The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 828: Nonresidents, Wildlife Commissions, and the Boundary Waters | MeatEater Radio Live!

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

Hosts Brody Henderson, Seth Morris, and Cory Calkins chat with Chef Lukas Leaf of Modern Carnivore and Sportsmen for the Boundary Waters about the recent threats to one of our county's most cherished wild places, stage a crew Hot Tip Off, talk with NWF's Jeremy Romero, and read some listener emails. 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. Guaranteed Human. Welcome to Meat Eater Trivian. Meat Eater podcast. Oh, there you are. Welcome to Meat Eater Radio Live. It's 11 a.m. on Thursday, which means we're here at H.Q. and Bozeman to chit-chat with you guys. I'm your host, Brody.

I'm joined today by Seth and Corey. And Steve ditched Randall. So Randall's here, too. You can't see him, though. he's sitting Hey everybody Hey, Morgor We got a couple

great guests joining us today Who are going to be talking to us About the Boundary Waters And then we're going to talk about State Wildlife Commissions There's some interesting stuff going on In New Mexico Regarding State Wildlife Commission

And we're also going to be addressing Randall's loud bag of sun chips And some interesting email correspondence from the media inbox and we'll also do a crew hot tip-off and the live you guys the live audience you're gonna decide the winner and we'll announce that at the end of the show um what flavor do you got there randall garden salsa my favorite nice that is a good chip stopped here do you have enough for the rest of the class nope okay moving on i'm not even supposed to be here moving on uh before

we dive into the show um i want to make an announcement and uh in case you guys haven't heard. Some of you have. Probably have. Some of you probably haven't. Might be a little painful for our most diehard listeners like Mogore. So hold on your britches. In case you haven't heard, we're going to be saying goodbye to Media to Radio Live in early March. It's been a great run and we've had so much fun doing the live show for you guys. So we're sad to see it go. Randall in particular has been in a dark, deep, depressive. the last couple of weeks. Is that you got anything to add there?

Yeah, but we've learned so much along the way and really made all kinds of new friends, including we've learned things about one another that I don't think would have come to light. Yeah, true. That's not been for this vehicle. That's true. Anyway, there's some good news here, too. Radio Live is going to be replaced by a second weekly episode of Meat Eater, the Meat Eater podcast. and you're still going to be seeing the crew from

media to radio live along with Steve and the additional drop of the mediator podcast is going to focus on news and current events but we're going to bring some of the fun and energy from radio live along with us but for now we've got another months or so five weeks maybe of radio live left before we sign off and we're definitely going to be

doing something very special for our last episode of Radio Live. Phil and Randall are already plotting. So if you have any like suggestions or like wants that you would see in our last show, send them in to us. We'll see if we can do anything. Yeah, Phil, do we have a, is it Radio at the Meat Eater.com? I believe it is.

If you have any ideas for the Meteor Radio Live grand finale spectacular, live on March 5th, 2026, March 5th will be our last show and we're playing, it's going to be a blast. It's going to be wild. Please tune in. And I think really, really quick too, just to add to some of the messaging around here about like why specifically

we're doing this. I mean, the main reason is that Steve wants to do stuff like this more. He wants to be on, on, like, he loves radio live. He loves coming on and it's just, he can't do it very often because it's tied to a specific time. But, so now it's just being replaced. The, the new

show is going to have a lot of the same energy, sort of like the old crew shows from back in the old day. So I think you're going to still enjoy it. But now, if we're just more flexible, we can talk about topical stuff more quickly, which is what Steve wants. Phil can go on vacations that include Thursdays. Man, I'm getting hijacked here a little bit. Sorry, I'm not to leave soon. I just think some of the messaging hasn't been super clear. So I just thought we'd get, you know, get in front of it. Pipe down boys. That's not on you, Brody. I know, I know. Yeah, not from you. I mean, the messaging that has been communicated so far before. today.

And I will add that there's a chance. I think if we get our way, it'll happen. There's a chance that every now and then we'll do like a pop-up version of radio live. So it may not be completely going away. We'll see.

Yeah, we're even thinking about some some like primetime shows like, you know, seven o'clock on a Friday or Saturday night where you know, we can kind of event dies a little bit. Or if we're at like some kind of event or something, we might try and do it. Do it. We'd rent tuxedos for those.

Yeah. All right. So you guys got anything you want to chit-chat about before we start talking? Well, I'd like to tell you a bunch of ice fishing stories, but. Well, I saw you were on the ice the other day. Did you get any of those five-inch bluegills? No. Well, yeah, I got some bluegills on the Three Forks Ponds, but I was up at Canyon Ferry and just caught the

Dismol as usual up there. Yeah, it was not good. Four inches of ice, couldn't get out to the good stuff. Yeah. A little sketchy. A fair minimum. Ice was chit-chaddy up there. Yeah.

Making all kinds of noises. Yeah. Yeah. A little scary. It's been so unseasonably warm. I went fly fishing the other day. Wow. Yeah.

Never done it in January before. No. Typical January trout fishing. They're pretty in the rivers at least. Not a lot of food. Not a lot of activity. But if you put it in their face, they'll eat it. Yeah.

Yeah, we caught a few. One time I went ice fishing. while fly fishing. I was up in Alaska, went out to the lodge on a snow machine, busted the ice open next to the bank, and drifted a fly through there. Cut a nice trout. I'll show you a picture sometime.

Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's cool. Excellent job, Rhian. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't got a whole lot going on right now. My life's kind of in turmoil, really. We're kind of just stuck in a weird time right now.

It's a vortex. I know. Well, the weather's not great for anything. I know. It's like between seasons. It's like turkey seasons way off. But the one good thing about this weather is, this super nice weather is I was forced by my family to, I was going to do a marathon, my first marathon in September.

Oh, yeah. And I was informed that that training program would be way too disruptive to our summer activities. It's like every weekend I got to do some long ass run, you know? Can't go anywhere. Can't go fish and camp and all that stuff. So I bumped it up to June, to the Missoula

Marathon late June. So it's like it's thrown my whole life off. Yeah, well you're able to train at the moment. At least down low. Yeah, exactly. That's a good thing. How are you feeling about it? Good, little nervous. Good, but a little nervous. You're feeling like you're getting prepared? Yeah. Yeah, I got five months.

Most marathon plans are either 16 or 20 weeks, so I've got over 20. I'm good. You got time. But now it's real. Like September seems so far off. And June's like right there. Anyway, we got more important stuff to talk about,

namely the boundary waters. Our first guest today is Lucas Leaf. And Lucas is that the lead chef for modern carnivore. And he's also contributed a bunch of his best wild game recipes to the meat eater website. In addition to that, Lucas is also the executive director of the conservation group, Sportsman for the Boundary Waters. And he's here to talk to us today about the most recent congressional assault on one of America's most cherished wild places,

which is Minnesota's Boundary Waters canoe area. The boundary waters have been threatened before. Managed to fight those threats off, but this time it's like serious. And before we get to the interview with Lucas, like for anyone who's not familiar, I want to give you guys a quick background on the boundary waters. That's going to help you understand what the stakes are here. The Boundary Waters canoe area wilderness is a 1.1 million acre federally protected wilderness area in northeastern Minnesota's Superior National Forest.

It's big. I think Yellowstone is two million, so, you know, a million acres of big chunk of land. It's the most visited wilderness area in the United States. It has 1,175 lakes, 1,200 plus miles of canoe routes, and it offers backcountry canoeing, hunting, fishing, hiking, and winter activities. It's like this vast, very pristine network of interconnected waterways that provide really good fishing for walleye, pike, smallmouth bass, lake trout. And the area also encompasses our southernmost boreal forest that harbors, you know,

you can hunt waterfowl, black bears, spruce and rough grouse, snowshoe hair, and white-tailed deer. And they're white-tailed deer that have never seen a corn pile. So they're pretty cool. And the reason we're talking about all this is because the boundary waters is threatened by this massive sulfide ore copper mine. That's proposed on the banks of the South Kawishawi River and Birch Lake. And sulfide ore mining in the United States has a like.

a long, dark history of causing significant environmental damage. Something seems to always go wrong with these mines. You can look it up. There's plenty of examples. You Google it, and you'll see all these examples across the United States where these mines have just caused irreversible damage to habitat, polluting streams, lakes, drinking water supplies with heavy metals and other toxins. Hard Rock Mining is the most generally regarded as the most toxic industry in America.

