me as we talked about that, like, Bobcat. I've always been, I'm always in. interesting the fur markets. And as we covered, skunk prices are high right now. And bobcat prices are very high right now. I've got a very interesting book for you. I was going to bring on this trip, but I forgot it.

And the title of it is the Bobcat of North America. Yeah, I'd be more, I'll take a looksy. You'll, you'll glean a lot of information. Well, I might not.

You will. I might not. Yeah, it goes in the details. Do you want to know why I might not? I do. We're good. I was just checking. It's because, listen, man, I'm not hacking on it.

I'm just saying because it's from 1960. So that's great. But it's like, it's going to lack a lot of stuff modern coloring data. A lot of, like, so much of what we know about how stuff moves is new. Okay. I'll give you that part of it. Yeah. but it's based on history and what they knew about Bobcats when guys just lived in the woods.

Yeah. Not abolished. A guy that made his living from the bounty on Bobcats. Yeah. No, I understand. So when money gets involved, people find out how shit works. You put the money symbol in there? That is true.

They figure out how can we catch every damn one of them out there. That should be a bumper statement. sticker on your car. He's got a pro he's got a cold keeps the lights on bumper sticker on his yeah, he's going to switch that out with. Well, that's true of coal.

That's true. Let's timber they are large. Everything there is to learn about coal. Let's timber they are first and we'll do the other planets later. Mm-hmm. You know, that's your, yeah,

I agree with what you're saying about the money thing, but I don't, I, um, we need to be, this is a whole other subject. We need to be all done cutting old growth. I don't want to debate it with you?

Yeah, I would say there's a much respect for you to see here in debate with you. A certain part of it there. I used to be like the guy, I hated loggers, timber cutters and all that. I'm not saying that. And then we've got to manage our forest. Yes. There's a place for old growth and there's a place to manage our forest. So we, we, we're able to build nurseries for all types of animals.

Listen, man, here's the deal. I'm not even going to tell you I disagree That's fine I'm gonna let you say that I don't agree You know some people come into Kentucky And they'll go into a forest And they call it old growth

And it's like A hundred years old Like LBL Yeah I don't I don't This is old growth It's not old growth When they came in

To make iron and steel Up there They use the forest For fuel They made charcoal out of that. The bull. And they cut everything down. So the oldest tree up there is probably less than 100 years old.

That's not old growth. That's not old growth. But they classified as old growth. And then they petition the keyboard warriors. The one dude in there that is cranking out 14 emails a day saying save our old growth force in LBL or whatever force is in Kentucky. This has been already been harbors. It's not original old growth forest. Yes, anything original old growth, I'm 100%.

Let's keep that baby. Yeah. I 100% for habitat to make up for the fact that we're not using fire like we used to use. I'm all four managed forests. There's a lot of areas. Northern Michigan, well, much of Michigan, Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Like I could sit here in lists places all day long that had much better wildlife habitat for native wildlife when they were actively logging because you need different structures and age growth

and all that. I'm 100%. I am not a hands-off guy. Most forests are disturbed. They require active management. You're not going to put the genie back in the bottle. Mankind has already gotten in there and whack things up and mankind can do things to fix things.

However, not to disrespect anyone on the economic end of it, not to disrespect the logger who's making a living, I don't think that when it comes to four year, five year, or five, 400, 500, 600 year old trees at this point, they're more valuable staying in there. I agree with you. I'm 100% with you on that bar. Oh, back to bobcats. Back to bobcats. Yeah.

You got a lot of America. You know, I'm a, I'm a bobcat guy. Man, when I was, I got great, some great stories to tell you. When I was a kid that was on my hit list. And in Kentucky, they didn't become legal until when the sighties saying come along, they didn't become legal to like 90, 91, 92-ish. They got off the list. You couldn't hunt them.

You could hunt them at one time. And then when the sighties came along and all that, they took them off and they were restricted. But I remember as a kid going to Doc Mosley. And Doc Mosley was part of the Manhattan Project. he went into hot Japan right after they dropped him but I remember going to Doc Mosley's office getting a shot and a ass with some pill and selling for five dollars and I looked up there and he had two like kit and bobcats I mean just little bitty I mean most bobcats you see would be like small but I was always intrigued with them and then I remember one day that me

and brookie wicker we had camped out all night and we got up early in the way is that a girl or a guy it's a guy we uh he had a sister named Julie and Jenny and um One more, I can tell you another story, but I'm not. Keep it to Bobcats. Bobcats. G.W. Terrell said, I'll put it in layman's turn. G.W. Terrell said that Scott Wicker should have a medal for raising good-looking women. So you can just read into that.

A Nobel Prize. So, skipping over. So, man, Brooke, we've camped out all night. and we're on the edge of Lake Berkeley and we go up Poplar Creek and we take our 22s. He's got a Winchester 61 blown to his dad's got his initials

engraved in it. SW. Somebody with some really skill with an engraver. Not what me. Not you. And then I've got the Bronco 22 survival rifle. It's like all metal skeleton frame and it flips up. So we go out and we're

shooting 22s. We're killing this and killing that. There is this blackbird probably like, I don't know, 40 yards away. A good, a good piece. I bet you can't shoot that right there. And I go up, I take the Bronco up, and I squeeze off a shot. He said, oh, you didn't get it. And about that time, the blackbird falls out of the tree.

We take 10 steps, and here comes a bobcat, trotting across the road in front of us, 20 yards, turns and looks at us, we got no 22 shells. So you'll never catch me. with less than a hundred pack. You threw a gun at it? True story. 100% true. So then I went from there and I started running with this guy named Jimmy McCoy and he was obsessed with Bobcat Honey. Travel the whole United States from Maine, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, you name it, Bobcat hunting.

finding out what he needed to know about Bobcat. Told me it took him 10 years before he could catch a Bobcat on his own. With hound dogs. With hound dogs. In Kentucky, because we get limited amounts of snow. At that time, some of his hunting was like under the radar.

So like I said, he's the one that petitioned to get the Bobcat legal. Trapper came in, a biologist, and he told him everything that he knew about him. in the late 89 or so, I started hunting with him and learning how they do, running dogs. We might go a whole season and not even catch one with dogs.

Yep. And then I got a dog from him. I had another squirrel dog, their original butchie. And within probably three years, I was able to catch one on my own with the knowledge that I got from him. Is that the one he caught sneaking out ahead of the dogs? Uh, no, that was with him. Okay. I had his dog pack.

The one with, they got my kid Seth, and I showed you a picture of hanging from a slippery m tree. Yep. That's the one. That was my first one. Let's see. That's the first one. I truly, I'd ambush some with some dogs like road hunt down the road, and they would push like a young kitten up a tree and just go in and shoot it. But I'd intentionally turn loose on that big boy, 24 pounds and caught him with the dogs.

Got it. Got it. right now cats are real high this is kind of part of this whole deal i'm wanting to talk about with cats cat prices are very high um so it's just got me interested in like this whole range of cats so we're down here in south texas and we just got some cats on here in south texas predator calling for cats and we caught some cats up in montana these are very very different extremes cats up montana are much bigger thicker fur cats down in texas are slender lighter, thinner fur, but what makes a cat valuable or not is whether or not it has a white belly

with clean black spots. Cats in South Texas and cats in Montana have white bellies and black spots. So they're of value. Just for a point of reference, when I was actually, when I actually sold fur and would trap and sell fur in Michigan growing up, at a point in time when a red fox was working, 40 bucks a bobcat was worth $15 because those bobcats out there aren't valuable because they don't have white bellies of black spots they don't they're not a spot they're not nicely spotted but right now um cat prices are crazy cats are consistently averaging more than 500 bucks in the west right now and there's some collections of cats selling a 800 bucks a piece okay other poor areas of cats cats are running one to $200. So Seth and I are making a video call.

It's going to be called Steve and Seth Get Rich. And we're taking some Montana cats and some Texas cats and we're going to a famous bobcat auction, one of the top bobcat auctions in the country. I'm not saying where we're going, but we're going to one of the top bobcat auctions in the country. Seth can't go because his wife's having a baby. He's being a baby about it. You and I are going.