And hydrologists say that pollution from mining in this area is like it's inevitable. It's going to happen. So we're going to talk to Lucas. Lucas, you on the line? I sure am. Thanks guys for having me. And Brody, you nailed that intro, man. Thanks, thanks.

Before we get into the boundary waters, let's first talk about, who sportsman for the Boundary Waters is and what you guys do. Yeah, so I mean, you know, sportsman for the Boundary Waters was founded, you know, roughly a decade ago, mainly as the hunting and angling voice for the area, for protections of the area, for the world-class hunting and fishing opportunities that it holds like you talked about. But also, you know, to, you know, to work and prevent this proposed copper-nickel mine that you were talking about. by Twin Metals, which is a subsidiary of Anapagasta, which is a Chilean mining conglomerate. So that's one of our, you know, kind of key issues that we work on.

And we also have a pretty robust stewardship and habitat program. So on the ground projects, working with, you know, state and national, you know, partners and coalitions as well. Great. So obviously, this seems, Randall. Randall is trying to play music over here. sorry. No, I apologize.

I was trying to hop into the chat. I really, I should believe. I like those sun chips, too. It's all good. Okay. Lucas, so, like, obviously to, like, most people, I would say, this seems like a real shitty place to put in a sulfide or mining operation. So can you lay out why Congress approved stripping protections from the

found your waters. Yeah, I mean, it's been a very partisan issue for a long time, right? You know, supporters of the mind are hoping for, you know, projected jobs and, and, you know, royalties to the states, you know, touting the idea for for shoring up, you know, domestic critical minerals dominance. But it really is like a terrible place for this, as you alluded to, right? It's extremely water-rich environment. You said the Superior National Forest. The Superior National Forest holds 20% of the fresh water in the entire national forest system. Huge interconnected water-rich area.

It is just a terrible spot for it right on the shores of Birch Lake, you know, miles away from the boundary waters, the headwaters of the area. And it's located, you know, north of the Laurentian Divide, so all the water flows north. That'd be through the boundary waters, in and out of it, up through Rainey Lake, you know, a great walleye fishery and others all the way up to Hudson Bay, also affecting parts of the Canadian border waters. You know, you mentioned, you know, the boundary water is 1.1 million acres. Well, it's sister park in Canada, the Quetico, is nearly the same size.

Yeah. And they border together as well. So it would end up flowing downstream to that as well. Yep, exactly. You said it's about, you said it's. You said it's a partisan issue, which is unfortunate, but, you know, the reality is, is that the Republicans in Congress are the ones that push this thing through. That's right. And again, like, is this like, unfortunately, like, is this come down to money?

I mean, it's hard to say, right? Like, you know, quick background, you know, what, what, what, this, and we can get into the House resolution that was introduced by Representative Stobber and passed the house last week, but, you know, it's, it's, this resolution is meant to overturn a 20-year mine, mining moratorium in nearly 225,000 acres in that rainy river watershed, the watershed that houses the boundary water state of national forest. And that happened in January of 2023. So we're, we're just right at about the three-year anniversary of, of, of those protections being put in place. and coincidentally, Anapagasta just got mine for not meeting regulations in one of its Chilean mines

to the tune of nearly $800,000 this week too. So, yeah, it's crazy. Like whenever one of these huge mining operations pops up, that's like environmentally questionable, it's like always a foreign mining company. That's right. That's right. And a key point to point out here is, is like, anapagasy, yes, Chilean mining conglomerate, definitely has, you know, certain ties to the current administration.

It obviously, you know, is about money, but it's also about tying into that, you know, need for domestic critical minerals. Right. The whole issue with that is, is that those minerals once extracted are going to be shipped overseas. there are no smelting operations on U.S. soil that are capable of taking care of that. And once the minerals end up, you know, on foreign soil for processing, they just flood the global market with with no guarantee that they're coming back to us. That's the real kick in the nuts.

Yeah. No, we don't get anything. Yeah. I mean, someone's getting something out of it, but. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, no one's saying that, you know, it's a 20-year withdrawal, right? the whole reason for that is to give it time to find out whether or not it's viable.

Yeah. Potentially, technology catches up. Who knows? But at the moment, as you said, there is no project similar to this that has been done without polluting in some form. Yeah. And that's mostly shared environments too. Exactly. So, like, obviously this goes, like, way beyond a handful of hunters and anglers that are worried about, like,

their spot, right? So besides like the clearly dangerous environmental risks, there's also could be a huge like local and regional economic component to what's at stake here because the boundary water supports like 17,000 jobs and generates a billion dollars in sales and income annually. So I just wondered if you can hit on on that aspect of this at all. Like who would be the people that would be losing jobs, losing money if this thing goes forward? Well, certainly all of the local businesses, you know, the boundary waters and the surrounding areas are a huge economic driver for all of those, you know, local towns and cities. And, you know, it's not just those local businesses. I mean, this trickles out everywhere to the folks that are excited and buying gear to, you know, to go up and take the trips to, you know, to everything that's needed for a place like this.

Yeah. And for a trip to that, you know, true backcountry wilderness experience that anybody can, you know, from a, you know, an infant, I just took, you know, the first time I took my kids, they were two, you know, all the way up to somebody on their 50th anniversary. That's, you know, 85, right? It is truly accessible to everyone. So, yeah. And then, you know, with the resolution, the unfortunate piece for that is, yes, it did pass the House and now it does, you know,

move on to the Senate. And the real battle is hoping that we can turn this into a bipartisan issue and that, you know, this crosses the aisle and we can have some Republican folks, you know, understand the implications of what using the Congressional Review Act for overturning a mineral withdrawal really means not only

for the boundary waters, but for similar protections across the country too. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the worrying aspect of it is like if the dominoes start falling after this, you know. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up, if you, if you tuned into YouTube and watched

our Africa series where 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 Hurt 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. are 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. January 19th, Nashville, Safari Club International Convention.

So it's going to the Senate. Do you got to feel for what things are looking like there, like which direction it's leaning or is it completely up in the air? You know, it's pretty up in the air. So the Senate parliamentarian still has to rule on whether or not the usage of the CRA, the Congressional Review Act, is lawful in this manner. because traditionally it's only been used for land management plans. This is a federal action.

So kind of an unprecedented usage of the CRA. So we're hoping to hear what that ruling may be. And it'll sway the movement in the Senate as well. But at this moment, it has not been taken up in the Senate. I think as everybody knows, there's a lot else going on right now in Congress. What's the timing on it? Do you know when they're going to get to it? We certainly expect sooner than later.

It moves so fast through the House. I mean, we're talking an introduction, you know, less than two weeks ago to passage last week, right? Like, so it really slammed through and it had, it certainly had some help too. So we know that when it does hit the Senate, they know they have the backing to get it to move forward. So best case scenario is that doesn't get the light of day. And our states do some work to ensure that that, that, it scares off the folks trying to get this to move even move forward in the Senate as well. I know this is kind of like beating a dead horse with all these kind of issues that come up,

but what can people do to help stop it from happening? Yeah, I mean, this isn't a blue or red issue, man. This is everybody. You know, this is the time for us all to come together, you know, for the places that we cherish and understand that it has those broader implications for others, so it's not just a Minnesota issue. it's a national issue. There are tons of great organizations working on this.

The best thing you can do is call your senators. It doesn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat. They need to hear from their constituents that this is not the right place for this mind and that this resolution should not move forward in the Senate. So making those phone calls, getting a meeting with your senators, if you can, and hooking up and joining conservation organizations. that are working on this, signing action alerts that a number have out right now, almost anything you can do is most important right now.