Me and Max are going. Thanks for stuff. I'm going to the auction. And we're going to auction off Texas cats and Montana cats. We're going to do a video. We're explaining the cat market. And in it, we're going to interview one of the top bobcat buyers. We're going to go to one of the top cat auctions in the country.

And interview one of the top cat buyers in the country. And any of you, one of the top cat trappers in the country. And it's going to be called Stephen Seth Get Rich. and we're taking all of our wealth from this sale and we're putting it into Seth's unborn baby Virgil's bank account. Bank account. College account.

I don't want him blowing it on cigarettes. You're in an ear market for his education. Or comparable. It doesn't need to be college, but or comparable. Further education or if he wants to start a business or whatever after high school. You want to learn how. not a weld pipe, he can use it for that.

Whatever. Yeah. It's very nice of you, Steve, to contribute to that. It is. Very nice. Yeah. My own children, very unhappy about this development. They overheard me talking about it. So, anyways, we got some cats down here in Texas.

We've been predator calling cats. I to date have called in, in my lifetime, have predator called in during daylight hours at this point now a total of eight that I know about. Mm-hmm. Down here? All in Texas. All in Texas, yeah. I never called in a cat in the north.

Yeah, because you can't call for them in Montana. You can't use an electronic caller. Yeah, you can't use a e-color. Yeah. We one time called a cat in by accident in Pennsylvania calling coyotes. Oh, you did? Yeah, I've called them in turkey hunting. Yeah.

I've called them in turkey hunting as well. I'm talking like intent to call. Yeah. Like intent to call. Well, just this trip, four. Four. And the four last time I tried it. Mm-hmm.

What about the one that you ended up shooting last time? That was one of the four I called. That was one of the four. Yeah. I've laid eyes on, while trying to call Bobcats, in daylight hours, I've called in eight. Do you find there's a sweet spot in the day? I can't make that call on it. Yeah.

I'll tell you what I haven't done. after what I haven't done yet is called one in a daybreak. No. Part of a pet theory of mine. Go ahead. I was going to say on day one, the two cats that you killed was the last stand in the morning and the first stand in the afternoon. Yeah, it was like bankers out, 10 to 3. And then the cat that I killed the next day was the...

Mid-morning. It was the later stand in the day. Yeah, and Mercer Lawing. who's called in a great many cats. Mercer Long was saying to me, it's amazing how many you call in at noon. You know what winds up being it's almost like? It's like when you review in your head,

the turkeys that you get. Not the turkeys you try to get, but the turkeys that just come in hard, banker's hours. Yeah. But guess what? You're still going right at the ass crack of dawn. You're still up there at dawn.

You're still up there at dawn. Yeah, I think there's something about that. I don't know. like this is like a pet theory of mine I don't really know a bobcat comes in with a very different attitude than the coyote at daybreak

you call in a lot of coyotes yeah I don't know and a cat comes in pretty paranoid maybe there's something like they don't want to wrestle around with the coyote or something I don't know I don't know maybe they don't like

maybe there's something to do with cows. There's a thing too with rattling deer. Like when you rattle bucks down here, you rattle more bucks down here midday than early morning. I feel. Do you not feel that way? The mornings are more

productive for rattling, I think, here. Daybreak. Like, day break up until you quit midday. And the evenings are not as productive. what I was going to say there is I always felt that bucks are bored late morning yeah not bored they're not chased their doze are bedded down and he's more like yeah I walk over and take a look it's like if creeping in on a bull like creeping in on a bull like a bunch of

bedded cows you creep in on them and like late morning midday I feel he's more he's like more likely to come have a look then he is when his cows are on the move and he's like Like, I got to pay attention over here. I can't get up. Can't lose it. But like late morning, he might be like, yeah, I'll go take a look. Everybody's kind of chill, holding still. I might go have a looksy.

A study just came out. You're going to pay attention to this, Kevin. That puts cats to bed, right? Stay tuned for our video. Yeah. Stephen Seth, get rich. And Bobcats of North America facts. Yeah.

We're also making a video. It's pretty much done. It's called Armour. Gansers really as bad as everyone says. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up. If you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series, we're hunting in Tanzania,

well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hertz Safaris. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention. Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about. our time in Africa at SCI.

So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. We're going to do two things. From 930 to 10.30, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth. Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down. To get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket

to the convention. once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Me and Morgan. But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs.

Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville, Safari Club International Convention. But here's a study that just came out. They ranked monogamy of dozens of mammals, including humans. Humans are less monogamous than some mice, but are more monogamous than some breeds of sheep. This is out of Cambridge University. All it looks at is it looks at full versus half siblings in a rage of mammals.

You follow me? Full versus half siblings. Species and societies with higher levels of monogamy are likely to produce more siblings that share both parents, while those with more polygamous or promiscuous mating partners are likely to see more half-siblings. Is that based on

collared specimens? No. Okay. Genetics, right? When it comes to our level of monogamy, human monogamy, when it comes to our level of monogamy, we're in there with mere cats and beavers. Oh.

Great. We're in there with mere cats and beavers. and they're even going back in time. They're able to go back to Bronze Age burial grounds in Europe, Neolithic sites in Anatolia, ethnographic data from 94 human societies around the world, from Tanzanian hunter-gatherers to rice farming cultures in Indonesia. A wide swath of human cultures. You want to know what the most monoeuvre?

Monogamous critter is out there. The most monogamous mammal. Take a guess. I got a swan. Nope. Sandhill cray. I was going to say sandhill. No.

Is it a bird? They're nothing. The California deer mouse. They are strict, strict, strict. Strict monogamy. African wild dogs. Very monogamous. mole rats, very monogamous.

Ethiopian wolves, very monogamous. Eurasian beavers. So the California deer mouse has a 100, okay, top rating, 100 highest 100. Ethiopian wolves come at out of 76.5. The Eurasian beaver 729, humans 66. And an Amir cat and a gibbon, we're kind of like them. Gray wolves Less monogamous

Than us I wonder if they A macaque Keep going Very low monogamy 18 What's the lowest? I don't know

Feral cats Probably a rabbit Yeah Well no here we're getting down Oh geez the Antarctic Fur seal dude they don't give a care 5%

2.9er Killer whales don't care I imagine white tails don't care yeah killer whales skirt chasers 3.3 the Savannah baboon doesn't care

chimp's getting around open door policy guerrillas open door policy ditch cougars feral cats 16. I wonder

so like some of the higher rating some of the higher ratings are they measuring like what if like their partner dies? That's all yeah because that would be like is that how they're doing the study or like it's just siblings and half siblings

okay so if you get into like if you get into the like the California deer mouse a collection of progeny all their parents same two parents gotcha right yeah

I mean I got all kind of half brothers and sisters right so I'd throw the whole thing off here's you want some squirrel news Kevin I'm ready for some squirrel news hit me

okay this is from the economist I didn't know this in Britain I was making a joke there a two buddy of mine in California we were talking about like Britain is trying to ban

pretending to fox hunt jeez like they ban foxhunt so then these dudes get where they take a doll basically and put fox order and drag that around pretended that

and they pretend to fox hunt but now and then they'll be all pretending to fox hunt and the dogs start chasing a real fox that are trying to ban pretending to fox hunt my buddy in California I said

Britain is like the world's California and he laughed but this is nothing to do with that so Britain has a pine squirrel, or they call it a red squirrel. They got a little shit in red squirrel. I don't know this.

They have invasive gray squirrels. Oh, yeah. Now, as I've talked about many times, I was raised to believe that pine, red squirrels bite the nuts off gray squirrels and make them eunuchs. Is there any truth to that, Kevin? No. It's a wives tale. It's like witch and water.

He said you believed in it. It's untrue. No, the gray squirrels are really impacted England. I had no idea. Yeah. They now have estimated 2.5 million invasive gray squirrels in England, and their native squirrel numbers are down to 39,000. They've got a thing.