It's all hands on deck. Yeah, and for people who are wondering, like, it's actually very easy to call your senator. It's not like a painful, long process. I wish we had a number, but you can look it up. I know it by there. There you go. Lay it on us. 202, 244, I think it's 3121.

Okay. Well, if it's wrong, we'll figure it out. But I think, double check me, but it connects you directly with the capital switchboard, and the operator can put you directly in touch with your, your senator's office. Yeah, it's actually a pretty quick process. All right. before we let you go, Lucas, you are a chef,

so we got to talk about food a little bit. Janus has given us the bird out there. This place is falling apart, man. We announced that radio live is going away and the whole place is falling apart. Dominoes. Sorry about this, Lucas. It's embarrassing.

Give us like two or three of your favorite recipes or preparations from fishing game that you typically would harvest in the boundary waters. If I'm in the boundary waters? Sure. Should we do it again?

Yeah. Okay. Or if you brought something home from the boundary waters, whatever. Well, I'll say, all right, in camp, in camp. There is nothing better than shore lunch lake trout cooked in bacon grease on a cold day.

Are you breading that? Are you just putting it Yeah, just really lightly breaded with the actual shore lunch. Otherwise, like, one that I, that I'll use is just, like, pulverized cheese its. Yep. And use yellow mustard as a binder. Trust me. Both are great.

But, yeah, that's one of my favorites, honestly. Let me think. Gosh. What about walleye? Same thing? Walleye? Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I think. You know, walleye is a pretty, pretty lean fish.

It cooks up really well in a ton of different preparations. It's really good in like curries. And there's a pasta I've done before. It's called Putanesca. It's pretty rich, like olives, capers, anchovy, tomato-based. You know, but again, I mean, nothing better than a fried walleye sandwich too, right? Yeah. Let's say you were up there and you shot yourself a rough grouse.

And you're like camping up there. What would you do with it? First, I'd let it sit for a little bit. Do you mean like let it hang for a while? If you have time, I mean, yeah, you know, going straight from shot to the pan can make things a little bit difficult. Yeah, yeah. Once that done, honestly, I pound out the breasts and serum in a cast iron with a little sauce over the fire and take the legs and probably braze them in something, you know, which is just a really slow cook. if you have time, you can take the carcass and make a stock, you know, to make a sauce.

Just kind of use the whole thing, right? Yep. Take maybe, you know, the livers and hearts and grill them real quick, you know, just use everything you have. God, makes me want to go to the boundary waters. Yeah, I mean, you guys were talking about ice fishing earlier. It is prime time right now. Yeah, you guys got cold. We didn't, you got all the cold.

We missed, man. Yeah. You can take some. It's been too cold. Well, listen, Lucas, thanks for chatting with us today. And keep us posted on what's going on with Boundary Waters. If there's anything we can do to help get the message out, let us know. Yeah, I really appreciate it.

Spreading the word and just getting folks to take action is super important. So thank you so much for having me on today. Yep. Thanks again. We'll talk soon. All right, moving on. Hopefully we get some good news here soon. but we're going to move on to our crew hot tip-off.

Normally, we like to feature hot tip-offs from our audience, but you guys have been kind of lame on submitting stuff. I'm sorry to say it. That's Brody speaking. I think every tip we've gotten is good. It's not awesome. I'm saying like we're not getting many sent in right now. The folder's pretty empty.

Certainly not a lot of show word. Truth hurts. I mean, come on, Phil. Step it up. Yeah, step it up. You don't have a lot of time. Maybe the folks just don't want to invest. their time in a show that's going away.

Don't make light of this. It's their last chance, like, get their, get their big prize for having it. If you've been holding in those hot tips for the last year and a half, it would have been now. So anyway, you're stuck with our hot, hot tips, which we'll see. They might only be lukewarm tips. Way to sell the segment, Brody.

I know. Look, I'm trying to get through this, Randall. I'm sad, okay? Now I feel bad. Yeah. Um, the way we're going to do this is we're not like the, the, you guys are going to vote on the, the, uh, winner. Mm. But it's like kind of hard for Phil to do as we're, we're doing the hot, hot tips and compile kind of who got the most votes.

So we'll, the second time we talk to you guys, that's, that's, that's what at the end of the show. That's when we'll announce the winner. So there'll be all this tension through the rest of the show. Oh, okay. Well, that's not what I thought the plan was, but I like it. I like to keep. on your toes. Sure.

Brody's calling the shots today. Mm-hmm. It's my show, Phil. It is. My show. So, Seth,

Corey, which one of you guys want to go first? Oh, Seth, why don't you do the honors? Sure, I'll go.

I'm very curious. All right. So when you're, when you're out fishing, um, and it's like early spring, maybe later in the fall, water's cold.

Um, your hands are getting cold because you're touching fish and whatnot. A thing you can do to help take the edge off is wear a pair of nitral gloves. I prefer black, but I ran out of my black ones, so this is the only thing I had laying around. I often wear those underneath a pair of fingerless gloves, and it's just enough to take the edge off. If it's a little windy outside or whatnot, it's just enough to take the edge off and keep your fingers warm. Oh, about it's that it works.

I've done that running. Oh. And you peel those things off and they're full of sweat, water. Mm-hmm. Like, but warm. Yeah. Boy, I haven't tried that yet. And good for the fish, too, if you're handling, right?

Yeah. Those are good gloves to handle fish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just that little, you know. Barrier. Barrier there keeps your fingers warmer.

How about tying knots? Can you tie a knot with them on? Yeah, it's a good thing. Another plus is that you, like, have the dexterity. that you would lose with like a fingered glove, a heavy fingered glove. You got my vote. Bring it, Corey.

It's the hot in here all of a sudden. All right, try and beat that one, Corey. All right, my hot tip. I actually had a fun time a couple months ago making a video. I was hoping there was going to be other crew submissions, but there haven't been any. So, Phil, do you have my video up there?

Oh, yeah, let's bring it up. I didn't make a little title card for you, but I can just do it live here. Corey Calkins Thank you for pronouncing it correctly Hi, I'm Corey Calkins I got a hot tip for you Anybody out there have one of these

Cheat Foldable Lifetime tables Well, anybody ever Try to cut meat on these And notice that it's just a little short And you find yourself hunched over all the time Trying to cut up on these short tables So I'm going to teach you If you have one of these, how to raise it up

So first I need to figure out It's pretty long how much higher that I'd like it. So for me, it would be nice, maybe if it was about belly button height or higher. Then you're going to measure the distance from the ground up to that little crossbar right there, which looks like it's, I'm going to say 10 inches. So I need four 22-inch sections of this pipe. You get you a stick of one of these one-and-a-half-inch PVC pipes.

22 you should have just done the whole video that way we lost the camera power tools I like this editing for you thank you yeah what a great film then two at a time you're gonna lift the table and stick one on each corner one two three guess what

four just like that I've got a table belly button height so I can start cutting some meat not hurting some meat not hurt my back. Give it a try. Man. That's good. I don't know. Look at all that dead stuff in there. I know my garage is a mess right now.

Everything's in my drift boat. I only got one suggestion for you, Corey, put some non-slip feet down there on the bottom. Well, you know, I thought about that. I was concerned, but the angle of the feet that comes with the table is so wide that it's like, it's pretty grippy. Yeah. So I don't know. It's just if you aren't

able to watch, get to your computer phone fast and go watch that. But it's a pretty self-explanatory. Just trying to raise the table up. You can visualize it pretty easily. Those little tables are cheap and they're great. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Costco or Walmart. But they're always just a hair short and I'm a short fella. And it's a cheap fix. Yeah. It's like a cheap skate tip. Yeah. Shout out to my buddy Phil who actually came up with that hot tip.

This Phil? No. Oh, that's funny, Brody. Don't get mad. Broadwater Street, Phil. I'm not mad. I just, you think I can know how to work a power tool in my garage. You can just find a chair and sit at your table.