They found that they got a thing. They've identified how they're going to try to curb this. They found that gray squirrels have a real hunger for hazelnut butter. They poison you in the hazelnut butter? they've established a red squirrel recovery network this is this is researchers within the government's animal plant and health agency they're loading you know because it's britain so they're not going to put poison in it they're loading it with contraceptives okay this is like when this is one like

this is what happens when when ecology restoration of native species, habitat work, runs up against radical animal rights elements when you have to start talking about that you're going to use contraceptives. It's like with the wild horse problem. You can't talk about killing them. They're always talking about,

well, maybe we can give them contraceptives. And we'll have to catch everyone and give it an update every six months to make sure it doesn't have any babies. So they have this contraceptive bait. And they have, they're developing a feeder that the squirrel has to have a certain mass. It has a certain weight in order to get into the freezer.

So 90% of adult gray squirrels are heavy enough to activate it to get the bait. A red squirrel, he tries to go eat the contraceptive. You can't get the bait. Previously, they've focused their efforts on coaling gray squirrels, where they say it's been expensive. I can only imagine.

Physically, coaling. I'm guessing they don't mean like not physically, but I guess they mean not through poison campaigns, but through shooting them. And granted, I get the poison thing. You could have, I get it.

Yeah. I get it. You could have stuff getting in there. And then you got toxins laying around. I had no idea. Kevin, you and your dogs can maybe go raise hell over there. You know,

I have a few people on Instagram and they'll send me occasional picture of them going on a squirrel hunt. I just recently got one from a family. and they had a young son and he had his dog, four or five gray squirrels, had the, his daughter had a Red Rider BB gun. And they hunted there.

And I asked him, says, hey, just tell me a little bit about your firearms over there. He says, how hard is they get one? He says, we can get a shotgun pretty easy.

No, not much hassle. But he says, to get a rifle, like five years. To get one. And he said, you've got to have a specific purpose,

probably on the, some laying before you can get a rifle. Shotguns, pretty easy. But yeah, I have a few people send me stuff from over there on the great squirrels going out hunting. Have you ever heard of anybody over there squirrel dogging? They had a dog. I don't know if it

actually treed, but it helped them into the hunt. And some of the hunt clubs, they organize hunts now to go out and they do that polling thing. And they'll go in and harvest a big bunch of squirrels. Yep. here's a good one.

This is from the journal nature. This takes a little bit of background. So in the journal nature, these researchers that are working in South Africa, have found arrowheads, stone arrowheads that they have dated to 60,000 years that contain plant toxins. Let's back.

what are you guys all staring at? I'm looking at the cameras, making sure they're rolling for Phil. I thought maybe it was time we had to leave. Well, we're getting there. Give me a minute here. You can't age.

So someone should go read this because you can't age a stone point. You can only age it by context. Like you can't take diet. Kevin's given me. Amateur archaeologist here. I just come off the outside. No, no, you're right.

there are luminous test. I don't know how they work. I don't know how accurate they are. And attributes. Okay. Oh, so you're talking about actually ageing the stone. Actually age of stone. Some kind of luminous.

And I just found out about that. The last time it was exposed to sunlight or something like that. I just found out. I don't know any dynamics about it whatsoever. But that's how they age those artifacts that don't have carbon 14 or anything with them. Okay. So there are these reasons. And I haven't read the piece.

Okay. 60,000 years and they're finding plant toxins on stone points in South Africa from 60,000 years ago. When you get into like this idea, the numbers switch, but there's this term people use of like anatomically and behaviorally modern humans. Meaning if you went and got a human from 50,000 years ago and kidnapped him and brought them in and raised and took them a time machine and raised them today, he'd be able to like fly an airplane and walk around on the streets and wouldn't look weird. Do you think, do I think that?

Just saying, there's like a debate, was it like, but it's usually centers around 50,000 years ago, 70,000 years ago, people were like, behaviorally and anatomically modern humans at that time. Looked, would have been dead ringers, right? For people alive, could be like lawyers, pilots,

cat trappers, the complicated stuff at that time. You're looking scapular. This isn't my number. I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking. I'm just thinking right or wrong. So these guys found toxins derived from a plant whose common name is the poison bulb plant. And it's still used by traditional hunters today.

when Seth and I were in Africa some of the trackers the trackers were poachers that they caught they catch poachers and some of them they turn them into trackers some when you turn them into the police these guys were telling us

when they were kids 13 14 years old they were hunting with plant poisons for Cape Buffalo with poisons so these are poisons still used today and they're finding traces of them on projectile points from 60,000 years ago and it's a complex cooking process to isolate and activate the poison slowly weakens spray. It's just interesting.

Oh, very interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. That dudes might have been that long ago cooking up in South Africa 60,000 years ago, which is getting to the point where you can't even comprehend. Like humans, like you can throw the number around, but you can't really picture what that means. 60,000 years ago. Three times longer ago than there were humans at all in the new world.

Yes. Three times. So you imagine how long ago that was. Is some dude in America trying to kill a Macedon? Three times longer ago than that, dudes in Africa mixing up plant toxins. I was at the galt site. It's four hours from here. And that's probably the oldest documented site.

in the U.S. 7,000 years before Clovis, 20,000. And then I'm digging at a current site in Kentucky, and our artifacts are dating around 14, 5,000, 15,000 years ago. In association with mastodon. Mastodont and mammoths. One of the few sites in the world where you have both species occurring. And this year, under the zones of concentrated water,

we also found a piece of, what is it, the moose elk antler, the moose elk. Yep. So we found a section about that in situ, in the ground, planted at that site. So. Is it fossil? Is it not fossilized? Still bone. It was under two meters, you know, six foot of overfield laying right on the bedrock.

Gotcha. Hmm. A little section of that wild. It looked like it had been worked by humans. You know, it was just this kind of piece that looked like, you know, there's no artwork on it, no defined structure. You could, you know, it's like 50-50. Did a human use this for some kind of tool? Maybe, maybe not.

Yeah. But we have found ivory spear points. We found that pecker too. We found the pecker of the lower. I didn't even know that a mastodon had a lower tusk. And they're usually eight to 12 inches long. A lower pecker sat in my hand in there and it was is the shape of it and it was polished. Oh yeah.

You look a lot of times you hear like someone's like, oh, it's like a, you know, it's like carved into whatever. And you look and you're like, yeah, maybe, maybe it's just luck. Yeah. You know that term of a geofact like it's like a phony. Like, you know, it's like you find a rock and you think it's something. Yeah. And then a guy would be like, it's a geofat. Like it was just the earth made it and it resembles a thing.

That pecker is a pecker. It's, it is. And here's a unique opportunity for people. We're going to have a major dig there starting in September through October. We need earth movers. You can come out and do some real archaeology with Dr. Grambling. He's a trained anthropologist, 79 years old. We've been working that site for four years now.

It's a lot of history there. It was the last battle of the Revolutionary War. Battle of Blue Licks. Daniel Boone's kid was killed there. 10 months after the Revolutionary. War was over. The British were still trying to control the Northwest Territory and they ambushed Daniel Boone and his party and like you said. I think shot his boy through the throat from that mistake. His son died in his arm. You can walk down to the river and actually see the forward. I've been

aiming like the way to cross it because it gets pretty low. You could ride a horse across it. No problem at all. But it's just mesmerizing to be at that site, all that history that Daniel Boone and the salt works they were come there to do the salt uh the megafauna came in there and they habitated that that area you know we've got big bone lick in Kentucky that's been been robbed and traumatized from the original settlers that came in a send sent the bones back to england and stuff they didn't know what a mastodon was at that time but just to go down there and dig on something and find that you know everything we get we have to to kill but you see fractured pieces of mastodon ivory, which is totally different than a mammoth ivory.

The teeth are different where mastodon, its main diet is woody shrub, bushes and stuff, and a mammoth is a hay eater, so they have flat molars. So it's just really unique to be able to do that. Like I said, we need volunteers. Just kind of watch my Instagram, Facebook, whatever. I'll probably put up some kind of notice. So what I want you to do is plug. I don't want you to plug that.