Oh, that's uncomfortable. Oh, yeah, you can't do that. Cutting up an elk for six, seven hours. You'll get blood clots doing that. Pass out from being dizzy. All right. I'm a little scared now. Mine's pretty simple, man.

Simple's good. When you, like, when you're brazing meat, cooking it in a liquid, shank, roast, whatever, save the brazing liquid to reuse it. Once you're done cooking it, whatever you're doing, it doesn't matter what kind of meal you're cooking. Strain all that brazing liquid after you cook it.

So you get all the kind of scum and debris and stuff like that out of it. You'll get a pretty clear, you know, liquid. And put it in a Tupperware, a mason jar, whatever, freeze it. The next time you're going to braze stuff, you get that stuff out, thawed out,

dump it in there. And you can do this over and over and over again. And it just gets better every time. I got this jar of what I called taco juice. That's like three, it's like I've had it for like three years, man. I use it for making like turkey leg carnita, like when I'm brazen turkey legs or whatever, like Mexican style.

And I just keep reusing that stuff. stuff and it gets better and better. Like you could eat it like soup. It's so good. So that's, that's my. I like that. We, we actually do that all the time.

Yeah. Anytime we brace something, we, we run it through a screen at the end and then freeze it. And then a lot of times we'll just pull it out, thaw it out and just drink it. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It's good, man. So it's make a gravy with it.

Yep. Anything. Yep. It's a great. That's a great tip. Four year old taco juice. That's my hot tip. I bet that's got some flavor.

Yep. Randall, you want to jump Yeah, you got a hot tip or what? Winter gets a bag of chips here. Hot tip. Oh, gosh. I don't know. I shouldn't have come in here.

Hairstyle tips, maybe. We put you on the spot. It's okay. Yeah, I'll come up with something. Something good. Just give me. So here's where the problem lies in your strategy, Brody. I think the live chat can see poll results before I announced them.

I think it updates them live. So if I start the poll now, the audience will already know what the results are. So we might as well just announce them soon. Damn it, Phil. What is it a landslide or what? I wanted to build up some tension here. Can we just edit this part out, Phil? Where you don't come up with them.

Yeah, radio lives, it doesn't exist anymore. So this is pre-taped, you're right. All right. Whatever, Phil. I thought you were like. All right, starting the poll. And Randall is one of the options. So Randall, you have about 30 seconds to come up with a hot tip.

Go. Oh, God. People are voting all. already the longer you take. Oh, hurry Randall. Flat tires. Shooting pistols. Oh, when you go to the range, and the range being an empty

piece of public land where you shoot, bring a rake so you don't have to pick up individual brass cases by the thousands. Yep. Preach. Yeah, we were shooting last weekend, and Randall was like, we should have brought a rake. Yeah, because we had... Because we littered the ground. Yeah. Any suggestions on a type of rake, metal rake,

plastic rake? I would think just something with the teeth rather close together because like a two two three case you know if it gets the long way in there you can see it sliding through but I don't know if that's really hot tip we also thought we should just shoot steel case to ammo

and use a magnet yep but I don't I haven't tried it yet so I don't know if it's a hot tip to think of it I actually haven't used the rake tip either so I'll add a hot tip to your hot tip jeez you guys are getting it all today pick up your damn brass yeah that's what I was you say Don't be a garbage person.

You want to do a follow-up hot tip, Randall, based on this question. We got Garrett asking, what's the advantage of opening Fritos from the bottom of the bag as opposed to the top? Oh. You get at them faster if you're holding the bag upside down. And that's where all are. You need the problems first. Plus, if you're self-conscious about what you're eating and you don't want people to be able to read the label, hold it upside down. They'll think maybe it's some sort of foreign food, and you're a fancy person that buys, like, imported snacks.

Here's another hot tip. Take Freeto's on your backcountry trips because they're high in calories and you can start fires with them. Salt too. You can mix them into like a, you know, if you have a freeze dried chili or stew or anything like that, like a Mexican mash, as I like to call most of the Mountain House Southwestern meals. You just dump your fritos in there. You're going to be living like a king. It doesn't matter if they get all mashed up in your pack. It's so good.

30 more seconds on the poll. The results are. How many hot tips are going now are thrilling. Yeah. My hot tips are layered. Corey, brodie, you want to throw any additional ones in there

to try to juice your numbers here? No, man. Don't hurt your back. I'll stand on mine. All right, well, with 40% of the vote, the winner today is Randall William. Oh, what the hot test.

Get out of it. He's not really in the show. What if we took his away? Who won? Yeah, he took a second. Corey. Oh, Corey. Nice work.

God. Thanks, everybody. buddy. Okay, Randall, you can go now. Shout out. Shout out to the crew. And by the crew, I mean the chat. Must have been that editing. You guys.

Do we got any other feedback we want to hit real quick? Do a couple. Okay, try it. Sure. I will just say something really quick based on some comments. I do not speak for meat eater or Steve or TRCP. Putting a sitting U.S. representative on the podcast is not platforming them. So if anything, it lets them speak more to things.

and you can hold them accountable for it come election season or when you call your representatives and senators. So anyway, that's all I have to say about that. They already have a pretty big platform and they're writing the legislation. How is it any different than them going on the news? Exactly, yeah. Anyway.

When Rachel Maddow has Josh Hawley on, we're not platforming it. We're letting him talk or vice versa. Let's do something. Sure, Jackson Reedy says, when I cook shanks in the crock pot, the tendens turn gelatin, but usually sticks to the meat and doesn't add much moisture,

but just leaves an unpleasant texture. What am I doing wrong? Hmm. Just think about your joints when you're eating that gelatinous stuff. Yeah, that's good for you. If it's not turning like almost liquidy, I don't know like what your process is for cooking them, but I would try maybe go on a little less temperature and quite a bit longer.

Yeah, if it's stuck to the meat, might just need some more time. Yeah. Hmm, I like that stuff. Oh, that's good. But I know what he means. It can take it. Sometimes it doesn't get where you want it to get.

Will meat theater continue to exist when radio live ends? Give me meat theater. Give me death. Randall? You know, meat theater started as a fever dream in my mind. And it will always live there. But if you are a fan of meat theater, be sure to tune in to the Meat Eater Radio Live grand finale

spectacular live on what date, Phil? March 5th. March 5th. You won't be disappointed. We should make merch for this final episode. Oh, man. I think we're going to find an investor just comes in and

buys the concept. Any sponsors? Yeah, maybe we can sell the concept. Yeah. There's some questions regarding the new show and will it be live? No, the new show will not be live.

That's kind of the whole point. It's just so we can, Steve can talk about stuff whenever he wants. We can drop it quickly. Oh, no, this guy says the rake doesn't work. Uh-oh. Dang it. There goes rain.

You know what else I thought about, Seth? What else thought about this? I've got a big, uh, I've got a big canvas, uh, drop cloth like for painting that I used as a floor in the wall tent this fall. And I thought next time we go out, we should just spread that out on the ground and do all of our shooting. Yeah. We just rolled it up like a, like a rug.

It's kind of like when a hit man kills someone on a sheet of plastic. Dexter it up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Blood and everything. Randall and I have been throwing around the idea of start. in a meat eater, intramural pistol league. It's called the,

it's called the me, E. P. Lee, for short. Some questions about, about drops and stuff like that. I will, in the first week of March, I will put together a,

a strung together medley of all of my drops and really put it on the Reddit or somewhere where you guys, you weirdos can download it. Can you put it on Spotify or will you get dinged? I, yeah,

I don't think I can do Spotify. Oh. But it's got to, to be kind of under the radar. 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. Phil, we got Jeremy waiting for us.

We actually don't. He's not in his chair right now. So we have to wait for him to come back. Yeah. This guy loves me. Jeremy Romero. He's like, oh, we got good. You're going to bring him in now, buddy.

Yeah, bring him in now, buddy. Yeah, bring him in. Okay. All right. Up next, we've got Jeremy Romero from the National Wildlife Federation. You might have seen Jeremy Hunt with Steve on the Meteeter television show. I think you guys did a couple different shows down there in New Mexico. But if not, go watch that.