Because I want you to plug your other volunteer project. So everybody ignore what he just said. Because I think the other one's more important. It is to me. Yeah. Let me do one last thing. Okay. One last news item.

But we still need help. It's going to be fine. I'll come, Kevin. This is Texas news. Because we're in Texas. I want to do one last Texas, two Texas news bits. Okay. And then you're going to do your,

deal and then we got to wrap it up okay right yeah make quick because we got 10 minutes okay check this one out we reported on this before trying to decide the guys surfcasters using drones to drop bait like some surfcast and you paddle way out and drop your bait when you're trying to get it out past like the second sandbar or whatever so guys started using drones Texas that doesn't like to run around banning stuff just generally speaking they're they're they're they're They're like a banning things, averse state. Anti-banning. They're an anti-banning state.

They clarified that the use of unmanned aircraft systems for fishing will fall under the federal airborne, fall under prohibition under the Federal Airborne Hunting Act. They're saying this is not a new ban, but that's how they're going to interpret it going forward. It's the statute that's been around since 1956. They're saying you are not allowed in Texas

the way they're not making a new law. They're clarifying how they interpret it. To you, if you're fishing with drones, it's all the same thing. They're saying Texas, Parks and Wildlife Department is saying you can't use a drone for fishing. It's now become a thing to do and they're just reclarifying that.

They didn't need to. to go past legislation specifically because they're saying it was already illegal. It was already illegal. We weren't interpreting it that. We're interpreting it now just to clarify to everybody. You cannot take a drone and drop your bait. Out for sharks, past the second sandbar,

whatever hell you're up to. The last thing we're not going to spend any time on it, but it is Texas. I want to hit it real quick. It's a real obvious one. So much suburban sprawling areas of Texas and urban areas that is creating a hog explosion around urban areas.

It's the same thing you see. with deer where it's like you make areas where you make more and more and more and more areas close to hunting and you get more and more landowners like well i don't want anybody to hunt but i should don't want all these pigs running around yeah or i should the last thing i want is some redneck hunting deer in my yard but i also want fishing game agency to come get all their damn deer out of here yeah just it's a story that just never stops repeating itself oh we have it ramp it with deer right now get these deer out of here. Why don't you load a hunter on there? I'm not letting those rednecks on here.

Get them out of my landscaping. Um, we're out of time. Okay. You're doing, you're involved in a habitat restoration project. Yes. Hit it clean, hit it clean, hit it quick. You need, Kevin Murphy needs you. I need tree huggers, tree planners, wake boarders, people that like to fish. We're going to plant 2,000 cypress trees. Oh yeah, guilt-ridden wake borders. I'll take. I'll take. anybody. I want to bring people together. Yeah, guilt-ridden wake borders. That is my thing. I want to see. You have a pissed-off fisherman and gilt-ridden wake borders down there fighting.

So we got 2,000, 5-foot cypress trees that we're going to try to get planted on the shore of Lake Berkeley. I've been doing this project for six years. And during that six-year time period, I've only been able to plant 2000. I've got my technique down good now. We've got the fishing game department. Kentucky Fish and Game Department is going to come in and help us. U.S. Corps of Engineers going to donate some money to help us out. And it's going to be a great time. And what's your lifetime goal? You want to do how many miles of shoreline?

I want to do 22 miles. The north shore of Lake Barkley, the shoreline of the Cumberland River, it takes a beating from the north wind into wintertime when the lake pool comes down. Summer pool is 360. Winter pool is 354. So we have this long mud flat in there that we used to be covered with button bush. But due to the Corps of Engineers changes the plan of the drawdown, it has flooded all the butt and bush back.

So cypress trees, they can tolerate water. They do not like all your cropy habitat is gone. Yes, all the cover, the croppy habitat is gone. So my goal in life is to get this started, which I already have. How many miles have you done so far? Probably about two miles. I got another 20 to go, but I've upped it. I've learned how to do it.

In the beginning, we used some larger trees. It took bigger holes. They didn't stand up very well. Now we use a slender. Like I said, it's a, I think a three-year-old tree. It'll be about as big around as your thumb, like a whisk. And we want them high enough that they can take that water elevation there. They get over top.

They'll die. They have been out of the water when it comes up. We have learned to stake them. We drive a wooden steak underground. We give them a fertilizer pellet, tie them to the steak, and we flag them with, flagging tape, do a real dense planting there, maybe from, from this wall to this wall along the shoreline.

So we have instant infrastructure for croppy fishing in the springtime. It's just immediately there with the wood, the hardwood stakes, they last. And we did it for the first time that way last year. I was able to put in a huge amount of trees in a short one side of Devonport Bay is where we're going to be. We were on the east side last year. We're going to be on the west side this year. And then in those rocky areas, we only plant trees about every 10 steps or so because it's just too hard to do it.

But we're going to have a continuous from edible ferry down to nickel branches. So how do volunteers find you? Just watch my Instagram. Tell everybody what it is. Kevin Murphy at Small Game Nation. Kevin Murphy at Small Game Nation. If you want to help Kevin start planting cyber. Tvers Trees to do habitat restoration, get a hold of him and help him out.

And here's a trivia one for you. What is the number one problem? Number one killer of Kevin Cypress Trees. Wakeboarders. Wakeboarder. Recreationalist. No. Something we all love.

Number one killer. Turkeys? No. White tail. Deer. He says they want to rub their antlers on them. They kill them all. Yep.

He's got 40% survival from bucks coming out there and rubbing on them. You would maybe think Beaver or something, but the most detrimental thing is the little scrawny-ass white-tailed buck once come in there and beat up on my cycle. Because they're real limber, so they kind of like it because the trees thrashed all around. They look like a tough guy. Kevin, you're a squirrel man, a dog man, and now you're a tree man. Tree man, cypress man. Can you put tubes on them? I think that it wouldn't help.

I don't know. We might try that this year. We went to a smaller tree. That was the larger trees that we had, like almost, you know, inch and a half, two inch. So we've using the whip trees now with the steak. So hopefully they're dense enough that they'll stay out of it. Maybe like little landmines and poison pellets. But there again, you know, we don't have the brows in LBL like we had it one time.

Just throw it on out there. Going to get your piece of fruitcake here. I've got it all sliced out. I'll grab a little bit of that. I haven't eaten anything yet today. We've been running hard. had a great time with you guys as always dude kevin give me a give me a handshake man every time i learn a lot i love you thanks kevin i can't wait to be able to uh date two decades under my age bracket so i appreciate

that i can't wait to uh see what you do with that hog well we're gonna make sausage just my tim i'm gonna take a small portion of it grind it up test it and see if it's gonna turn out well yeah i wish you good luck cooking your hog i mainly wish you good luck getting you trees in man. I love to see you get that 22 miles done. That'd be cool before you die. Oh, when he dies, I get his hat. Yeah, that is true. That's cool. Where's that hat? All right, everybody. Thanks for all. Thank you. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up, if you, if you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series, we're hunting in Tanzania.

Well, if you did so, you know that the dude I'm hunting with is Morgan Potter. He's a professional hunter with Robin Hurts Safari's. Great guy. Well, he and I were doing an event in Nashville. on February 19th at the Safari Club International Convention. Even when we were hunting, we're like, man, we should do a presentation about our time in Africa at SCI. So we're doing that. This is February 19th, Safari Club International Convention in Nashville. We're going to do two things. From 930 to 1030, we're going to do a meet and greet at the Robin Hertz Safari's booth.

Our actual events at 2 o'clock in the Omni Ballroom. After the event, I'll be happy to sign any books or take pictures, whatever's on your mind if you come on down. To get tickets, you've got to go to the Safari Club International website and get a ticket to the convention. Once you do that, you're prompted to go get a ticket to our event. All the ticket price goes to SCI. It's a nonprofit conservation group. All ticket prices go to SCI. They don't go to Mia Morgan.

But we're going to be there. Guaranteed laughs. Come check it out. Can't wait to see you. February 19, Nashville Safari Club International Convention. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.