And I can personally vouch for Jeremy's status as an all-around good guy. He's a hardworking wildlife conservationist. He helps out me and Steve on the youth. deer hunt. And this should tell you everything you need to know about him. He sleeps in a tool shed with the minks at Steve's fish shed. He's a good stick in the halibut waters too. Oh yeah. Yeah. He like he may have been the guy who introduced, uh, slow pitch jigging to southeast Alaska. Yeah. The OG. Slow pitch. How's that for buttering you up, Jeremy? Oh, uh-oh. Something's wrong with audio. Audio problems. We're live. He sounded great right before this.

I can keep buttering them up. Thank you, Brody. I appreciate the compliments. Hey, Jeremy, really quick, we are getting audio from you, but it sounds like it's coming out of a tin can and we can't understand a word you're saying. So I'm going to boot you from the call and you want to try to hop back in. I don't boot him, Phil. Well, he can, you can see, kick me. Oh, yeah.

Kick from studio. All right. We're going to try this again. I kind of like this show is ending free wheel and spirit we got going on with the wheels are just falling off. It was so buttoned up before, but now we can really let it all hang out. Now we can really show our true colors. Loose in our collars. It's kind of like when you put your two weeks in, you kind of stop working a little bit.

No, no, we actually got solid numbers right now. Do we? Oh. 344. Come on with Corinne. We need him back. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think the.

Okay, let's try again. All the hard work is ahead of us. You think? It's a finale. Jeremy, you want to give us a few words here? any any better okay sorry guys I didn't no worries I'm not why that was was messing up but I should have just stayed quiet with all those nice things you guys are saying yeah that was nice I appreciate it all right now now that you're feeling all good about yourself

I want to talk to you about state wildlife commissions and their role in guiding the rules and regulations that are set forth by state fish and game agencies I think a lot of people maybe aren't aware of how these things work in regards to the regulations that you got to follow in any given state. A lot of people are like, ah, you know, fishing game or parks and wildlife, they do this or they do that. But in a lot of cases, it's like they're doing these things at the behest of what state wildlife commissions kind of like how they steer them into. into a particular management strategy. So Jeremy, give us a quick breakdown of what a state wildlife commission is and who they're supposed to represent as far as different user groups and stakeholders.

And then like how they actually end up guiding the policies of state fishing game agencies. Yeah, you bet. And first of all, thanks for having me on the show. You know, you bring up a really good point. And a lot of people don't quite understand. you know, what and, you know, what game commissions do and game commissioners and their responsibilities and roles with working with the, with the Department of Gaming and Fishes. And so, you know, I think it's important to note that these commissioners are tasked with

setting the rules and regulations, as you mentioned, you know, hunting dates as well as quota limits and things like usable weapon type. They're also tasked with hiring and overseeing and managing the directors of the departments, deputy directors. It kind of varies depending on the state and how the department is made up. But they also are tasked with receiving a lot of that public input and trying to incorporate that into management level decisions. But the end of the day, the folks that work with the departments, they propose different ideas, different recommendations as far as like the rules changes, policy changes. And at the end of the day, the game and fish commissions are the ones that are tasked with voting to finally approve or

adopt those measures that go into those proclamations that you see that, you know, identify hunt dates, species types, weapon types, et cetera. So they play a pretty important role. And, you know, most states, uh, the number of commissioners is different, but a lot of times what I've seen is, you know, in that five to seven range. And they are really tasked with an important role of overseeing the game agencies. And they- And they- moving budgets,

all that, all those types of things. And generally they, they're supposed to represent different user groups and stakeholders, correct? Like there will be like a commissioner that represents the ranching community. There'll be a commissioner that represents like outfitters and guides. They'll be a commissioner that represents like wildlife biology, et cetera, et cetera.

Like, is that correct? Yeah, that's exactly right. So usually you see a few at-large seats. So people fill in those commission rolls for various reasons. But a lot of times by law, those commissioners have to represent those different stakeholder groups or those different demographics. And so as you mentioned, you'll have a rancher or a farmer. on the commission, you will have a hunter or an angler. In some instances, you'll have an indigenous member from a federally recognized tribe. And sometimes you'll have seats that are filled based off

of geography in different states. And so, you know, it's important to point out that in most situations, in most states across our country, commissioners are appointed at the discretion of the governors. So you have a new governor that comes in office, newly elected, and they essentially appoint a new slate of commissioners. And the hope would be that the governor or the overseen body points those commissioners that are qualified to serve in these roles, right? Qualified or knowledgeable and doing so to represent the best interests of hunters, anglers, and wildlife management, right?

Yep. That's not always the case. Yeah, let's kind of pause. I don't want you to roll too far ahead of us yet. I was going to, you already answered my question, which is how our wildlife commissioners chosen. Most of the time, their governor appointees. And I want to address that before we move on.

In states like Colorado, Washington, you may have some other examples that use this system where these people are appointed directly by the government. governor, we've seen wildlife commissioners who are like openly anti-hunting end up on these commissions. And, and these are the people who end up shaping the policy, at least can like affect the policy of state fish and game agencies. Is there any, do you have any other state examples you're aware of that were like, you know, in Washington, things happened like, like, you know, in Washington, things happened like spring bear hunting got outlawed. In Colorado, the wildlife commissioners got involved with things like the wolf reintroduction

in ways that probably weren't in the best interests of hunters, anglers, and wildlife management. Yeah, I mean, you guys have done a phenomenal job of what's been happening in Colorado and Washington, and there really aren't a whole lot of examples. You know, we'll touch on kind of what's happened in New Mexico, but the other one that comes to mind, which wasn't exactly, you know, the full responsibility responsibility of the game commission, but we saw, you know, in New Jersey with the black bear hunting

and trying to reduce black bear hunting. That wasn't all the commission's fault, but it was very much a politically driven effort. So you can, you know, say that it was indirectly, you know, attributed to commission level impact. You know, you bring up an important. important point, which is sometimes you'll have commissioners that are appointed by the governor that just do not serve the best interests of the hunting angling or wildlife management communities. But there's also the flip side, right? The flip side is that you have these qualified commissioners that do represent, you know, the hunting angling and wildlife management world. But at the same time, when they bring up controversial topics that, you know, the hunting and angling community want to see brought up. Sometimes they're removed.

Sometimes they're removed from those seats without any valid justification whatsoever. Yeah, because it's at the will of the governor, right? Correct. Yeah, absolutely. And so I can get into a little bit of what New Mexico did to help. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Your home state is New Mexico.

And up until this past year, New Mexico's wildlife commissioners were appointed by the governor. but a bill recently passed in New Mexico that mandates that the commissioners be selected through a different process. So can you explain what the process in New Mexico will be going forward and whether you think that's going to be an improvement on the current like governor appointed system? Yeah, absolutely. So last year, New Mexico, a bunch of conservation organizations came together, formed a coalition and pursued a bill. It's called Senate Bill 5. The title of it was Game Commission Reform. There was a lot in that bill, so I'll just quickly touch on it.

Part of it was renaming the wildlife, the Game and Fish Agency to Department of Wildlife, changed the mission of that, increased license fees, which were much needed for game and fish agencies. Our licenses in New Mexico hadn't been increased, I want to say, around 20 years. So, you know, kind of meeting current cost of living and inflation and adjusting those prices accordingly. bringing in more funds to the agency. But the most important piece, the most and the most important piece that's relevant to this conversation was the section of the bill that it,

that reformed kind of the way our wildlife commission is, is created. And so the wildlife commission will still have seven voting members. Instead of being appointed by the governor, there is now a wildlife commission nominating committee. So this is a little bit of a, another layer of protection that insulates these commissioners from just being appointed for for specific government interest or governor interests. Who makes up that committee?

Is it state members from the state legislature? So there are members of the state legislature. There's also the director, the directors from both of the, which is actually pretty cool. the directors from, you know, the wildlife conservation biology, wildlife, wildlife biology programs at both of the universities in New Mexico, the largest university. So University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, as well as some of the directors from the agencies within the state government. So I want to say it was, you know, the director of or secretary of energy mineral. natural resources, those types of roles. So it's a pretty comprehensive list of folks that formed that nominating committee.

Great. So now you'll have this new process. And in your opinion, do you think it's going to be an improvement on how the commission is able to act in the best interests of the people in New Mexico and the wildlife in New Mexico? 100%. 100%. And, you know, in that criteria for appointing those new, those new members to a nominating committee, they have some, some restrictions to do so, right? So there's a seven, you know, seven commission members of which three of them are at large. So really, they can be nominated for a lot of different reasons.

You know, one of the members has to be from federally recognized tribe that represents, you know, tribal interests. no more than two members can be affiliated with the same political party of those initial three at large members. The remaining four, one of them has to be a farmer or ranter who actively farms or ranches where two big game species are frequently present. Cool. Right. Not someone who's a rancher or a farmer that has political interest or ties to an administration. They have to be in an area where big game are present. So that's important.

Another member has to be a conservationist working from a conservation organization that has been employed in the conservation field for at least four years. The other one has to be hunter and angler or, you know, it could be both. And they had to have had a license, a hunting and fishing license for four years. And then the last person is a scientist who holds at least a master's degree. in wildlife biology, conservation, biology, fishery science, etc. And term limits for those commissioners are six-year terms, and they can only serve two terms. So, you know, that in of itself creates a buffer from being able to be with, you know, appointed for a lot of different interests.

It brings a lot of knowledge and expertise and, you know, quite frankly qualified individuals to serve on these seats. And then the other important piece of that legislation was it, is it prevented, the way it was initially written was it created a much more formal process for a governor to remove a commission member. You know, eight years ago, we had two commissioners, the chair and the vice chair of the commission here in New Mexico that brought up some topics that were controversial. I think those topics, in my opinion, were, you know, were within the best interest of helping hunters in a, anglers in New Mexico. As a result of those efforts, the governor overnight removed those commissioners. Yeah, I think that's the best thing about this is it kind of puts a roadblock in the way of a governor who might want to like push their own agenda through the state fishing game agency, like we've seen in states like Colorado. It kind of puts a stopper on that, which is in my opinion.

a really good thing. And these in these processes where you have commissioners representing, you know, what's best for the hunting and angling and wildlife management world, you know, you want those checks and balances. Yeah. You don't want, you know, a governor to remove a commissioner because they're doing the right thing. You know, you don't want commissioners serving in these roles for reasons other than, you know, the best interests of the hunting, angling and wildlife management worlds.

So it really is a good thing. I hope other states, you know, adopt these measures to really, you know, insulate their commissions to best serve members of those states. You know, a lot of this goes into effect next year. And so we're really going to get to see when, you know, as rubber meets the road, what this looks like. But I imagine that it's going to be nothing but good news for the state of New Mexico. And hopefully other states see it as a model. start to adopt it if they don't already have a similar model, you know, in place. The one thing I did want to mention, Rody, was, you know, in that, in that section to remove a commissioner, there was a lengthy section there that provided more of that formal, you know, process to remove a commissioner. And at the time, the governor ended up vetoing or line vetoing a lot of that section to the only remaining, so the only remaining section there for the removal process is a commissioner can be removed if it is deemed that they are in you know if they're illustrating incompetence and you know neglect of duty or malfeasance in that in that office now

there's similar efforts in this legislative session to kind of reinsert that language so there's a much more formal process that has to go through the courts if in fact it is deemed that a commissioner should be removed. So that's one piece worth noting. And I think it provides those different layers of, you know, oversight before something like that happens. One last thing about these state wildlife commissions that I want to, I want you to talk about that, again,

people may not be aware of. Like, these people, you should look at them almost like one of your congressional representatives or state legislature represents. Like, they're there to represent you. they work for you. And people may not be aware that they can interact with these people and communicate with them. And so I just wanted you to touch on how people can do that. How can they let their voices be heard to these state wildlife commissions?

And it's incredibly important that people understand that they can connect with these commissioners. Why? Because a lot of times these commissioners represent those constituents, right? So if there's an issue that you're facing, if there's a problem or even an opportunity in your areas or something you do when it comes to hunting and fishing, like being able to communicate that to a commissioner so they can then also carry a little bit of that way and advocate it at the department level is important. And so, you know, most game and fish websites have a commission page where it identifies all the different commissioners that are sitting in those seats, provides contact information. Usually their email. You can reach out to them via email and express your concerns, frustrations, or commend them for the good work they could be doing. Another important resource in a way to communicate with those commissioners is at the

public meeting level. Most state game departments have public commission meetings. This is where those rules and regulations and setting budgets and approving them and hearing from what the department wants to do, what needs that approval. This is the setting for that. And so most of these commission meetings are publicly advertised via the game department's websites. You can go and attend these meetings. There's also, and I would say all of the meetings, there's a carve-out for public participation where you can go up there, you know, and talk about the issues that are most concerning to you. And at the end of the day, if you don't feel comfortable doing that in a public setting, you can at least introduce yourself and meet the commissioners, you know,

in person at these at these commission level meetings. And I would say those, those two are probably the most important ways to communicate with your commissioners to hopefully see the work, the good work be done and reflect the best interests of the hunting and angling and wildlife management communities. Yeah, and they'll often be like a question, comment, opinion, like survey type thing attached to those meetings that you can fill out to. And that goes to those commissioners as well. The only thing I want to point out, it's the little type for the commission is, you know, with the current attacks that we can meet on, something and England at the commission levels,

not only important to be to the commissioners, that's an important piece, but also reaching out to the different, you know, to the agencies directly as well as to the different conservation organizations that are advocating for these bills, are, you know, working day and night to see, you know, commission reform take place. Like it's worth, it's waiting goal to reach out and support those organizations because those are the ones that are going to go to bat for you on issues like this. And they're, you know, the tip of this beer when it comes to seeing legislation like what happened in New Mexico, get. over the finish line. So I want to emphasize, you know, reaching out and supporting those conservation organizations because they do play a critical role in this whole piece. Yep, for sure. Organizations like yours, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, you mentioned, but any of them, you know, BHA, they're all, they're all working for you. So absolutely. All right, Jeremy, we got to move on,

but thanks for, thanks for joining us today and talking to us. Thanks guys for having me. I've got to go get some lunch after hearing Lucas talk about those. Yeah, yeah. Ballets and curry and smash grass breasts. I got to go eat, but I appreciate you all for letting me chat with you today. And I have to look for the rest of the show. Great.

Thanks, man. Thanks, Jeremy. All right. Do you learn anything there? I always learn something when I'm around, Jeremy. Hey, this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up. If you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series

where 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 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.

All right, man. This one I'm hoping it'll be fun. We're going to do some fan emails and we'll try and get some feedback from the crew here. This is one that I think is very interesting. And I'll read through. through it here for you guys. This is coming from Peter in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Family members and I have been traveling northeast Montana each fall to hunt pheasants for about 15 years. We've done our homework, scoping out habitat, establishing relationships with landowners.

It's been a great time, but changes are afoot. Recently passed Senate Bill 514. We'll give Montana residents a head start on the season by 10 days. My cohort and I obviously think this is a idea. We will probably head to North Dakota for next season opener. I think this is a good one for your show to tackle, including why the state doesn't give preferential treatment to residents for fishing. Quite certain the same folks from Western Montana clamoring for preferential treatment for upland hunting in eastern Montana would strongly oppose such a change strictly for economic reasons. Okay. This guy is bummed that he can't hunt the dumb young of the year birds anymore before they get shot at.

Like, I get it. I pheasant hunt. They're a lot easier to kill in the first week of the season. I'll let everyone weigh in, but I'm going to say one thing to this guy first. And I'm not trying to be confrontational. It's just a reality of being a non-resident. I cannot go to British Columbia and hunt big game unless I hire a guide. Like preferential treatment for residents, right?

It's just the way things work. As far as his fishing thing, like fishing and hunting, it's like you can't compare it. It's like apples and orders. But I'll give you an example where resident anglers are highly prioritized over Nodres, and that's Alaska. Like, we deal with it every year, man. Like, the limits are very strict compared to what residents can do for many species of fish. So states do, in some cases, prioritize residents for fishing.

And like it or not, this is just like a larger trend that's been going on across Western states for the last several years. The fact is, like, no state is under the obligation. to provide equal access and opportunity to that state's game resources to non-residents. They're just not. A state could be like, we're not letting any non-residents hunt here. The reason these things happen is because state fishing game agencies and wildlife commissions, like we just talked about, they're under an obligation to try and satisfy their resident. hunters. Like they got to keep those people happy. They need the money from non-resident

license sales. Like there's no doubt about that, but there's a social component to this. And that's that residents get priority and their satisfaction with their experience is important. You've seen this happen over the past few years. Colorado no longer issues over the counter archery elk licenses to non-residents. Wyoming, Colorado, of cut non-resident rifle draw tags pretty significantly. Montana reduced non-resident mule deer tags. So like this is a thing that's been happening across the west and it and it is the result of kind of how residents feel about their hunting experience.

I feel for you like I understand it, but I, you know, I'm kind of like it is what it is, man. I understand why you'd go to North Dakota, but, you know, it's tend to. days out of a three-month long season, if you want to continue to hunt Montana, you could. You're just missing the first 10 days of the season. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts. I agree 100%. You nailed it. Yeah, you're spot on.

I mean, North Dakota is probably going to see a little influx if a lot of folks in these same shoes as this fellow. But I don't know. Think of the positives. Like you said, it is what it is. So opening day won't be as chaotic. Right. That next week might be that much easier and you might find just as many birds.

especially if you've done your homework and you've got places to hunt. There could be like some minor economic impacts to small towns out in eastern Montana that, you know, may not get, you know, people coming into the restaurants or the campgrounds or what are as many, you know. I will say that the pheasant opener coincides with the antelope opener. So, you know, I don't know how much of an impact it's going to have. It's a busy weekend. Randall, you got nothing there? Oh, I just. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of baked into the system. And, uh, you know, obviously like there's no perfect balance. I don't know what, what that would look like if, you know, I'm sure there's somebody who lives in a state with real bad hunting and fishing. Although I think there's, you can always find like everywhere has something to offer. But if everybody could buy a resident license in Montana, that wouldn't work. Right. And we can't shut out.

non-residents completely like I wouldn't want to do that but you're always going to have to find some middle ground between those two extremes and so um it's true the overall trend um is is that non-resident opportunities are declining across the west and yeah like i'm affected by that as well like states states where i have bonus points and preference points that are limiting the percentage of non-resident tags um you know it's heard me as well. So I don't know what the what the perfect situation looks like. I think we'd all like to turn back the clock to the glory days of the whatever, the 70s, 80s, 90s when it seemed like you could, if you had the money, you could travel across the West and get tags and hunt as much

as you wanted. But the reality is it's a finite resource. And so we're left with this unfortunate balancing act that as you point out it sort of structurally is tipped in the favor of residents pretty extremely so yeah i don't know um and it's not just a western issue try getting a white till tag in iowa and you'll know what i'm talking about um it's not easy all right there you go good one sorry sorry to to the guy from from bc hope i hope you uh have a good hunt in north Dakota. All right, next one. Where is it?

This one's kind of long. I'm going to try and shorten it as much as I can. I would really like to get your opinion to help settle a bit of neighborhood etiquette question involving three white-tail carcasses and my neighbors love of their dogs. I live on the outskirts of town in a development consists about 15 homes that sit on four to five acre parcels that are a mixture of yard woods and prairie. I have three acres of woods that are between my house and the county road. I have good relationships with all my neighbors, most of which have a dog or two that can run relatively free.

Last year, our group shot three deer, and we processed them at my place. I had three carcasses I had to dispose of. I thought nothing of it and put them out of sight from the road out in the middle of his woods. You know, it says it's cold here, so there wouldn't be any concern over smell. springtime, all that would be left was a few bones. My first mistake is he didn't do this over the cover of darkness. I don't know about that if that was his first mistake. One of the neighbors saw me dragging carcass into the woods,

and within a day I had multiple people questioning me. They're a little irritated about the carcasses and the dogs getting into them, and the possibility that he was attracting predators to the area. He brushed off those concerns, but he did find it humorous when he saw a dog from three doors down walking up the road a month later with a deer leg in his mouth. Anyway, he's now wondering, what's your take? What should you do?

Find somewhere else to dump them, wait till dark and sneak in there. you know this isn't a huge problem necessarily it's your property and you can do what you want but I'm going to play devil's advocate here your neighbors do have a point and I'd rather have happy neighbors like you know

it's not too hard to throw deer bones like a whole deer bone ed out carcass into a trash can I do it all the time. And if coyotes do come in, they will mess up a dog or two. There's nothing to know legal about what you're doing more than likely, but there possibly could be. And you should consider disposing of those carcasses properly, not only because of the dogs, because of CWD concerns. I don't know if you're getting your deer tested or not, but dumping carcasses is a good

way to spread CWD around. So whatever you do, don't go dump them out on public land somewhere. That's the main thing. Put them in the trash is the best thing, I would say. I don't know if you guys feel like I'm being a little hard on this guy, but... No, that's

an honest truth. I mean, Steve Stry's deer carc is on the roof of his... Yeah. You know, it's on the roof at least. If you don't want your neighbor, if you don't want your dog eating deer that's on the neighbors don't let them go on the neighbors true right like your dogs probably shouldn't be

going on like if my dog goes over in the neighbor's yard i say hey yep get over here i don't know i agree i mean if it's if the carcasses is on his property uh sounds like your neighbor needs a fence yeah unless the neighbors helping like they nobody it's like uh it's like um everyone agrees that it's cool that the dogs roam around i don't think he's saying these dogs are a problem you know what i know but like if you're the the type of person that doesn't want your dog getting into stuff and you got an issue with right yeah keep your dog on your own property but yeah i mean i don't know i don't think the neighbors are helping that guy pay his property taxes so they don't really have to say let me add another hot tip

this isn't really pertinent to his car station brother but uh along the lines of the brass don't be the guy that drives to a trailhead and dumps like four white tail carcasses three feet off the gravel in the bushes. That's where I have an issue with people like just being sloppy public land stewards. You know, as far as I'm concerned, if you want to leave your carcasses in your, in your woods, in your living room, whatever. No, like I said, I'm cool with it. Yeah.

But if you want, if it's like, if you're weighing how important it is to like not have a beef with your neighbors, you know. Yeah. You can throw those carcasses in the trash. Oh, sure. Yeah, that'd be the best. And plenty of people do that who don't have access to woods where they can let them stink, you know. Yeah, I do that all the time. All right, Seth, this one's, I'll let you hit this one first.

I don't mean this in any sort of critical, judgmental, or confrontational way. I'm just curious about your thoughts on meat from fur-bearing animals. Recently, I don't know how recent. this is. It's talking about pardon my plate muskrats, which That's long. That's a year ago. He's just catching up, I guess. Anyway, it still applies.

Steve says he's trapped perhaps a thousand muskrats, but only eaten 20. That got me wondering, do you find that hypocritical, since we're always championing wanton waste laws and maximizing the use from the meat? What do trappers do with all the meat if they're not eating it? Dog food?

Would it also be okay? I'm not sure of where he's going with this part. Would it also be okay if someone turned a whole white tail into dog food. Like, let's not even worry about that yet. Let's stick with a trapping thing. Um, I just think it's an interesting question. I don't mean it to be condemning. It doesn't bother me. In fact, I'd really like to get into trapping myself. I just haven't made the effort, but I'm interested in how you deal with that potential conflict. Um, I mean, some things are good to eat like beaver, muskrats, but, uh, cats. Yeah, we ate, we ate bobcat down in Texas.

a couple weeks ago. But if it was like, as far as like wanton waste laws, if states required you to eat coyotes, no one would trap or kill coyotes. Yeah, there is no want waste law for many fur-bearing species. And if there is, it's just like you have to harvest the fur. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't, I think it's okay to have a resource that you're using, that's using for fur and it's not, it's okay that you're not using the meat. I know we harp on that all the time, the meat thing, but like look man, like, it's okay to go trap a fox or

a skunk or like whatever, fur bear and not eat it. You know, you shouldn't have to feel bad about that. Yeah. But if you know, if you want to try some bobcat backstraps. Yeah. Let's get weird. Raccoon. We've got raccoon.

I was like, look, there is opportunity. for to eat some of these things for sure. But I don't think you should necessarily feel obligated to do so. Yeah, it's like shooting a, what is it, the fall bears in Alaska? You're not required to. Right, because they're, because they just taste terrible. Yep, yep. All right, last one.

I threw a venison shank into my instant pot last weekend. Everything was great except the last meal. One of the last bites, I ended up finding a mushroom. bullet. I initially thought it was a chunk of bone. My question, I tried asking Google and couldn't seem to word it right to get the answer I was looking for, was, did that instant pot just make a lead-based broth that I consumed entirely by myself and should I be concerned? I can't say I know the science behind pressure cooking meat and lead bullets together. No. You do not have to worry about it. Otherwise, otherwise, like, people who shoot all kinds of small game and birds would die of lead poisoning.

Like, we're picking lead out of meat that we've cooked all the time. Humans can't absorb lead through their solid lead through their digestive system. Lead poisoning is like from inhaling dust particles from old lead base paint and things like that. Now, if you cooked it past like 600 degrees, then you'd be in trouble because that lead would be melt. I'd rather find that lead in the in the crock pot than in a turd, you know, just to be safe. Right, right. But no, it's, it's not going to hurt you. Your gut is not as strong as like an eagle or a condor where you're going to break that lead down to the point where it's going to poison you. I got to know what that shank looked like and who shot. Yeah, I was just going to say,

why is there mushroom bullet in the shank? No, listen, it wasn't him. I give this guy credit. What's his name, Brian. Less worried about the shot, but the meat had to have been... Hold on. I shorten this thing to make it shorter. Thank you.

That bullet was already in there. He just found it in there. Interesting. Yeah. And maybe it healed over and you couldn't tell, huh? Yeah. Interesting.

Wow. Yeah, you never know what you're going to buy it into in there. That's it for the meat eater correspondence inbox. That's fun. Phil. Yeah.

What's, the chats and chats mostly trying to figure out a way to save the show, starting underground letter campaigns. Oh, good. So we'll see how that plays out for them. I'm excited to get an update on that. This is from PapaMedic. This is for Seth. Two-part question.

Not two parts, but it's just long. Seth, I'm trying to save some money by making my own predator bait for trapping. I'm using a commercial bait solution with sodium benzeneate. I don't have any beaver meat at the moment, but I do have two frozen bobcats. Should I use the bobcat meat or wait until I have a beaver targeting coyotes primarily coyotes if you're a west coast child how also how tainted thanks i think a lot of uh bait and lure makers would say that bobcats better

than beaver meat is that right yeah i know steve right now has a a jar of bobcat meat in his garage that's he's tainting um for for bait for so but you'd be good with either one right yeah go with either one, but I do think I've never made bait before, but I think people prefer bobcat meat over anything. Wonder why. So, use the bobcat. Try it. After

we just told you you should be eating it. Let us know before March 5th. How it went. From Mogore. Question for Randall. Hi, Randall. And these remaining few five radio live episodes, will there be a Butcher's Crossing review? Or should we no longer expect

it? Thank you so much. A lot of pressure. you got to do it for Mogore Mogor is that your number one choice could we ask Mogore in the chat if that's his number one choice we can get a top three from mogore yeah if I could get a top three

the issue is mogore we have a limited number of shows I will only be on a few of them because I have a bit of travel coming up in the month of February and at this point knowing that I only have a set number of movie clubs

I'm really thinking about opening up the catalog of films. I'd like to I'm entertaining the idea of Jurassic Park, Congo, any sort of Michael Crichton-based wildlife-centric film. I want to get loose with it. I feel like we have this platform that we can now use to just transgress all boundaries of good taste and judgment. The rules have been thrown out the window, so it was. Yeah, maybe deliverance.

for you to do whatever you want. Maybe we do do the deliverance movie club. But yeah, if you have strong thoughts, Mogore, I would like to, I would like to throw you a bone. So tell me your number one movie will do it. Cool. Let us know.

This is from Brian Lambers. It's also a loyal live watcher. Cal who? Update on Cal has the crew been in contact? Who is this Cal guy? I've forgotten. I've been. I tried texting

blacked and I don't remember who that is. I tried texting Cal yesterday about the pheasant thing we were talking about earlier. Still haven't heard from him. I was a busy man. Yeah, I heard he's been real busy. He had time for a couple beers on Friday. Oh.

And he texted me over the weekend to ask me to plug his trailer in so that the batteries weren't damaged by the cold. He just wanted to maintain his batteries. he has time for an occasional long phone call. I don't know if people out there know this, but when you get a phone call from Cal, it typically goes until it has to be,

you have to hang up because someone needs to do something else. It's sort of an open-ended conversation. He might have another conversation with someone in the room with him as you're on the phone with him. He's gotten a couple of those. he seems to be doing well but very obviously there's a lot going on so he was very stressed

and but yeah he is still finding time to wet the whistle every now and then yeah and I would say if you haven't listened to Cal's Week in review in these last six, seven years that it's been running now's a good time to do it because it's a whole new perspective he's got a very different job

than he used to have and he talks about it at the top of the show every week the stuff he's doing where he's going I would recommend it Yeah, I'm still hoping I can get him to come over for stew this week. Got a lot of stew. I need some mouths. Phil,

I want to do a couple more because I don't know if I'm going to be hosting this thing before the end. You really? I'm not sure. Okay. Well, yeah, there haven't been a lot of direct questions that we usually get people are mostly talking about the show ending, which is. I mean, Randall hijacked the whole show. You know what's funny? I didn't even think about this.

I got a DM yesterday that said, can you just go F off and not be on every podcast? let it out. I feel the same way, Randall. They said, you love yourself. We get it. It's too much or something along those lines. And it hadn't occurred to me that now I... You didn't check who sent that to you, did you?

I just showed up to a podcast that I'm not even supposed to be on. So maybe that guy has a point. That was my burner Instagram. He did burst through the door at like 1058. With two bags of chips and a diet Coke. It's not because I love myself. It's because I love you guys. Aw.

If I wasn't here, I'd be up sitting in my office alone, staring at books. I'm going to come in here and enjoy this show, but it's making me more excited for the big blowout. Books and used firearms. The blowout spectacular is going to. Oh, God, I'm so excited. One more, Phil. Okay. Come on, man.

Guys get the questions. First one I see that catches my eye gets red. Hmm. Do you guys have any plans this weekend? We need a lot of exclamation points. That's how somebody said, good taste and taste. judgment. When is Randall getting his hair cut on radio live? It sounds like a great segment for the blowout spectacular. We should do that for the grand blowout spectacular. I have a pair of

clippers at home. No, no, we're not cutting it that much. Oh, you know, we should do is have 10 people involved in each, each person gets like 30 seconds. Oh, oh, on my hair. On your hair. We could put your hair in the auction house of oddities. I was going to say, we should do that. Donate that hair at this point. Like I said, things are just falling apart here. Brody closed his computer already All right That's all we got for you today Guys

Thanks for joining Tune in next week We love you guys The radio live going away Is not in any way A reflection on our love for the crowd here So See you next week

Have a great week Bye Should I play the outro Yeah play the outro Hit it Phil You're usually so timely I know I'm just thinking about I just don't want the show to end

Hey this is Steve from the Meat Eater podcast. Listen up, if you tuned into YouTube and watched our Africa series where 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. So you 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. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.